Well, nerds, it’s 2015 and we’ve now had the World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor expansion in our hands for almost two whole months.
Now approaches a complicated question: how do we feel about it?
Fresh out of the gate, this fifth expansion was not a winner, at least for any server with an average to high population of players. 6+ hour login queue times for over a week were less than encouraging, and a lot of players decided their subscription money was not worth the frustration. I myself remember getting out of bed an hour early to get myself into the queue in the hopes I would be fully logged in by the time I returned from work.
The few times I was able to actually access the game those first few weeks, the starting quests were an absolute mess. I play on a high population server, so all quest givers and objective spawns were being camped by hundreds of people, giving me no choice but to do the same if I wished to continue my leveling.
Five days after the launch, Blizzard gave all players five days of free game time to make up for the awful queue time length they had to endure. My hat was certainly off to them for this gesture, especially since news had come out about the giant DDoS attack on Blizzard spanning those five days. We couldn’t fault them for that.
Another contribution to the overloaded servers was the fact that Blizzard had not prepared for the massive number of returning subscribers. In the period of one month, the amount of subscriptions changed from 7.4 million to over 10 million. Many of the players that cancelled theirs out of dissatisfaction with the Mists of Pandaria expansion showed renewed interest with the arrival of Warlords, as well had players who quit pre-Cataclysm.
Once Blizzard had fought past those first two weeks, the issues decreased dramatically, the game played much more smoothly, and the players leveled happily.
The lore is amazing. The decision of the writers to return us to an old, “savage” Draenor (before the utter devastation occurred that turned it into Outland) was incredibly wise, revisiting nostalgic characters and locations that older players know, and teaching these stories to newer players. It’s not an exact rehash of prior events, considering the time travel involved gives everything a fresh twist.
Though a difficult sell in the beginning, Warlords has muscled its way into a position to drive World of Warcraft subscriptions (hopefully) through to the next expansion.
Now that you have a general feel for Warlords of Draenor, the latest expansion from World of Warcraft, how’s about we dive into the specifics?
All-important is the game play itself. Blizzard clearly put enormous effort into the promised updated character models, and it shows. The animations are smoother, facial expressions more vivid, and options for the models themselves more unique.
The environment artists certainly outdid themselves as well; the game feels immersive as ever. The detail and style of the creatures and world are spectacular, and the design of every model is rich with color and story.
What about the changes announced by the devs at Blizzcon 2013? Are they working well, do players like them, or are they just a waste of code?
That would be the jist. There is so much more about the world, the gameplay, and class mechanics I could tell you, but it would be even more worth it to experience it all for yourself. (That, and I might blow a gasket.) So if Warlords has piqued your interest, pick up a copy, put your savage face on, and I will see you in-game.
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