What are your first impressions of Midnight?

The latest World of Warcraft expansion, Midnight, is off and running — hopefully you’ve had time to dive into the new content, get a feel for the new features and major changes, and get an overall first impression of the twelfth chapter of our adventures across Azeroth. Despite my well-laid plans, I have barely played Midnight. Those pesky real-life responsibilities can rear their ugly, time-consuming head at any moment, and I have only managed to quest halfway across Eversong Woods due to my personal calendar suddenly becoming infused with chaos.

Even though I have only managed to attain level 83, I have still accomplished enough to have formed a first impression of the expansion as a whole. I have to say that, for the most part so far, I am enchanted and can’t wait to fully experience all that Midnight has to offer.

As you may be hearing from many other players, the revamp of Silvermoon City and the overall revisit to Quel’thalas is an unmitigated home run. A vibrant, reconstructed Blood Elf capital and a look at what decades of healing has accomplished along the Dead Scar looks amazing but also gives Azeroth a living, breathing edge that feels missing when we simply hop from new continent to new continent.

Without giving any spoilers, the opening experience was worth the wait. I have written 42 variations of the sentence “when we accept Lady Liadrin’s summon to the Sunwell in order to stave off the encroaching armies of Void,” so actually accepting that summon after six months of waiting felt particularly satisfying. All of the Turalyon-bashing has been fun to witness among the community, and I folded plenty of tinfoil for a pending speculation-based deep dive into his grumpiness.

Hanging out with Arator has been fun so far. I liked getting to know him better in the Blood Ties novel, and I feel like he’s going to play a very important role in our eventual total (hopefully) understanding of the cosmology of World of Warcraft. That being said, it does feel like a chore to journey together with a Half-Elf who has made Poor Facial Hair Decisions and won’t stop claiming to have bested every evil he’s ever faced.

The shift to capturing non-battling companion pets with a single click has been, in a word, lame. I get that developer resources and brainpower are finite, but that didn’t dampen the feeling of disappointment the first time that I scooped up a Vibrant Manaling without breaking my stride. The other side of that coin is on full display with the mischievious long-haired daschund, Luma. The short quest chain leading up to acquiring this pilfering pup took away much of the sting of having battles phased out.

So what are your first impressions of Midnight? Are you all in for an epic battle of Light-on-Void, or are you thus far unimpressed with World of Warcraft’s latest expansion?