In and Beyond Legion

So, looking forward here.

       I've been openly critical of some of the things coming in Legion, I have also been happily optimistic over others.  This here is what I'm hoping that Blizzard will focus on a bit in Legion, and beyond.  I know this won't be the last expansion, If you have read the book Illidan I would hazard a guess from the end on where we will be going next.  however, let's take a quick look at what I want.

     Story is a big thing for me.  The last couple of expansions have been amazing (mostly) on story.  Pandaria was probably the expansion that sticks in my mind the most as a great example of story telling.  There wasn't a raid from Mogu'shan vaults, to Siege of Ogrimmar that had us wondering why we where there.  Story was given over the course of the expansion in good doses.  This made the expansion feel constantly fresh and interesting.  Every major patch had a minor event or something you interacted with that made what you character felt like what they did mattered.  This is what we need more of in Wow, this is what made Warlords feel so flat.  There was nothing outside of your garrsion in Warlords to interact with after the first bit.  Well, there was Tanaan jungle, but it was more of run around than participate in a story.

      I want more meaningful story in Legion and here on out.  Use Pandaria as your template.  I've said this before, but from the slow opening of the Isle of Thunder to Krasarang Wilds and landing your army everything you did felt driven and purposeful.  They lost that magic this last expansion, and I hope they see that and figure out how to fix this.

     Speaking of storylines, I want to see the different factions move and evolve.  Blizzard has a tendency to introduce a race and then just leave them there... in limbo.  I mean, what has been the major change for the Worgen since the beginning of Cataclysm?  Nothing.  Goblins, Worgen, Blood Elves, most of the races stay static.  Even the old races.  Forsaken, Dwarves, most of them feel like there are little advance behind the lines but there isn't much progress.

      Every now and then we get to retake gnomergon, or some such, but those events are rare.  Personally as a Forsaken I would be really worried since if we ever defeat the Legion, and the new Lich King/Scourge, and the Old Gods in the world, what then becomes what is most likely to destroy and threaten life on Azeroth?  I'm looking at you undead.  Unless something changes to give your race a place in the world you are poised to be the next big bad.  Even to most of the horde races.  Good luck with that...

     I want to see leaders and heroes step down without being corrupted and dying.  I would love to see a grey haired Varian Wrynn living peacefully in retirement while Anduin rules Stormwind.  However, in Wow everyone has to have a heroic death.  (O.k. there are a few exceptions.  Looking at you Saurfang) If they don't have that they have a tendency to be corrupted and go mad.  I'm hoping that in Legion Illidan will get a good redemption story arc, because lets be honest.  The reason people worry about Jaina Proudmore becoming a villain is because when a character in Wow is faced with personal tragedy and they get mad, they tend to slip down the villain path.

      I want a cast of side characters that stay with us.  Seeing the members of SI:7 re-appear in Warlords was nice for me.  Even though it was only a glimpse here and there it was nice to see familiar faces from Pandaria.  I would love to continually see some NPCs that go everywhere with us.  Along with characters that don't just disappear after being majorly important in an expansion.  I will be giddy with joy if I take Lag to the Paladins Class hall and Yrell is there.  Yes, we should have left her back in old Dreanor, but I don't see us just closing the portals off and pretending it doesn't exist at this point.  (I'm still for Blizzard blowing it up slowly and having us absorb the refugees that make it to Azeroth before every things gone so we can use the important characters some more)

     Last but not least, I want some new enemies.  The Legion, Orcs, and Undead are fine but one of the things that made Pandaria stand out was the Sha.  (Yes it was Old God essence, but still) Having a new threat that didn't resemble what came before was awesome.   So many enemies in Pandaria felt new and fresh that I think part of the issue we are having is that a lot of bosses lose their uniqueness when it's all orcs and ogres, all the time.  Give me Klaxxi (still want them as a playable race by the way) give us Mogu and Sha and all sorts of things we haven't seen.  Don't retread ground.

These are the things I'm hoping for not just next expansion, but going forward.

What do you all want?

Lag

Illidan- A book review.

So, I read the book Illidan by William King.  And of course I have opinions.

There may be spoilers... so quit now if you don't like 'em

Serious, spoilers ahead.  IF you read, your own fault

Spoilers.

Alright then.

     So, for those who haven't read my blog much, or haven't heard me rant, Illidan to me is one of my favorite villains in Wow.  however, I have never seen him as a villain.  To me, with the lore I've read and playing World of Warcraft III I've always felt he got forced into the position he inhabits by his own people continually turning their back on him.  Yes, he make questionable decisions, but he also made some pretty big personal sacrifices as well.  

     He infiltrated the burning legion for his people, loses eyes, gains power, but is punished by his people for taking the wrong side.  I can't defend his choice to make another Well of Eternity in Hyjal, that was a complete power play.  I also don't think his being locked up for 10,000 years by his own people was a good decision either.  I think in that case the Betrayer was betrayed.

    Then in Warcraft three he is freed and fights the burning Legion for his people despite their incarceration of him.  Of course he is a bitter character at this point.  When he takes the power and transformation for the skull of Guldan to fight the burning legion more effectively he is again punished by his own people.  Once again you can argue whether this was a "good" decision. Whether it was or not he continues to fight against the Legion and in the end is rewarded with exile.

    After that his decisions are not very good, but I feel everything after that point would have been different if his people had treated him as a hero who had helped them defeat the Legion rather than acting as if he had betrayed them again.  Which, I would argue he didn't.

    This book takes place after this, right after he has first arrived in Outland after he was rescued from Maev.  It details what happens between that point and when we killed him in black temple.  It gives some insight into his motivations, why he made some of the choices he did and what Illidan's goals were.  It also somewhat explains why he wasn't very present as we moved through that expansion unlike Arthas who popped up every other moment in Lich King.  Simply put, he was focused elsewhere.

     His motivation in this book is simple.  He wants to find a way to take the fight to the burning legion rather than waiting for them to come for him.  While he makes several decisions in this book that would be defined as evil (creating fel Orcs, sacrificing souls for power) over all his interests align with ours.  Making me think, once again if he hadn't been exiled, things would have been different. Then again he is so obsessed with his goal he might have done similar things on Azeroth.

    You basically get four point of view characters in this book.  Vandal, a demon hunter that allows you to see the Demon Hunter process, Maev who is, well Maev, and Akama.  Out of the four unfortunately for me I felt Vandal had the most interesting story arc.  In a book named Illidan it should have been Illidan but instead If felt the "sidekick" was a little more interesting.

    That brings me to my first complaint.  This books is really serious to the point of making it dry.  You have Illidan who is very serious, Maev who is essentially a female version of Illidan in seriousness and obsessiveness, Vandal whose also driven by revenge and seriousness, and then Akama, once again very serious.  We needed someone or something to put some bright points in the book or some levity.  Instead it is all a dark crawl to the end page.

    My second complaint is there is underutilized side characters in here.  Prince Kael'thas and Lady Vashj are in there on the side, but have no real interesting dialog or even part in the book. They kind of show up in the beginning, then are mentioned a few times on the side.  Maev has her small contingent of night elves, but even the two main ones (I forget their names, they were that important) never get a moment to shine.  Those two should have been built up so when they are killed later you actually care rather then going, um... ok, I'm over it.

     My third complaint is this book should have been longer.  Instead of digging into details it feels it gives you a quick path of what happened with Illidan in outland.  They could have dug in and gone into greater detail in several places.  They could have build more character into several folks but instead we get just enough to tell the story.  I feel there is a lost opportunity here.

     That aside I did enjoy this book.  I found seeing Illidan's point of view on things interesting as he amassed power in Outland.  He does have several choices that do put him in the villain box including betraying Akama and planning on torturing Maev when she's captured at the end.  He had a definite "the means justify the ends" problem.   At the same time you see his motivation is that he has seen the Legion for what it is.  He has seen the fate of the worlds they have destroyed and he is driven in a desire to stop them before they lay waste to Azeroth.  His belief of course is that the only way to do that is to go defeat them on their home turf, rather than waiting for them to show up and invade.

    I enjoyed that right before the end there is a promise of redemption shown to him, not that he believed it was possible.  We of course know he's coming back (if you've played the Alpha you know a little more about why)  I for one, want to replay the Demon hunter campaign and look for a couple of names now.  I am pretty sure after reading this book he will be on our side completely, if not trusted by the rest of our leaders.

My rating on this book is 3 of 5 stars.  It's good and worth reading, just don't get your expectations up for something new or a thrill ride.  If you don't play World of Warcraft, I would look up know your lore articles from Matt Rossi or Anne Stickney on Illidan before reading so you know the background that will help this book make sense.

Please note, this is the first World of Warcraft novel I have read.  I have a couple in may stack but I moved this one to the front because of Legion's approach.

Lag

Legion Has a Date, Death of Vanilla.

First big news, Legion has it's release date.

   We will all be grabbing our swords and girding up our loins for battle on August 30th 2016.  A little over half a month before their released by date of Sept. 23rd.  This I believe is a good thing.  I'm a little surprised they are announcing it at this point, the game is still in Alpha but hey, I trust they know what they are doing.  And I'll be honest, I think a lot of the Alpha has served the purpose the Beta has in past expansions.  I think the only reason they are calling it an Alpha and not a Beta is to keep folks from making assumptions about how far along the game cycle is.

     This means folks I haven't seen in a while in game will be coming back together.  We will be gathering up our forces and hitting the raids and hopefully downing a few baddies along the way.  I really want to hop in on a Demon Hunter... The class has been fun to play around with, but Lag may still be my main just for consistency sake.

    I am hoping, as they said this would be a longer pre-patch then other expansions this means we will get our 7.0 drop in June.  That is a month and a half away for those who are counting.  While I think the overall game won't be ready by then, I could see the class specs and other such things being ready to ship at that point.  I imagine if you prebought the game, Demon Hunters might be released at that point too.

    The other news is the fact Blizzard shut down a big private Vanilla server.  Nostalrius was a server based on the original implementation of the game that was being run outside of Blizzard's purview, and Blizzard finally stepped in and shut it down.  Now fans are up in arms over this, and there is now a petition going around for Blizzard to open up a Vanilla realm of their own for players to play on.  Which is fine.  What is not fine is the uproar.

     I'm sorry, a private server using someone else's technology and code is illegal.  Yes, I'm sure it was nice to have a Vanilla server to play on, but you are playing on code that was stolen from Blizzard so if they step up and say "No!" you have no ground to stand on.

    If I befriended Brandon Sanderson, got ahold of one of his first drafts of Mistborn, and started selling it I would be stealing his intellectual property.  (Now, to be fair I'm not sure anyone was making a profit off Nostralrius) He would have the right to sue me for distributing what wasn't a finished, or optimum work even if I left his name on it.  The fact Blizzard just shut these guys down, but doesn't seem to be making a bigger smack down, which I'm sure they could, is points to them.

    That being said, if you want to petition Blizzard for a Vanilla server I'm behind that.  Go play a Vanilla server for a while.  Other than the fact you will be forced to build a stronger community to find groups etc... you will also be reminded of the grinding and pain.  But I would love for Blizzard to host a couple of servers of pre-iterations of World of Warcraft.  That would be cool.

Anyway, that is my rantings for this Week.

Lag.

My Warcraft and Waning Passion.

This is something I think about a bit.

      What is the drive to run around in Azeroth swinging a big sword in a virtual environment?  I will be honest, I have tried other MMOs, but none have been able to pull me in like World of Warcraft has.

     Of course, I pushed myself to get into this at the beginning.  It was something my siblings where doing that looked interesting.  Many first toons where created and deleted as I leveled and played around.  As a matter of fact, if I hadn't been this way my first main character would have been a warlock.  Or a rogue.  Those where the two classes That interested me the most at first.

     Then I decided to try a gnome mage.  Pyreknight was born and leveled as fire.  He didn't level cap until Burning Crusade was live, but he was the first character that I kept pushing until he made that far.  When I got there I was able to learn to dungeon it was with the help of me brudderplaying his then warrior Llyria as a tank.  Gwen would heal on her druid, Me, my wife, and my brother-in-law would dps on rogue, mage, and hunter.  There was a lot of stumbling and figuring things out as we went.  But it was good times.

     About the end of Burning Crusade, beginning of Wrath is the first time I think the story actually started mattering to me.  Before that it was going in, lighting stuff on fire, and getting out was my game.  I was going into fights not caring about backstory or why this big dude in front of me deserved a fireball to the face, or an arrow as my hunter Lazyeye eventually started to take over being my main.  I just cared about the fun of the fight.

    Arthas changed that.  I knew his name, I'd played a little bit of Warcraft III and now I had a villain I was a little familiar with.  I started paying attention to what was going around me and the who and why of things.  I bought Warcraft III and played through to get a grasp on the "what happened before."  Then when our tank defected from the raid team I power leveled a DK to learn to tank on to keep us going.  (Quick note, the tank defecting was not my brother.)  The dose of story in the DK gave that character a little bit more meaning to me.  However, in Trial of the Champions I got sick of the fact my DK would just die in three hits with some bad RNG from the boss, and I started leveling Lag.  My mostly main ever since.

    Lag had started out as a joke.  He was a dwarf who would get into trade and complain about how nobody like "Lag" and all he ever wanted to be was loved.  It was fun to see people virtually roll their eyes at the bad joke my character was.  He would even get mad and say things like "lag has killed more players in this game then you ever will..."

     Not liking the animations of dwarfs (and lets be honest, they aren't that great to look at) I rerolled as a human.  This time leveling I payed attention to the dialog of the quests.  I made sure I understood what was going on around me.  The story was important.  I refused to leave areas until I finished their quests and I still managed to climb quickly to a point where I could take over for my DK as the tank.  Lag was geared and ready before we stepped into the bastion of ICC.

    Since that time the story had driven my passion as much as the game play itself.  While I love my guildies, I am mostly a solo player.  I enjoy a good raid, but I enjoy just leveling and poking at things on my own quite a bit too.  I have a bit of social anxiety in the game as I have a hard time getting to know new players, or trying new groups because it just makes me nervous.  This is why I have characters in AIE and Convert to raid, but I don't talk much.  I just listen to what people have to say and pay attention.  I haven't grouped much with either guild as well because I just haven't gotten that comfortable in there.

    Warlords has strained my passion a lot as well.  I feel the endgame story has been severely lacking compared to what we saw in Pandaria and it has effected my desire to play.  I felt there was not clear drive going into Highmaul.  We are going to fight ogres.  Cool, why?  Iron horde member is in there.  Well we killed him first, why not leave?  Story wise while the Ogres where a threat, they didn't feel like something we needed to completely focus on.  When we went to the Blackrock Foundry and decided to kill Blackhand that felt more like it.  We where fighting Iron horde and this felt important to the story.

     But we were not getting story outside of the raid.  The legendary quest involved us having to raid.  The dailies and garrison quests where all the stuff we where doing from the start of the raid cycle.  There was the weekly garrison quest, but once you finished that, then what?

      When the current raid Hellfire Citadel dropped I was looking forward to more.  Tanaan Jungle here we come!

       But all we got was a drop.

      There was a quick shipyard quest which soon became more dailies to manage that was just clicking a button, oh and this time you can be punished by not succeeding and you can lose that ship you worked so hard to level up.  Ha Ha.

     Tanaan Jungle had little story in it to me as well.  Cool, we are here.  We have a base, and now... now just sit there and hope something interesting happens.  Oh, you've explored everything.  Well at least you have the raid.  You wanted storyline?  Raid.

      No isle of thunder where different objectives unlocked things.  No Krasarang wilds where we where involved in an unfolding story line as we brought our armies to a new land.  Nothing to pull me in for more then a few hours of grinding.

      Needless to say my passion for this game has waned a bit.  Going back to school and having less time hasn't helped.  I am looking forward to Legion but if the story is left on the ground like this, I will continue to struggle.  I won't quit.  I have my guild and my friends.  Logging on to do extra things though, we will see.

     I have high hopes because Cataclysm which was largely complained about led us into Pandaria which is my second favorite expansion, after Wrath.

      There will be other challenges as well.  With my new job raid nights are going to shift to Monday, and Tuesday night.  The other nights I'm going to be working.  That means another shift and another hope that folks will be able to shift as well.  School is going to be a thing for me for at least another year.  That means my time is cut down significantly.

     Blizzard, I love your game.  Please draw me back in again.  Give me more than one or two NPCs I can care about, (Bye Yrell) and let me have the story outside the raid.  Feel important to me.

Lag.

My Raiding Evolution.

Just thinking about how raiding has changed and shifted for me over the years.

      For the first time since the end of Burning Crusade, I am have not been in a raid for more than three months.  I haven't felt a loss here as I've been busy.  As a matter of fact I have to finish my A+ certification before June, or I'm going to retake, or wait to take the test.  Lot's of fun.  Big challenge.  I can do it.

     Anyway, I think about how much I used to raid and the ways I used to and I find it an interesting process.

    I first started raiding around the end of Burning Crusade. The first time I raided it was with the guild Midnight (Now defunct) on Zangarmarsh.  This is where I really started to grow relationships with other players outside of Fear Itself.  I had bounced around on a side character and ended up joining them.  A lot of the players that pop in and out of game for me still come from that guild, and I have a great bunch of memories surrounding my time there.  Lazyeye (My hunter) was the first character I had that managed to see action.  The only raid I really stepped in was Karazhan, but it was a good start.

      Wrath was where I hit my first stride.  I was pugging into raid constantly to get a good look at what was going on inside.  I was also running with Midnight for the first little bit.  Then there where some issue in the guild I won't go into... and end of story me and my wife were no longer welcome by the guild leaders.  This is something I have let go of over the years as a lot of the relationships from that guild lasted until folks stopped playing, and still last in various forms today.  I know my wife still holds a bit of a grudge, but since the guild leaders don't play on Zangarmarsh, or don't play at all anymore for all I know, it's kind of a moot point.

     This was when I started leading raids in Fear Itself.  Naxxramas fun. First raid I ever led we went into 10 man, and I had forgot that I had been running in a 25 man earlier.  Strangely, we couldn't figure out why the first couple of spider pulls was just leveling our raid.  Then someone saw we were set for 25... Oh fun memories.  The comfort of pugging and epic feel of this expansion has let this as my favorite expansion still.

    I continued to lead all through Wrath and into Catalcysm.

    Now people like to talk negatively about Cata, and out of the different expansions it admittedly was not the best.  However, this is the expansion where we probably had the strongest raiding presence.  We got tripped up in Firelands a bit, very true, but otherwise we had probably the most consistent raid team that Fear Itself has ever fielded.   I have fond memories of some of the fights.  Deathwing's back.  Magilla getting life-gripped (leap of faithed) by Aeryn at the beginning of a pull.  For all the complaints, Cata has a bit of my heart in it for these reasons.

     Pandaria is probably my second favorite expansion.  The strides Blizzard his with story telling and leveling content was wonderful here.  I am surprised as a matter of fact that we didn't have any content in Warlords that echoed the story experience we saw in Krasarang wilds during the second big patch.  Or the Isle of Thunder.  However, I feel that the wonder these created has been missed this expansion which is why there is so much boredom and heartburn.

     As far as raiding in Pandaria, I enjoyed it, but by the end I was feeling some burn and fatigue.  Constant shake ups in the raid team started to wear as us.  It seemed we had several players who would disappear for a while, then re-appear months later.  The stress should have been fixed with flex raiding, but it wasn't.  We had several periods where we had to skip raid for attendance, and our headaches really began at this point.

     Now as far as Warlords go, I have a lot of irritation with this expansion.  The leveling experience was wonderful and promising... the first time.  The raiding experience was O.k., but we never really got out feet underneath us this expansion to properly experience it.   Once again we were plagued by folks stepping in and out.  I had hoped starting with flex raids would help cure this.  I love the model, but even starting with more than ten folks, it wasn't long before people just stopped showing.  As a matter of fact, this expansion is the first time we have put raiding on hold while waiting for another expansion.

     In Legion we will see how it goes.  I am hoping folks come back for the new expansion and we are able to keep enough fresh blood in to build something back up.  I'm looking forward to seeing Gul'dan go down and seeing where to story goes to next.  I am hoping for a redemption arc for Illidan.  I'm tired of seeing heroes go down and get corrupted.  I would love to see some folks get saved.

How has your raiding experience changed over the years?  How do you think Legion will affect it?

Lag.

Time-Management and Little Broken Things

Legion is still several months away, and I'm already pondering raiding.

     First of all, yes, this is on my mind.  Due to the fact for the first time in over ten years of playing Wow I haven't been spending tons of time online I worry about where things are going to be when Legion launches.

     If I get the job I'm looking at right now, weekend raiding will probably be out.  However, doing raiding on the week nights will probably exclude the guild leader if she is not done with school.  Then there is the hope that people will come back and want to raid.  I'm not sure with this being the first time the guild has actually taken a break from raiding when it wasn't the beginning of an expansion how it's going to effect things.  I could sign on Legion launch day and find out that half the folks that normally raid with us have moved on, or that they decided not to come back with the new expansion.  I don't know at this point.

     I can't promise anything is going to change for a bit either.  Right now I'm working on my A+ certification in my classes, which means my brain is geared on school right now.  This certification opens up some doors to be that will otherwise be closed.  It's funny to think that when I started school at DATC I was talking about getting a few certifications to improve my work skills.  Now I'm discussing going all the way to my BA potentially.  At my age thinking about all that schooling is a scary thing.  I am weighing the financial rewards against the fact that by the time I get my BA my oldest will probably be a senior in High School.  The fact that means I will be wrapped up in school for a large part of her teenage years makes me ponder if it is worth it.  It will be time to take stock when I get my associates here probably in about a year from now.   We will see.

    As far as Wow goes, I've not done much in the Legion Alpha.  That whole priorities thing.  I did use tax money to prepay for Legion and I have that level 100 boost staring at me, but I'm not exactly rushing on that account since I already have maxed, or close to maxed every class in the game.  I may boost my mage on Aerie Peak, but I don't want to blow the free boost and then never play the character.  So I will sit on it for a while.

      Yes, this is a early morning, organizing thoughts post.  I apologize to any who wanted something deep and meaningful about the state of the game or what the newest buzz on Demon Hunters is.  Right now things are pretty simple.

      Wow will be there for a long time yet.  Legion is coming.  I'm predicting that subscriptions before Legion drops hits an all time low.   Then I'm predicting that the amount of players that come back at the expansion drop "surprises everyone!"  The same way that Warlords did when it shot back up to 10 million subscribers.  I don't know if I would predict 10 million again.  But I don't think 8 or 9 is out of the question.  There are a lot of Wow players who want the game as it was during Wrath to come back.  (By the way it won't, the game evolves forward, not backwards) and with all the new shininess they will hope this is it.  It might have a lot of similar feelings and nostalgia, but it won't be Wrath.  As a matter of fact even though Wrath was my favorite expansion, I personally don't want it to be.  I want it to be it's own thing.

     So here I am, feeling broken and timeless during the game.  I am logging on for maybe 30 minutes 3-4 times a week just to make sky golems to sale.  I'm hoping that before Legion drops I can find a way to get my groove in game back.  But time will tell.

Lag.

Will Warlord's of Draenor Matter?

So, the expansion has been over for a little while now.

      We have trounced the Warlords fairly quickly and the threat has ended.  For all intents and purposes our time in the alternate universe Draenor is at an end.  But other than putting down and army that was going to invade out world what does this expansion matter in the coming narrative?  Why, two expansions from now are we going to feel like this expansion mattered.

      The other expansions had big endings that mattered.  In Burning Crusaide we found the Sons of Lothar who had been stranded for years, rediscovered the orcs home world and defeated Illidan.  Because this was also in our timeline characters from Outland are able to travel to our world and back so we get to see characters again, and at the end of the expansion we had stopped the Legion for coming into our world via the Sunwell.  With the Sunwell restored the Blood elves found some hope to beat their magic addiction, and the Draenei where secured at part of the Alliance.

      In Wrath of the Lich King we all banded together to defeat Arthas.  Their is a reason this is a lot of people's favorite expansion, including my own.  We ended (for now) the undead threat of the scourge which had been looming since Warcraft III.  Garrosh was introduced as a general for the horde and it was the first time that Raiding felt more open to people.  Once again characters from this expansion have popped up and made it feel relevant as we go forth.  There is a reason that is part of my theme....

     Cataclysm brought a lot of change.  As much as people complained about this expansion it did a lot for us.  The leveling experience and old world was vastly improved.  Death wing appeared and everyone was excited the first time they got the achievement for him flying overhead and burning you to death.  Garrosh became warchief of the Horde, and we felt like we saved Azeroth when we finally took Deathwing down.  Goblins and Worgen where great additions as well.  Once again as we go forth characters from places we discovered re-appear and matter.

     Pandaria is probably my second favorite expansion.  The storytelling side of Blizzard excelled here and we where drawn into this unknown continent and both the Alliance and Horde had to take a hard look at what their actions caused to a peaceful people.  At the end of this expansion, when Garrosh took power a step too far, and we had to remove him it drastically changed the face of the Horde.  It also showed us that Blizzard was not afraid to shake up the power dynamics of the factions.  Once again, with the pandarian there are several characters here that I feel will keep popping up and the changes this expansion brought will be lasting.

     So now we come to Warlords of Draenor.  I'm going to get my first complaint out right away.  Nothing we did will matter other than stopping the army coming to invade us.  Garrosh has lost power and his death really doesn't change much.  He was more a device to get us into this alternate universe.  Had he been executed for his crimes it wouldn't have made much difference.  Everyone we went back and killed or fought in this alternate Draenor, other than maybe having a large butterfly effect on their universe it won't do anything to our timeline.  As a matter of fact, if we had just found a way to close the Dark Portal on our side, (I find it convenient that we couldn't, but it took a short suicide mission to destroy it on the other side) We would have been better off.  We wouldn't have lost any soldiers, and we would have saved Azeroth quickly.

     I'll give you that Legion is started because of Gul'dan being taken by the legion and used as an agent, but that could have been any agent in our world doing this.  The only reason that it matters Gul'dan is the one to do it is because we know his name.  Other than Gul'dan though there is no reason for us to see Alternate Draenor characters again,  Their world is saved.  Their timeline is wrecked but there is no reason for them to come to our Azeroth when there is so much to rebuild in their world.  It would have been a lot more relevant if we had lost over there, the Legion had started to destroy the world and we had mass evacuated all the orcs and Draenei we could save.  Then there would be a lasting impact.  Right now, it's just that story where we played with time travel.

    Don't get me started on the fact that in the ending cinematic Grommash  is treated like he didn't just try to commit mass genocide and invade our world.

      There is a lot of good that will come from Warlords.  The garrison idea if improved so that we don't avoid the world was fantastic. (Guild housing please Blizzard) The leveling experience was great.  End game, O.k..  I'm kinda of tired of fighting orcs right now.  The new tiered raiding experience I think is great, and I love the flexibility of the raid system.  There is a lot of good mechanics and story there to remember.

     There are characters I'm going to remember like Yrel who made the whole Alliance leveling experience feel important.  Meeting Thrall's parents Draka and Durotan was memorable, though I feel they failed to make as big an impact as they could of.  (I wish Thrall had revealed to them his relation at the end but if he did I missed it completely)  Seeing Cho'gall again was interesting though most of us missed the end of his story.  (Story being gated for hardcore raiders is not cool, stop it Blizzard)

      But as far as lasting impact, I think this will be one of the expansions that will be remembered, as not really mattering.

Lag.