Blizzard has announced the beginning of the new Patch 5.4 in terms of some of the upcoming features for PTR coming up. While the Flex Raid was already mentioned as one of the biggest new upcoming features as well as the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, we now can see a few big features beyond these as well as another zone called the Timeless Isle. At the moment, outside of a Battle Arena provided at the Timeless Isle, no other information has been provided on the subject matter, but perhaps it’s still one of the remaining areas in Pandaria that will be unveiled (despite how the developers mentioning there probably wouldn’t be any new aspects added to Pandaria after Patch 5.2).
The Proving Grounds is one of the newer features that has a great deal of promise. The idea behind the Proving Grounds is to function as a training area for class roles, an aspect that has not really been seen since class quests back in Vanilla (maybe some of the later Legendary quests could be viewed as a training thing but I would argue that you had to know your class by that point). These will not be class specific quests but rather role specific training, allowing players to really learn their role better without having the pressure to group up. There will be four difficulties and provide scores that can be compared to others that you know.
For myself, I really like this idea because there really isn’t any opportunities to learn how to push or learn roles like tanking and healing outside of just running instances and raids. In short, traditionally you’re thrown into a tank of sharks. And unless you have a close group of friends where you can practice your craft, you pretty much can get brutalized by others in instances for underperforming a role. I think that has led a lot of people to play inefficiently or be pretty intimidated to step beyond their comfort zones.
Now, they haven’t gone into detail about when these Proving Grounds will be made available to a toon or if they will function like an instance/single player scenario. However, it feels as though a feature like this ought to be flexible in terms of providing challenges for all levels, not just max level. It might seem pretty useless for say anyone under level 15 or so since you really have no abilities at that point. But I feel that the earlier you can get started to learn you role, then the sooner you can smell what the Rock is cooking.
The other major feature announced is Virtual Realms. Virtual Realms sound like the long awaited band aid for saving low population realms. These realms will take a few realms and almost merge them together such that players can use each others’ auction houses, guilds and group up for instances/quests as if they were on the same realm. The only difference is that their toons will have a hash mark (#) next to their name.
So I’m really curious how these Virtual Realms will be selected. It really seems aimed low population servers where people might have incredible amounts of difficulty finding groups for raids or where the Auction Houses are dead. But will we see these realms be connected to high population servers as well? We already have Cross Realm Zones so how will Virtual Realms impact CRZ? And how will people’s names be affected? Lastly, will this remove low population servers entirely and instead introduce a feature where people create characters on the Virtual Realms as opposed to picking something like a low population server? This is a feature that in PTR might seem invisible compared to production server reality.
Of course, the big thing everyone is anticipating is the Siege of Orgrimmar. Although no details have emerged officially from the PTR notes, the forums have already began talk on some of the upcoming bosses. Two notable bosses outside of Garrosh are General Nazgrim and the Klaxxi Paragons you rescued as you quested in the Dread Wastes. A huge emotional thread has sprung up over General Nazgrim, indicating that what I mentioned in a previous post is something that Blizzard had considered and implemented.
Now, why is it that making General Nazgrim a potential boss so important here? Although the encounter details are non existent as this point, I will speculate that the Horde needed an emotional impetus to create some meaning and catharsis for the upcoming raid. Although people will have mixed feelings over Garrosh, he generally was built up as a jerk over time, with perhaps a single redeeming moment since Cataclysm.
On the other hand, General Nazgrim has been your typical pawn and Warchief Garrosh’s personal bitch. While Garrosh mostly was nowhere to be seen, just like your typical corporate manager, General Nazgrim has been by your side for quite a while. From what I remember, you see him back in Grizzly Hills as a sergeant, gets promoted to Legionnaire in Cataclysm with his quests in Vashj’ir and eventually makes it to General, leading us in Pandaria. Heck, we even get him as quest buddy in the Jade Forest. One person described Nazgrim as “part Saurfang and part comic relief” which obviously shows that the guy is quite likeable.
That’s what makes him all the more tragic in this and probably a good candidate to meet his end, at least storyline wise. At the beginning of Mist of Pandaria we see him possessed by some sha spirit so it demonstrates how he’s not just manipulated by Garrosh but other beings against his will. As a character with extremely loyal characteristics and a sensible head, it’s really hard to hate him. The whole story arc with General Nazgrim isn’t an overly fancy/complex one, but it’s simple and an outcome from wars where most people end up playing unwitting pawns, a tragic theme universally seen in wars.
Lastly, I’m hoping that encounter from the Alliance point of view does not end up making General Nazgrim appear to be a simple loot pinata. Although he has not said the most favorable words towards the Alliance, he hasn’t entirely been a jerk either with his aim being to merely serve the Horde. Beating someone like this in battle is like fighting any other respectable character in fiction. In some ways, he reminds me a bit of Beast-Man back from He-Man with Garrosh playing Skeletor. You couldn’t really hate Beast-Man entirely for how things turned out with him and Skeletor (or how he would vie for power in competition with Evil-Lyn) and almost pitied the poor guy as you knew He-Man would always kick his ass. Here, everyone has the opportunity to put a knife permanently into this character but I’m not sure how much of the Alliance have had the opportunity to encounter General Nazgrim. Either way, he deserves a proper send off.
Then we come to the fight with Klaxxi Paragons. Since there are quite a few, I’m wondering how this encounter will play out. It seems a little awkward considering you just helped them escape and that they end up becoming quest givers over in Dread Wastes. Not that I have any loyalties/feelings towards them but it just seems odd outside of the message about where they would select their loyalties at the end of the day. Thing for me is that the little story regarding “the gods are not your gods” and the Klaxxi’s loyalties probably played too short of a story arc and sounded like something that might’ve been better tied up in another expansion. I suppose that with the expansion coming to a close, it’s not unreasonable to expect that this story should close out here, but the ominous remarks made me feel something more epic should be in store for us.
I saw a few more names in that forum posts on the encounter. But not too much to say at the moment beyond how the encounter looks to be starting the Vale of Eternal Blossoms with the Golden Lotus quest givers as possible bosses (revenge for all the dailies?). I think storyline-wise there’s some interesting things coming up for this raid.
Overall, it looks like the end of the expansion with this patch. I’m hoping that with this new raid and patch that the expansion does attempt to answer the question “Why do we fight?” But at the same time I don’t want the answer just to be “to protect our homes.” From the Horde’s viewpoint, it might be easy to see this, especially with the encounter with General Nazgrim (as I mentioned with all of my various reasons). I really believe the Alliance need to be vested in Siege of Orgrimmar too. The end battle shouldn’t just be “OMG, if Garrosh gets what he wants, then the world will be destroyed!” We see that storyline far too much and it really has lost its impact in the obsession over epic battles. Instead, we need something that’s more grounded even for the alliance with a stake in it. Some people suggested having the King’s son slain but that really does not beckon the answer; it simply reiterates what the Shado-Pan monk (forget his name) in the final scenario on the Isle of Thunder has stated about why the Alliance and Horde war with each other. Vengeance by itself is not such a black and white tool that can be used in a good story arc. It has to be an internal, very personal message that resonates universally with people. So I hope that when the outcome is shown, we all can learn something profound by doing such an encounter rather than go, “Hey, check this epic sword I just got from slaying General Nazgrim!” Honestly, that aspect only goes so far.