In World of Warcraft, there are suddenly real RPG elements again. At least MeinMMO demon Cortyn praises this and mentions many successful examples.
In the meantime, I have completed all the quests of World of Warcraft The War Within and have already brought several classes to level 80. I have noticed some details that might escape one’s attention during the first playthrough. Because there are quite a few small but fine differences and details that you only encounter when you play multiple classes.
The War Within has indeed incorporated some interesting “role-playing elements” that have been painfully missed in the last expansions of World of Warcraft.
Actions for Specific Classes
One innovation that has not previously existed in this abundance is interaction options that exist only for your class or race. Throughout Khaz Algar, you can find small details that are only available to certain characters. Here are a few examples that I have encountered so far.
Mage Conversations in Heilsturz
In Heilsturz, there is only one single mage among the Arathi with a rather dark backstory. While you can ask the mage about various details, such as why he does not simply open a portal to the Arathi Empire.
But only if you are a mage yourself can you inquire more specifically. You will then learn more details about how he is trying to learn this spell now and what problems have arisen in doing so. He will explain to you at length how he is progressing with the calculations of his magical research – and for you as a mage, it sounds plausible.
Additionally, you can tease him a little as a “fellow mage.” It is, after all, quite funny that he is now stuck there as the last mage.
No Trust in the Evil
We had already reported on another detail previously. The members of the Arathi Expedition are anything but open to sinister alignments and can hardly deal with warlocks or other sinister figures.
For this reason, it takes a bit more persuasion from these classes for one or another NPC to want to cooperate with you. This results in you even receiving an exclusive quest where you must defeat a large creature of the void. The skeptical NPC accompanies you during this and assumes the whole time that you will still betray him.
The quest is not particularly challenging or long. But it helps to finally explain why some people cooperate with heroes who have a completely different alignment.
In the past, this often led to conflicts, for example, when a paladin suddenly had to work for rogues or especially gullible beings willingly cooperated with witches.
Rogues Don’t Want to Solve Puzzles
In the area of Heilsturz, you can find a pirate treasure – however, the chest is locked. When you click on the chest, a message appears in the style of: “The heavy chest cannot be easily opened. Perhaps a clue can be found if you look around a bit.”
Most classes would now have to do just that, look around everywhere and ultimately retrieve the key from the corpse of a fallen woman.
Rogues, however, get a dialogue option and can choose:
“That may be. I’ll just pick the lock anyway.”
This is a small detail, but incredibly cool.
Details that Just Fit Well
Of course, all these are just small details and nuances. The choice of class does not change the overarching plot progression or have drastic effects on the story.
But that doesn’t have to be the case at all. I am completely satisfied that World of Warcraft recognizes my choice of class or past achievements in the game and points out in some corners: “Here, this is just for you, because you are exactly this class or this race.”
How well the appreciation for such details can be received, has been impressively shown by Baldur’s Gate 3 last year. I would be delighted if WoW brings even more such content. They don’t need to dominate the game, but having small, exclusive dialogues or opportunities available only for specific classes again and again makes the world so much more convincing.
Endless Dialogues and So Much to Read
Another point is the additional dialogues that you can listen to if you want. Whether it’s about small NPCs that you can simply ask about their daily lives or their attitudes, or the great, storied heroes like Anduin or Magni, with whom you can listen for a while as they converse with each other.
This is a great thing for story fans like me, but also for everyone who may not have much understanding of the lore and often ask: Who are they? What are they actually doing here? Because often you can ask just such a question to refresh your memory about whom you are actually dealing with here.
My only criticism here is that significantly more of these scenes could have been voiced. Because, except for a few exceptions, this is only the case with the main quest. Many quest NPCs conduct dialogues with speech bubbles without any actual voice, and this does feel a bit outdated.
All of this is of course optional. Those who are not interested in the story can almost always simply “skip” it and will not be bothered by “boring details.”
Conclusion: A Rounder MMORPG Through Small Details
I am aware that many are reading this and asking: “Okay, and why is this important?” Because these details have virtually no effect on gameplay and if you are not interested in the story, it doesn’t matter at all.
But it matters to me. I love such small role-playing details. For me, it makes me fall even more in love with the game world and gives me the impression: There are people behind this who have developed it with love and dedication and have invested time into these small moments. People have thought about making everything consistent and fitting together. Something that unfortunately cannot always be said with certainty about WoW in the past.
Of course, there are also details that are a bit more amusing and less serious. Like SpongeBob, who was found in The War Within.
