Shortly after dinging 90 during early access of WoW: Midnight, I started questing in the final new zone of the expansion, the Voidstorm. Then 6pm Monday night hit for the official worldwide launch and the servers immediately went kaput for a little while (insert shocked Pikachu face here). Thankfully it was only a brief hiccup, and I was able to see the end of the main Midnight questline on Monday night and do a little gearing before the weekly reset.
FOR THE LAST DAY of early access for WoW: Midnight, I was ready to start my penultimate zone of the expansion, Harandar. A lush, forest zone that feels like a mashup of Zangarmarsh and the Emerald Dream, Harandar falls under the classic WoW trope of “area that was hidden away for years and is now about to be overrun with thousands of outsiders.” It’s a bit of a maze to navigate, with lots of underground dens and burrows, but at level 88, I could see the finish line (others might call it the starting line) of level 90 just a few hours away.
HAVING REACHED LEVEL 85 in WoW: Midnight, it was time to move to my next quest zone, Zul’Aman. Originally a 10-man raid in the Ghostlands introduced during Burning Crusade, it was converted to a 5-man dungeon during Cataclysm and now has an entire questing zone built around it. It turned out to be a pretty enjoyable zone, packed to the brim with quests.
ON SATURDAY I returned to Eversong Woods at level 83 to continue leveling in WoW: Midnight. I was quickly reminded why I stopped where I did last night: I’d reached the first delve of the expansion, the Shadow Enclave. I know many players enjoyed delves when they were introduced in The War Within; I was not one of them. To me, they were slow and tedious and I’d just as quickly prefer to avoid them while leveling.
THE LATEST World of Warcraft expansion, Midnight, launched in early access Thursday night for players with the Epic edition. I was in that group, and although I only play WoW casually these days, I always quest at the start of each new expansion to level my main and see the new zones, and thought I’d share my thoughts over the next week as I make the climb from level 80 to the new cap of 90.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE recent videogame surprises was 2015’s Life is Strange. I went into the five-episode adventure not expecting much, and was rewarded with an unexpectedly moving story of a teenage girl who suddenly discovers she can rewind time in small doses. One minute, Max Caulfield is trying to deal with the mean girls of her private Oregon academy, the next she’s having weird visions of her town being destroyed in a freak storm while trying to solve the mystery of a missing student. Twin Peaks and Degrassi might not seem like obvious inspirations for a videogame to borrow from, but it worked.
A sequel was inevitably announced, but I was a little disappointed to hear it would feature a new cast of characters, rather than continue Max’s story. If I had any major complaints with Life is Strange, it was that the two main endings were a little unsatisfying, something I hoped a sequel might address. Instead, for those of us looking to journey back to Blackwell Academy, there’s Before the Storm, a prequel series focusing on the backstory of Max’s friend Chloe. The third and final episode released just last week, just in time for the annual Steam holiday sale, which is where I picked it up and wasted little time diving in.
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BASEBALL’S TWO WILD CARD GAMES are now complete, with the Rays and Pirates moving on to face the Red Sox and Cardinals in the divisional round. Predictably, there’s a chorus of complaints about how unfair the system is, how a 162-game season shouldn’t come down to a one-game playoff. To which I say: shush. Not only is this system fair, it’s arguably the best system baseball has ever had, and we don’t need to muck it up.
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![E3’s show floor officially opened Tuesday, but the traditional flood of headlines from the various press conferences was in full swing Monday. The buzz: New Console Pricing: PS4 $399, XB1 […]](http://www.bytica.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ps4-165x115.jpg "E3 2013: Monday’s Headlines")
![I’VE BEEN TAKING IT SLOW with WoW: Mists of Pandaria, so I’ve only now finished the second high-level zone, Valley of the Four Winds. There’s an extremely familiar feel to […]](http://www.bytica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/mopv4w_raft-165x115.jpg "Mists of Pandaria: Into the Valley")
![AFTER SUCCESSFULLY getting the realm first for fishing when Mists of Pandaria opened this week, I hit the new continent of Pandaria to start my journey from level 85 to […]](http://www.bytica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/wowmop_jadeforesttemple-165x115.jpg "Mists Of Pandaria: Entering the Jade Forest")
![WHEN CATACLYSM LAUNCHED two years ago, I made a completely unplanned and half-assed attempt to get the achievement for being the first person on the server to max out their […]](http://www.bytica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/wowmop_realmfirstfishing-165x115.jpg "WoW: Angling For a Realm First")
![AS I OFTEN DO, I took a summer break from WoW, because I live in southern California and I’m a weird brand of geek who enjoys things like sunlight and […]](http://www.bytica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/wow50_panda-165x115.jpg "WoW v5.0: Rolling With The Changes")
WoW: Midnight’s New Weekly Events
Now that I’ve reached level 90 in World of Warcraft: Midnight and completed the main quest campaign, it’s time to do what I usually do in new expansions: start gearing my main, check out the new outdoor content, and do side stuff like pet collecting, exploration, and digging into professions. First order of business: figuring out how all the new stuff works!
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