[Column] World of Warcraft: Beginning to look at Draenor

SBFord

Last week, the MMO space was captivated by Blizzard's announcement of the World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor. In our latest WoW Factor, we take a look at some of the exciting features that will come with Warlords and much more. Read on and then leave your impressions in the comments.

Warlords of Draenor takes us to the world of Draenor before its breaking into what we know today as Outland. As you may know, Outland was the focus WoW’s first expansion, the Burning Crusade. Warlords takes us back in time so-to-speak (more on this later) to the savage world of Draenor just prior to the events of the orcs drinking the cursed blood of Mannoroth and invading Azeroth through the Dark Portal. Now that same Portal will glow red and through it lies the old world of Draenor.

Read more of Reza Lackey's The WoW Factor: Beginning to look at Draenor.

orbitxo

Clearly they have listened to their player base.

its clearly 'outland' , before BC, is it a good thing?...

itll get me to get a ' timecard 'and bump up my paladin to lvl90. so yes.

Im a sucker for Lore..

 

will it keep me there after i finish the storyline?...who knows!

 

cronius77

I return to wow from time to time for a month or two just to play new patches and revisit old diehard wow friends and I can say from my opinion blizzard has finally started listening to its player base which is a very good thing. Though this expansion isnt the burning crusade 2 which a lot of people wanted it still has a lot taken from BC. I love the housing and itemization and it seems like they are taking timeless isle style of end game taken from guild wars 2 which works and is much more open world than dailies. The housing by far is going to be the best housing out there in a mmo to date if you really will be able to allow your mercs to craft and run raids and dungeons. All in all I really think this expansion is going to bring back a lot of old players to wow who havent played in a while since just the quality of life changes they are adding will make some of the old vets happy and old players. Plus finally new character models after WAY to many years heh.

Soki123

End game pvp zone has me excited. Are your mercs able to run dungeons with you, ie my wife and I can run dungeons with them? A la EQ2.

rygard49

So Garrosh goes back and creates a parallel time line that now exists in our dimension concurrent with the Outland time line... and the reason it's a threat to us is because they've managed to backtrack Garrosh's time signature and create a stable portal to the present with the intent of conquering Azeroth next... Right?

Doesn't that kind of fly in the face of everything we've done for the Bronze Dragonflight? How is time travel all of a sudden creating parallel time lines instead of the way it worked before?

Aside from the various questions about how, why, and when with all the time travel, it should be cool for Thrall to meet the family that he never got to know. I'm a sucker for that kind of father son reunion story.

 

Gravarg

I like everything about this expansion, especially the changes to gear.  As a Druid, I have more than 1 28 slot bag full of gear for different specs.  I wish they'd bring back the old "fill this guy's spot" druid mentality from classic and BC.  Now days I have to spend 2-5 minutes redoing my bars and gear to switch to fill a role.  This is what druid was made for, to fill in if someone has to leave or someone doesn't show up.  Today, you have to pick a role as a Druid and stick with it, which isn't what Druid's should do.  If there's one thing that's missing is Druids should be able to have 4 spec spots or at least 3  That is the druid's main role, to be able to do everything.

Foomerang

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Originally posted by cronius77
The housing by far is going to be the best housing out there in a mmo to date if you really will be able to allow your mercs to craft and run raids and dungeons.

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How does a merc system making housing better?

CrazKanuk

I like the idea of making stats change dynamically depending on the role. Collecting multiple sets of gear is horrible. 

 

My one complaint about the changes to the gear system, though, would be that in order to create this new and unique system, have they reduced the complexity of the game, again? I won't make it a secret that I was NOT a fan when they did away with the trees. Sure there may have been a few viable builds that got 80 percent of the people to file into like lemmings, and the cost to maintain that system and balance was probably just not cost-effective any more, but I feel like there was probably a 20% group who actually had substantially different builds and did a LOT of work and tuning to get their builds right for their play style (I've got plenty of Excel sheets to prove it). I just don't want the removal of reforging, etc. to make the game that much easier, again.

 

I guess we'll have to see how it all plays out. It seems like they've done this before though  

WabbaWay

Originally posted by cronius77
The housing by far is going to be the best housing out there in a mmo to date if you really will be able to allow your mercs to craft and run raids and dungeons.

It's an instanced, plot-based housing system... How does that beat the openworld sandbox-style housing system of so many other MMOs out there.

It's cool they're adding housing and all, but the thing they revealed at Blizzcon seems incredibly generic.

Frost_Wraith

I like the idea of the expansions, the itemization thing seems to be an okay step. I dont mind the grind for the gear it gets me raiding but with the ability for all classes to wear their tier of armour and have stats based on spec I feel as if the length of time to get gear will drop significantly and reduce the longetivity of the expansions.

Yoottos'Horg

I haven't played WoW in...well it's been many, many years. However, I always had that little voice in the back of my mind whispering "Go back, give it a go. You know you liked it before..." But I tell you what, after seeing that preview I have absolutely no interest in WoW anymore. It just, it just doesn't interest me.

 

I'M CURED!!!!

darkedone02

So from the itemization that I understand so far, they trying to go to the diablo route of itemization and get rid of traditional stats?

azmundai

"First, the reforging system is being removed from the game entirely. Also being removed are hit, expertise, dodge and parry stats. If you’re a tank, don’t worry, Blizzard is adding a bonus armor stat to a few items and you’ll still be able to dodge and parry but they will no longer be stats on items."

nail meet coffin

face meet palm

... now that character customization is finally sterilized to the point of extinction we can go back to playing gauntlet.

wake me up when stamina increases healing power

BadSpock

All very positive changes, IMO.

Right now, it's impossible to keep up with new gear drops financially if you are a casual player.

I play enough to run some heroics and do LFR on my main.

I don't have time to farm mats to sell crafted items, nor just sell the mats I do gather.

I also don't have time to run 20+ dailies or chain heroics.

So when I do get a nice drop out of LFR - or have saved enough Valor to buy an upgrade, it's a HUGE hit on my bank account to reforge and gem and enchant the item.

And I'm a 600 enchanter! Saves me tons of $$, but gems + enchants I can't do (legs, shoulders) and especially meta's are just horribly expensive.

I also think the garrison system and followers will end up as good supplemental income for casual players, however if they don't do something to prevent the power-gamers from setting AH prices, it won't matter - inflation will still make a single enchant/gem cost literally days/weeks of the income I as a casual can generate.

I just hope they get it right...

Instead of creating more gold sinks and accelerating the problems with inflation, I hope they make gold less valuable and completely remove the dependence on dailies and farming. Those who have 10s if not 100s of thousands of gold don't need massive gold sinks to help "balance" the economy, those of us with only thousands of gold or less need our coin to go further.

I'd wager those <10k are far, far more numerous than those with 10s/100s.

observer

"First, I love that I will no longer need to fill my inventory with multiple sets of gear"

Except we'll still need to carry extra trinkets, weapons, jewelry, etc.  They should've just went all the way and let those items "respec" too.

NobleNerd

Originally posted by rygard49

So Garrosh goes back and creates a parallel time line that now exists in our dimension concurrent with the Outland time line... and the reason it's a threat to us is because they've managed to backtrack Garrosh's time signature and create a stable portal to the present with the intent of conquering Azeroth next... Right?

Doesn't that kind of fly in the face of everything we've done for the Bronze Dragonflight? How is time travel all of a sudden creating parallel time lines instead of the way it worked before?

Aside from the various questions about how, why, and when with all the time travel, it should be cool for Thrall to meet the family that he never got to know. I'm a sucker for that kind of father son reunion story.

 

I too question and have many more questions about this parallel time period they are creating. It seems like a huge stretch to recreate a beloved Daenor and storyline. Some of the changes sound great, especially the housing and merch. idea, but I do not believe it will be enough to make me come back..... time will tell.... I will watch and wait.

BadSpock

Originally posted by observer

"First, I love that I will no longer need to fill my inventory with multiple sets of gear"

Except we'll still need to carry extra trinkets, weapons, jewelry, etc.  They should've just went all the way and let those items "respec" too.

Those items, especially trinkets, have always been more "flavorful" items - I bet in WoD they'll have even more proc effects and such rather than hard stats.

I'd also bet a LOT of the new "fun" stats like the cleave, speed, life steal etc. are going to be on weapons, trinkets, and the jewelry slots.

azmundai

so log in, collect loot, log out? people actually find that fun? I don't have a ton of time either, but that doesn't mean I want to be bored out of my brain when I play a game.

really disappointing too .. i'd love to see old auchendon or however you spell that .. the art looks amazing.

Nitth

Originally posted by azmundai

so log in, collect loot, log out? people actually find that fun? I don't have a ton of time either, but that doesn't mean I want to be bored out of my brain when I play a game.

That's a major factor of why i stopped. It became like a facebook game. Do these dailies/Raid until you run out of energy and come back tomorrow.

There is just not enough depth.

deniter

So, the most succesful formula is to cater to people who don't have time to play games?

And the next 'big thing' will be a concept that caters to those who don't like games, maybe?

Sounds strange, but makes a perfect sense. There are a lot more of those who don't have time or don't like to play games than those who do.

Still, there's something wrong in this logic..

kalinis

There is gonna be alot more then just log in get loot. I don't understand why people think that. yes most of wow is revolving around questing, In wod though they are leaving the quest hub to quest hub philosophy behind. U will still have a map that shows u where to get quests especially story related ones. That said u will come upon them as u level They are adding dynamic type events also that u need a group to kill . Yes in the end wow is a themepark game where u raid/pvp/dungeon at ennd game but with garrisons and other stuff they keep adding . it adds more freedom to game and gives u newer ways to get loot other then dungeons and raids as chests u find while xploring can have an epic and quest rewards can give u an epic also on a random basis.

bcbully

WOW, why not just let people play premade characters. So now the game picks the best stats for you too? Really?!?! 

Mechanism

Curious if they've added any interesting female characters as they've mostly forgotten to do over the past decade or so.

bcbully

Originally posted by deniter

So, the most succesful formula is to cater to people who don't have time to play games?

And the next 'big thing' will be a concept that caters to those who don't like games, maybe?

Sounds strange, but makes a perfect sense. There are a lot more of those who don't have time or don't like to play games than those who do.

Still, there's something wrong in this logic..

 

Brilliant! I will be putting together a team. I want you to lead. 

Foomerang

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Originally posted by bcbully
Originally posted by deniter So, the most succesful formula is to cater to people who don't have time to play games? And the next 'big thing' will be a concept that caters to those who don't like games, maybe? Sounds strange, but makes a perfect sense. There are a lot more of those who don't have time or don't like to play games than those who do. Still, there's something wrong in this logic..  

Brilliant! I will be putting together a team. I want you to lead. 

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Well most mmo devs make crafting systems for people who hate crafting so it's not that far fetched hehe.

deniter

Originally posted by Foomerang

 

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Originally posted by bcbully

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Originally posted by deniter So, the most succesful formula is to cater to people who don't have time to play games? And the next 'big thing' will be a concept that caters to those who don't like games, maybe? Sounds strange, but makes a perfect sense. There are a lot more of those who don't have time or don't like to play games than those who do. Still, there's something wrong in this logic..  

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Brilliant! I will be putting together a team. I want you to lead. 

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Well most mmo devs make crafting systems for people who hate crafting so it's not that far fetched hehe.

 

Besides, i'm afraid all the best talents for this concept are already hired by Blizzard.