MMOs

So let's see... WoW: Legion continues. It's nice to see many familiar guild faces out and about. I've now run all the normal-mode dungeons. Over the weekend, my main just hit revered with Legion factions and exalted with Nightfallen - a notable step that finishes out the class hall armor set. And I'm sitting at an item level of around 844 - enough that it takes a really good random upgrade roll for a new item to even merit a second glance. The normal dungeons seem pretty forgiving to me at this point, and I'll probably have to try heroics or LFR before too long. The Nightfallen storyline has been enjoyable, though continuance is now gated behind a raid quest that I can't imagine I'll be able to do for a few weeks when that wing is open in LFR mode.

I've started on alts a little bit, largely dipping into things to learn professions, though the way those are tied to quests now, I can't just do that entirely from the safety of town. Amusingly for as much trouble as I had with the artifact quest, my frost death knight has functioned just fine in the open world in my experience. Go figure.

And last week, I pushed through the next living story step in GW2, heading down to Ember Bay to learn about the growing threat of Primordus. Mmm. I don't have a good feel for the map yet, but I think I liked Bloodstone Fen a little more, based on what I've seen. I saw in the preview they brought karka back into the picture, which... well, I have never thought "this game needs more karka!" since I was introduced to them in Southsun Cove. I still like the stuff with the story characters, especially Taimi. I'm not sure what I think of the maybe-ally Lazarus the Mursaat. This step of the story ends with a painfully-long, multi-wave fight revolving around the hatching of Glint's egg and protecting the newly-born Aurene. The event at least feels like progress in the story, even if the encounter itself is a bit... ugh.

While all that is pretty good, I'm bothered by the (more than) theory put forth that Primodus is absorbing the "flavors" of magic belonging to the now-dead dragons. The story puts forth that Mordremoth's podding-and-cloning of people was a manifestation of having absorbed Zhaitan's death magic, but... really that seemed fully within the dominion of Mordremoth's own plant/mind spheres of influence when it happened. Painting it otherwise strikes me as a major retcon. It does, perhaps, make the dragons seem a greater threat, but it just feels unsupported by what has gone before. That sort of thing bugs the heck out of the narrativist in me.