World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor (PC) Preview

Base of this Preview: Various Beta versions

It’s been two years since Blizzard sent us to the panda bear realm of Pandaria. Now, the fifth expansion to World of Warcraft is just around the corner. On November 13, Blizzard will be releasing Warlords of Draenor, the latest episode in the most successful MMORPG of all time. I managed to get my hands on one of the coveted beta keys, and took a trip to Draenor myself beforehand.

Warlords of Draenor takes place 35 years in the past. Not only that – we travel back to a parallel universe where Draenor is not yet fractured into various shattered remnants known as Outland…Or might never be, since this is a parallel universe and all. Confusing? You got that right. The background story Blizzard gives us here is confusing mess of a plot. To put it briefly, we follow Garrosh Hellscream, who after losing the Siege of Ogrimmar at end of Mists of Pandaria, manages to escape punishment for his crimes by traveling through a portal to Draenor, in an alternate timeline decades before the events of the Warcraft series begin. As soon as he arrives, Garrosh begins to influence history and change the past. He unites the various Orc clans living there in peace, turning them into a fighting force that builds the Dark Portal in order to launch an invasion of Azeroth. Once again, the peoples of Azeroth must stand up to the threat posed by the Dark Portal, though this time it’s not against the demons of the Burning Legion, but against Garrosh Hellscream’s “Iron Horde”. “Why should we care what happens in a parallel dimension?” you might wonder, but Garrosh would not be Garrosh if he didn’t manage to find a way to enter back into the dimension and time he came from.

Patch 6.0.2

October 15 saw the release of the pre-patch for Warlords of Draenor, which introduced several changes and adjustments to World of Warcraft. However, since this beta test is mostly concerned with the expansion, I’m only going to briefly mention the most important changes that affect all players, even those who won’t be getting the expansion right away.

• Blizzard has given a facelift to the player avatars themselves, which over the years have become somewhat graphically dated. In the future, players will be able to improve their character’s appearance. Of course, those who don’t want to do this can always keep their old faces for old time’s sake.
• The spellbook has been cleaned up a bit. Spells that were hardly ever used or which have become unusable over the course of the game’s development have disappeared, or have been replaced by or combined into new ones.
• From now on, the Horde and the Alliance will share an auction house, which means that certain scarce goods will no longer be found on popular servers.
• Bags will now have a sorting feature, meaning you no longer have to waste time digging through them.
• A Reagent Bank (the same size as the guild bank) for storing raw crafting materials has been added. Also, crafting materials can now be stacked up to 100 in bags or in the bank.
• A new Toy Box has been added for fun items that would otherwise take up valuable space.
• Guild bonuses have been removed.
• Several stats, such as Hit and Expertise, and Dodge and Parry as item stats, have been removed.
• Valor and Justice points have been removed.
• The Group Finder has been revamped. It’s now easier to find group members for older raids.

There are still quite a few more changes, but that’s another story.

Warlords of Draenor – Garrisons (Housing)

After completing a very well-designed and storyline-heavy pre-quest (which is necessary if you want to be able to understand the story at all), you start off either in Frostfire Ridge (Horde) or in Shadowmoon Valley (Alliance). Right from the start, it’s clear they’ve added what the fan community has been asking for for years: player housing. In World of Warcraft, however, it’s more like “garrisoning” – what you can build is actually a garrison, a customizable, character-specific subzone. Numerous gathering quests provide you with the raw materials to quickly expand and improve your garrison in various ways. With the garrison feature Blizzard manages to integrate into its MMORPG the primary feature of Warcraft I-III, namely, gathering resources in order to build various buildings. There are a wide variety of buildings to choose from, which are organized by size (small, medium, and large). Each garrison includes a number of building plots, depending on the level of your Town Hall. Each building can be upgraded up to level 3 using Blueprints, which can be obtained either by completing quests or by purchasing them from certain vendors. Each individual building grants the player various special bonuses. For example, the Stables (large) allow players to capture and train certain mounts. Frostwall Tavern or Lunarfall Inn (medium) contain adventurers who offer daily dungeon quests with some generous rewards. Depending on the level of the building, new followers will appear each week, who you can send on missions (see “Followers” below).

The sheer number of possible combinations of different building types and the bonuses they provide means that no garrison is likely to look the same as any other. Of course it also matters what professions you’ve learned, as each profession is associated with certain buildings that provide unique bonuses to that profession. I should also mention the Herb Garden and Mines, which allow players to gather resources even if they aren’t herbalists or miners. “Work orders” from certain NPCs provide you with resources and crafting materials without spending a ton of money at the auction house. And if you liked fishing, but didn’t like the tedious back and forth that came with it, you can now breathe easy, since all Draenorish fish are available in your garrison’s own waters. Garrisons make it extremely easy to increase your skill level in the secondary professions fishing and cooking within your own walls. You also now learn new recipe ideas simply by tasting them. The Storehouse allows you to access your own bank and your guild’s bank at any time. And pet lovers are in for a real treat, too – the Menagerie includes a Battle Pet Trainer on retainer.

Homebodies beware! If you’ve already been spending your weekends at home in front of the computer exploring a virtual world, you might now find yourself staying at home in the game too, as there’s always something to do in your Garrison. There are tasks to complete, resources to gather and process, and peons to keep on their toes. Your Garrison definitely includes its own share of housework. But daily Garrison quests also provide action when you need it – defending your Garrison against attackers, healing the wounded, and bringing stray peons to safety.

Fortunately, however, you don’t have to do everything for yourself – you can delegate many tasks to your followers.

Followers

Followers can be found everywhere in Draenor. You should have acquired your first ten by level 100 by quests and leveling. All followers can be sent off on missions via the Town Hall, and depending on their skills and abilities, they’ll be able to complete them more or less effectively, or not at all. Followers can have levels from 90-100, and they can level up by completing missions. The mission overview helpfully shows you even those followers you haven’t acquired yet, always with a description on which zone or quest you can find them on.

Blizzard has really done bang-up job here, as the Garrisons are a lot of fun, and like I mentioned above, there’s always something to do that’s quite different from the average WoW gameplay experience.

Draenor: the new zones

The new zones in Warlords of Draenor are Frostfire Ridge, Shadowmoon Valley, Gorgrond, Talador, Tanaan Jungle (not yet accessible), Spires of Arak, Nagrand, and Ashran (PvP zone) seem like they’ve recycled the features of other zones a bit too much. Of course Draenor is supposed to later become Outland, so it only makes sense for several areas to resemble what the player already knows. Blizzard could have displayed a bit more creativity here, though. What really is impressive, however, are the diverse storyline quests to be found in each zone. Of course these don’t entirely dispense with the classic gathering and slaying missions, but they do allow you to learn a lot about the Draenor of today, or the Outland of yesterday. 

One new feature are the bonus objectives which you can find in each zone. These typically involve clearing a particular region by killing a certain number of enemies or collecting a certain number of items.

Exploring the new lands is still a lot of fun, though, as there’s a lot of new things to discover alongside familiar places. Behind every rock and shrub are new rare and elite enemies who drop some really useful weapons and gear, at least at lower levels.

Perhaps more than anyone else, players who like to collect rare and interesting items will not be disappointed with the new expansion. Once you’ve completed all the missions in a particular zone, you’ll receive a treasure map of that zone, and you can search for these treasures to your heart’s content, or at least while you have the patience. The treasures include everything, from raw materials for your Garrison to weapons and armor. 

New Dungeons

Warlords of Draenor brings a total eight new five-player instances online: Auchindoun, Bloodmail Slag Mines, The Everbloom, Grimrail Depot, Iron Docks, Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, Skyreach, Upper Blackrock Spire.

At the time of the test, a lot of things were still under construction, so what I am describing here might be different by the time of the actual release. However, I can say that in general, they’ve kept all the instances relatively small. Short paths and 4-5 boss battles are standard. Of course, not every dungeon has to be like Wailing Caverns or Blackrock Depths, but it would have been nice if the newer ones were a bit more substantial. I had a lot of different experiences with each of the instances during the several times I tried them during the beta. For example, one day I tried the instance Skyreach with a group of experienced players who do nothing but raid, and it was pretty much impossible. The next day we were able to clear it in just a few minutes. The instances Auchindoun and Bloodmail Slag Mines were also extremely easy to complete. One can only speculate if it was heroic mode one day and normal mode the next, in which case the latter is way too easy. But if the attempt we made countless times and failed is what heroic mode is, then even hardened veterans had better brace themselves. It’s always nice to have one instance or another that’s ridiculously hard.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test the new raids due to lack of time. However, raiders can look forward to two extensive new campaigns with Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry. They’re also changing the modes in which you can meet end bosses – Raid Finder will work for 10 players and not just 25, and what is currently a Flexible Raid will become a Normal Raid. Up to 30 players will be able to participate in these raids, though you can play with fewer than that, of course. Current Normal Raids will become Heroic Raids, and the player limit will also be increased to 30. And starting on November 14, Heroic Mode will be called Mythic Mode, and will be reserved for 20 players only.