WoW Wednesday - BlizzCon 2013 The Recap

Hello Everyone! This post has been a long time coming, so thank you for your patience! My computer issues have been solved for the moment (had to wipe the husband's old laptop and start anew. Mine is still completely dead), so things should be getting back to normal. This post was supposed to go up last Wednesday, but in all the computer mayhem, plus a death in the family, it was lost in the shuffle. It wasn't all horrible though, my lagging gave me the opportunity to find a great contributor to write about her experiences with the virtual ticket aspect of BlizzCon. So yay for that! Lets jump on in, shall we?

I think the biggest thing to come from this year's BlizzCon was the announcement of the new expansion. We all knew it was coming, but finally the confirmation was here. Which should have been a big deal except....a few days before BlizzCon, I saw a post on MMO Champion that said that Blizzard had copyrighted the name Warlords of Draenor in Australia/New Zealand. So really, the news was already out. But its nice that Blizzard made it official :)

Some fun things to come out of the expansion are the garrisons (which seem a little Everquest to me, but I'm still down), level cap raised to 100 and the race remodels.

If you want to see lots of cool pictures from BlizzCon, check out this post from Mandie over at Geeky Glamorous. She got some pretty awesome shots and it looked like so much fun! I am determined to go next year.

And here is TradeChat's video recap of BlizzCon:

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But enough of my ramblings. I am proud to introduce the first (and hopefully not the last) contributed post, written by Kimberlee.

My Thoughts on Virtual Blizzcon 2013

Most. Underwhelming. Xpac. Announcement. Ever.

Ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the changes that they’re planning to roll out with Warlords of Draenor, like the long overdue item squish. I’m also more than a bit happy that my tabards, toys, and all that stuff will FINALLY have their own tabs rather than occupying my ever dwindling bag space, void storage (no expansion, seriously?!) and bank (also, the bank toon and 5 bank tabs I have there).

But, let me go back to my previous rant for just a moment… Because… Heroes of the Storm got a cinematic but the new expansion didn’t. Every expansion has had a cinematic trailer, except this one. To say I was completely unimpressed with the announcement trailer would be an understatement. Blizzcon gave us in-game footage, concept sketches, a few shots of the new areas that are still under development, and a look at the racial re-skins. None of this felt terribly inspiring, and I think it fell far short of the bar in terms of setting the stage for the feel of the expansion in the way that previous releases have shown us. Re-watch the announcement trailer, and then go back to watch the announcement trailer for Cataclysm, or Pandaria, or ….. You’ll see my point.

We did, however, get a look at the new Alliance and Horde capital cities of Karabor and Bladespire Fortress. Did anyone else notice how, again, the Alliance got a kind of "pretty" starting area while the Horde are shoved into a wasteland of a slightly different flavor? Anyone? But I digress, as much as the cinematic was a TERRIBLE set up for the new world, I think that Draenor, as it was presented in the panels, will be a challenge and hopefully a better version of the things we loved about Outland.

Anyone familiar with the Warcraft book series will be well versed in the lore that is the foundation for Draenor. Those of you familiar with the Warcraft games, specifically 2 and 3, will recognize characters like Grom Hellscream. Hopefully we’ll also see some familiar faces, like Rexxar, since we’re going back to the time before the first war.

While I could go on about all of the impending changes, and a rant about 10 levels without flying (oh, how times have changed since Vanilla), let’s take a quick look at the thing we’re most excited for:

GARRISONS

Customizable housing is long overdue, I’ve been expecting it since Conan released theirs. Thank the Old Gods it won’t be like the housing we’ve seen in games like Ultima. While I’m fairly certain this is going to involve at least a bit of a "mini game" concept, and it’s going to be another level-grind to get to max garrison size, I think the ultimate utility of NPCs who will complete tasks while you’re afk will more than compensate for any inconvenience. (If it’s well executed.) I’m also hoping that eventually we’ll see some of the housing storage utility, like those in games like Star Wars Galaxies.

At the end of the day, I bought the Virtual Ticket for the pet, because I pretty much can’t help myself when it comes to in game collectibles. Presentation aside, I think Warlords of Draenor has the potential to take the playability of the game to a whole new level for all players, regardless of raiding or guild affiliation.