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This week at Bungie, we’re counting down the minutes till Warmind.

In recent months, a series of updates for Destiny 2 has added some quality-of-life improvements to the game. On May 8, we’ll deliver even more. Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

Cheers to Vicarious Visions for their passion and dedication to the craft of creating amazing experiences for players. They’ve been wonderful partners with us on this journey. With Destiny 2 PC and Warmind under our collective belts, we’re excited about the future of this collaboration. Before you see their contribution to the world of Destiny, Creative Director Brent Gibson has a message from his team:

Brent: The team at Vicarious Visions have been fans of Destiny long before we started working with Bungie on this amazing franchise. While working alongside our counterparts at Bungie, we’ve met the challenge of expanding the Destiny universe and we are beyond thrilled that the day is nearly here! We are honored to have added to this rich world with passionate fans numbering in the millions. This is the kind of thing that game developers dream about. We are fortunate enough to not only add to the gameplay experience, but the franchise as a whole by bringing the legendary Hunter, Ana Bray, to life! She has carried our banner through this entire journey and we can’t wait for you to meet her on this adventure. See you on Mars on May 8!

On Approach

We’ve had a lot of fun hosting “Warmind Week” on the blog. There’s a lot we want you to know before you plot a course for Mars. If you missed a beat, here’s a recap.

We’ve also released two new Developer Insights to give more details on what to expect when Warmind launches. Creative Director Brent Gibson from Vicarious Visions and Design Lead Evan Nikolich from Bungie shed light on the state of Mars, Rasputin, and the enemies you’ll be introduced to. Sandbox Design Lead Josh Hamrick and Senior Crucible Designer Kevin Yanes walk us through the Exotic Masterwork weapon process, with additional information about Crucible Ranks, which will be available to all players when Season 3 begins on May 8.

Season 3: Exotics and Crucible

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Warmind

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Patch Note Preview

In previous articles, we’ve been diving deep into the details of design goals for some of the larger changes coming in Season 3. There’s quite a bit more to Destiny Update 1.2.0, so here’s a quick overview of feature changes and bug fixes that will also be deployed next week:

The full suite of patch notes will be published on May 8 shortly before Warmind becomes available. We’re currently targeting a 10 AM release, but stay tuned to @Bungie for announcements.

Details on Design

The Exotic Sandbox that you’re familiar with is about to change. We’ve had Senior Sandbox Designer Jon Weisnewski on the hot seat to talk us through the upcoming changes on stream and on the blog. You may have seen some demonstrations of new and improved Exotic weaponry this week. Some of the changes have some nuance to them, so here he is again with the exact details on how your arsenal is evolving:

Jon: Due to a lengthy update this week, I’m going to keep my section short. This’ll be the last Exotic tease from me. After this week, you’ll be playing with all of the new changes!

Risk Runner: We gave Arc Conductor increased resistance to incoming Arc damage (50%) and enabled it in the Crucible. Arc Conductor will now activate when the weapon is stowed, but damage resistance will only work when the weapon is in your hands. This was already a strong gun for PvE. We’re hoping these changes give it a place in some interesting Crucible load outs, strategies, and counters.

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Sweet Business: If you run this gun, you probably just want to shoot forever. We gave it a capped ammo inventory of 999. It’s not forever, but it’s a lot.

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D.A.R.C.I.: This Sniper Rifle now grants 4x damage once locked on a target (exact scaling depends on activity, difficulty, light level delta, etc). It shouldn’t take a master strategist to figure out how this will benefit you in PvE. Any Crucible combat snipers will also want to give this gun a try; it’s got a: 7 round magazine, reduced zoom for closer engagements, and an aim assist stat retuned to be more generous when you haven’t locked a target yet for better results while drag sniping.

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Lastly, I want to quickly acknowledge the whole team, which has been working really hard to get Exotic weapons in Update 1.2.0 ready for you over the past few months. I’ve been the one doing the talking, but it has been far from a solo effort. In particular, there’s a group of testers who has come to the table daily to both ensure these changes are bug-free, and also provide us with bone-breaking player feedback. The team has done a tremendous job at helping dial in a sweet spot for many of the guns. A billion thanks to them!

Mixing Things Up a Little

Destiny Updates 1.1.2, 1.1.3, and 1.1.4 have brought quality-of-life changes to Destiny 2. Update 1.2.0 is almost here to bring more community-requested features to the table. Senior Investment Designer Daniel Auchenpaugh has details on the upcoming Heroic strike modifiers and the new Legendary Nightfall Challenge Card.

Dan: In Season 3, we’ve increased the baseline difficulty of Heroic strikes to make combatants more aggressive and make the experience feel more, well, Heroic. Additionally, at any given time the Heroic strike playlist will have three modifiers on it: one Burn (rotates weekly), one Advantage (rotates daily), and one Disadvantage (rotates daily). 

Here’s a quick rundown of what you can expect in those categories:

We’re excited to see players reaching new top scores through a variety of modifiers on the Legendary Nightfall Challenge Card. Here are the top scoring fireteams from last week’s Nightfall, “A Garden World”: 

Prismatic Matrix

At release, the Prismatic Matrix will feature 10 Eververse items from Season 3 each week it is active. Each item within the Prismatic Matrix is on a knockout list, which means every player is guaranteed to receive all featured items for a given week by the tenth activation. Earning items via Bright Engrams, Bright Dust, or previous Matrix activations will also knock rewards off the list. In turn, each activation guarantees players an item that they have never previously acquired.

With your first well-rested level-up each week, you’ll earn a Prismatic Facet, allowing one free use of the Prismatic Matrix. Prismatic Facets stack up to 3, so make sure to have proper inventory space before earning a rank-up on a given week. Players can also purchase more activations for 200 Silver each.

Outside of the Prismatic Matrix, players may continue to earn Bright Engrams each time they level up, and they can still purchase these engrams if they want a chance to get everything from the Season 3 catalog. Additionally, we’re increasing the number of items available from Tess each week with Bright Dust, from 14 to 18 items.

We want to continue experimenting and evolving Eververse to improve player experience, and give more paths to earn Eververse rewards. Please give us your feedback once Season 3 begins, as we’re dedicated to improving these systems moving forward.

Run of Show

  

With each update, Destiny Player Support is on standby to ensure the package has been delivered to your platform without issue. The following information will guide you to your first steps in Hellas Basin:

Destiny 2 Server Maintenance

Services will be brought offline for maintenance on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. During this time, Destiny 2: Warmind, Update 1.2.0, and Hotfix 1.2.0.1 will become available to players. Please see below for the timeline of the maintenance window.

If you encounter any issues when playing Season 3 or Warmind content, please post a report to the #Help forum.

Moving Pictures

The title of “Movie of the Week” is frequently earned by those who showcase skill in the Crucible, or moments of success against overwhelming odds in endgame activities. This week, we’re looking at the word “creation” in a more literal sense…

Movie of the Week: Ana Bray SpeedArt

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Honorable Mention: Herald

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I think we’re at five more sleeps until Warmind? Depends on your caffeine intake.

Tuesday, Warmind goes live at 11  AM. Friday, May 11, the Spire of Stars raid lair goes live at 10 AM. Who among you will take the challenge head on? We’ll be watching and calling a World’s First. Good luck!

As a reminder, Season 2 ends with the launch of Warmind. This is your final weekend to earn Season 2 rewards from activities and Bright Engrams. Make sure to check with the Vanguard, Crucible, Iron Banner, and Trials of the Nine for your last chance to earn Season 2 ornaments before they’re gone.

It’s almost time to head to Mars. See you next week.

Cheers,

Dmg04

Celebrate National Space Day with some stellar games

Happy National Space Day, everybody! Today is dedicated to the fascinating topic of space and the brilliant explorers, educators and researchers who study it. It’s the perfect day to go out and learn something new about the cosmos!

And if you want a quick break from your space studies, here are a few games that are, some would say, out of this world. Each game features a few spacey elements, so hopefully this will inspire you on your future space voyages*!

Super Mario Odyssey™
Kirby™ Star Allies
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Warp Shift
Flinthook
Astro Bears Party
Astro Duel Deluxe
Graceful Explosion Machine

*Or trips to your local library. That’s probably more likely…for now.

Games Shown:

One of the hottest games on Xbox One is about to get hotter as Miramar, the desert-themed map in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), is now available to play on a dedicated test server, ahead of its launch in the Xbox Game Preview version of the game in late May.

To access the Miramar test server, download the standalone “PUBG Test Server” client directly from the Microsoft Store and prepare to experience the latest addition to the most intense battle royale game on Xbox One. Note, you must own PUBG on Xbox One to download and access the Miramar test server.

The Miramar test server will include the new map, as well as new vehicles and weapons. As the map is in a pre-general release period of development during the test server period, some aspects of the map may not function as expected. Connection to the Public Test Server will only be available during specific periods and players may experience extended wait times due to a limited pool of players. You can find more details about the Miramar test server at: https://forums.playbattlegrounds.com/forum/185-news-announcements/

During the test period and beyond, the PUBG Community Team will be actively listening and responding to player feedback, so please be sure and share your comments, questions and concerns to the PUBG forum listed above.

In keeping with the community-driven development we’ve built the game upon, we’re looking forward to receiving input from the PUBG Xbox community and using that feedback to help us optimize and tweak the overall gameplay experience.

Thank you again for your support throughout PUBG’s development in Xbox Game Preview. Our goal to bring fans the ultimate battle royale game on Xbox One relies on making the community an integral part of the ongoing process of optimizing the overall PUBG experience. Being part of this early Miramar test helps us deliver on our commitment to bringing players high-octane action on new maps as we near its general availability on the Xbox Game Preview version in late May.

See you in the game!

We all love Pikachu; for people of a certain age (this writer included), that adorable little yellow face is a perfect representation of their entire childhood, when nothing else in life mattered except ‘catching em’ all’. As it turns out, things could have been very different for the electric rodent.

Ken Sugimori, Atsuko Nishida, and Koji Nishino, key illustrators and designers of the Pokémon series, recently sat down with Japanese newspaper Yomiuri to talk all things Pikachu (translated by Siliconera). When asked about Pikachu’s evolution stages, and if there were any other designs created, Nishida spoke of an early idea for a pretty scary sounding final evolution.

“Yes. It was “Pika(chu),” “Rai(chu),” and “Goro(chu).” The Pokémon known as Gorochu bared fangs and even had a pair of horns.”

The word “Goro” comes from the Japanese phrase “Goro-Goro”, which is used as an onomatopoeic description of large rumbles such as thunder, suggesting that this final evolution may have been a colossal beast of the electric mouse family.

Of course, Gorochu never made it into the games, but it wasn’t scrapped because of its scary nature, or from fear that it wouldn’t suit Pikachu’s loveable ways, as Sugimori explains.

“There wasn’t any problem with its appearances, but it was omitted due to matters surrounding game balance.”

Was it too strong? Or did it simply not fit well alongside the rest of the original 151? We’ll likely never know.

Do you think a final, beast-like evolution for Pikachu could have worked well? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Last month SNK confirmed it was working on a ‘Neo Geo Classic Edition’ to mark its 40th anniversary, but bar an image showing ‘something’ draped mysteriously beneath a cloth we were left to wonder what such a throwback machine could be. YouTuber Spawn Wave may have potentially lifted the lid on these hotly-anticipated project, with some images, specs and features he says are direct from a reliable source (although not one within SNK itself).

According to his source, the hardware is called a Neo Geo Mini, is shaped like an arcade cabinet, features HDMI output (plus DC in and AV/AUX out), a built-in joystick and comes with 40 built-in Neo Geo classics. These games are:

• The King of Fighters ’95
  
• The King of Fighters ’97
  
• The King of Fighters ’98
  
• The King of Fighters 2000
  
• The King of Fighters 2002
  
• Art of Fighting
  
• Fatal Fury Special
  
• Real Bout Fatal Fury
  
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves
  
• Samurai Shodown II
  
• Samurai Shodwon IV
  
• Samurai Shodown V Special
  
• The Last Blade 2
  
• World Heroes Perfect
  
• Kizuna Encounter
  
• Metal Slug
  
• Metal Slug 2
  
• Metal Slug 3
  
• King of the Monsters 2
  
• Shock Troopers 2nd Squad
  
• Sengouku3
  
• Ninja Masters
  
• Top Player’s Golf
  
• Super Sidekicks
  
• Blazing Star
  
• Puzzled
  
• Metal Slug X
  
• Metal Slug 4
  
• Metal Slug 5
  
• Magician Lord
  
• King of the Monsters
  
• Blue’s Journey
  
• Shock Troopers
  
• Robo Army
  
• Crossed Swords
  
• Mutation Nation
  
• 3 Count Bout
  
• Last Resort
  
• Ghost Pilots
  
• Football Frenzy

It also comes with its own gamepad, so you can either play it on its three-and-a-half-inch screen or output to your TV and play them all with your USB-connected controller. There’s no word on price yet, but considering what it would cost you a considerable amount to invest in all the Neo Geo titles HAMSTER has already released on Switch (a large number of which feature in the list above), we don’t expect it to be exorbitantly expensive.

Obviously, none of these details have been officially confirmed by SNK, so take it with a pinch of salt, but it’s certainly an exciting prospect nonetheless. Let us know what you make of it below…

Play Offworld Trading Company for FREE starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup Offworld Trading Company at 50% off the regular price!*

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If you want to start a fight among Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplayers, just ask them about their views on “alignment.”

The game, and many others inspired by it, is well known for its three by three grid of moral persuasions; one axis ranges from Good to Neutral to Evil. It’s the second dimension here, an innovation of earlier editions of D&D, which became far more interesting and far more controversial; the one that purports to measure how “Lawful” or “Chaotic” you are. It turns morality into a set of coordinates: Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Good, Neutral Evil, and so on, with nine combos in all.

But, quite arguably, it’s the meaning of “Lawful Good” which causes the most dissension, sitting as it does at a controversial collision of conflicting, received notions about law and justice. It even led to the coining of a popular bon mot among D&D and Pathfinder players who push back against simplistic interpretations of moral alignments: “It’s Lawful Good, not Lawful Stupid.” The admonition is meant to be a way of stopping players from “roleplaying” Lawful Good characters in ways that are mockeries of virtuous behavior–charging into the mouth of a dragon because it seems selfless, worshipping rules however banal or pointless they are, et cetera.

The subject has fascinated me not only because Lawful Good was my favorite alignment, but because so much of the controversy around it exposed a good deal about the moral assumptions we would bake into game mechanics. It’s profoundly instructive for anyone who tries to make a mechanic of morality in their games or who wants their title to express moral ideas in a thought provoking way.

It also illuminates the many problems we have portraying morality in games at present.

***

The morality mechanics of D20 inspired games were always controversial, especially for those who played classes that had strict morality requirements, like Druids or Paladins. During roleplay, one false move could lock you out of your class and– more urgently– start a neverending philosophical debate at the game table. As a mechanic it’s meant to provide girders for the moral dimensions of your roleplay, a way to quantify it and provide rewards or consequences for how you RP.

This is where we run into a classic problem of game mechanics; much is lost in the translation from ineffable to quantifiable.

The D20 alignment grid shares this common failing with the primitive morality sliders that have existed in several roleplaying games, particularly in Bioware’s various outings over the years. What results from these aggregates of points, of additions and subtractions, is twofold: one, any worthwhile exploration of morality is lost in the mercilessness of scoring, and second, that players are compelled to game the system rather than play with it.

Image via StarWarsRP.net

The distinction there is important. When I played Knights of the Old Republic, for example, I did what I quickly learned would net me “light side points”– it became a simple matter of picking the obviously virtuous option, which was often declarative, simplistic and ethically uncomplicated, ultimately in the service of ensuring I played a “good” character (I felt guilty otherwise) and getting that lovely column of light around her in the character screen. But what I could never be encouraged to do in such a system is make anything other than a binary choice to achieve that predetermined state; it did not teach me much that I didn’t already know from basic, inoffensive, moral education.

Put very brutally, both alignment and good/evil sliders are like moral vending machines that yield to the inputs of sufficient kindness (or evilness) coins, not unlike romance systems which were actually structured very similarly.

Can they be saved, however? Yes, I think, and the answers are already out there in the form of more flexible and thought-provoking forms of gameplay.

***

In the Pathfinder roleplaying game adventure Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, your characters meet the crusader goddess Iomedae, an armor clad, sword-wielding divine embodiment of Lawful Good in the Pathfinder universe. She quizzes your party with three essay-worthy questions about morality to test their moral fibre for the challenges she is about to task them with.  She asks, among other things, “[If] villains…beg for their lives, are they due mercy? Or are the wages of their villainy always death and oblivion?”

The “right” answer, as suggested by the authoritative voice of the book includes the following:

“Iomedae is not looking for a specific answer to this question; rather she’s seeking hesitancy and conflict. Blindly adhering to any rule may be lawful, but is not always good—a truly lawful good person will temper rules with judgement. A paladin should never be so bound to his pursuit of the law that he loses sight of what it is to be good.”

This was music to my ears. If law in the real world is to mean anything beyond being yet another plaything of the rich and powerful, this is a notion that we could all stand to learn something from: the ability to morally judge rather than genuflect to law’s cold edifice. Through these suggestive instructions, writer Wolfgang Baur compels players to think more deeply through their moral assumptions. There is no one right answer, just a general field that tests one’s moral maturity– and mercifully, that maturity is measured by one’s ability to be nuanced.

Baur’s writing makes something abundantly clear about the whole Lawful Good debate: the ‘good’ aspect matters considerably more than the ‘lawful’ one. Put another way, Lawful Good is defined by the subservience of law to virtue; it is an expression of the conviction that laws are instrumental to justice and that, per St. Augustine, an unjust law is no law at all. It sees law as an altar that can be desecrated by immorality, not an end in itself– even if many roleplaying games and players treat it as such, as if Lawful Good must always mean blinkered adherence to anything calling itself “law.”

Baur succeeds by prising apart the assumption that what is lawful must be good and vice versa, something that remains relatively unusual in roleplaying games, sadly.

Crucially, there is also an airy dimension to this moral test that Baur wrote up, one that refuses scoring. It leaves players free to be more thoughtful and inventive without excessively scrutinizing their every word for its adherence to a narrow conception of virtue.

But what about in a video game where a player’s means of interacting are more limited?

***

The key is to create openness and room to explore through the interaction. Are you compelling the player to simply make a red vs. blue choice or can you show them something more? Knights of the Old Republic 2 had a very different moral character from its more popular predecessor and placed a good deal more emphasis on demonstrating the limits of the player’s power. Kreia, your character’s mentor throughout the game and a steely-voiced advocate for moral ambiguity, bathed you in shades of grey that forced you to question deeply held assumptions.

A rather (in)famous moment occurs when you land on the planet of Nar Shaddaa, a world-city characterised by extremes in vice and poverty. You are immediately confronted with what has long been a mainstay micro-moral choice in KotOR: a homeless man asks for spare change. What is interesting, however, is the way that Kreia intervenes: she lends you her Force sight to show you the consequences of your actions. No matter what you do, it ends badly for the poor man you’re asked to help. If you refuse him money, he stalks off in anger and beats up some of his fellow vagrants. If you give it to him, he becomes the object of their jealousy and they attack him.

“Sometimes the best morality mechanic is not to have one; other times it means using the game environment itself to express moral ideas.”

Make no mistake, this is profoundly cynical, but it works on a number of levels: illustrating Kreia’s morality, for one, and also demonstrating that sometimes you as the player cannot make everything right. Sometimes you face a situation with no good options, where tokenistic acts of morality may have unforeseen consequences. It’s an interesting case where the restriction of player choice paradoxically opens up an exploratory space for the player.

Moral expression and learning often happen under conditions of humility; we must confront our own powerlessness as much as our responsibility to justly use the power we do have. Though frustrating for players sometimes, such moments end up staying with us. Kreia’s moral musings stuck with me considerably more than some of the less interesting Light/Dark Side choices sprinkled throughout the game.

Sometimes the best morality mechanic is not to have one; other times it means using the game environment itself to express moral ideas. Dragon Age 2’s affection meter (divided between Friendship and Rivalry) was intriguing because it measured levels of emotional attachment rather than a simplistic love/hate dyad; it permitted different shades of cathexis, a committed Rival could still fall in love with Hawke or still stand with her at the climax, it just flavoured the relationship very differently. A similar mechanic could be applied to moral distinctions as well, going beyond good and evil, and lending complexity to any recreation of the law/chaos dyad.

The trick is to get the player to think outside themselves for a bit and set aside the instrumental goal of being 100% good or evil for the sake of stat bonuses or what have you. In this way, the blind obeisance to law commanded by the “lawful stupid” interpretation of Lawful Good in D20 is analogous to simple moral mechanics in videogames; each is lifelessly instrumental. Each bows before rules instead of true moral exploration.

Permitting failure, giving the player a sense of the game world beyond themselves, opening up a wider array of choices, can all contribute to making videogames more morally interesting.

There’s a long road ahead and the issues with morality mechanics tie directly into problems of choice mechanics and romance mechanics; they’re variations on the same theme of shortcomings. But there’s always hope– and that’s a thought I know my old D&D Paladin would’ve approved of.

Katherine Cross is a Ph.D student in sociology who researches anti-social behavior online, and a gaming critic whose work has appeared in numerous publications.

“An illusion!? What are you hiding?”

For anyone who’s played World of Warcraft at max level for at least a few days, those words and the exact intonation with which they’re spoken by both male and female Nightborne guards are burned into their memories. Like so many unwitting memes in video games, it captured the kind of furious audience ambivalence that points to a genuinely successful product. This is a bold claim, but I’ll try to explain.

The phrase comes from Suramar, one of the max-level zones on the Broken Isles, where WoW’s Legion expansion takes place. The province is the home of the Nightborne, descendants of the Night Elves who drank deep of arcane energy, transforming themselves in the process. Their vast capital city is the heart of the zone. It’s occupied by the Burning Legion–think, glowy green demon army–who’ve been permitted to march on the city by leaders who felt it was the only way to save the Nightborne from destruction. This fell alliance produces a fascinating questing area.

WoW and many other MMOs have no shortage of occupied, burning cities where you run around and fight the occupiers. Secret World Legends has Tokyo, Star Wars: The Old Republic has Coronet City, and so on.

“Suramar is a…reminder that you can tell a story about tragedy, diminishment, and the brutality of war without appearing wanton or childish.”

What sets Suramar apart is that Blizzard actually did a better job of demonstrating what an actual occupation looks like. Life goes on, civilians go about their business, the elite host their soirees–and there are demons patrolling the streets, harassing people and snuffing out any embers of rebellion. You can walk through it all without attracting much attention, doing quests that are not necessarily centered on killing mobs, with the help of… an illusion. A spell, cast on you by the resistance, that makes you appear as one of the willowy Nightborne, allowing you to blend in.

And thus we come to the mechanic that gave us one of WoW’s most immortal phrases. Certain guards can break your spell if you linger near them for more than a couple of seconds. They utter the line (and other, less memorable ones) when you come too close. It’s meant to keep you on your toes and always put you at risk of being descended on by a dozen guards, and it’s also a source of frustration for players who prefer a more direct approach to things.

But it’s also at the heart of what makes Suramar work. As irksome as it can be to deal with the illusion mechanic, Suramar is a much more interesting place when it’s not simply a killing field. While far from perfect, the city reveals its tensions and contradictions to the player when they’re able to wander around without having to fight. The constant risk of combat underscores the danger that lurks beneath Suramar’s surface, while making room for other sensations. Mystery, drama, political tension. This is a city where certain quests see you attend masquerade balls, put up propaganda, or help destitute Nightborne get the mana wine they so desperately need to survive. It’s also a city where you can break into a zoo and ride a gigantic dinosaur into the heart of town to feed her demons. It contains multitudes.

***

The larger story–in every sense of the term–is quite interesting. Suramar is distinguished by having one of the best story arcs for a single zone in all of WoW, made all the more remarkable by its contrast to the often overwrought injections of cheap pathos that characterize the cutscene-based beats of the expansion’s main story.

Suramar’s story begins when you’re contacted by an emaciated exile from the city, Suramar’s former High Arcanist Thalyssra, who was exiled for leading the initial rebellion against her sovereign’s choice to allow the Legion free reign on Suramar’s streets. Together, you found a headquarters for a new resistance, made up of everyone the new regime has alienated, hurt, or left behind: an expanding base of operations with its own sidequests and stories that take you all over the province, discovering no small amount of once-esoteric Warcraft lore in the process.

Eventually, you help build this resistance into a force that can retake the city and liberate it from the Legion. With some fleshing out, Suramar’s story could’ve been its own game. In an age where major studios seem to be moving away from the single-player RPG model, it was a refreshing experience to have something so well structured and story-focused. Though its expansive length grated on some players who were sick to death of skulking around Suramar city, I’d argue it was actually tighter and better paced than the rest of the expansion–and thus more involving and rewarding. There were characters you cared about with clear personalities, rather than the fully-animated ciphers that WoW’s marquee characters often are (the less said about Tyrande Whisperwind and the desolation of her personality, the better). I felt more regret at the death of a secondary Suramar character than at the passing of the umpteenth major storyline figure Blizzard killed off.

This is, after all, an expansion where a principal character spoke the words “I am my scars!” without a hint of irony. Before blowing up a Naaru. That happened. And I can never unsee it. Suramar is a desperately needed antidote to those moments, a reminder that you can tell a story about tragedy, diminishment, and the brutality of war without appearing wanton or childish.

From activating hidden leylines at my own pace, to finding hidden merchants in Suramar City, to a fascinatingly detailed strategic minigame where you lead an army of withered mana zombies through ancient ruins, it all felt like a standalone RPG in the best way. For WoW where story always came second to Kill Ten Rats style questing, it was a welcome sign that the game is still able to weave a magical tale. Rather than wallowing in declension, or faint echoes of past glories, in Suramar WoW reinvents itself while being true to its roots. It’s had to do this in every expansion, of course, but Suramar was a particular triumph for its unique take on an important part of Warcraft’s lore and how deeply it mined that lore for good storytelling and questing.

To look at the WoW forums is to see a study in ambivalence about the zone; some players loved it while others vociferously hated it. Its storyline is far longer than that of any other Broken Isles zone, and it was parcelled out on a weekly basis over the course of Legion. Taken as a whole, it can seem rather overwhelming for something that’s ultimately meant to be a gateway to deeper parts of the endgame.

But I hope that the complaints don’t cause Blizzard to turn away from refining the model they created with Suramar; perhaps not gating the content would be a good start? Giving players the ability to binge or take it slow would probably have led to more overall comfort with Suramar when it was fresh.

But the memes about the zone hint at a level of emotional investment that wouldn’t attend a true failure. There is love to be found in the mockery–which Blizzard itself recognized long ago: the “illusion” line is riffed on countless times later in the expansion, and forms the basis of several jokes made by the newly playable Nightborne. WoW’s always done a good job of making fun of itself, of course, but it rarely does so when facing unalloyed disasters. The love/hate relationship players had with Suramar was the result of a productive tension that can be honed to a sharper point. Blizzard’s ludic portrait of a city under occupation was nothing short of brilliant and memorable.

That we got a few in-jokes out of the deal is just a bonus.

Katherine Cross is a Ph.D student in sociology who researches anti-social behavior online, and a gaming critic whose work has appeared in numerous publications.