Warlords of Draenor Review: WoW, Nice Expansion

[John Keefer]

Warlords of Draenor Review: WoW, Nice Expansion

Despite some early server and log in issues, the Warlords of Draenor expansion for World of Warcraft shows Blizzard still can make the game entertaining.

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[Kenjitsuka]

"A fishing shack and menagerie for pet battles rounds out the garrison structures. "

Now I don't know what those do. Please include that in the article... thanks!

 

[Makabriel]

"A fishing shack and menagerie for pet battles rounds out the garrison structures. "

Now I don't know what those do. Please include that in the article... thanks!

You... fish... and battle your vanity pets? Heh.

Personally, it Irritates me to hear people call the first 48 hours of a release a failure. Since when in the history of new or current MMOs does a major expansion ever hit smoothly? I can't remember one. I -always- anticipate the first couple of days to be rocky and I call it a success instead of a failure. People are playing! People want to play! More than expected! That's a good thing..

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

"A fishing shack and menagerie for pet battles rounds out the garrison structures. "

Now I don't know what those do. Please include that in the article... thanks!

You... fish... and battle your vanity pets? Heh.

Personally, it Irritates me to hear people call the first 48 hours of a release a failure. Since when in the history of new or current MMOs does a major expansion ever hit smoothly? I can't remember one. I -always- anticipate the first couple of days to be rocky and I call it a success instead of a failure. People are playing! People want to play! More than expected! That's a good thing..

Yep I saw some videos of release day 40+ players and there mounts all jumping the same NPC while shooting every attack they have it's no wonder it crashed. Look at what Eve online does with it's slowdowns yet people don't call that crashing.

 

[Carnagath]

I started a week late and skipped all the launch problems and my impression of the expansion is positive. Leveling was fun, heroic dungeons are quite challenging if you are not overgeared, challenge modes are great, and there is always something to do. Negatives: The game has quite a few bugs, for example my pets randomly despawn. Also PvE class balance is completely out of whack, with monks doing about double the damage that they should be doing, and other whacky things. Overall though, it looks fine. Of course, the main point of WoW for me is the raiding, so I hope that when the raids open they are as good as Throne of Thunder or Siege of Orgrimmar, both of which were amazing with fresh mechanics and extra high difficulty.

 

[Ferisar]

-snip-

It's two zones thats missing actually. The tanaan(was that the right name?) jungle and the zone that should north of it and east of gorgrond. The latter wasn't implemented in beta due to reasons I've forgotten and might never be put in. You'll notice it quickly when you look at the map though.

Also the new models aren't entirely finished yeah. You can see it on the facial animations especially. Some expression are just.... Egads so bad.

This is correct: Tannan Jungle isn't in the game, but will be in 6.1 outside of just being a small intro sequence. Feralon, where Netherstorm would be now, was supposed to be a zone where all the boosted 90's started out, but they moved away from that when Tannan became an "intro" zone to the expansion. They said that Feralon -might- make it into the game, depending on how their development of the patches looks. They said the same about the Ogre continent/raid that we got a hint of at Blizzcon last year. Seems that a lot of things are up in the air, but I'm guessing their primary concern right now is stability and making sure Tannan is ready as a max-level zone once 6.1 rolls around.

 

[Ferisar]

-snip-

It's two zones thats missing actually. The tanaan(was that the right name?) jungle and the zone that should north of it and east of gorgrond. The latter wasn't implemented in beta due to reasons I've forgotten and might never be put in. You'll notice it quickly when you look at the map though.

Also the new models aren't entirely finished yeah. You can see it on the facial animations especially. Some expression are just.... Egads so bad.

This is correct: Tannan Jungle isn't in the game, but will be in 6.1 outside of just being a small intro sequence. Feralon, where Netherstorm would be now, was supposed to be a zone where all the boosted 90's started out, but they moved away from that when Tannan became an "intro" zone to the expansion. They said that Feralon -might- make it into the game, depending on how their development of the patches looks. They said the same about the Ogre continent/raid that we got a hint of at Blizzcon last year. Seems that a lot of things are up in the air, but I'm guessing their primary concern right now is stability and making sure Tannan is ready as a max-level zone once 6.1 rolls around.

To be honest given what I've seen of the ogres so far in WoD, I'd rather they were dumped in a bin and put on fire. I'm not really fond of the WoD ones, but thats just my personal taste. That said yeah that was what a friend told me about Feralon. It's a shame, but then WoD was rushed so no surprise there. At least it wasn't as badly rushed as Cata.

The Ogres in WoD were "supposed" to give us a taste of their empire before the majority of their race had gone full herp-derp, but I don't think they've delivered at all so far. All I'm seeing are a race of massive brutes who are too stupid to wipe their own arse, yet somehow pose a threat or have any reach. The things that they could've done with them was pretty high, but yeah, disappointing otherwise. At least the overall package is pretty solid atm. And I'll take Feralon as a forested/lush environment over ogres at this point. That, and the location where it resided prior (Netherstorm) is a little more interesting to me. If they ever do an off-coast content patch anything, I'd say they have better options than Shrek-land.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"A fishing shack and menagerie for pet battles rounds out the garrison structures. "

Now I don't know what those do. Please include that in the article... thanks!

You... fish... and battle your vanity pets? Heh.

I'm sure it's obvious to *current* players. But I played -thousands of hours- untill the end of Cataclysm.
So I don't know anything about those battle pets, just heard it's some kind of pokémon light where you can take on others.
And fishing AFAIK is about going to the different locations and casting a line, hoping for that one rare bite.

So... I can *guess* that a fishing shack is a place where you can find all kinds of fish from everywhere, eliminating travel? Or is it a place that generates fishing related resources (to make rare lures)? Does it cough up fish every hour so you can make buff food? Does it level your fishing ability slowly automated style? Can you do competitions against your friends or those newfound followers there for prices?

And this pet menagerie... Same deal, but I know even less about that. Can you not battle anyone, anywhere normally? Why a special structure? What does it add? Why should you build this instead of a mill or garison or whatever?