8.1 War Campaign Story So Far

With the release of patch 8.1 came new questlines for the War Campaign, BfA’s version of the Order Hall campaign from Legion. I like the idea of these over-arcing quests because they act like a narrative for the expansion and they’re a fun and organized way to communicate the story to the player-base. That being said, the newest installment was no exception and I thoroughly enjoyed this lead-up to the raid Battle for Dazar’Alor.

Horde Invasions

Horde invasions started with 8.1, likely modeled after the Legion invasions during Legion where an entire zone was under attack for a few hours. World Quests in that zone were changed to be related to the invasion, where we had to kill x number of Demons or collect supplies or aid soldiers. They were a lot of fun, and were another opportunity to get some sweet loot.

The invasions added in 8.1 are about as fun, and start with a special quest upon entering in to the zone that’s under attack. The short questline, requiring players to complete 4 invasion quests, ends with players sneaking aboard the Horde airship and blowing it up. Can’t go wrong with explosions, right? The citizens of Boralus might disagree when the airship shows up in Tirigarde Sound, and can be seen firing cannonballs directly at the city walls. Innocent bystanders react by screaming and /cowering, both of which adds to the mood, but boy does that screaming get old after I’ve already blown up the airship!

Jaina Versus Horde

The campaign started off by tying the Horde invasions into the story, and players were sent to help Jaina repel the enemy forces. We killed Horde and got to see Jaina be awesome, by using her Frost Mage abilities to freeze a section of water so it could be walk-able, conjuring ice walls (inspiration from Overwatch), and ice spikes. The Horde was attempting to break through the gate protecting Tirigarde Sound over at Anglepoint with Azerite cannonballs.

After some planning, our Lord Admiral came up with a daring plan to teleport explosives onto the Horde ship and detonate them. Tirigarde Sound was safe and the Horde retreated, for now. This part of the campaign was fun because Jaina, of course, and explains the reason for the upcoming Alliance retaliation at the Battle for Dazar’Alor. Lastly, I snapped a picture during the ending cinematic that inspired me to make it even greater…

The Heist

Followed by walking away from Azerite explosions was a mission to infiltrate the vault of Dazar’Alor, which is the capitol of the Zandalari Empire. They wanted me to rob that bank. I accepted without a second thought. Accompanying me on the mission were Matthias Shaw and Flynn Fairwind, polar opposites in terms of personalities. Our objective was to find the Staff of Storms, a powerful weapon from Stormsong Valley that the Horde got its hands on. Basically, I would switch the staff with a fake so that we wouldn’t trip any traps on our way out.

The whole path to the Staff of Storms was full of little puzzle rooms with traps to solve. They were all similar in that once I made it to the other side, I could flip a switch so that Matthias and Flynn could progress with me. Even though the traps were easy, one time I ran into the fire and instantly halved my health.

Even though I was able to switch the staves without a hitch, the “trap” was still triggered when a giant golem made of gold and riches caught our scent! This guy is none other than Opulence, one of the raid bosses from Battle for Dazar’Alor, and I thought that was a really cool little introduction for him. The heist concluded with the 3 of us booking it back to the void portal that we arrived in.

The Monkey, The Kaja’mite, and the Embiggifier

Players who have already done the quests involving the extraordinarily intelligent apes in Zandalar will be somewhat familiar with this already. Basically, a group of jungle apes stumbled across a supply of Kaja’mite which increased their intelligence exponentially. The same thing happened with Goblins on the island of Kezan, who were originally enslaved by Trolls to work the mines. Eventually they discovered Kaja’mite which gave them intelligence and ideas (hence why they’re such brilliant salesmen). But, I digress. Let’s focus on the smart monkeys.

Enter Grong, leader of the group of intelligent apes who have been hunted relentlessly by the Horde. He is considered to be the strongest and smartest among his kind and he is understandably pissed off. All he wants is to keep his kind safe no matter the cost, so he jumps at the opportunity when he hears about a new experimental device that the Gnomes are working on. This device, ingeniously called the Embiggifier, causes the wearer the grow in size relative to their intelligence. In other words, the smarter the subject the larger they will grow in size and brute strength. The major side effect of this is that the wearer’s intelligence is lost in the process.

Knowing the cost to his own intelligence Grong selflessly proceeds with the plan, much to the excitement of the Gnomish engineers. Grong keeps demanding to go bigger, until he becomes comparable to King Kong, all at the cost of his intelligence. In the end he was out of control and had to be tranquilized and taken away for his, and our, safety. Grong was a true hero, willing to sacrifice his newfound clarity to protect his kind from the Horde. I heard a little about this quest-line beforehand and I did not think it would affect me the way that it did. This is not the last time we see Grong, but the next time we meet will be under very different circumstances.