With "Mists of Pandaria" having been out for over a year, and the "Seige of Ogrimmar" taking place, it was about time for Blizzard to announce their new and fifth expansion. And at "Blizzcon," they announced it: "Warlords of Draenor."
World of Warcraft®: Warlords of Draenor™, the fifth expansion to Blizzard Entertainment’s acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, sends players to the world of Draenor at a pivotal moment in history to fight against and alongside legends from Warcraft’s brutal past.
Across Draenor's savage jungles and battle-scarred plains, Azeroth's heroes will engage in a mythic conflict involving mystical draenei champions and mighty orc clans, and cross axes with the likes of Grommash Hellscream, Blackhand, and Ner’zhul at the height of their primal power. Players will need to scour this unwelcoming land in search of allies to help build a desperate defense against the Iron Horde’s formidable engine of conquest—or else watch their own world’s bloody, war-torn history repeat itself.
To those less than familiar with the lore of the game, Draenor was the home of the Orc and Draeani before it was wrecked and changed into what is known as "Outland." And so this expansion brings to World of Warcraft the world of Draenor "as it once existed, and adventure in all-new zones alongside characters central to Warcraft history." Players will also be able to establish their own garrison, which you can recruit NPC followers for, and have them carry out tasks while offline. One will be able to upgrade a character instantly to Level 90. Players will also be able to level up ten more times to 100. And there are updated character models and animations for the original WoW races.
In some ways, the game is a re-introduction to the first Warcraft games that came out in the 1990s, which many WoW players never saw. Exactly how the characters get to Draenor, that remains to be seen.
The makers of the game hope this expansion will help revive its declining player base. In July, it was announced their numbers had dropped to under eight million. Despite the decline, Blizzard stated they have no plans to make WoW a "free to play" game, saying there would have to be too many changes to the game. While still dropping, World of Warcraft still has numbers far more than other multiplayer online games.
“To forge a brighter future, sometimes you must confront the ghosts of the past.”
Blizzard "Warlords of Draeani" FAQ (Click Here)
Sources: Blizzard, Eurogamer, Gamespot,
It looks like there's some level of time travel taking place. I have a feeling many Warcraft players won't be too keen on the idea.
ReplyDeleteWe already had time travel in going back to Thrall's past in a couple of instances. While I like the idea of instant upgrading to level 90, the dropping player base plus not being free to play (as Rift and many others did) show this is a dinosaur that refuses to die out.
DeletePlus... Garrosh infected by old ones? Really? Bleh.
I don't think they're going to go free to play until the game's no longer the number one multiplayer online.
ReplyDelete