Biggs' Zone

It never really occurred to me that prior to the launch of patch 6.2 that it would be the final patch of this expansion. Usually the final patch has more pomp and circumstance so those of us a little behind have a better idea of how much time we have left in the expansion. For example, I am substantially behind! I haven’t been past the first wing of Blackrock Foundry (in LFR) nor have I even completed any of the quests from the instances for the cores needed for the legendary ring.

In fact I may just kick this off by talking about that ring. Why a ring?? Why did they pick something that you can’t see as a legendary?? I realize that acquiring a legendary greatly improves your stats in a fight but let’s be honest, a majority of us want to be able to see the fruits of our labor (and not as a visualization proc). I mean at least you could see your cloaks (if you had them toggled on) and the visualizations were pretty cool when they would proc but perhaps not necessarily required. I’ve been a little curious as to why they suddenly decided to stop creating legendary weapons when that seemed to be the standard choice for legendary gear since Vanilla. I don’t see the harm in doing a weapon legendary every expansion, especially if they are not going to let us transmog legendary weapons (which goes back to why we like to be able to SEE our legendary pieces). By the way, not being able to transmog legendary weapons is a pet peeve of mine — *hint* *hint* Blizzard.

The story this expansion was ok; time-travel is such a fickle concept to play with. When you have 7+ million players, I guarantee many of us are going to question how the actions of our characters would affect the present day. I imagine Blizzard will design some kind of coy explanation as to why nothing has been altered in the present day. I mean, we all know the real reason this expansion was created was so Blizzard could create encounters with the heroes of Warcraft’s past. I will admit I was even taken in by this concept, but now I’m not as entranced with it and perhaps this is because I have barely set foot in a raid at all this expansion.

The garrison is my absolute favorite part of this expansion. I love how it has a little customization and gives you a calm place to hearth to at the end of your adventures. I love how it incorporates your professions and the followers are really cool, especially when you can recruit familiar faces (i.e. Admiral Taylor, Millhouse Manastorm, Leeroy Jenkins, etc). My garrison will be something I will miss more than any other component of the game for all the expansion once we move on to the next chapter. I really hope that Blizzard either finds a way to “teleport” our garrison or gives us something that will be better (*cough*player housing*cough*).

I would probably grade this expansion about a “B”, primarily because of the garrison. If they hadn’t added something like garrisons I probably would have graded this one much lower. The expansion feels rushed and poorly assembled. Perhaps that would be the benefit of creating a completely new zone, that is barely associated with any of the lore (like Pandaria). Granted Pandaria seemed a little “fluffy” for a game titled WARcraft, but I feel like Blizzard had to use a lot more imagination to create that world.

I’d like to know your thoughts. Please leave them in the comments.