It occurred to me a few days ago that I haven’t quite had the time to collect and transcribe my thoughts on the current happenings within and the potential future state of World of Warcraft in a fairly long while. Sure, I’ve written a handful of articles which were meant to draw attention to major patches and features that were recently added to the game; however, I’ve only been able to briefly acknowledge the existence of major in-game goings-on within the context of those pieces.

I haven’t been able to adequately discuss the more powerful forces at work within the game as it currently exists, or offer my opinion as to what certain major events could mean for the future of the game, both immediately and long-term. I think it’s high time I rectified that rather glaring discrepancy, and I see no better opportunity to do so than right about now.

Quite a lot has happened within World of Warcraft since my last detailed editorial on the non-Classic version of the game, and I intend to discuss as much of what’s taken place as I’m able within this article. Before I get into any of that, though, I’m obligated to include two important disclaimers.

Firstly, due to the magnitude of the events I’ll be covering today, this article will contain many significant story spoilers. Secondly, I’ll be presenting my view of every event I plan to mention from an Alliance player’s perspective; I suspect that might not matter so much given the context of what’s happened in the game’s story lately, though.

Having said all of that, let’s waste no more time and get right to it. As you might recall, my second most recent article on WoW was published the day before Patch 8.2.5 reached live servers. I briefly mentioned at the end of the article in question that this patch contains the supposedly “epic” conclusion of the ongoing War Campaign.

For the sake of consistency, I’ll begin today’s discussion by picking up where that article left off and detailing the course of events up to and including the War Campaign’s finale. Prior to playing through the remainder of the War Campaign added in Patch 8.2.5, I managed to finish enough of it to reach the point at which I had a few quests left to do before I could jump into the newest additions to the campaign.

In light of that, I’ll assume for brevity’s sake that you have completed (or are at least familiar with) the events of the quest chain during which players are sent to infiltrate Orgrimmar to rescue the captive Baine Bloodhoof. After doing so, you can pick up the quest called “As the Dust Settles” from High Commander Halford Wyrmbane in Boralus Harbor.

This quest simply requires that you meet King Anduin in Unity Square, near Proudmoore Keep. Upon your arrival, you’ll be asked to attend a meeting at that location during which Anduin is briefed by his military advisers, Wyrmbane and Spymaster Mathias Shaw, on the Zuldazar situation following the death of King Rastakhan.

Spymaster Shaw assures the king that “the Alliance should achieve victory in a matter of weeks.” Despite this, Genn Greymane remains fixated on capturing (and presumably killing) Sylvanas rather than focusing on the war against the rest of the Horde. That concept is central to much of the War Campaign’s finale.

Quite a bit of the story within the campaign’s finale is told via cinematics. In one such cinematic, Anduin meets secretly with Varok Saurfang in an undisclosed location in order to discuss methods by which their combined forces could potentially end Sylvanas’ reign as Warchief of the Horde.

Anduin indicates during this meeting that he’s willing to cooperate with Saurfang’s forces to that end, albeit only if certain conditions are met. When Saurfang asks how many soldiers the Alliance can provide, Anduin somewhat hesitantly replies, “Enough for one final assault. If that fails, we’re done.” The two then discuss the concept of honor and ponder the fairly important question of exactly what they’re fighting for before ultimately parting ways to prepare for the aforementioned final assault on Orgrimmar.

After these events take place, players arrive in Razor Hill, which temporarily serves as a base for both Alliance and Horde forces as they prepare to storm the Horde’s capital city. You’ll then need to complete a few relevant quests in which you essentially clear a path for the combined armies of both factions before you can proceed.

On what I consider to be a much more interesting note than these quests, however, you’re able to listen in on a conversation between Anduin and Alleria Windrunner. For those who might be unaware, Alleria Windrunner has something of a deep connection to an ominous, omnipresent force known simply as “the Void;” as such, she can see the Void’s influence where others cannot.

During her conversation with Anduin, Alleria states outright that Sylvanas isn’t exactly the biggest threat to Azeroth. That’s because, in her words, “[t]he Old God has been freed.” That statement is in reference to N’Zoth, the only Old God that players haven’t killed as far as I’m aware. Anduin concedes that he knows N’Zoth is a colossal threat worthy of prompt action, but it would seem he would prefer to focus on the assault on Orgrimmar at that moment.

Shortly after this point, the combined forces of the Alliance and members of the Horde who are no longer loyal to Sylvanas assemble outside the gates of Orgrimmar; simultaneously, those among the Horde who continue to serve the Warchief gather inside the gates, ready to meet their enemies in battle. This leads to another cinematic in which Thrall solemnly informs Saurfang that there will undoubtedly be many casualties on both sides should the assault proceed. To this, Saurfang replies, “Or maybe… just one.” Saurfang then bellows Sylvanas’ name and challenges her to mak’gora.

For those unaware, my understanding is that the term “mak’gora” comes from the Orcish language and basically refers to a one-on-one battle to the death. You might be familiar with this concept because a challenge to mak’gora led to the fight between Garrosh Hellscream and Cairne Bloodhoof in an earlier expansion; this ultimately brought about Bloodhoof’s death via what might be considered illegitimate means in the context of the fight in question.

After a bit of somewhat mocking dialogue from Sylvanas, the fight between the Warchief and the Horde’s former High Overlord commences. In addition to several important aspects of this battle which I’ll discuss at length shortly, Saurfang makes a statement during combat which deeply resonated with me.

To elaborate, Saurfang boldly states that “you cannot kill hope,” which he accuses Sylvanas of having attempted and failed to do on several occasions. Those of you who are familiar with the events leading up to Battle for Azeroth will undoubtedly remember that the burning of Teldrassil was the most recent of these attempts. To paraphrase Saurfang, each of Sylvanas’ endeavors to “kill hope” have failed simply because the idea that hope can be killed is foolish, yet the Banshee Queen appears not to realize this.

Despite putting up a fight to a degree which I suspect many among you would expect from a warrior as skilled as Saurfang, the High Overlord is ultimately slain. It is at this point that Sylvanas begins to reveal her true motives; she goes about this by declaring that “the Horde is nothing.”

This cinematic ends in a manner I would describe as confusing more than anything. After making the declaration I just mentioned, Sylvanas disappears in a cloud of dark purple smoke, leaving those in attendance to contemplate Saurfang’s demise and the fate of the Horde as a whole.

Anduin looks to Thrall and asks, in what sounded to me like a rather desperate tone, “What do we do now?” The former Warchief ponders this question for a moment before replying, “We bring him home.” Thrall, Anduin, and Zekhan (the troll shaman colloquially known as “Zappy Boi”) then proceed to carry Saurfang’s body into Orgrimmar, where the former two eulogize the fallen warrior before a crowd of mourners.

After these cinematics conclude, players can turn in the quest they completed by watching the events I’ve just described unfold. Doing so constitutes the completion of the War Campaign and grants the player an achievement, in addition to the “Veteran of the Fourth War” character title.

As far as I can recall, that basically concludes the rundown of the more significant in-game events that have led up to the veritable cornucopia of recent discoveries by data miners and the announcements made at this year’s BlizzCon.

Now that we’ve gone through all of that, we can advance further into more opinion-based and speculation-filled territory. I suppose a good place to start that process would be to go over a considerable amount of everything that’s been discovered by apparently indefatigable data miners about the upcoming Patch 8.3.

Of course, I’m not going to include every last detail that’s been discovered about all that stuff within this article. I think that would be quite a fool’s errand considering that the process of discovering new aspects of these topics via data mining is very far from complete. This article would likely be rendered outdated in a matter of days even if I included a currently-exhaustive list of every known detail.

Instead, I’ll only go over what I classify as basic information and things that I personally find particularly important and/or exciting. If you’re after a more thorough, less-subjective list of all the details, there are plenty of excellent fan sites and other resources out there where you can find quite a bit more information on exactly what you’re looking for.

Patch 8.3’s full title is “Visions of N’Zoth;” this patch obviously won’t add or change as many features as the next expansion will, but it’s not a small update by any stretch of the imagination. I should begin by emphasizing that there’s currently no announced release date for Patch 8.3 beyond Blizzard vaguely declaring that the patch will reach live servers in “early 2020.” That means we’ll likely find ourselves waiting a while yet, but I’ve managed to remain cautiously optimistic about the idea that at least some aspects of this update will be worth the somewhat lengthy wait.

To begin, there will be two new allied races joining the ranks of the current eight when Patch 8.3 reaches live servers. More specifically, the denizens of Mechagon and (presumably) members of the Rustbolt Resistance, most commonly known as the Mechagnomes, will be joining the Alliance when Visions of N’Zoth is released. On the Horde’s side of things, the resourceful Vulpera who thrive within the vast desert of Vol’dun will serve as Team Red’s newest allied race.

Based almost entirely on the classes and racial traits available to both of these new allied races, I must say I’m personally more excited to unlock Mechagnomes rather than Vulpera. Granted, I hesitate to make that statement because, as far as I’ve been able to learn, the process of unlocking the Mechagnome allied race is much more involved (and quite possibly considerably more difficult) than the process of unlocking the Vulpera.

To elaborate, the unlock requirements for the Mechagnomes include reaching Exalted status with the Rustbolt Resistance faction, as well as completing every story quest line in Mechagon. That wouldn’t be so bad in my opinion if not for the fact that the process of completing the entirety of Mechagon’s story quests requires players to clear the “mega-dungeon” known as Operation: Mechagon.

I only consider that an issue because that particular dungeon is currently exclusively available on Mythic difficulty. I’m sure that doesn’t warrant so much as a second thought for those of you who frequently run Mythic and/or Mythic+ dungeons, regardless of whether you do so for gear or just for fun. However, it’s actually almost a deal breaker for me.

Call me a coward if you will, but that’s almost entirely because I honestly find myself too afraid to attempt any dungeon above Heroic difficulty, even while playing a class and specialization I know relatively well. If I’m lucky, perhaps Patch 8.3 will include the hopefully less-difficult Heroic version of Operation: Mechagon so that I and players like me have a fighting chance to unlock the Alliance’s newest allied race.

If you are curious as to why I’m fascinated by the racial traits available to Mechagnomes, allow me to briefly go over these traits and offer my opinion on them. Firstly, for some reason I’ve yet to be able to determine, I often find myself intrigued by racial traits that have to do with primary professions. I tend to take advantage of racial bonuses to certain professions, even if whichever professions I choose to learn don’t quite blend well with whatever character class I’m currently playing.

To that end, I was quite pleased to learn that the Mechagnomes have access to a very profession-friendly racial trait in their kit. Namely, Mechagnomes can serve as their own personal smelting forge, blacksmithing anvil, and cooking fire; they also passively have permanent access to each profession tool (by which I mean things like skinning knives, mining picks, blacksmith hammers, etc.). I think this trait will prove exceptionally useful whenever I need to do some profession-related crafting while I’m out questing and don’t have time to go back to a town or capital city.

Mechagnomes also have a passive ability which allows them to pick locks that ordinarily require a lockpicking skill level of up to 150. Admittedly, I’m not entirely won over by this trait alone considering that Mechagnomes can play as rogues; that, of course, means that a Mechagnome rogue will always have an advantage in that specific context over any character who isn’t a rogue. Regardless, I’m sure most non-rogue Mechagnomes will appreciate being able to open any lower-level locked boxes or anything of that nature without having to enlist the help of a friendly rogue or blacksmith to do it for them.

Mechagnomes also have three different racial traits which I suspect will benefit them in certain circumstances. By that, I mean to say I think Mechagnome characters can excel as both tanks and casters due in part to certain racial traits in their kit. As far as tanking is concerned, all Mechagnomes have a trait which automatically heals them for 15% of their maximum health as soon as they’re damaged below 20% health.

Although this auto-heal has a rather hefty 2.5-minute cooldown, I think it could potentially mean the difference between success and failure in contexts like dungeons and raids. I feel compelled to mention at this point that Zandalari trolls can regenerate the entirety of their missing health every two minutes so long as they’re not interrupted while channeling the racial ability which allows them to do so.

Due to the existence of that ability, I feel that this automatic heal exclusive to Mechagnomes gives the Alliance a somewhat similar, possibly “broken” answer to that trait, even if only to a lesser extent. For casters, on the other hand, all Mechagnomes can essentially cast a (presumably at least somewhat different) version of the Mirror Image spell available to mages. That is, Mechagnome characters can summon holographic copies of themselves every three minutes which serve to distract enemies.

As far as I’m currently aware, whether these holographic copies can actually deal damage to enemies or simply serve as aggro targets hasn’t yet been officially clarified; either way, I think being able to offload any unmanageable aggro to your “mirror images” could save you if you wind up in an uneven fight. After all, if you’re a caster class that has access to at least one or two decently-powerful area of effect spells, your clones can soak up damage for you while you AoE down your foes.

Beyond those two traits, Mechagnomes have a third useful combat trait which I’m sure will benefit any class rather than favoring tanks and/or casters to any degree. Namely, they can accumulate what the game refers to as “combat data” so long as you’re, well, in combat. You gather a stack of combat data every five seconds while in battle; this effect boosts your primary stat by a flat amount per stack and can stack with itself up to a maximum of eight times.

The Vulpera, on the other hand, have equally-interesting racial traits in addition to what I consider to be much more manageable unlock requirements. To unlock this particular allied race, you need only to reach Exalted reputation with the Voldunai faction and complete all story quests present in Vol’dun. As far as I can tell, that thankfully means you’re not required to go through any dungeons that are both fairly long and only available on Mythic difficulty.

As far as the racial traits available to Vulpera characters are concerned, these characters have a passive resistance to fire damage and to damage from the first attack that any enemy lands on them. Additionally, they’re automatically granted an extra eight slots to their standard-issue starting backpack. A noteworthy point on that subject is that, as I’m certain many of you know, you can earn all your characters an extra four backpack slots by adding a mobile authenticator to your Battle.net account.

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if these sources of extra backpack space stack with one another. I’m sure those nice little bonuses will prove exceptionally convenient if you find yourself particularly weighed down with, say, profession materials or anything of that nature.

However, that goes without mentioning the very likely possibility that each new Vulpera character will start with an extra four ten-slot bags in addition to the ubiquitous standard backpack, as all current allied race characters do. Beyond those traits, the Vulpera can also reach into what the game calls their “bag of tricks” to either damage an enemy or heal an ally. I’m not quite sure how this trait operates at this point, but it certainly sounds like it has potential.

However, the trait available to Vulpera characters that I ultimately find most intriguing is their ability to make a camp at any outdoor location. Once you’ve decided upon a suitable location for your camp and gotten everything set up therein, you can then reactivate this racial ability (presumably by channeling it) in order to return to wherever your campsite is located whenever you so desire once every thirty minutes.

All this talk of allied races actually leads me to what I think is easily the most exciting aspect that’ll be coming in Patch 8.3. In order to access it, though, you’ll need to pre-order any of the three versions of the upcoming Shadowlands expansion (which I’ll discuss in more detail later). If you’ve already done so or you plan to do so at any point before the expansion’s release, you’ll gain early access to the ability to create Pandaren and allied race characters of the Death Knight class.

That’s right, folks: a highly requested feature for quite a while by this point will finally be implemented in the game when Patch 8.3 goes live. As far as I can tell, the Death Knight class will be available to all ten allied races in addition to Pandaren, just to clear up any possible confusion. I really don’t know why I’m as excited as I am to make a Lightforged Draenei Death Knight, but that’s neither here nor there.

What’s more, all allied race and Pandaren Death Knights will begin their journeys in a new version of the classic Death Knight starting zone. This different starting zone features Bolvar Fordragon as the Lich King rather than the same old boring Arthas Menethil to whom we’ve all grown accustomed by now.

I’m personally really looking forward to trying out this new zone for myself. I say that mainly because I’ve played through the current Death Knight starting quest line so many times as each of the core playable races that I’ve begun to dread the increasingly-monotonous process of doing so once more.

Hopefully, this new version of the zone won’t require players to aimlessly wander around for several minutes during the battle for Light’s Hope Chapel or anything similar to that; I can’t quite shake the feeling that might be too much to ask, however.

The ability to create playable Pandaren and allied race Death Knights was apparently planned to be delayed until the actual release of Shadowlands; nevertheless, I’m certainly not complaining about Blizzard’s decision to expedite its implementation, even if only for those who opt to pre-order the expansion.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, dear reader, this article is starting to run a bit long. To that end, I’ve decided to turn this discussion into two separate articles in order to prevent this one from being overly lengthy. I think I’ve covered most of what I consider the most important aspects of the game’s current state and of what’s coming in Patch 8.3.

In light of that, part two of this article will be published in the coming days. It will cover my in-depth thoughts on everything that’s been announced and data mined thus far as far as the Shadowlands expansion is concerned. Before I sign off, however, I’m very interested to hear your thoughts on the current state of the game and the events leading up to Visions of N’Zoth.

What, if anything, stands out to you as the most notable aspect of the upcoming patch? Perhaps one or both of the planned new allied races might possibly tempt you? Or, failing that, maybe the ability to turn both such races (not to mention all of the other eight as well as Pandaren) into Death Knights is more up your alley? I think I’ve made my excitement about this patch quite clear. Now it’s your turn, so do feel free to sound off in the comments below!

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