27.03.2024
152
Top-4 WoW War Within features that we know of
What's coming with the next WoW expansion "War Within"? It will be the 10th major DLC for the veteran MMORPG and we expect it to be particularly enjoyable. And we'd say we're quite optimistic so far. The features that have already been announced look really good. Some of them are significant quality of life improvements, some are new major game modes, and some others are just great additions to the world of the game.
In this blog post we take a look at the 4 most exciting new features that the War Within expansion will bring us!
So as you can see there are more than one ways to create an underground zone. At least 3! We believe that the approach of making unusual zones is definitely better than just making regular ones that will be likely forgotten after the following expansion release. So let's hope that they will become remarkable and enjoyable enough for us to have great memories of them afterwords!
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1. New landmass – Khaz'Algar
For those who prefer videos over texts, here's a brief overview of all the zones of Khaz'Algar in the pre-alpha of the expansion (props to MrGM for his great work):
And now to what we have to say about that.
Khaz'Algar might be one of the least familiar to most players expansion landmasses so far. Few people didn't know what Outland, Draenor, Northrend, or Pandaria were when the related expansions were announced. More people were puzzles with the Broken Isles, Dragon Isles, Kul'Tiras, and Zandalar. But Khaz'Algar wins the prize in this competition and rings no bell to most players. But is it a bad thing?
It's certainly hard to get excited for something you barely know of. On the other hand, what seems to be a new trend for Blizzard when they develop new content is to give us a sense of real adventure and true exploration. Basically, we went to the uncharted lands that anyone hardly knew anything about when we went to the Dragon Isles. And we do practically the same in the War Within expansion by setting sail and heading towards the mysterious isle of Khaz'Algar.
The isle seems to be quite small indeed. And most of it is contained in just one zone known as the Isle of Dorn. The rest of the expansion's new zones are located... beneath it! That's right, of the 4 new zones, 3 will be under the surface. But it doesn't mean that they will all look the same! Each of them has a distinctive look and vibe. Let's take a closer look at each of the new zones, shall we?
| # | ZONE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isle of Dorn | The only surface zone of Khaz'Algar. It consists of pleasant verdant rolling hills and rock formations and is surrounded by mountains of all shapes and sizes. The place is the homeland of the Earthen tribe (the new allied race) and we'll find their major city Dornogal in this zone too. Dornogal will likely become the expansion's main hub. And it has something Irish to its name... And Dorn in general has something very, very Hibernian about it too... We'd say that might be the primary inspiration for this part of the new landmass and the culture of the Earthen. But that remains to be seen as we know rather little of it all so far. |
| 2 | The Ringing Deeps | The first underground zone on our way is a vast system of huge caves. It has some similarities to zones that we've already visited: namely, Zaralek Caverns and Deepholm. But unlike them, there's lots of Titan machinery in the Ringing Deeps and we'll likely learn a lot about them there. The Earthen maintain some of those machines in good state – that's their daily routine and primary mission, as they say. |
| 3 | Hallowfall | The second underground zone is by far one of the most unusual locations in the game. It's an enormous cave that has a gigantic lucent crystal stuck to its ceiling. It serves as a small Sun for the dwellers of the cave. And who do you think those dwellers are? Humans, of course. Descendants of the Azerothian Arathi tribe found their way to that cave somehow. Of course, they are not the only one living there – they exist in the never-ending fight against Nerubians, the infamous spider people. |
| 4 | Azj-Kahet | Speaking of the spider people, the third underground zone of Khaz'Algar is fully dedicated to them. It contains a major Nerubian city of the same name that is said to be the pinnacle of the Nerubian civilization. This will likely be the most dangerous and hostile place of the expansion and, quite fittingly, the first raid of it will also be located here – the Nerubar Palace. |
2. New allied race – The Earthen
And once again let's start with a video for those who prefer that type of media (props to MrGM for a great video once more):
We've already mentioned the Earthen – they are one of the native species of Khaz'Algar. They are basically dwarves made of... earth? Or rock, perhaps? We've already had regular dwarves made of flesh and Dark Iron dwarves made of (dark) iron – now we get one more flavor! And this time this type of dwarves is playable by both factions! That's right, if you've ever wanted to play a Dwarf loyal to the Horde, here's your chance to do that!
While the Earthen are native to Khaz'Algar, we've already encountered them all across Azeroth. Places that are related to Titans often feature them as servants and hostile NPCs: Uldaman, Ulduar, and Uldum are just like that. Deepholm also has them although it's not directly related to Titans – however, it's located underground which makes it a likely place for the Earthen to appear.
The Earthen won't be just a new race, they will be a new allied race which by default means that you'll have to put in some effort to unlock them. Fortunately, it looks like we won't have to do any reputation grind like we used to back in the Battle for Azeroth. What will suffice is reaching the new level cap, completing the main storyline of the expansion, and finishing a special Earthen questline. While all those things will certainly take some time, it's nowhere as bad as it was with leveling up reputation. If you haven't had that experience, just trust us that it was horrible. So it's obviously an improvement. Besides, you can always speed up your unlock progress with the help of our Earthen unlock boost!
The Earthen will have 10 classes available to them and they are:
- Death Knight (plate; tank, melee DPS),
- Hunter (mail; melee / ranged DPS),
- Mage (cloth; ranged DPS),
- Monk (leather; tank, healer, melee DPS),
- Paladin (plate; tank, healer, melee DPS),
- Priest (cloth; healer, ranged DPS),
- Rogue (leather; melee DPS),
- Shaman (mail; healer, melee / ranged DPS),
- Warlock (cloth; ranged DPS),
- Warrior (plate; tank, melee DPS)
It's still unknown what the racial traits / abilities will be like and what heritage armor they will have (if at all). But certainly, more information will appear closer to the release.
3. New progress system – Warbands
Warbands are meant to connect your characters in a more cohesive way. We all might be a bit tired of using various eons-old workarounds like sending mails from one character to another or creating a separate guild to store all your characters' paraphernalia in one place. Those solutions are players-made and are slightly outdated, to put it mildly. So a system that can take care of transferring items among your characters as well as sharing their progress would be welcome. And Warbands are literally that.
Here are some of the things that you'll be able to share among your characters:
- Reagents (via the so-called Warband Bank);
- Gear (some gear will get the "Warbound" status which will make it transferrable among the charcaters of your Warband);
- Reputation (although we've already had some improvements with sharing reputation among characters, it looks like that concept will get certain improvements with Warbands);
- Transmog collections (not clear what is meant by this yet, we need to wait for more details);
- Flight paths (oh, thank you, finally);
- Delves (we're not sure what exactly can be shared for delves, so it remains to be seen);
- Achievements (while most achievements have been account-wide for quite some time, it looks like some changes are about to happen in this field too)
It's not yet entirely clear if Warbands apply automatically to all your characters or there are various limitations like the number of characters that can join a warband or whether characters from different realms can join it, and so on. But we're really glad that this major step of bringing your toons together has been made. Hopefully, it will keep getting better and making our gaming experience better in every way.
Here's a quick recap of it all in a video by Dalaran Gaming:
4. New PvE mode – Delves
While it's not entirely clear yet what Delves will be like, one thing is already certain: Blizzard want them to be a major part of the game. That can be deduced from the fact that they decided to remove the PvP line of the great vault in favour of the "world" line which includes Delves-related progress. New seasonal achievements for Delves will also be introduced. They are looking to make a home run with this one, aren't they?
Anyway, here's what we know so far. Delves are going to be an important PvE activity that can be played solo or with up to 3 friends. Roles don't matter – you don't need a classic party lineup of tank, healer, DPS. Everyone can help the team effort in any way they want. So it's supposed to be more fun experience with puzzles, jumping, and so on. The content in delves is expected to be dynamic: each week something new will happen in them.
While it all sounds really cool and we want it to be successful badly, we'd be cautious at this point. We all remember how good Warfronts and Island Expeditions sounded for the Battle of Azeroth... before actually being released and turning out to be rather boring. The same was mostly true about Torghast in Shadowlands. Hopefully, the promise of this game mode will be fully fulfilled in the release version and we'll welcome a third major PvE mode to our caring WoW family!
Here's a brief overview of what we know about delves so far from Dalaran Gaming in another video by him:
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While this is the end of our blog post, it's not the end of the list of new features coming in the 10th expansion! For examples, a new high-level talent system will be added known as Hero talents. Blizzard claim that those talents will be very important for end-game builds and they can affect your spec's gameplay immensely. Is that the way it really will be? Or will it just be yet another talent change that doesn't make much difference? It remains to be seen.
Dynamic flying which many people now love and can't imagine living without will come back in the War Within too. It will become available everywhere and for all flying mounts. You'll be able to switch it on or off depending on whether you feel like being a bit more involved in moving around the map or not so much.
And of course the regular things: new dungeons (8 of them as usual), a new raid (Nerubar Palace), hundreds of new quests, new factions, and so on and so forth. There will definitely be enough content to keep you excited for months so don't worry about that!
And if you'll need help with leveling up your character fast or topping up your balance with gold coins, you know who you can always rely on! ArmadaBoost offers lots of WoW War Within services for you to improve your gaming experience with! Don't hesitate to browse or catalog or just get in touch with us to learn more or make an order!
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