Spent my somewhat limited playtime on the new island of Nazjatar, a formerly sunken land raised from the depths by Queen NagaMcFace, Azsuna Matata using the Tidestone. Wait a minute.
The tidestone-- one of the "Pillars of the Creation" we used in Legion to seal away fel crap in the Tomb of Sargeras. One of the things holding something at bay, that MAGNI BRONZEBEARD said we couldn't use to help heal Azeroth because it was too important to move. Fortunately, this is explained in a cutscene with Fishface entrusting it to an underling with a dismissive "I trust you not to leave it unguarded like they did." WHARGRRBL. It's like they hired David Benioff and D. B. Weiss of Game of Thrones notoriety to "plot something". UGH.
Crappy writing aside, how's the actual content?
I'm enjoying it-- while hundreds of people poured past me to start the intro quests, I fished up some new beauties (Viper fish and mauve stingers) and was pleasantly surprised to see my fishing increase to 151. A quick search showed all professions increased to a new max rank of 175! Enchanting is going to be painful as all get out, as it usually is, but that's for another day. After a few minutes, I cheerfully trotted along behind the herd and sniped may way into 8.2 proper. Here's the highlights of the new patch and zone:
- After a short questline that takes you to Silithus and Deathwing's former mancave, you get a slot for your necklace, with more slots as you level it up to 70. It's arranged so almost everyone will start off with a "major" slot (requires necklace level 35) and 2 minors as you go. The things you slot in them are general or role-specific MacGuffins you get from doing your favorite activity, be it PvP, Questing, Raids, Grinding Rep, etc. A little something for everybody.
- New currency called "manapearls" that can be used to buy some rep gear, but mostly used to upgrade a new type of armor that starts at i385. As you spend pearls, it increases in ilevel. The first upgrade takes it to i400 and subsequent upgrades are 5 ilievel increments.
- Once a day you pick one of three fishman bodyguards to accompany you while you adventure in the zone. As you complete WQs and dailies with them, they level up, eventually unlocking new abilities. This is a slow grind, as after several WQs and all the dailies I could find, I only got my fishboi to level 2.
- There's a nifty "trading game" that played with some murlocs that have infested your base-- you might enjoy this one. Basically, there's the main murloc who sells one random thing a day (for me yesterday's was a necklace that broke apart into 3 manapearls), but to buy it, you need a bunch of things sold by three other murlocs. Those things require trading other things sold by a different murloc, etc. For example, 120 vegetables bought for 1 gold each may trade for 20 murloc socks, which in turn trade for 5 "ghost lunches", which is part of what you need to buy the necklace. From peeking around, eventually you will get a cape that, when worn, reveals rarer items the murloc will sell, including a mount.
- Aside from the usual WQs and dailies, there's at least one event where Naga Elites will spawn across the map requiring a mass push to kill before "they gain power"
The zone itself has a few flight points, but is utter hell to navigate. The geography is tight, winding, multilevel (not quite Guild Wars 2 bad, but surprisingly complex for WoW) and densely populated with mobs that hit like a truck (think the early days of Tol Barad). It'll be better once flight is unlocked, but for now… I'm getting my mileage out of Greater Invisibility, that's for sure.
Flight requires:
- Pathfinder Part 1 (CHECK!)
- Fully exploring the zone (CHECK!)
- Fully exploring Mechagon (TO DO)
- Getting Revered with both of the new factions (oh, god)
The last bit is going to be several weeks, I think. You start off as Neutral with the fishbois and after yesterday's exploits, I am still solidly in Neutral territory.
I ran out of time to check out Mechagon, but I did finish the starter quest chain which is a neat little bit that happens in a junkyard. At this point, I just need to gather a team of gnomes and start the expedition!
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