As before, I write the review after having completed the leveling experience for the first time.

11 Expansions and 22 years later, World of Warcraft is back! Despite the game-breaking bugs and glitches that were reported during both Alpha and Beta that made it to Live–I mean the kind of stuff that prevents story progression on that note–public perception so far has been largely positive. Despite the obvious preset pacing due to the next expansion already being known, a lot of lessons learned during The War Within were applied to Midnight. With both the Voidspire and March on Quel’Danas raids now having been cleared, we are now on the road to The Last Titan lorewise. More on that later but the story endings to both raids make it obvious: We don’t “win” at the end of Midnight. In fact, we literally can’t–or rather already “lost”.

Like The War Within, you will get a +5% EXP buff to your Warband for each character you level to max up to the first five (+25% total). After you level your first character to max, you will then be able to skip the intro quest chain at Quel’Danas on future level 80 Characters in addition to that. I’m an altoholic–I have two WoW accounts though I rarely have an active subscription to both due to the costs–and with Player Housing now being introduced, folks now have good reason to go back and play through the 20+ years worth of WoW History.

On that note. Now’s a pretty good time for anyone who’s NEVER played WoW before to give it a shot. The game is much more newcomer-friendly than it was when I first started back in 2007 which was late Burning Crusade era. The game peaked during Wrath of the Lich King but has managed to withstand competators many were quick to label as “The WoW Killer” from League of Legends to Warhammer to Star Wars The Old Republic to Genshin Impact and so many others. Blizzard even found time to do Starcraft II + two expansions, Overwatch, Overwatch 2, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo III + Expansions and  Diablo IV + Expansions as well as remaster Warcraft III, Warcraft II, Warcraft I, Diablo I AND Diablo II along with releasing the original versions of ALL of those classic games while working on WoW. WoW may be Blizzard’s best cash cow but it’s clearly not the only one these days.

One nice change from how the Earthen are unlocked as a playable race in The World Within is with the Haranir, all you have to do is complete the story zone for Harandar for the first time. When you do, the Haranir will be unlocked as a playable race. Like the Earthen, Dracthyr and Pandaren they are a Neutral race meaning both Alliance and Horde get them. As noted in the above picture they get the following classes:

• Warrior
• Hunter
• Priest
• Druid
• Shaman
• Rogue
• Warlock
• Mage
• Monk

Given Void Elves got the Demon Hunter class during the Midnight prepatch and Dracthyr got 6 classes during The War Within (Warrior, Hunter, Priest, Rogue, Warlock and Mage), I wouldn’t be surprised if some races got new classes mid-expansion though all races past, present and future are 100% guaranteed to get those 6 classes moving forward.

On a related note. Something to watch is Blizzard is considering adding new specs to existing classes presumably in the near future. There’s some discussions about it over on MMO-Champion’s forums.

One more thing before I forget. For those who might not know, originally Harandar was going to be a part of TWW. This is evidenced by some storyline references to The Titans and Owena being introduced in TWW…before suddenly disappearing without a trace or mention until Midnight. Most likely Harandar was going to be a mid-expansion zone like Undermine but Blizzard changed their minds early in the expansion’s development. Fortunately, we got it in Midnight and Harandar’s story was tweakened to fit in Midnight.

This is not the first time Blizzard bumped planned content down the road. Karazhan was originally going to be the last raid for Vanilla WoW but when they were almost done, they decided to just include it with The Burning Crusade when it launched. At least we got the content in both cases: A whole zone promised for WoD was famously cut after all.

Getting to the finale for the March on Quel’Danas raid. Yes that’s Sylvanas Windrunner in the foreground facing down Xal’Atath at the Void-corrupted Sunwell. For those who might not know, this wasn’t even her first appearance during Midnight: We actually do go to the Maw with Arator who is hoping to recruit her earlier in the expansion. She declines her nephew’s request to return to Silvermoon and drops an ominous reveal: The Shadowlands is “too orderly” compared to the true realm of death she peered into.

Shadowlands quickly replaced Warlords of Draenor as the most hated expansion EVER despite having three raid tiers and a TON more content. A lot of the hate has to do with the IRL turmoil Blizzard was dealing with when that expansion was current but I won’t digress into that. That aside, Sylvanas canonizes a popular fan theory I’d seen online for years: Blizzard is trying to retcon Shadowlands. Not that it happened but its existence. Three expansions later, Sylvanas talking about wanting to find out the truth about the Shadowlands suddenly makes the events of that expansion relevant lorewise albiet more indirectly. The former Banshee Queen states The Shadowlands is too orderly and “convenient” to be the true realm of death.

“Orderly”…there IS one cosmic force that is closely associated with that: The Titans. Coincidentally, the next expansion IS titled The Last Titan.

Speaking of.

That brings me to the aforementioned expansion to follow Midnight, The Last Titan. All roads lead (back) to Northrend. Here’s just a few reasons why we absolutely have to go back there in TLT:

• Like on Dun Algaz, there are massive passages leading deep underground on Northrend. Passages that lead straight to Azeroth’s World Soul. They’re actually mentioned in the Northrend Campaign (WotLK) though we didn’t go there during the events of Wrath.
• The Scourge is STILL a threat (!). In fact, some are now becoming void-aligned.
• Iridikron WILL return and is patiently waiting for Xal’Atath to provoke The Titans into returning to Azeroth.
• The Burning Legion WILL return and by extension, so will Illidan Stormrage.
• The Arathi Empire looms in the background.

It is going to be a fairly loaded expansion to say the least and it will have to be loaded to close out the Worldsoul Saga.

I’ll be honest: You can only replay a 20-year old version of WoW with no modern conveniences for so long.

I can say this because I started playing WoW in 2007 during the tail end of Burning Crusade. With Cataclysm’s release in 2010, the pre-Cataclysm versions of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor were lost forever. This was a very controversial move to fans of the original 1-60 version of WoW who’d already felt the modern conveniences introduced Wrath (Dungeon Finder, etc.) “ruined WoW”. Speaking of Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder in particular. As someone who mained a Paladin Tank through the first three expansions, Dungeon Finder saved WoW and was needed in Burning Crusade. That is not my opinion. That is a fact. Blizzard resisted introducing Raid Finder until the end of Cataclysm because of the loudmouths ranting about “Keeping WoW Pure”.

Know what WoW was like before Dungeon Finder? Exactly what you see in Season of Discovery, Hardcore and TBC Classic: People flooding Trade Chat for hours trying to find people around their level to run an instance with. Me aside, back then most players only played ONE character at a time. Those who ran an alt or two alongside their main often didn’t want to have to bother to switch characters as that would mean putting progression of their main on hold. As a reminder, leveling 1-60/70 in Classic/TBC is very slow and this is compounded when you can’t run dungeons while leveling. Oh and yes I know Group Finder was made as a go-between compromise but it’s VERY unreliable for people who actually care about time management.

Mind you, I am also aware of the claim that came out early on that Dungeon/Raid Finder killed the social aspect of WoW. No it didn’t. You could play through several zones and not see another player. That or other players you encounter outside starting zones just want to be left alone. Wanna know what the s0-called “controversy” was REALLY about? The WoW Community gatekeeping content. THAT is ultimately why Blizz made a new raid tier. It’s also why Blizz recently introduced story versions of raids starting with Manaforge Omega (TWW).

How it works is you play through a portion of the full raid so you can see the story’s conclusion. Since you’re doing the story version solo, AI-controlled party members help you do it. In the case of that raid, you skip all the bosses but the last one: Dimensius himself. I’ve never actually beaten Dimensius because of that encounter’s unique mechanics which honestly I found very needless and annoying overall–WAY too many instant-death gimmicks–especially for the Story and Raid Finder versions of the raid. I’m assuming those will be removed by TLT goes live or rather I hope they are.

Getting back to the Classic Era versions of WoW. While it is true most high-level players in the Classic Era versions of WoW are willing to hook you up with some gold–someone gave me 1,000 Gold so I could get Outland Flying and a Mount a few months back–or tell you where to find stuff if they’re not terribly busy, it’s a different story when it comes to finding players around your level to run dungeons with. As a reminder, unlike with Dungeon Finder you need to manually go to the dungeon you intend to run. Most of the dungeons are far from repairs, shops and a graveyard and on that note.

In Retail/Modern WoW, when you die in an instance you respawn at the beginning of the instance. In earlier versions of WoW, if you die in an instance your ghost repawns at the nearest graveyard. Die in Deadmines? Respawn by Sentinel Hill. Die in Zul’Farrak? Respawn by Gadgetstan. If the Healer and anyone else who can rez dies, the run’s on hold until everyone can run back in. Don’t even get me started on dungeons with 2 or more entrances like Statholme and Scarlet Monestery. A dungeon that would take 20 to 30 minutes max on Retail/Modern WoW to clear could take 1 or 2 hours on Classic. More so if one or more of the party members kept dying or was new to the instance. Players just looking to quickly clear the instance won’t stick around for more than 2 or 3 wipes at the most.

This brings me back to what I said earlier about Community-enforced Gatekeeping. The Juxtoposition of Wrath-Era Gearscore Gatekeeping was you had to have a minimum Gearscore to be considered for raids. The problem was in order to get better gear, you had to do raids. You couldn’t do raids because your Gearscore was too low. It didn’t matter how good the player actually was: As far as the gatekeepers were concerned, anyone who didn’t have the minimum Gearscore they cared about was “too weak”. What that meant was players like me who were just below the minimum Gearscore requirement were shut out of endgame content when they were current. Raid Finder fixed that but by the time it was introduced, I was transitioning to Semi-Casual in Cataclysm.

I still managed to do endgame content when it was current up to Mists of Pandaria though. Largely thanks to SoO being 14 months long. I took long breaks in the second half of WoD and didn’t do Hellfire Citadel until after Legion went live. I actually didn’t do Antorius: The Burning Throne until two years ago. I haven’t done Ny’alotha or The Speulcher of the First Ones yet since I haven’t progressed enough to unlock them yet. I never played through any of Dragonflight yet on that note and need to play through more of Shadowlands as well as TWW’s endgame content. I’ve done everything Legion and earlier though, mostly solo.

Midnight marks the first time I didn’t level a character to max level before going on hiatus. Mostly because right after buying 60 days prepaid time, I effectively wasted the $30 I spent to finish leveling a character to focus on other games. I do plan to resubscribe early next month but if things go the way hope they do later this month, I’ll get a 12-month subscription on both of my WoW accounts this summer. We’ll see. One thing I think is very likely this coming November is The Last Titan being formally announced. Midnight’s endgame content will also likely be revealed at that time. TLT would then likely be released next summer on that note.

One more thing I’ve recently noticed that’s becoming pretty hard to ignore is Xal’Atath prettymuch becoming Sylvanas 2.0. Sylvanas was prominent in three straight expansions: Legion, BFA and Shadowlands. Xal’Atath will be prominent across The Worldsoul Saga: TWW, Midnight and TLT. By Shadowlands, people were sick and tired of Sylvanas mostly because of how she was handled. I’m seeing the same with Xal’Atath at this point largely because everyone knows Xal’Atath “wins” Midnight and speculation is she becomes an ally in TLT. Lorewalker Cho can be sought out for Xal’Atath’s backstory–all of which happened in WoW on that note–and though she doesn’t have an iconic backstory like Sylvanas, her potential as a villain is clearly much higher than Sylvanas’ was and on that note.

This is a major spoiler or those who skipped Shadowlands but the reveal that Sylvanas’ soul was split in two when Arthas killed her would have landed much harder if it was handled differently. Mind you, it was eluded to with the reveal Uther’s soul was cut in two earlier in the expansion to explain why Uther’s soul can exist both in the Shadowlands and at Uther’s Tomb in the Western Plaguelands at the same time. In Shadowlands, we find out the version of Sylvanas we’ve known since her death in WCIII is her “Dark” half. When Sylvanas turns on Zovaal, he reveals he’s been holding onto her “Light” half all this time and gives it to her before leaving her to face the wrath of the people she recently betrayed or wronged.

It’s not that players didn’t already know Blizz had a redemption arc for Sylvanas lined up. It’s the way it was done that pissed off a lot of people. Sylvanas being condemned to tracking down the souls of everyone who died during The Fourth War (BFA) was a way to remove her from the story for now without outright killing her. We saw the same with Illidan and Denathrius. For those who might not know, Originally he was supposed to die in the raid. Denathrius was popular, Blizzard changed it so he’s sealed in his sword instead so he can be brought back at some point in the future.

Getting back to Xal’Atath, though. Shadow Priests got Xal’Atath, Blade of The Black Empire as their artifact weapon in Legion. While playing the game, the sentient being inside the blade would whisper to the player during the events of the expansion. Drained from having her power used to help restrain the power of Sargeras’ sword, Xal’Atath reappears during the events of BFA where she gains her current body. She cuts a deal with N’Zoth: Her freedom in exchange for you. We see her indirectly reenter the story in Dragonflight where if you look very closely after Iridikron gets the Dark Heart, you see her silhouette in the background of his portal. In a quest chain we see during BFA near the end of the expansion, it’s revealed Xal’Atath was sent to Azeroth by The Void Lords to find out WTF was going on with The Old Gods who landed there. The Old Gods put aside their rivalry to bind Xal’Atath in the dagger but not before offering a deal to N’Zoth. A deal N’Zoth accepted in exchange for the player character earlier in BFA.

Fast forward to TWW. Xal’Atath blows up Dalaran over Khaz Algar, setting off the opening moments of that expansion. She forms an alliance of convenience with The Nerubians, regarding them as little more than sacrificial pawns. She also gets involved with Goblin politics in The Undermine. On K’aresh, Xal’Atath enters an alliance of convenience with us to defeat Dimensius. Right after he’s defeated, Xal’Atath steals his essence and uses it to summon the Void Storm she later uses to assault The Sunwell in Midnight. Between TWW and Midnight, we learn from a video Xal’Atath was formerly a Priestess of the Light when she was a mortal. Then the Void came and took everything from her including her original body. One recurring theme we see with Xal’Atath in Midnight is her trying to tell anyone who will listen “The Light isn’t 100% good” and to a degree, she’s not wrong. Everyone knows about The Scarlet Crusade after all.

All that said. I do think Xal’Atath is best kept as a villain or at least a wildcard. She fits that role quite well and more so given unlike every other Warcraft villain, Xal’Atath accounts for the player character lorewise. She traveled with one during Legion. She’s seen us overcome everything put in front of us. She knows we are inevitable. Iridikron seems to have caught onto this on his own given he straight up said “I’m gonna sit back and watch how things play out for the next two or three expansions.” Unlike past villains, Xal’Atath actually accounts for our eventual involvement with her plans. This also why she didn’t see Sylvanas getting involved coming. She was so fixated on keeping ahead of us, she admitted she didn’t account for Sylvanas possibly getting involved.

I don’t think most folks appreciate the fact we have an antagonist in Xal’Atath who not only recognizes us as Threat #1 from the beginning but factors our involvement into everything she does. It’s what made her temporary alliance on K’aresh make so much sense and why she allowed us to see the real reason she targeted The Sunwell: It was to use it as a gateway to send the void straight to Azeroth’s World Soul. Such an act is something The Titans can’t ignore which means we’ve entered the countdown to TLT lorewise. It’s now a question of what happens at the end of Midnight that brings The Titans back to Azeroth.

For those who might not know or remember, lorewise Sargeras killed The Pantheon when he turned on them ages ago. What Sargeras didn’t know was just before the deathblow as struck, The Titans relased their souls and launched them to the other side of the universe…and back. They return at the end of Legion and seal the Dark Titan away.

As has been revealed since Legion, Sargeras may have been defeated but the Legion is still out there. Severely diminished in power, yes but it’s still out there causing trouble. The Titans are keeping Sargeras contained but something that would draw them away from that would be something threatening Azeroth, which is clearly a very special World Soul. It hasn’t been outright said but Azeroth’s World Soul has the power to grant free will. The Old Gods started thinking for themselves shortly after arriving on Azeroth for example. Normally, they would’ve just corrupted the planet and its World Soul. Instead, they decided to fight with each other for control over it. We would see this happen with the Titans’ creations as well. The Earthen are inorganic, yes but they do have free will like flesh and blood races. It’s revealed they actually destroyed a Titan watcher that came to Khaz Algar to try to reprogram them and they said “Nah, bro.”

In closing, TLT’s premise is going starting to come into focus. We’re going to have various factions vying for control of Azeroth’s World Soul which itself is about Free Will. It will be quick the fitting capstone for The World Soul Saga to say the least.

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