It’s World of Warcraft Expansion time again and once more the poor people of Azeroth are having a really bad day. For those of you that did not ‘complete’ the lore components (and get a sweet Moose mount) of the last expansion I’ll give you a quick rundown of what happened.

The Shadow council, those sneaky buggers, imprisoned some super powerful Dark Wizard called Gul’dan and were using his power to mess with the Dark Portal. In order to stop this, you free Gul’dan and he thanks you by basically just ruining everything. Long story short (and it’s really a VERY long story) the heroes of Azeroth throw Gul’dan into a portal to the demon realm which makes him mad, like, REALLY mad and so he unleashes the demon Legion into Azeroth.



The expansion kicks off by throwing you -- the player -- into a ‘raid’-like experience where you battle alongside the opposing faction (Horde/Alliance) trying to stop this invasion. If you follow the lore, two ‘beloved’ characters of Azeroth are slain and its up to you to save the world… of Warcraft (again). After this initial scripted scenario you are tasked with helping (or watching, really) Archmage Khadgar move the floating city of Dalaran to the Broken Shores, to help fight the might of the Legion.

There is a level of detail visible in this expansion that was previously absent in past expansions. Things like being able to choose which of the four new areas you tackle first, and other things like each character class (and spec) having their own artifact quest (more on that later). It's little things, but it means that subsequent playthroughs for other characters are not going to feel like you’re retracing steps, something that has been seen to add to the ‘grind’ previously.

I am only three levels into the expansion, still yet to tank my first dungeon (so stay tuned for that), but so far the experience has been a pleasant one. The quests are typical WoW quests: collect X of these, kill X of that, but with a few subtle changes, mainly to the tagging system. Previously when a player initiates an attack on an enemy monster, they ‘tag’ it, which meant they would be the only player to get experience and loot from the monster, this system has been changed in Legion and now all players are able to get credits for kills they only partially participated in, which causes more “solo co-op” play, where players will simply help kill a monster another player is already attacking as it will count towards their tally, where previously they would simply ignore you and move on, sometimes to your detriment if you happened to take on a group you were unable to handle.



The other major change new players will encounter is the Weapon Artifact system, where the player is gifted with a weapon from the gods once you have completed a series of quests. It is also important to note, that depending on which artifact I chose for my druid, it changed that character model. So as a tank, I chose the ‘Guardian’ spec artifact which then saw the normal bear character model change into this armored hulking beast of a bear.

In my travels I have come across a Feral druid which was half encased in glowing armor like some sort of Voltron Lion and a Warlock with a floating talking head gibbering to them, both thanks to these new artifact weapons. Moreover, now with each artifact weapon having a total of 54 levels of potential upgrade, its own progression and talent-tree, it seems that you’re likely to keep this weapon for the entire expansion.

There’s also a new currency introduced in Legion by way of “Artifact Power”, which is awarded through quests and by finding various items scattered throughout the world map. It’s used to unlock new skills and passive abilities with your artifact weapon which, I guess at the very least, we should all be thankful that we need not worry about replacing our main weapon when it comes to the inevitable endgame ilvl shuffle.

Similar to the model upgrade, the Artifact weapon brings new skills and passive abilities relevant to your chosen spec. As you quest along the new content you are periodically given new items and ‘currency’ to upgrade this artifact weapon.



Also, in what I would consider a ‘game first’ (which is not a mean feat for a game 12-years old) Legion introduces scaled areas. This ties back into letting the players choose their starting area that I mentioned before. The only downside with this Bethesda style of area scaling is that you never truly feel like you are stronger or more powerful than you were in previous levels. It’s hard to say is this is an overall detriment at this early stage of play, though.

The first area I chose to spend time in is the zone called Stormheim, which is very reminiscent of the Northrend zone of Howling Fjord and Storm Peaks. Large norse themed viking characters; Dragons and Valkyrie dominate the creatures you will be slaying while you travel through lush vegetation, traverse cliffs and generally make your way about. While it is interesting to see the return of the Vrykul race it may have been a bit nicer to see a new race of enemies to lay waste to.

If you have missed a few expansions, or are new to the World of Warcraft series, then now is a great time to give it a go as cliched as that sounds. The community is, for the most part, welcoming to newcomers, the quests and new areas are fun to explore and the new enemy tagging system lends to a lot more cooperative experience between random players.

Think of this as a review in progress. The raids are yet to be released and my characters have yet to hit the new level cap of 110. The next major patch (7.1) is due to hit soon which will release a heap of new content (‘Return To Karazhan’ dungeon hype anyone?!) so stay tuned for our finalised review in the coming month after we have had time to fully explore all the new content that has been served up by the Legion.