Blizzard announces Warlords of Draenor

At Blizzcon 2013 the gaming powerhouse Blizzard revealed the next expansion for World of Warcraft – Warlords of Draenor.  I don’t plan to rehash all the information you can find on Blizzard’s website or coverage for Blizzcon.  As a long time (and avid) WoW player I want to give my perspective on the tidbits that have been revealed!

Warlords of Draenor will feature:

• v  Build and upgrade your Garrison
• v  A level 90 character upgrade—play immediately!
• v  New player character models
• v  6 new Dungeons and 2 new Raids
• v  Heroic versions of 2 classic Dungeons
• v  New Challenge modes
• v  New Battlegrounds and World Bosses
• v  New Normal and Heroic Scenarios
• v  Level cap raised to 100
• v  New class talents and permanent ability bonuses
• v  Refined quest system with hundreds of new quests

Build and upgrade your Garrison
This feature sounds interesting to me. You will be able to set up your own personal buildings, acquire NPCs to deal with, and you can even send them out on missions. I think it will be fun but in a lot of aspects it sounds like they are taking elements from the Warcraft series and now putting them into World of Warcraft.

A level 90 upgrade
This will be great for new players or players who don’t want to have to level someone all the way to level 90 for the new expansion. From what I am reading you get 1 level 90 bump – so use it wisely! This will give players a chance to jump into WoD (no relation to World of Darkness) immediately.

New Player models
For me this is going to be big.  The models have been the same since the games inception. A little tweak here or there, but an orc male will look the same body wise no matter whether you are a Warrior or a rogue.  I haven’t read a lot about this yet – but I’m hoping they allow for different sizes – much the way Star Wars the Old Republic has different body types.

Six new Dungeons and two new Raids
I’ll be honest – I’m not a big raider. But six new dungeons is great!  I enjoy the dungeons. They are usually well thought out, challenging, not too long. I do have a toon I’m building up for the purposes of raiding, so I may have more input on that closer to drop time.

New Challenge Modes
I have only done a handful of these but they are great. You can pit your party against others in timed events. 

New Battlegrounds and World Bosses
I don’t PVP much, but I do enjoy most of the Battlegrounds.  It’s fun to pit yourself against other players, especially if there is an objective.   I am typically not well geared for PVP like this – but it I enjoy whacking the other faction!

New Normal and Heroic Scenarios
I have not done any of the scenarios – but more is certainly better. Variety is the spice of life!

Level cap raised to 100
I really like this. For Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria the level cap was only raised by 5 each time.  I don’t know, 5 just didn’t seem like a whole lot despite the sheer amount of stuff you had to do.  Plus I like the nice round number of 100!

New class talents and permanent ability bonuses
Not a whole lot about this has been released yet. New talents are often frustrating because in many cases you have to relearn a lot of how to handle your role. I’ll hold off judgment on that. Permanent ability bonuses, that sounds epic though! Instead of having to weigh pros and cons for things, I’ll lose this to gain that – you’ll get some stat boosts that don’t go away!

Refined quest system with hundreds of new quests
Not much has been repealed about this. They did a little retooling of the quest system with some quests no longer needing to be turned in to the quest giver, and the next stage of quests being automatically offered once a quest is turned in. One of the things I really enjoyed about MoP is that the rewards offered were class specific.  I always hated playing a warrior and being offered leather or cloth items as a reward. Sure you can sell them but still.  I’ll be intrigued to see how they change this.  And hundreds of new quests? For me you learn so much about the history, the lore, and the story through quests. Hundreds of new ones sound exciting!

I am sure more will be revealed in the months leading up to the release. No drop date has been posted yet, but I figure between 6 months and this time next year.  Many people were disappointed with Mists – I was not one of them. I thought it was well thought out and executed. I guess people don’t want to play in Kung-Fu Panda.  I’ll be keeping my eye on this and providing insights as new information is released!

For more information you can visit http://us.battle.net/wow/en/warlords-of-draenor/

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

Mists of Pandaria is the latest expansion for Blizzard’s powerhouse World of Warcraft.  With this expansion comes:

·         Level cap raised to 90

·         New zones to explore

·         A new playable race, the Pandaran

·         A new player class – the Monk

·         New dungeons and raids

·         New achievements

·         A new pet battling system

The Pandarans are Panda like creatures. The males are large and remind me of the Kung Fu Panda.  I was not sure how I would feel about a “fluffy” toon, but I must say, they are fun.  Despite their size they move very gracefully and give a distinct Asian theme to the game.

The new class, the Monk, is a very versatile class. Monks are a hand-to-hand specialists and can only wear leather. Despite this they are tough.  The Monk can cover all of the classic roles of the game depending on the path you choose, Tank, Healer, or DPS. So far I have been playing mine in the DPS role and the Monk can handle their business. I will probably switch over to the tank role once I can take the Dual specialization.

The new starting area is one part anime, one part Kung-Fu Theater, and all fun.  The new scenery is gorgeous with new creatures to interact with and in many cases defeat. It is a mixture of mountains, hills, rice patties and temples. Your character starts off being trained in the class you chose, but something is wrong. The great floating island that is your home has become erratic, no longer floating smoothly. Over the course of the starting quests you gain the help of the four elements and find out the cause of the islands behavior.  Once you uncover the issue and deal with it you then pick which faction you wish to join – Horde or Alliance. Once you make your choice you are locked in, no way to go back (unless you pay Blizzard the $25 for faction change).

I have not had a chance to explore the new level 85+ zones. I have been having too much fun playing a low level Pandara and leveling.  That will be in a future review.

With Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard continues to show why they are the king of the MMORPG.  Each expansion has added new zones, usually a new class or race, new dungeons, and lots of new quests.  Many other MMORPG’s have come out: Age of Conan, Warhammer, even Star Wars: The Old Republic.  While those games are good, they are limited. I know many people who play WoW who played those other games and once they got to the end game content, grew bored and went back to WoW.  Blizzard keeps the game fun with new things to explore, not completely the usual grind of killing monsters and turning in quests.

Mists of Pandaria retails for $40, $20 less than their previous expansions. You can purchase it online through your Battle.net account or through your big box vendor.  There is an option to upgrade to the Collector’s Edition for an additional $20, which gives you a new mount and pet.  I plugged in my code and low-and-behold I found the full expansion already downloaded and all the new content became unlocked as soon as it became 09-25-2012.

For me, Mists of Pandaria is worth the money. I am a long term World of Warcraft player, dating back to before the first expansion.  There are so many new things that if I get bored with one toon I can hop on another or create a brand new one. The graphics are excellent though with the last patch we have had to turn the graphics settings down or risk very low and jerky frame rates.  The game has grown and you can easily play solo or with groups. You can play Player Vs. Player to test your skills against others in the real world.