Navi's Legion Commentary Series - Part 1: The Demon's Advocate

It's hard not to get excited about a new expansion - at least for me. I've been excited about every expansion because I still love this game, but there are many out there who have fallen out of love with this game who won't be excited about a new expansion.

It's been a week now since the announcement and there was a lot of buzz and excitement about it. Burning Legion! Demon Hunters! Illidan! Class Halls!

There's too much to process in one blog post, so I will give my thoughts piecemeal.  Starting with Demons and their Hunters.

Yuuda said that he could pick that the next expansion was going to be about Demons. And in terms of how the story was going in Warlords of Draenor, it was going that way anyway.  Gul'dan got away and he loves those demons, he just wants to bring more and have lots of fel to play with!

There are other things to look at too. Like more nostalgia for the older WoW players, who played Warcraft and Vanilla and Burning Crusade and enticing them to come back to the game with some lore they are familiar with.

Everyone thought Illidan was cool. The idea of demon hunters is cool.  They run around with heavily tattooed bodies and shirtless, and look a little demonic themselves - it's an exciting class that many would like to play. You could imagine that many people would like to come back and play the story line of the Demon Hunter like they did with the Death Knight.  And being a new class, there is something for everyone to learn, even a new player to World of Warcraft.  It might attract some new blood to the game.

We hear about subs falling, and it's probably because all the old players are now moving away from World of Warcraft to something else, but no new players are coming in. This may bring some back. You would also hope that new players would be attracted to the game too, even for a short time. Hopefully the movie would drum up some interest that way, getting some new people into the game (or at least to try the game).  However, I noticed that Blizz has been doing well with the Free to play games like Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, using other things to generate income like buying skins, characters, cards etc.  Which is great for the occasional player, because they don't like the idea of being locked into a monthly subscription. I think that if Blizz wants to generate income from an "occasional" player base (or even the curious gamer who wants to spend a little to try the game out and play for short time), then that would be something they should look into.

But back to Demon Hunters.  In my guild there are a lot of people who would like to change to Demon Hunter - OMG more leather wearers! Why couldn't they have been mail wearers or something? And which tier token would they be on?  Probably Protector... I bet they will be thrilled to share their token when theirs drops so rarely! :D

I know lore says that Demon Hunters wear little clothing. To tell you the truth, I am not thrilled to be wandering around in skimpy stuff showing off my tattoos, but I'm pleased to say that at least I can wear shirts to cover up! The lore of demon hunters is exciting!  I know that lore wise only Blood Elves and Night Elves can be Demon hunters, but I think that's a good thing.

In terms of enemies, I like the idea of more demons.  I was tired of killing more Horde. I've yet to meet a demon that was happy to be on our side (and even Sev's demon minions are grumpy about being enslaved to do their master's bidding).

I've said before that I would be unlikely to level a demon hunter.  But I'd probably try one - after all, I'd love to see the story.

Overall, I'm excited about the new class and the excitement that people have about the expansion.  I think that the introduction of a new class is enough to entice back old players who want to get back into the game and see what's changed, and yet level the playing field a bit so that new players will not be too disadvantaged or isolated or shunned if they want to try it out.

I think that one thing that will needs to change is the toxic way that people in the game treat newcomers.  It's hard enough trying a new game without people slagging you off in trade channel or when you ask simple channels.  Hopefully new players will have a new server to play on, or some other friendly place to encourage them to stay.  But, that's a whole other post.