World of Warcraft: The War Within continues the successes of Dragonflight. But not everyone will be happy with it – because something is missing.
The next expansion of World of Warcraft is not far away. Already at the end of August, The War Within will be released, marking the beginning of the saga surrounding the world soul. Blizzard is introducing some new features, but is holding back on really big highlights – at least it seems that way. We take a look at the upcoming expansion and reveal who can look forward to The War Within and who might not be happy.
Solo players finally get real progress
Even though most somewhat dedicated players are mainly on groups and tackle dungeons or raids: There are a huge number of WoW heroes who primarily play alone. They go through the campaign story, complete some world quests, and farm reputation, but are not so interested in the endgame content that requires groups.
For these characters, it was always quite quick for “the stove to be out”, as the maximum gear was reached quickly.
With the “Delves”, there is for the first time a really solid progress system for solo players.
The Delves can be understood as large caves that can be found all over the world. There are a total of 13 Delves, and what you can experience in them changes every week. Alongside NPCs like Brann Bronzebeard, you explore the Delves and find a treasure chamber with truly solid loot at the end.
By the way, visits to the Delves also ensure that you fill your “Weekly Chest” with contents. This way, even solo players can receive a really strong item once a week that is on the level of heroic raids.
If desired, you can also complete the Delves with friends – the difficulty adjusts to the group size.
Aside from that, all dungeons in The War Within can already be completed with NPC companions at launch. Thus, one is not reliant on others for the story experience and can complete everything at their own pace.
Collectors will be very happy
The second group that will likely be jumping for joy with The War Within are the collectors. With Patch 11.0 – that is, the launch of the expansion – not only will much be account-wide, but collecting transmogifications will also be much easier.
In the future, you will be able to add all items to your collection, regardless of whether your character can actually use them.
To clarify: Currently, you, for example as a mage, only collect cloth patterns and weapons that you can use with that mage. So if you find plate or a two-handed sword, it will not be added to your collection.
With The War Within, this restriction is lifted. Then you could also collect items in the plate, chain, or leather categories as a mage and also add weapon types to your collection that you cannot use at all.
However: For transmogification, your mage cannot use the plate items himself. However, if you create a warrior, paladin or death knight, they can use the plate patterns collected by the mage.
Finally freedom for many characters
Many play only one character in World of Warcraft and have done so for many years – perhaps another twink for relaxation. Yet many players play multiple characters, sometimes even one of each class. Those who frequently switch between characters face many various challenges.
On the one hand, quests must be repeated to earn unlocks. Then each character needs reputation to buy rewards and must also farm resources.
All this is drastically reduced in The War Within. Because there is the feature of the “Warband”. In short, this means that almost all unlocks of your characters are account-wide.
Especially important is this for reputation. Reputation and associated glory are also account-wide. So if you have reached the maximum with one character, then all characters have reached it at the same time. Conversely, this also means that you cannot earn reputation for story quests multiple times. Thus, there is no reputational advantage to completing the same quests multiple times with different characters.
The second major point is your currencies. Because numerous currencies that actually cannot be exchanged or traded can now simply be sent between your various characters through a menu for a small fee. Gone are the days when you had to buy special packages from vendors for that – now it can be done centrally through one menu option.
No major highlight as a feature
Who might not be happy with The War Within is a group of players who long for a new, major feature that lasts through the entire expansion and is in the focus of attention.
The War Within mainly continues the trend of Dragonflight to improve more on the fundamental structure of the game and to ensure that WoW remains attractive in the coming years and improves and expands meaningful, long-term systems.
This comes at the expense of large and new features.
If you are hoping for new systems, like a garrison, housing or something like the order hall with artifact weapons, or just the covenants from Shadowlands, you might be disappointed. Because in this respect, The War Within indeed has little new to offer.
Everything that The War Within announces as new in the trailers is basically just minor improvements. While they lead to significant quality of life improvements, as a “brand new feature”, the Delves likely do not qualify – they are essentially a mix of Torghast and scenarios. Also, the hero talents are, if viewed somewhat soberly, just a small expansion of the talent system.
If you are waiting for a real blockbuster as new content, you may be significantly disappointed by The War Within.
The War Within offers more of the familiar – but indeed very little that is truly new.
Story fans get no conclusion
World of Warcraft has the reputation that stories are often not really concluded. Some storylines are picked up, accompanied for a while, and then discarded. Some characters come into the spotlight, only to disappear again for years and essentially play no role.
Sometimes it seems that World of Warcraft lacks a red narrative thread that leads somewhere, brings multiple stories together and provides a conclusion.
Whoever thinks that The War Within brings such a conclusion is mistaken – because that is not intended.
The War Within is merely the beginning of a three-part saga centered around the world soul of Azeroth. Triggered by the mysterious Xal’atath with her complex story, this is merely the first of three parts and therefore cannot provide a satisfying ending.
This inevitably leads to The War Within being able to only begin what will continue and hopefully conclude in the upcoming expansions “Midnight” and “The Last Titan”.
Which group do you belong to? Are you looking forward to The War Within? Or are you not convinced by the features of the new WoW expansion?
