Benie's Games Blog

Day 3 of Wurm Online. I logged in around 6:30 after working on my videos. A villager named ‘Eyywa” was on. Asked them for some healing mats to heal my med, and went back to the village to get some cotton. Apparently cotton can be used as Rags now (or maybe it always has).
He asked if I needed anymore cotton after I managed to bandage the med, and I said yes. Then he told me about living near a guard tower. I told him I already am and left.
So as I was waiting for my wounds to heal up, Eyywa was saying if what I picked was a good place. I told them that Ivan helped to pick it. Little did I know, that they were also going to plan a house there after Ivan took them in.
So we talked awhile. Eyywa asked me where I was planning to go once I felt we were ready. I told them that hopefully, I’ll be able to re-claim my old village (said how it’s close here on the mainland). I also talked about the three encounters we had.

Eyywa told me to get the walls up on the house ASAP, and so I did. I had to chop down another tree to get the remaining planks. I also told them (after telling me to make a rowboat), how Ivan promises me a sailboat. They told me that once I get prem again, my skills should shoot up to what they were five years ago. I asked them if there was finally a way to have a monthly cost, and they said no… yeah. Still no automatic prem payment. You still have to “pay if you need it”.

Also I asked them what time does Ivan come on. Mentions usually this time, but the fact it’s a Friday, “he’s probably with his daughter”. So Ivan’s a family man. Not bad.

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Teaching TulsiSo Tulsi came on later in the day, after I got the walls done. I’m still surprised you got to build the roof now. Eyywa told me that you got to make shingles, and then place them using two large nails per roof.
Anyway, I needed to make barrels. So I told him to make planks for it while I went to make nails. He didn’t know how to, even though I had already taught him. This greatly worries me. His short-term memory I feel, is going to keep us on this island forever. I want Tulsi to be READY before we leave. And I wish he would had fucking used the tutorials!

Anyway, as I said I needed to make barrels. After Tulsi got finished with the planks, I asked him to check on the crops that I had planted next to the road that leads to a small path (and also to forage). He’s getting foraging down. This is good. He knows how to trade. This is also good. And he now knows how to make planks(told him to literally write it down).
But what he doesn’t know… is how slopes work in this game. He..literally killed himself. I was coming back to the house after making some nails, and I hear a “URGH!!” sound somewhere. Check Local, and he’s not there. I’m about to bust out laughing. Especially when he told me he had fallen. But I held it in as much as I could.
Discovered his corpse near the house. He fell off the cliff. LOL!! Can’t hold it anymore! Though he was actually smart enough to drop everything he had in the house before he ventured, like he knew it would happen. Glad he did.

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A real snag in my plans
So I took Tulsi down to the shoreline and attempted to teach him how to fish. Didn’t even had to instruct him, but he’s all “what do I do” instead of waiting, but he figured it out on his own.
This brings me back to the days when I would have Benietwo be fishing and cooking Stew for me, because I didn’t have that high of a fishing skill.
Me however? I only caught one fish. He caught four. I also caught the curse of Rolf; an “unstrung” Fine fishing pole. Think of it like a broken boat in Minecraft, instead it takes 10 minutes to craft the parts (where in Minecraft it takes only a few seconds).
So yeah, my lifeline is broken, and I’m panicking(and cursing at Rolf)! D: I’ve never had that happen to me to my knowledge. Maybe I’ve just been lucky in the past. Maybe I always had spares. All I knew at the time it was broken, was “FUCK!! I can’t make Stew now!!”

This means I’m going to have to depend on Ivan to give us meals. I’ve also shifted my priorities to getting a forge in the house. So not only would I be able to make spare fishing poles, but I could teach Tulsi how to work with metal. Oh yeah, we’re also going to need a Loom for string.

I’ve also been debating if we should have a second floor for the house, for storage. The fact it’s a temp house, I just feel it’ll be a waste of time and materials. I want to be able to leave as less of a footprint as I can here. Though when we move out and find a place to live, I’ll likely do a second floor. Maybe even a third one. The first would be for storage, the second for Tulsi, and the 3rd for myself.
Making a forge (and a stove) alone, is going to leave a footprint. But we’re in desperate need of them (even though there’s a forge in the mine, I’m getting tired of accessing it).

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One more thing to note, the server(not the MRT) went down yesterday for no reason. It was down for like, 20 minutes or so. But it came right back up and we had no problems. At a time, I was really getting worried. I had thought that the devs felt like just closing the server for no reason.
Maybe they needed to do a restart. Who knows? I’m just glad it’s back up.

The majority of the evening, Tulsi was having issues trying to connect. His Java kept crashing on him eversince he updated to a new Java version today. So did I, but I’m not having any issues.
His other ‘issue’ is that he’s using Windows 10. I couldn’t help him even if I wanted to.

Meanwhile, I myself was faced with my own dilemma. Was waiting for Ivan to come back, so I could ask him for a few things. He never showed up, and Tulsi was somehow wounded (and he didn’t know how he got it). Probably went AFK next to a bear.
So I tried to figure out what we should do. Got attacked by a bear, then decided we should go look for a more active village.
So, just as I was about to get someone else to give us a place to live (by going to the town we currently live near to get the name, so I could tell Tulsi that we need to leave it), Ivan gets on. I guess this is when he usually gets on at his time. Very well. I will be more patient this time.

So, he healed Tulsi’s wounds while I managed to snag some meals from the oven he told me they’re in. He also got me a pair of fishing poles and buckets. All I have to do now is make a farm, and we’ll have a pretty much infinite supply of food.

While Tulsi was still having issues with connecting, Ivan (from his town) helped me figure out Wurm’s new way to build stuff; the new Crafting GUI. He claimed it was “self-explanatory”, but it took me awhile ’till I finally figured it out.
He also made me some nails and gave me some planks, just enough to begin construction of the house.

And… that’s basically all that happened. Oh yeah. Forgot to mention having two bears and a spider encounter. I still have a Medium after the second encounter. And the other thing, Ivan is offering me one of his sailboats (once we’re ready to head off on our own). Need to get perm though, before I can drive one.
I do feel I’m going to need that boat sooner than later, so we can get to the Freedom Market and get some water skins, and some healing mats.

I’m currently back in the Freedom Market, five years since I last played Wurm. I can’t even believe I’m back here.
What got me to come back, is I was looking at all the screenshots I had (via my screensaver), and noticing the fun I had back in Wurm. I began to wonder the fact angry’s not with me anymore, that I could just come back and play again after a few days of re-learning what I had forgotten.

I would also bring Tulsi in. So it would be me as angry, and him as… well, me in the past when I was a n00b at Wurm. First I needed to find out if Wurm still exists… and it does. And Rolf is still maintaining the damn thing.
Also, ‘Dragonhead’ is still available. So is the password! Angry never changed it! I do plan to get it changed, though.

So I arrived at what I believe to be the ruins of Volcano Forest, where I was immediately chased by a troll and other meanies. Got 1/4 of my health taken out. While being chased, I was amazed at their running animations… also due to the fact they ran after me for MILES until I finally got to a town called ‘Eriador’, near the abandoned ‘Shipyard of Flamgra’in’.
Now finally having a chance to rest and try to get my bearings, I noticed you can now have multi-leveled houses, even buildings of any size and shape. Pretty nice. You can access them by ladders (which I find a bit odd).

There is also an ingame map… that is as helpful as an abscessed tooth while eating your favorite foods. It shows you where the spawn town is, and… that’s it. You can make waypoints, but it doesn’t tell you where you are.
Luckily, the community map still exists. However, it shows where I am is by a lake, and not on an island. So I tried to swim to the mainland. Bad idea, and drowned. But no biggie.

Respawned in Freedom Market, and saw how…. unpopulated it was. It was just me. Was told it’s because most of the world’s population have went to other worlds, and “it’ll be populated in the Summer”. I assume angry did as well, and abandoned Volcano Forest. I was able to finally get my bearings, and got to the Freedom Docks (where I’m currently typing this).
Meanwhile, I was trying to get Tulsi into the game. He was having issues, but finally got in. As I was trying to talk him through the menus to get to my server, I got mauled by a bear for going the wrong way (it was nighttime).

Eventually we finally met up in Freedom Market. He actually thought I was some “creepy old guy” trying to hurt him (even though I had told him who I was ingame). And after he got killed for picking a fight with a tower guard by accident, I saw we really needed help settling in. And we found a nice village called “Sunset Beach”. It’s on the Northwesterly most island of the two islands, that’s shockingly close to where I used to live at. This is perfect. Hopefully in a week with a house established and food in my char’s belly(when I’m able to make some Stew), I’ll try to make another Rowboat and head down the coast to see if my old place is available.
Going by where I am, I can actually almost still see the massive gray blob that was my clay boat dock.

But as always, I’m thinking way ahead of myself. I just started out. It’s going to take some getting used to.
The guy that took us in, named “Ivansimconia”(or Ivan for short), gave me some spare starter tools(spares for Tulsi, of course) and helped us find a place that’s close’ish to his town, to start our survival. Tulsi got himself lost several times. Ivan says that he (Tulsi) needs a leash. I couldn’t agree more. 😛

I found Tulsi in the mines after Ivan planned us a modest-sized house. He was moving really slow, and I thought he was not using Climb correctly. That wasn’t the problem. So I thought he was mining and collected some rocks. Yet instead… he’s carrying the corpse of a spider around that he found in the mine, which he names “bitey”. *facepalm*
And on top of it, he claimed how it wasn’t slowing him down. And he carries the creepy thing to the planned house, and places it down.

Afterwards, I tried my best to teach Tulsi the basics of surviving in Wurm Online. Somehow, he skimmed right through the tutorial that was provided before you pick a server, which was supposed to teach him these things…. but he panicked instead of learned.

Nevertheless, I think he’s actually learning from them. He’s still learning how to use Climb correctly.
And at the end, he actually likes the game and wants to play again. This is great. Now I can hopefully teach him everything that I have been taught by angry (and others). Even things that I don’t even know, such as how to do a second floor to one’s house.

I really hope this works out, for both of us. It’ll encourage me to play Wurm longer than I ever have (due to being bored of living on my own). Maybe I’ll even awkwardly run into angry one of these days, while Tulsi is with me when we’re going exploring around the server in a boat.
I do need to get him to ask questions about the game, though. Like I did when I was a n00b. Though he’s complaining about the game “lagging”, which is probably just his crap computer. Yet I’ve been there and felt that. Not anymore, thankfully. I can pretty much throw every feature on high and feel no FPS drop.

But this is what I’ve discovered from playing, overall;
-Structures can now be multi-leveled.
-Boat haulers are in the game. No more will you need to haul your unfinished boat in a cart.
-Independence is just one of the 8 islands that one can access by boat. And that’s just on the Freedom(PvE) server. There’s four on the Epic(PvP) server.
-The ‘Wild” server doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been changed to “Epic”.
-Most of the populace of the island have left for the other islands. It’s like a ghost town now.
-Day/Night cycle still isn’t realtime.
-The game has seasons(possibly RL based). There’s still snow around Christmastime.
-Major changes to the GUI. Changes I need to learn. Such as a new Crafting window, and a new (which I find a bit stupid) menu system to craft planks and stuff.
-New player/animal animations. They look really amazing. They aren’t stiff like before.
-When having a saddle on a horse, it finally shows a saddle on the house.
-You can no longer attempt to “hijack” a boat(not actually steal it). There’s no ’embark – captain’ option on boats you don’t own, or have perms to.
-The Saw looks like a weird harp thing instead of a modern-looking hand saw.
-Player’s armor is now seen on them.
-‘Erik the Red’ was slain back in 2012. That’s a shame, but at least I got to see him. 🙂

Alright, guys. So Heelz has spent just over an hour, going over Legion and what it means for the future of WoW and Activision-Blizzard.
You can find this video right here. Do understand that his video may have some cusswords in it, and he even warns you that if you’re offended, don’t feel bad about yourself for being so.
Lastly… I can’t stress this enough. Do NOT give into hype when it comes to video games! WoD has proven what hype can do… leaving us feel empty and confused, of where in the hell is the rest of the promised content.
What is listed in this post is still subject to change.

(For the TL.DR(Too Long Didn’t Read) people…)
3:56: “BlizzCon was actually better this year than 2013”
5:23: “The Alliance and the Horde working together, and there’s a ’40-man scenario'”
22:21: “The New Zones are really cool, yet there’s an island not accessible on launch”
26:46: “View distance raised 3x upon the release of the expansion”
29:01: “New ‘questing structure’. Pick a zone, start your road to Level 110!”
34:13: “A possible new soloable endgame content mechanic: ‘Command Table 2.0′”
51:36: “Dungeons to possibly scale up with you as you level”

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With that said, let’s begin with the breakdown, and my reactions (and if it’ll get me to come back to WoW).
At 3:56, he says that BlizzCon 2015 was actually good; that they were a lot more careful with their words (compared to promising us the moon back in 2013).
This is good, in my opinion. This proves to me, that they KNOW they’re in shit deep and do NOT want to lose anymore subscribers. It’s almost seen as an apology to the community.. that they’re sorry they over-hyped WoD.

At 5:23 he mentions that after the climatic (if this is possible), that we could start right after the climatic ends. This involves the Alliance AND the Horde… working together. He also mentions a “40-man scenario” in The Broken Shore.
I… well, I’m not sure about it. Though it is cool how I hear that the Alliance and the Horde will be in the same scenario. In other words, you’ll actually be playing with real players from the opposing faction.. not PvP, actually WORKING WITH them! That.. is really cool! That’s something Blizzard have never pulled off. But 40 man?! I dunno. I got nothing wrong working with the Horde, just… 40 man. 39 people all depending on my DPS. -_- I might like it. Who knows.

At 22:21, Heelz goes over the new zones of the expansion. He says that there’s 7 new zones(6 in The Broken Isles). He believes most of the fighting (including the 40-man scenario) will be at The Broken Shore. But he mentions that it’s possible “we won’t have a lot of time here”. He explains that it looks like the zone isn’t that big, and we will probably get “pushed out” to the rest of the world.
This sounds similar to the way WoD opens up. It really does. It also makes me hope that the aforementioned “40-man scenario” isn’t mandatory for you to do.
He finishes off this area by mentioning the names of the zones;
“Val’sharah” (Used to be the prime of the Night Elf Druid)
“Stormheim” (Going by pictures I found, it almost looks like… Skyrim! 😀 )
“Azsuna” (“A dying breed of the Blue Dragonflight” is rumored to be here…)
and “Highmountain”(rumored to have old Hemmet Nessingwary back again)
He believes the one named “Suramar” will be for Level 110’s only.
However, the island off of Stormheim, this was mentioned as “coming in a later date”. If this being the entire zone, or just that island… let’s just hope it’s that island. This means likely we won’t be able to go there at launch, but maybe hopefully at 7.1 or 7.2 of Legion.

At 26:46, he mentions that WoW will have its view distance raised by 3x when the expansion launches. Of course, this is in the options. If your computer can’t support it, you can lower the draw distance. However, if you have the money and/or the time to buy parts and build your own PC, now’s the time to think about getting newer hardware. But if you have the beef computer already to make NASA cry, you’re all set…
I still remember when I had MoP, and my turning speed was so.. UGH! I had to get 8GB of RAM to counter it. And I had to get a new Motherboard, because my old one couldn’t support DDR3. And already, we got DDR4’s and 5’s coming out, and CPUs that have EIGHT cores in them instead of four. Wow, technology. SLOW DOWN, will you!?

At 29:01, he discusses leveling “getting a new structure”. Meaning, you can pick ANY of the four zones mentioned at 22:21, to start your road to Level 110!! That is SO AWESOME!! 😀
Unfortunately, this awesome thing has its drawbacks. One is teaming up with friends. Because, this is an MMORPG, and like any MMO.. you’re supposed to be playing with your friends.
The issue is, say I did have a friend. Friend A(me), wants to go to Azsuna to start questing. Friend B, wants to go to Val’sharah. I can’t allow him (or her) to be on the same quests, as I’m in a different zone. Nor can they help me with a boss fight.
Also… and this I don’t like, but I think they’re taking pointers from Guild Wars 2. He says that the zones will level up with you. ALL..zones. This means, no more “Zonename here: Level 105-107”. They will be all based around your current level. I both like AND unlike this. What I unlike, is the mobs will have a high chance of kicking my ass, no matter what zone I go to.

At 34:13, he talks of what we’ll have once the road to Level 110 is reached; the endgame. This is really the most important thing. What will be the new soloable content/dungeons/raids, for the next 1-2 years ’till the next expansion?
Well, Heelz believes Blizzard ‘understands’ that the community was pissed with Apexis Crystals, and/or sitting in your Town Hall in your Garrison, twiddling your thumbs ’till the next expansion (while waiting for your Work Orders and followers to do awesome raids… without you).
As of now, it’s unknown. But he hopes, and prays… that we get “Command Table 2.0”, were WE can go on these quests and raids, and get our OWN gear! Even base it off of out own playstyle and class. I would.. LOVE this. If Blizzard makes this just like Heelz says, I’d forget ALLLL the mean things I said about WoD!
Create your OWN endgame content! FUCK YEAH that would be so awesome!! 😀

At 51:36, he talks about dungeons. He mentions there would be five “leveling up” dungeons, and five max level dungeons. He actually hopes that these level up dungeons will scale up with you… if so, this is bad news for me. I want to be able to try them AFTER I hit 110, not during. But the way Heelz put it, it’s not really that bad. He mentions that it would be like the ending of the Spires of Arak (forcing me to enter a dungeon to complete the storyline of that zone). But the dungeon would be scaled to my level, instead of being Level 97 when I’m 95. That’s a good option.

And the rest was about the (maybe) new change to endgame dungeons (mainly for challenge lovers).

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Overall, I love the fact we’ll be facing an enemy from OUR WoW past, and not Warcraft’s past. Also, I love how most of it will still be of our current post-Cata Azeroth. We’re able to finally kiss the orcs..orcs.Orcs OrCs ORCS ORCS (and also hopefully its Apexis Crystal hell).. goodbye!
The art style… well, there’s no question. Of COURSE it’s BEAUTIFUL!! This is what WoW shines on.
This really.. really has my interest, especially meeting “a dying breed of the Blue Dragonflight” here. Possibly a breed that refused to fight against the reds in WoTLK.
If this expansion continues on this path, it’s likely I will be coming back to WoW with open arms. Plus, even if I get a beta test invite, I’m just going to ignore it! It’s better to be amazed, then be spoiled. Make this the expansion that turns this game around. Bring my hope back to Blizzard that they still do care about their community.

But this is what was not discussed;
-Flying after questing/certain patch? … Maybe we should not know ’till closer to the release.
-Changes to professions.

I don’t expect the game to work flawlessly. There will be bugs, and features not 100% working that slipped through beta testing. Though I do pray that Blizzard actually listens to their testers THIS time…

So I’m past my 12am bedtime, waiting for Windows Update to install 14 updates. Anyway, yesterday was a good day. I was able to get the 19th build installed.
It’s a pier; different from what I was originally going to plan. But the other one just wouldn’t really work.
I had RedBear help me with the build, as I needed the advice of a good builder of how high to make the pier and how do I put the exit. He helped me with the pillars, and also with a parking lot idea I had for it (to work with the road I had just completed the day before).

And also…there’s Tulsi. This, unfortunately, is the “lots of drama” part in the title.
See, I made him Deputy Mayor as I was kind of desperate to get one, and I thought “what the hell”… but the more I thought about it, the more I felt I had made a bad mistake. That was especially true of how he didn’t know how to help me with a few things.
But it was the 18th build, the day before yesterday, that really started it. It was a campground-style log cabin thing, near the river. I asked Tulsi if he could help me with one of the two planned log cabins. His version was a cube. It was logs as walls, and a flat roof. The interior was a bit good, in my opinion. But if he had just spent more time on the exterior, I think it would had looked a lot better.

I was talking to a member about his build, and showed him it. He’s all “what the hell is this, Benie?” A bit rough on Tulsi. He did try his best, and that’s why I also tried to tell him. But he’s saying he’s going to “kick ass” of the person that told him his cabin sucks… over an opinion. Yes, you heard me right.

I’ve been trying to calm him down, even through yesterday. Especially when I just felt that Tulsi being my Deputy Mayor was a bad idea. Some people told me to pick suppoe, as he helped me with the island. And so I did. That… didn’t really help the “calming down” situation. :/ But I made my decision. And personally, I feel I made the right one this time.
So, incase something was to happen to me (if I (and this is VERY rare) somehow got myself perma’d, or was (unable/didn’t feel like) to come back to the server for months on end), suppoe would have control of my island.

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Moving on, I also had to deal with Han’s ‘Nutella’ franchise on my island(and the first franchise that I allowed). He has this open air roof, due to the large palm tree I made. The problem is I felt the Mods might see it as an “unfinished” build, and cause me to not get the rank. So I tried to convince Han to do something about it, even more so after talking to one of the mods (who agreed with me).

Han suggested that I try to cover up the roof with the palm trees I have, scattered around the island. So I tried my best to do so. Though I still don’t feel it’s good enough.
Anyway, I had also spoken to Cortesi (though Mumble) about this. He felt that just giving the roof more of a design (which Han felt actually made it worse) would suffice. Then he started asking me “Have you got another endorsement?” I told him that I still need to build the 20th thing before I try my hand to get Mayorship.

He then asked me for the Town Hall. I showed him and said that lala built it. And apparently… 19 was enough builds. Before I realized, thinking Cortesi was telling me to work on the 20th build, he was handing me his endorsement. When I finally realized, I’m thinking “Oh wow… are you serious?! THANK YOU!! 😀 ” when I saw it.

After dinner, feeling a bit hopeful that the next mod would see what Cortesi saw, I asked _hnt if he could check my town and see if it’s good. He looked, then asked me a few short questions; “Town name”, “You’re a supporter, yes?”, “Who’s the Deputy Mayor?”. And then he announced the following;
“Congratulations to Benie for achieving Mayor status for the town of Soiled Solitude!”. And the first thing I said as Mayor, was “:D”, followed by “Thank you, hnt. :)”

So yeah! I’m a Mayor now!! WOOT!! I’m finally a someone! This is now my second highest rank on the server since [Mod].
I now have access to two more /homes(had 3, now 5…which will definitely come in handy), can build a second town if I wish(no longer confined to my island), and establish rail access with another town.

Tulsi though, feels I got Mayor because of suppoe. *sigh* … He might be right. However, and I’m very thankful for this.. Tulsi’s ‘bank’ franchise didn’t hold me back as I feared.
Do I feel like an ass for kicking Tulsi out of Deputy Mayor? … Yes. Of course I do. But I also wish I never thought of allowing him. I should had picked suppoe from the start, and avoided the drama. But I guess I was hoping with this ‘promotion’ for Tulsi, that he would start to learn how to improve his builds to even have a shot for his own town to be Councillor, or even Mayor like me.
Alas, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. Tulsi doesn’t want to believe in himself, and stop thinking everyone’s out to get him.

Thing is, I can also see a lot of Tulsi inside myself. How I don’t even believe in myself. How I keep constantly depending on others to help me when things get rough. Yet, unlike Tulsi, I’m also trying to improve on areas I’m lacking. Such as getting good at curves now. I’ve also greatly improved my building skills from the past. I’m trying to add more shape, and more texture to my builds.
This is what the Mods truly look for; people to put effort into their builds. And really, it’s completely understandable.

The whole “20 builds” thing was pretty much a base. If you build your builds really good, and actually put time and effort into them… you don’t NEED 20 builds. It’s really ‘up to’ 20. But as people have said time and time again, to not worry about the build count. Worry about the effort put into the build.
To look at your own build.. not as a Mod, but as “Hmm… does this look like something I would see in real life?” This is really all the staff ask for. And I guess I’m really just telling myself this.
See, Tulsi feels the mods are too strict for wanting this. But really, they aren’t.

So BlizzCon 2015 has come and gone. And like I said, I didn’t even bother wasting the $40. I’m true to my word there.
So Heelz is saying that when Legion drops, every class and spec will have their own artifact weapon. How one would be able to acquire it, still remains to be seen. Though I do hope this isn’t going to be in the form of “forced content”.
Now WoW from the day I joined back in early 2005, has always been able to play your way. With this news about “everyone gets an artifact weapon”, just makes me a bit worried. It worries me that you have to get this thing; you have to raid.

Well, here’s to just hoping you don’t absolutely HAVE to. Anyway, he was explaining the lore behind the weapons. The one about Sargeras really interested me. It’s like Blizzard is saying “You guys are right. It was fucking stupid to go back in the past with WoD! Let’s be back in the present with Legion, to our CANON world now!”
And if so, this is really good news. But this still doesn’t excuse them not even defending WoD, and not showing their quarter subscriber numbers anymore.

But from this, it might start to. I’d like to see more of this expansion. But I also got to remember to not give into hype, nomatter what. Hype is what caused my major depression during and after the beta of WoD.