Warlords of Draenor Expansion Announced for World of Warcraft

[BlameTheWizards]

Warlords of Draenor Expansion Announced for World of Warcraft


The newest expansion will allow players to jump up to level 90, build keeps as well as bring higher-detailed models to the nine-year old game.


The fifth expansion for World of Warcraft has been announced at BlizzCon, and it's Warlords of Draenor. The game will allow travel to the new setting of Draenor, natch, during the time of the old Horde's conquest of the realm and the chance to encounter historic characters of the time such as Ner'zhul and Blackhand. Other features are an increased level cap of 100 and a feature that lets players boost one character right to level 90, so they can explore all the new content without high-level monsters playing hacky sack with their body. Of course, this comes on top of the additional dungeons, loot, raids, enemies and pvp zones to encounter.

Higher detailed player character models will also be made to spruce up the look of the now nine-year old game. Players will also be able to build and upgrade a garrison on Draenor, complete with specialized buildings like armories, farms and workshops. Players can then recruit NPC allies and followers who can perform services such as going on missions and collecting resources.

If you're one of the lucky few at BlizzCon, you'll get the chance to try out the game right on the show floor. In traditional Blizzard fashion, an exact release date hasn't been announced yet, but it'll certainly be done "when it's ready."


Source: Blizzard, <a href=http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20131108-911754.html?dsk=y>The Wall Street Journal


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[Kungfu_Teddybear]

The thing I'm most happy about is the new character models. It's about time they updated the rest.

Spoiler

Also it will be cool to see Draenor before its shattered remains became known as Outland.

 

[MCerberus]

I'm really worried that they, like the Caverns of Time instances, have tied their hands in what will be allowed in the storyline. It appears they're going for a stable time loop scenario here, so very little can change.

 

[Church185]

Now that I've been playing FFXIV:ARR I can comfortably say that I won't end up resubscribing to WoW because of this. I'm so happy to have finally broken that addiction, only to begin another one...

Captcha: find the lowest rates

How oddly appropriate of you Progressive commercial captcha.

 

[Nexxis]

The thing I'm most happy about is the new character models. It's about time they updated the rest.

Unfortunately, I think it's only going to be the dwarves and orcs getting model updates. I only say that because the dwarf models were supposedly close to being finished around the time MoP was going to be released. The orcs received new models when Garrosh did around the boss raid patch for MoP. On the forums devs (or moderators) have stated that the character models were going to take a couple of years for them to do much to the disappointment of the players. Unless this expansion isn't coming out for a few years, I feel like only a few races will be getting new models while the rest are stuck in ye ancient times for a long while.

EDIT: I stand slightly corrected. Just checked MMO Champion and they do show an image of new gnome models, so that's good. I'll be impressed when I see new tauren models, lol.

I'm really worried that they, like the Caverns of Time instances, have tied their hands in what will be allowed in the storyline. It appears they're going for a stable time loop scenario here, so very little can change.

It may be interesting to see, still. I'm kind of hoping that it means Outlands will get a revamp for this, though I highly doubt it. I suppose that after MoP and a giant dragon nearly tearing the world apart, moving the story forward might be a bit pointless, so going back into the past may be a decent option if done well enough.

EDIT: on MMO Champion, they give a small outline of the plot. It's not just a prequal type thing as I thought. It's someone going back into the past and tampering with it. Not going to spoil much else, but you can see it on the mmo champion website.

 

[blackdwarf]

It does look really cool and I am really glad with the updated models that are shown so far. I find the idea of visiting Dreanor before the shattering really cool, but it does feel like they are out of ideas. Time travel is a pretty weak plot device and they already have used it a lot.

What I really like about the new updated models, is that it are actual updates, not newly designed. the Orc and Dwarf still feel like the the races we know, but better.

 

[jurnag12]

Unfortunately, I think it's only going to be the dwarves and orcs getting model updates. I only say that because the dwarf models were supposedly close to being finished around the time MoP was going to be released. The orcs received new models when Garrosh did around the boss raid patch for MoP. On the forums devs (or moderators) have stated that the character models were going to take a couple of years for them to do much to the disappointment of the players. Unless this expansion isn't coming out for a few years, I feel like only a few races will be getting new models while the rest are stuck in ye ancient times for a long while.

EDIT: I stand slightly corrected. Just checked MMO Champion and they do show an image of new gnome models, so that's good. I'll be impressed when I see new tauren models, lol.

Except that there's a part on the official Warlords of Draenor site where you can preview the new models, with big 'COMING SOON' stamps on the other races. Not to mention that it has been mentioned several times during MoP that part of the art team was working on stuff for the next expansion, AND they expanded all the teams in the meanwhile.

 

[gibboss28]

Oh god, oh please fuck no.

Not a fucking prequel.

HAVEN'T YOU RAPED THE LORE ENOUGH?

Just leave it alone god damn it, have fun with your pandas, at least they're not really ruining the story that was already there before they were introduced.

Why Metzen, why do you despise your own work so much?

Oh I dunno...As far as I'm concerned Warcraft finished with The Frozen Throne...so watching him fuck everything up is quite fun. I mean, what will he do next? He has exhausted every thing usable that was given to him from the RTS games, including the pandarens (I just spelt that wrong and my spell checker fixed it..wow) who were a sodding joke...so yeah let him carry on. its utterly stupid, but its a fun kinda stupid really.

 

[Quazimofo]

I will resub, if only to play the new zones and go through the story (shut up, I like WoW's cheesy story!).

Oh yeah it's super campy. I got tired of it when I never had good enough gear to do any raiding and cataclysm's quests became just boring.

Edit: to be clear I enjoyed the story but in cataclysm it was dull in my mind.

I almost want to try this, but I'll go through the quests and then start doing the small town simulator with questing companions (suspiciously like SWTOR, but in town form with bigger parties and a larger companion pool but less writing) and then want to try raiding but be unable to get anywhere because I always lose the rolls on the gear I need and by the time I've got the stuff for one raid they released a new one and nobody wants to play the old one.

I think I never did any raids until WoTLK and at I never was able to get groups for anything more than naxx 2.0, that one raid in the pvp zone that changed hands (vault of something), and then the really old raids before anything got updated, so everyone just kinda split up and punched the shit out of anything and everything before they could even finish their fight-opening monologues. Got boring kinda fast (it's not fun when you can't experience it even close to how they intended, with a certain amount of pacing and threat). Except for onyxia, that was still fun before they updated that. If my account is still intact, I still have that old helmet with an axe on the head meant for SUPER POWERFUL LV 60 WARRIORS.

I really wish I had been able to ever even complete Ulduar, or even start Icecrown, or complete the argent tournament raid (wait... I think I did do that one once or twice in a 10 man group where I was basically being dragged along) or do blackrock spire or any of the vanilla 40 man raids as they were intended, or literally any of the Burning Crusade raids as they were intended.

I need to find a new MMO and actually get in on the ground floor. I missed too much in wow and while trying to catch up I missed so many others which are now dying or dead: Warhammer, tabula rasa, Star Wars Galaxies (actually found a pre-NGU private server and tried it out. That would have been SO MUCH FUN if I had people to play with/help me understand what the hell to do/there was a bigger game population. The server as understandably sparsely populated), City of heroes... and what's left has gone freemium (which is ... irritating, in many respects) or tries and fails to capture what WOW had (SWTOR is a prime example of both).

Hopefully some upcoming projects can be a breath of fresh air, but until then I shall try to scrounge some funds and get things done so there's free time in anticipation.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm honestly not impressed. The updated models are nice (even though they were promised, what, last year?) but the story seems to smack of recycling, the "level boost" thing only works for one character (or so I've heard) and I'm not seeing anything new or interesting that would make me want to reactivate my subscription.

I think I'll just stay with my fond memories and keep my fifteen bucks a month, really.

 

[Nosirrah]

Can we have our cowboy dinosaurs and space sharks now please blizzard? I would sub for space sharks and cowboysaurs.

 

[Vaccine]

The updated models are nice (even though they were promised, what, last year?) but the story seems to smack of recycling, the "level boost" thing only works for one character (or so I've heard)

Blizzard never gave or promised anything, they never give time frames for projects or features still in development, it's been like this for years.
It's confirmed one character so far, which is good I guess, getting into WoW after so many expansions leveling is tedious for the most part.