“The Deaths of Chromie” is the quiet highlight from WoW Patch 7.2.5. Cortyn can hardly stop raving about it.
To be honest, I didn’t expect much from the Chromie scenario in Patch 7.2.5 from World of Warcraft at first. Sure, the scenario is about the bronze dragon lady in gnomish form, who every player seems to love – Chromie. But I doubted that the scenario would be fun more than once.
But now I have to honestly admit: The Deaths of Chromie is probably the coolest chunk of content from Legion that has ever been in the game.
To summarize briefly for everyone: The dragon lady Chromie is killed in the future. Because she (like all bronze dragons) can use time travel, she wants to prevent it and needs our help. We travel with her into the future and observe how she is killed at the Wyrmrest Temple by four assailants at the same time. After that, we travel to a point 15 minutes before her death and must stop all attacks within that timeframe.
Gather a bit more knowledge each time
The first time, you have no chance of successfully completing the scenario. But that is by design. Each time you visit, you investigate a different location and try to figure out who is executing the attack and why. Sometimes a bit of detective work is required, but most of the time it’s just good old “monster slaying”. Each time we gain a bit more knowledge, contributing to solving the case.
What’s particularly cool is that this knowledge from previous attempts is not just pure game mechanics but can also be leveraged by the player through clever planning!
A small example: When we explore the shrine of the black dragonflight, we eventually find out that a Dreadlord is lurking there and is behind one of the attacks. Once we kill him, the attack is thwarted. In future visits to the scenario, Chromie then says, “We know where the Dreadlord is, let’s attack him directly!” and we save the time of re-exploring. That’s mechanics.
In Stratholme, however, the player can act more intelligently than Chromie. There are a series of quests here where you need to buy different things from different vendors. The first time you run from shop to shop and then to the quest giver. Observant players realize, however, that all the vendors already have the required quest items in stock right from the start.
On the next visit, it is therefore wiser to check all the shops directly and take on the quests with full bags so you can complete them right away. This saves time and makes you feel a bit clever. Well, at least I do.
I was repeatedly reminded of an old game classic during the scenario – Shadow of Memories. In that game the protagonist repeatedly dies and must, by solving puzzles, escape his own death. Sure, that was significantly more complex than the Deaths of Chromie in terms of puzzles, but the themes and implementations are remarkably similar.
Rewards are small, but ultimately unnecessary
I only have a small criticism of this scenario and that is the rewards. The sets for transmogrification are merely color variations of already existing items, so a bit underwhelming. But the “small” rewards during the scenario attract me much more. There are two new pets, occasionally a chunk of gold, and sometimes time-warped badges, which otherwise only appear in timewalking dungeons.
However, it speaks for the scenario that I have completed it over 10 times, even though I know the final rewards are not that impressive. Chromie’s deaths essentially didn’t need rewards. It’s just fun because it’s fun.
“The Deaths of Chromie” is, in my view, the best mini piece of content that World of Warcraft has produced in a long time. I am extremely pleased that World of Warcraft brings such a “daring” piece of content into the game – because it significantly differs from what the game has produced so far. I will probably see Chromie die countless more times until I finally achieve a perfect run – but it’s still fun now!
Here are some tips for getting started with the Deaths of Chromie.
