My Thoughts On Warlords of Draenor So Far

Warlords of Draenor has been out for a few weeks now, and I haven't said too much about it. When the expansion was first announced, I wasn't too eager to see it really. The only thing that sounded interesting to me were the garrisons. As the expansion neared, Blizzard started releasing these mini movies that gave some background into the upcoming expansion. Those were actually pretty cool, and they got me interested in seeing what the expansion had to offer. I have to say though, that excitement was short lived once patch 6.0.2 went live. You can read about all the changes here, but basically Blizzard wanted to take WoW back to its roots. So we all got hit with the nerf bat and everything sucked. Especially when the dungeons in Panda Land hadn't been fixed yet. That was miserable. And the race remodels. I really didn't like them. My humans looked like taller dwarves, and my undeads just looked....weird. But like with anything in WoW, you complain about it for a while, and then you get over it and get used to it.

So the expansion finally released, and I waited a few days to try and log in. I didn't care about being any kind of server first (besides, most of those went to people that a-beta tested and knew the general gist of how things worked already or b-work for wowhead), and I knew with the amount of people trying to log in, it would be a nightmare. I waited four days after launch to log in, and it still took me hours to finally get onto my server. It was worth it though. I started out with a Horde toon of mine, and shes actually my highest toon right now (94). The quests were pretty easy to do, although I found myself taking a lot of damage from mobs at times, and I'm not used to that lol. But I guess thats part of Blizzard's "taking it back" thing. I remember when I first started playing, mobs were hard to kill. Once you get out of the starting area (and thats not an immediate thing), you go onto Frostfire Ridge (Blade's Edge Mountains). When I started the quest line on my Alliance character, I was expecting to go to the same place. So it was really nice to see that after getting out of that starting area (because you do start the same way, no matter your faction), you do go to a different area to start building your garrisons. The Alliance start in Shadowmoon Valley. I haven't gotten too far into the quest lines with my Ally toon to see how different they are, but at least you have the change of scenery.

I really like the garrisons and all the quests you can have your followers do for it. Yes, followers! You earn them from quests, and they help you complete tasks. The achievement whore in me just loves it because there are so  many achievements related to the garrison and your followers. You can also kill beasts out and about and they give you garrison supplies, plus you can just find them while questing. Also while you're questing, bonus objectives can pop up on your map, and if you complete them, you get gold and xp, which is good. The addition of the reagent bank is super awesome, but I've already filled mine up on my 94, so thats a bummer. That reagent bank saves you a ton of bag space though! It really comes in handy, well worth the 100 gold to get it.

Some things I don't like about the new expansion is that the characters light up when you hover over them. Thats just distracting to me, and it reminds me of EverQuest. Actually, most of this expansion reminds me of EverQuest, which is pretty crappy. Its like Blizzard couldn't think of anything new on their own, so they went to rip off another game instead. I also don't like how squishy I've become. I get hit so hard by mobs, its really difficult to quest alone. I'm not horrible at my class either- the mobs just hit harder. And like I mentioned above, I don't like how any of my toons look remodeled. I like how they looked before.

Overall though, I am enjoying this expansion a lot more than I thought I would. I feel like there is a lot to do in this one so you can't get bored with it super easily (like with Pandaria, even though I didn't even finish most of what was out there).I still haven't tried to do any of the new dungeons though, so that should be interesting. And leveling of professions is different a little now too. There are some items I can use from Draenor that have a really high level with no problem, but items from the old world, that have lower levels, require a certain level in a profession to use them. Its a little wacky how thats done, but I think it has something to do with the garrisons and work orders.

Have you tried Warlords of Draenor? What do you think of it so far? Let me know in the comments!


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Warlords of Draenor Stuff and Some More Child Neglect

Its Wednesday! Halfway through our week and guess what? Tomorrow is the cinematic reveal for Warlords of Draenor! Who's excited? I wanted to haul myself to Los Angeles to see it in person, but I'm sure the line will be out of this world long (everyone who is there, regardless of getting into the theater or not, will receive a beta key for WOD), so I guess I will be watching online instead.

You can log on to www.WorldofWarcraft.com to watch it or if you're feeling adventureous, go to the Theatre at Ace Hotel, 929 South Broadway in LA (doors open at 8:30am). For all the info (and to see a million comments from people who are butthurt about the screening's location) you can click here.

Also in WOD news, this article popped up on my Yahoo front page the other day, and I thought I'd share it with you. Its just some things to get done before the expansion, as they will be disappearing. Items include: green warlock fire (you can still get the fire, the title and feat of strength is what's vanishing) and the phoenix mounts from Pandaria challenge modes. 

Another World of Warcraft article came into my Yahoo front page just after the WOD one did, and this one is about child neglect (here is a link to what the DA released on the case....its nasty). I have written about WoW and child abuse/neglect before (you can read it here, if you feel so inclined), and my stance on the subject hasn't changed. What gets me about this one is that the parents are unemployed (so how are they paying for it? Welfare probably- your tax dollars at work if you live in CA), they locked the children in the mobile home for three years so nobody could see the squalor and deplorable conditions they were being subjected to and that the focus of the story was still that the parents were playing WoW while all this abuse and neglect was happening. I would bet almost anything that they would still be shitty parents living off the government even if they weren't glued to their computers. Its sad that people still blame video games for the actions of people, when they should really be blaming the people who are performing said actions. 

WoW Wednesday...Its Actually More About Hearthstone...

I think I need to make a new section just for Hearthstone, I have been playing it more than WoW lately. If you're interested in Blizzard's World of Warcraft themed card game, it is now out of beta and very live! You can download it for free at playhearthstone.com. Also, if you are a WoW player trying out Hearthstone, you might be interested in the mount that they're giving away if you get three wins in Play or Arena mode. The mount also gives you an achievement called Hearthstoned.

I took a picture of my mount as soon as I won it yesterday. It took forever to get it once I logged into WoW though. It was supposed to be there as soon as you logged in, but I guess their system was overloaded by everyone trying to get it. The mount is very impressive and I've heard rumors that there is a red version of this horse, although I have only seen people getting blue ones.

Now for some WoW news. The time has come to pre-purchase Warlords of Draenor. If you pre-order the standard ($49.99) or deluxe ($69.99) digital version of the expansion, you get a free level 90 boost. You will then also have the option of purchasing addition level 90 boosts for $60 a boost. There was a lot of trash talking in Trade last night about the level boosts, but I bet most of those guys pre-ordered as well! They were talking equal amounts of trash about the Hearthsteed too, but that's just Trade, full of hating trolls. Anyway, the digital deluxe also comes with some in-game goodies; like a Dread Raven Mount and Dread hatchling pet for WoW, Battle.net portraits for Starcraft II and a Warsong Pennant for Diablo III. The mount and pet sound most appealing to me. I haven't played Diablo in forever and I have never played Starcraft. Are any of you going to pre-purchase the game for the level 90 boosts or the in-game goodies?

WoW Wednesday

Happy Wednesday everyone! Have you been busy getting all you Lunar Festival achievements? I know I haven't lol. I have been too busy trying to utilize the last few days left on my RaF. The Lunar Festival is very pretty though, and there isn't much to do other than honor the Elders. A pain if you can't teleport or fly, but otherwise fun (and a nice way to fill in your maps). Here's a little guide from Wowhead to help you out :) Its going on now through February 3rd, so don't miss out!

Source.

The models for the Female Humans in Warlords of Draenor have been released recently. Nothing too different about them I think, just a little more definition in the body area. You can view some of the other race remodels here. 

Also, if you were mourning the fact that you weren't chosen for Hearthstone's closed betas, mourn no more. Hearthstone is now in open beta! Yes! So come hang out at the table and show us what you've got (not that I'm so great lol. I usually lose my games....) Here's a fun review from The Daily Crate (Loot Crate's hub of knowledge) about Hearthstone.

How cute are the new WoW sweatshirts from Jinx!? I mean seriously. And since I have an Alliance sweatshirt, but don't really play Alli anymore, I think this is the perfect time to get me a Horde sweatshirt! The hood detail is so awesome,  I just love it.

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.