We’ll bee liveblogging the Legion Overview here:
- New features will be announced today!
- On our Azeroth Gul’dan heard the voice of Kil’jaeden
- He gave Gul’dan the near infinite knowledge of the burning legion
- Gul’dan opened the portal at the Tomb of Sargeras
- The cinematic shown today, ties directly into the main game.
- The Broken Shore is ground zero for the legion invasion
- A 40 person scenario for Horde and Alliance (20 horde, 20 alliance)
- The story will be established here, starts right after the cinematic
- Demon Hunter info:
- The starting experience bridges the story from the burning crusade to legion
- You invade a demon world, Mardum
- It was a former prison world that Sargeras shattered
- New demons:
- The Imp Mother
- Jailer
- Inquisitor
- More unnamed demons
- You will steal abilities from powerful demons
- You will get a special demon hunter mount: the Fel Saber
- Mardum is only the first half of the intro experience
- The second half is in the Vault of the Wardens
- You will join a faction, establish the Order Hall and …
- You get a quest for your Artifact Warglaives
- Broken Isles Zones:
- You need the pillars of creation, created by the titans, to close the demon portal
- Val’sharah
- A druidic paradise that the emerald nightmare is starting to invade
- Malfurion first met Cenarius here and was trained as a druid
- Shaladrassil, a former world tree that was once a portal to the emerald dream
- Black Rook Hold, an elven fortress
- You will meet 3 Arch Druids
- The satyr sent by Xavius will be encountered here.
- The zone has nightmare dragons, once green dragons now corrupted
- The zone contains moonkins, which will also be the new model for the players!
- Druids will also get a new model for the swimming form
- Stormheim
- The home of the Vrykul
- You’ll compete agains The God King, Skovald
- Discover the origins of the Kvaldir and Valkyr
- New dragonflight: The storm dragons
- Azsuna
- The elven civilization was annihilated by Queen Azshara
- In this expansion can you see 3x as far into the distance as before!
- Azsuna (again)
- The Blue Dragon flight will be seen in this zone
- The Warden’s Isle is the home to the Vault of the Wardens
- The people of Azsuna are cursed
- The spectre, the male counterpart of the Banshee makes it’s debut
- All Naga get new high res models
- Queen Azshara has allied herself with a sea giant faction
- A new sea monster called the Wrath of Azshara is shown, no story background
- Highmountain
- Home to one of the highest peaks in all of Azeroth
- Home of 3 ancient Tauren clans
- Suramar
- Home of The Nightwell and The Nightborne
- The queen has made a pact with Gul’dan and demons now inhabit the city
- The entire city is explorable
- The Nightborne use arcane, not nature energies
- Azsuna (again)
- Systems and Gameplay
- You can start in any zone, the zone and experience will scale to your level!
- Suramar will be a level 110 zone.
- You need to complete the other zones to do Suramar.
- This means that as a level 102 and level 106 you can level together in a zone.
- The world will be scaled to you.
- Non-scaling foes await at max level
- Endgame content:
- A combination of MoP and WoD endgame: structure, but freedom and storytelling
- The entire continent can be made use of for endgame content due to the dynamic scaling
- A system of outdoor world quests will be available. You can choose which zone/quest you want to do.
- The system reminds me of Adventure mode in Diablo.
- There will always be something for you to do when you log in.
- There will be garrison missions, for players.
- Reputations
- Pvp objectives
- World raid bosses
- Profession missions
- Minigames
- Factions will come to your class order hall.
- For example a valkyr faction will give you a quest to do 5 valkyr related objectives
- They’ll wait around a few days before leaving, so they’re not just dailies
- Raids and Dungeons:
- Emerald Nightmare
- 7 boss raid
- In Val’sharah
- First raid
- Emerald Dream, fallen into shadow
- Raid bosses:
- (1) a dragon, “Pestilence Wyrm”
- (2) Cenarius
- (7) Xavius
- Suramar Palace
- 10 boss raid
- In Suramar
- Gul’dan’s base of operations
- An elven raid, not a demon raid
- Home to the Eye of Aman’thul
- Raid bosses:
- A dreadlord embassador
- An elf that has power over time
- 10 dungeons in legion
- 5 level-up dungeons
- Eye of Azshara
- Neltharion’s Lair
- Halls of Valor
- Darkheart Thicket
- Violet Hold
- They’re integrated in the story
- They can be done in any order, just like the zones
- 5 max-level dungeons
- Vault of the Wardens
- Black Rook Hold
- Helheim
- Suramar Noble District
- Suramar Catacombs
- Dungeons as endgame:
- Dungeons need to remain relevant
- Both in terms of difficulty and reward
- Challenger’s Keystone
- Points to a random Legion dungeon
- Can be upgraded
- Still have to beat a timer
- The higher level the key is, the better the reward is
- The higher level the key is, the higher level the difficulty of the dungeon is
- It’s about gameplay, not about rushing
- Every week the key has a modifier, changing the way mobs work
- E.g. Enrage – all mobs enrage at 30% health
- Or everyone constantly has a DoT on them
- This is a genuine alternate path
- Emerald Nightmare
- You can start in any zone, the zone and experience will scale to your level!
- The beta will come in the weeks following Blizzcon.