World of Warcraft's Latest Expansion Is Warlords of Draenor

maaaaan I haven't played in like five years but this looks pretty neat.

This is starting to get a bit sad. WoW is definitely in its final years.

WoW still plays better than most games (especially all of this kind) that are 10 years old. Haters gonna hate, I guess?

It's pretty ridiculous that they are letting people instantly boost up to level 90 or something.

edit: Still looks pretty good visually too. Them new models look pretty great.

More excited by this than MoP, which isn't of course saying much...but I'll likely play this still!

Methinks 100 may be the final level.

Get rid of helicopters, motorcycles, guns and Panda's and I might give it a shot again

Oh I don't know. Updated character models and player housing is definitely stuff that catches my attention, unlike the past two expansions.

im excited to see more about this

@michaelbach:

I think you're looking for a different game then. Guns and helicopters have been in Warcraft since the first RTS games.

Surprised you can boost to 90. Though I heard they made all the level grinding much easier anyway.

You can tell the budget is getting smaller, the first trailer isn't CGI, its all in-game. Slowly dying.

I'm really interested in seeing these new character models.

Bullshit. They've used in-game trailers for the last 2 expansion announcements too and then they show the CG cinematic close to launch.

It still takes a really long time, though. Good to have.

So what's the narrative justification here? More Caverns of Time tomfoolery?

After almost a decade they finally updated the original player character models. Geez took them long enough. Also holy shit the budget for this trailer was low. Fans could probably make something better than this haha.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/warlords-of-draenor/ has a more in-depth look at the new models, the new areas and such. Finally, the Orc model won't look like it's sustained multiple head injuries.

As a WoW content tourist, I'm in (for the month and a bit it takes me to hit level cap and see everything I want to before I get bored and quit until the next expansion)! Excited!

WoW is a nice place to visit every couple of years.

Of course, more time travel nonsense. Sounds like a transitional expansion before the big story progression.

Very exciting to me. I was always pretty casual with WOW so the 90 boost sounds awesome for one. You can definitely tell they're trying to cater more towards the more casual players, not that I think that's a bad thing.

Like with every expansion I'll be in it for the first month or so. And hey, sure looks like a council fight...

yeah, the first announcements are always done in-game. You get a gorgeous Cinematic a few months before the actual release.

Last timed I played WoW was during Cata's first few months. Totally skipped Mists. I dipped in for a minute when they offered me a free week at some point, but the classes and talents and whatever were all so different that I had no interest in relearning it all. Kudos to them for changing the game as much as they do, I guess. I think about WoW sometimes. Lots of good memories. Oddly enough, the new character models would probably be the thing that would get me to try it out again.

Also, this is the first expansion whose lore I am totally unfamiliar with.

@michaelbach: You mean the guns that have been in the game since launch? o_O

I super doubt it. It would need another five-six years of constant subscriber loss before it falls down to the next biggest MMO, if I'm recalling my numbers correctly.

Nope. Like above, the word you're looking for is "lazy". Don't label them in with yourself there, it's bad for you.

@rorie:

Software's acting up. buh.

Anyways, it's infintesimal and lush compared with launch WoW, and that was infintesimal and lush compared with previous MMOs. The goal as it's percieved is "no effort", and that's despite so much work, cleverness, and money dumped into making the leveling process better. No, because of that. Sometime human nature can be a bitch, but that's what player bribery gets ya.

I'm really, really, really excited about the new models. All the other stuff looked OK, too. I will be resubscribing for this. At least for a couple of months.

I've got five nineties. I don't need to see all that content again for the sixth time; it's just dead time in a lot of empty zones (on my server, at least) getting a character to endgame. Giving me one of these boosts might mean I'd actually get a caster to the endgame for once. I have zero problems with giving out a single boost like this per account.

@rorie:

@satelliteoflove er didn't tag you.

I will say that I worry about brand-new people coming in, boosting to 90, and getting to endgame without a clear way of how to play their classes in a group. But I'm sure Blizz is worried more about retaining existing subscribers than growing at this point.

And the helicopters that have existed at least since Warcraft 3 with the Gnomish Alliance units, I believe.

Orcs need to stop being such jerks.

WAAAARR

Clearing up a few misconceptions here.

1. The reveal trailers for every single expansion to date have been done in-game. The gorgeous CG cinematics come out a couple months before the actual release of the expansion, when the game is well into beta testing.

2. This is not the final expansion. In fact, it's the first in a string of at least three expansions whose storylines are being developed concurrently, creating a stronger story arc.

3. The level 90 boost is only one per account, upon purchase of Warlords of Draenor.

I'll pick this up again if they actually made the player models look better. The "old" races were starting to look very 2004.

What is it good for!!!

They are indeed! So far they have dwarves, orcs, and gnomes done. They're planning on having the original 8 races updated by launch, with blood elves and draenei following in patches.

Damn, somehow this game still looks good like, what 9-10 years in?

I played a bit too long to stay with the game now, but the expansions have consistently been fun to jump back into for a few months. Looking forward to this one too.

From the Q&A:

How is this time travel going to work with the story?

"We aren't going back in time, the Dark Portal is turning red, bad guys are coming through. We look at the Orc Clans as they were, but things are happening now. The end of this expansion will launch the next one."

I assume they could push people to use their new Proving Grounds system. I agree, though, that you should at least reach endgame or 90 before being able to boost.

Honestly I would like to see them stop at level 100 and see what they could do to expand on character growth. For example, Everquest did AA's and Dark Age did Realm Abilities & Master Levels; Blizzard has been able to do some interesting things when out of their comfort zone.

I'll undoubtedly dive back in with this. Heck, I'd probably dive back in right now if I had a guild or friends to play with..

Also, while I know most people don't actually care about the story of Warcraft that much, I still enjoy it and this seems like it should be a pretty good opportunity for some of Blizzard's story telling with the direction they're going.

So this is back in time? I haven't followed warcraft since warcraft 3, but pretty sure draenor was kaput.

@murdoc_: Ya, I thought the reason the Orcs left in the first place was because Draenor was boned.

It's sort of

Also, that bit with Valen up there and the Orcs at the doorstep there is SO much like the defense of Rohan. The cynic in me wants to say that that's plagiarism, but the optimist in me wants to say that it's a nod to Tolkien.

NEW CHARACTER MODELS.

I may jump back into WoW after all these years if it won't look like a 10 year old game anymore.

Seems interesting, however their new 20 player Mythic raid is going to kill 10 man raiding guilds, a format that is representing like 80% of raiding population.

Where 25 man guild can axe 5 players, 10 man need to recruit 10 more additional good players, well not many will succeed let that be said.

Wait, so the level 90 boost is for everyone? I thought they would do the death knight thing, and require you to have a character at level 90 already so you can create a level 90 out of the gate.

Welp, new character models were pretty much the only thing I was waiting for to re-sub after Cataclysm. When this hits I'm back on the bandwagon.

Building your own garrison could be really cool, I'll wait to see what else it brings since I've been off this game for a while

I am just not sold on this. The player Stronghold (player housing) looks great, but the rest just isn't wowing me. I don't want to see old Outlands, that sounds boring to me. I don't care about old lore, the only lore I ever cared about in WoW was killing Horde. I would much rather see an expo based totally around a huge war (the war parts of Pandaria were fantastic). I don't want to travel in time, I don't want old dead NPCs I never gave a shit about in the first place. Lore is great and all, but is far secondary to gameplay in an MMO.

I really, really liked Pandaria. I remember seeing it two years ago and hearing them talk about it and thinking "ya, this sounds really cool to me". I had mostly stopped playing during Cata, it just didn't grab me. And I was a hardcore player by any measure from beta up to Cata. I never turned off my account, but I did stop logging in. When Pandaria hit I jumped right back in and have been playing steady since, the improvements they made were fantastic. Pandaria itself feels awesome and alive, the much improved (and more frequent) voice acting was a huge bonus for making some of the NPCs interesting.

It is still early, so maybe as they talk more about it my interest will rise. But so far I am not sitting here waiting for it.

And reading the comments I am surprised how much love the new models are getting. Is that really such a big deal for people? They look nice and all, but I wouldn't even consider them important in WoW. You are mostly fully covered in armor anyway.