warlords-of-draenor
Latest
Recruit Soulare of Andorhal for your garrison
How would you like a follower who will happily throw a beam of light on you if you /praise him, and hand over a toy for your Toy Box just to be nice? Soulare of Andorhal isn't your typical follower at all. He's a protection paladin with the usual array of good follower abilities, but it's the fun things this follower does that makes him appealing. There's also the fact that he's a thinly-veiled reference to the Dark Soul character Solaire of Astora, but that's just the icing on the cake. Getting this follower, however, is slightly more difficult than you'd think. He starts out at level 90, because you don't find him out in the wilds of Draenor -- you recruit him from your Inn. In order to get Soulare, you're going to need the right building, the right set of abilities, and a whopping dollop of luck on top of it. But it's all worth it in the end. And if you're not quite feeling up to the challenge ... well, there's some good news on that end, too.
World of Warcraft proposes tradable subscription currency
Six-point-one. That's all you World of Warcraft players need to hear to get psyched for the new year. The dev team took a brief pause in rolling in all of the money from Warlords of Draenor sales to talk about what's coming up with Patch 6.1 as well as a proposed new subscription currency. The patch, which will go into testing soon, will contain improvements to garrisons, a legendary follower, the ability to send tweets from the game, the new Blood Elf models, shorter flight master routes, incentives for visiting friends' garrisons, and the new heirloom collection tab. Even bigger than this news is word that Blizzard is "exploring" adding a subscription currency that sounds like EVE Online's PLEX. The proposed idea would allow players to buy and sell game-time tokens for in-game gold: "Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system."
Choose My Adventure: World of Warcraft and the shadowy priest
It's been one week since Choose My Adventure's voters sent me on the path of darkness in World of Warcraft, daring me to cast off my healing roots and adventure forward as a Priest who deals only in shadow. I've gained a couple of levels, tinkered with my garrison, and killed hundreds and hundreds of orcs. I've even managed to work out some of last week's confusion, finding a spell rotation that works for me and laying waste to any PvE enemies that cross my path. I've also completed about a million quests, Warlords of Draenor-style.
WoW and FFXIV see boosted playtime on Raptr; ArcheAge playtime 'cratered'
Another month, another Raptr report. Yesterday Raptr.com posted its most played PC games list for November, and MMOs did rather well. Unsurprisingly, World of Warcraft surged up the list to #2 thanks to the Warlords of Draenor expansion. "The MMO's monthly play time was up 71.3% versus October," Raptr's press release says. And though WoW "likely" drew from League of Legends' numbers, it couldn't quite usurp the MOBA's #1 seat. Among other MMOs, ArcheAge playtime "cratered by 39.97%," but World of Tanks and Final Fantasy XIV both saw rises in theirs. Guild Wars 2 rose in rank, Raptr says, but lost playtime in November vs. October. SWTOR fell two places since October. As always, Raptr roundups come with the caveat that they represent Raptr users on PC, not all gamers; some MMO studios are also known to boost their Raptr numbers with in-game incentives. But since some of these games refuse to release population data, you might call this the next best snapshot of popularity outside of touring the servers yourself.
Recruit garrison kitty Goldmane as a follower
He may not be the best-dressed or most literate garrison follower you'll ever have, but Goldmane has one thing going for him, and it's right in his name. Goldmane the Skinner is a level 100 follower with the Skinning trait, allowing him to work at your garrison Barn and increase work order production. Available to both Alliance and Horde, Goldmane is pretty easy to pick up -- he just requires a short trip out to the southern coast of Nagrand. Head to Ironfist Harbor on the southwest shores of Nagrand and you'll come across a base for the Iron Horde that also includes a bonus mission, if you feel up to the challenge of killing a lot of orcs. If not, look around for the tallest tower in the base -- your objective is at the top. Fight your way up the tower, and you'll see two things of note: One very angry kitty locked away in a cage, and an orc by the name of Bolkar the Cruel, who is gloating over his latest captive.
Grimoire of the Four Winds offers BoA Pandaria flying for alts
There may not be any flying on Draenor, but if you have alts that you haven't boosted to 90 and still need to take through Pandaria, you might be wondering how they can learn flying early. Bind-on-account flying manuals have been in place since Wrath of the Lich King, and although it appeared at first that there were no manuals present for Mists of Pandaria -- or at least the flight vendor out at each faction's respective shrines didn't seem to be selling anything along those lines. However, there is in fact a Grimoire of the Four Winds available -- it just requires a little hike and a possible bidding war to acquire. The Grimoire of the Four Winds is only sold at the Black Market Auction House, which has been relocated from its old home in the Veiled Stair to the Ring of Blood in Nagrand. The approach to the Ring of Blood, located at roughly 53,14 if you have coordinates available in your game, is crawling with level 100 mobs. However, once you get to the Ring of Blood itself, all guards are neutral. Madame Goya is in a small building at the back of the Ring, and offers much the same items as usual -- raiding gear, transmog gear, and of course, the Grimoire of the Four Winds. While bidding starts at 1,000 gold, be aware that this is of course an auction house, and you might find yourself outbid. Reports on Wowhead suggest that either the tooltip or the manual itself is bugged for the moment -- players that have successfully bought the tome and tried to use it receive a message that the item cannot be used until level 90. It's likely we'll see this hotfixed or addressed in the future -- after all, if you're level 90, you're going to be on Draenor and not really caring about flight at all anyway! But if you've been looking for the Grimoire, just head to Nagrand and see if you can pick one up.
Perfect Ten: Looking back at the biggest MMO news of 2014
Well, my chums, here we are at the tail-end of 2014, having achieved all of our goals and new year's resolutions. Even better, we've survived what's turned out to be one of the wildest, rockiest, and most exciting years of MMO news in recent memory. This was the year of high-profile game launches, even more popular expansions, layoffs, and some epic-level studio face-palming decisions. It's easy to sit here and say that we predicted everything that was going to happen this year, but c'mon, you have to admit that you were surprised by at least one or two events in this industry. It's incredibly difficult to sum up the biggest news of the year without coming to grips with the fact that many stories aren't one-and-done; a lot of what I'm going to be talking about in this list happened over the course of weeks or months and still may not be fully over. That's how news stories are sometimes!
Getting started with pet battles in Warlords of Draenor
Though the basic battle pet system hasn't changed, if you're a pet collector heading into Warlords of Draenor you'll find plenty of new pets to collect, six new tamers to beat, daily battles at your garrison's menagerie, new achievements, and a new pet-centric currency. So where's a potential pet tamer to begin? We'll walk you through all of the pat battling Warlords has to offer. Find and fight Draenor's pet tamers There are six new tamers to battle in Draenor, one for every zone (excepting Tanaan and Ashran). You can fight each tamer once a day in exchange for 4 Pet Charms, which you can use to buy pet-centric gear at your garrison. In addition to fun toys like costumes and pet treats, you can buy bandages, and battle-stones. Amongst that gear, of the most interest to pet levelers will be: Marked Flawless Battle-Stones for 15 charms, Flawless Battle-Training Stones for 3 charms, and Mystery Bags which a random family battle-training stone for 2 charms. Here's who you'll need to fight (and where you'll need to go) for your pet charms: Cymre Brightblade, Gorgrond (51, 71): Strategy Ashlei, Shadowmoon Valley (50, 30): Strategy Vesharr, Spires of Arak (46, 46): Strategy Gargra, Frostfire Ridge (67, 64): Strategy Taralune, Talador (49, 81): Strategy Tarr the Terrible, Nagrand (56, 10): Strategy
Choose My Adventure: I am so confused in World of Warcraft
Last week's Choose My Adventure polls for World of Warcraft set me on a very unexpected path. Male Blood Elf? Really? If you had asked me to predict the result of the class/race/gender/faction polls, I would have been extremely super-wrong. I thought for sure Massively's readership was full of carebear Alliance sympathizers who spend their WoW hours hosting hug parties in Darnassus. Anyway. This week saw me creating our new character, using the included-with-Warlords of Draenor instant level 90 character boost, and diving through the Dark Portal to experience the starting moments of Blizzard Entertainment's latest bundle of WoW content. It was... something.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The mystery of Archmage Khadgar
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Last week, we talked about the history of Khadgar -- a mage who had the unfortunate fortune of being apprenticed to Medivh, the Guardian of Tirisfal, just as the Guardian unleashed an angry bloodthirsty rampaging army of orcs upon Azeroth. It wasn't Medivh that carried out this task, but the spirit of Sargeras that lingered on inside him, passed on from his mother, Aegwynn. Although Khadgar eventually figured out this plot and confronted and defeated Medivh directly, the consequences for doing so were dire -- Khadgar found his magic and his vitality sapped away, aging from a youth to an old man near instantly. The loss of so much of his precious mortality weighed hard on Khadgar, but it didn't stop him from accomplishing the seemingly impossible -- closing down the Dark Portal not once, but twice. The second time would be the last anyone would see of Khadgar for years, because he shut it down on the Draenor side of the Portal, stranding himself and the rest of the Alliance Expedition on the shattered wastelands of Outland until we found him again in Burning Crusade. And now, it seems Khadgar has closed the Dark Portal for a third time, with the aid of heroes both Alliance and Horde. Yet there's something strange about Khadgar, a peculiar mystery that keeps getting stranger the longer I look at it. Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains speculation based on known material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
WRUP: We have a lot of feelings about professions edition
Another weekend is upon us, which means it's time once again for WRUP! The journey through Warlords continues on, and as we've explored more of the game, a common complaint amongst the team has been about the game's profession changes. While Blizzard has worked to streamline professions, not all of us (or, really, any of us) are quite happy with the end result. So just what's wrong with professions? A lot. If you want to see what we're doing in game this week -- plus a laundry-list of professions complaints -- read on. And, of course, leave us a comment to say just what you're playing this weekend... and let us know what you think about the state of professions.
WoW's garrisons aren't a guarantee in future expansions
It was open season for World of Warcraft fans yesterday as the development team opened up with an AMA session on Reddit. The eight-person team taking on player questions included director Tom Chilton and lead designers Ion Hazzikostas and Cory Stockton, meaning that fans got plenty of in-depth answers to almost everything. Whether or not you liked all of the answers is another story altogether, but there's a handy-dandy summary of answered questions and links to the full answers that should save a great deal of scrolling through comments. Chilton confirmed that there are currently no plans for queued scenarios in Warlords of Draenor, although they're not off the table for future expansions. He also stated that there may or may not be Garrison-like elements in future expansions and that there will be "a surprise" regarding the last boss of the expansion. Check out the full summary for more quick links; there's a lot of information in there.
Choose My Adventure: Can't stop the World of Warcraft
It's been 10 years since Blizzard Entertainment launched World of Warcraft and ignited the great MMO gold rush of the aughts. In that time, World of Warcraft has grown into something more than a game; it's a cultural icon, an immensely valuable piece of intellectual property, and a brooding presence any new MMO has to consider before launch. WoW has gravity. Just when World of Warcraft's numbers start to slide and the naysayers start planning their "WoW is dead" parties, Blizzard finds a way to make WoW resurgent. Warlords of Draenor, WoW's fifth expansion, launched late last month, bringing three million subscribers back into the game's warm embrace. For those keeping score: That's more subscribers than most MMOs ever see at their peaks. Warlords of Draenor reworks some core World of Warcraft systems, changes up character models, implements a version of housing, and more. And with so many people returning to check it out, there's no better time for Choose My Adventure to join the fray.
World of Warcraft opens the doors of Highmaul
The raid cycle of World of Warcraft's endgame begins anew today with the advent of Highmaul. While this raid did not go live with Warlords of Draenor's release, Blizzard is now opening the doors a crack to let in players for their first taste of epic combat. Highmaul is a seven-boss raid, although only two of those bosses are mandatory for players to down (but c'mon, only cowards tiptoe by the big baddies). Even though the raid is open for business today, it will feature only normal and heroic difficulties and will not be listed on the raid finder. In the coming weeks, mythic difficulty and raid finder functionality will be added to the instance.
What to do after hitting level 100
Congratulations on hitting level 100! But after 10 levels of fairly directed content, what to do next can be a big question mark for many players. So to help you get started, we've built a list of just where you can go from here, whether you're interested in soloing, raiding (though raiders-to-be may also appreciate this guide by our friend Matticus), collecting... or just about anything else. Wondering what to do next? Let's dive in. Pick your level 100 talent After going for ten levels without any new talents or skills to deal with, you might forget that you get a new talent when you hit level 100. (I know that I did.) Be sure to select yours for both talent specs if you tend to switch back and forth.
Master Plan addon makes Garrison mission management a breeze
Garrisons are an integral part of the leveling game in Warlords of Draenor, but they're also part of the endgame, too -- collecting various followers and sending them on the appropriate missions will net you rewards like gear, gold, resources, and more. But although I love the garrison game, when you've got 20 followers, trying to keep track of who does what is almost a logistical nightmare. Sure, there's only a handful of threats that your follower's abilities need to counter, but remembering which follower does what is something that I still haven't mastered. Beyond that, the mission interface itself is decent and fairly intuitive, but it's not quite as user-friendly as it could be. So it was with great anticipation that I awaited the inevitable addons that would take missions and follower management to the next level -- because if there's one thing I've learned in 10 years of gameplay, it's that addon authors are ridiculously talented when it comes to redesigning UI functions into elegant masterpieces of design. And the addon Master Plan by Foxlit has done exactly that with the missions and follower interface.
My Garrison of Discontent
Is it possible to admire something as well designed, a really excellent piece of game design, yet resent that it exists? Because I feel that way about the Garrison. Keep in mind, I'm not saying the Garrison is bad, because I honestly believe it's one of the most intriguing things World of Warcraft has ever done. Instead of something like player housing, they've made you the head of a base, a forward war camp on hostile alien terrain. In essence, your Garrison is the tip of the Horde or Alliance spear onto Draenor. It's brilliantly executed. The feature, with its outposts and the follower minigame and the buildings that grant specific benefits all ties together, and feels organic - it makes sense that your base of operations, cut off as it is from home (at least in terms of story) would do as much as it could to become a self-sufficient entity. Frankly, although we have Warspear and Stormshield over on Ashran, the Garrison feels more like the official Horde or Alliance capital, at least to me. And yet I've grown to hate my Garrison in some ways. Perhaps it's simply that the Garrison is too good at hooking into the rat brain and making it dance. There's always some reason to be concerned about it - if you want to make use of your Garrison to its fullest extent, there's ore to be mined or plants to be gathered or missions to send your followers on, resources to be collected, buildings to be upgraded. It feels like I'm never allowed not to be thinking about my Garrison.
Warlords of Draenor launch woes featured on BBC's Watchdog
We all remember the launch. Even Blizzard admits it wasn't the smoothest, to the point where we were offered five days off our subs and an apology from J. Allen Brack. That's not something Blizzard does very often anymore, and it signifies that yes, this was a pretty big deal in terms of launch screwups. Ironically, for some of us (like myself) it was a pretty smooth launch overall. But for some of us it was so bad that they complained to the BBC, as the above clip showcases. Incgamers has a long article about the show Watchdogs on the BBC that goes into detail about the piece and its conclusions for the Warlords launch. I feel forced to agree that Watchdogs doesn't seem to have tried very hard here - their example of someone not being able to play WoW is someone on an ancient computer running around Ashran, and he's level 100, so... he played sometime. It's definitely an interesting time to be a World of Warcraft player, as the ten year old MMO seems to regaining cultural relevance with a vengeance lately. I don't think anybody's surprised that the launch troubles have been a highly discussed issue, but this seems like a new extreme to me.
Take a look at World of Warcraft's updated Blood Elf models
Blood Elves kind of got the short end of the World of Warcraft stick when Warlords of Draenor launched. All the classic races got an updated model, the Draenei got an updated model, and the Blood Elves didn't. The result is that the race is notably older than its contemporaries. That's going to change soon; the updated models for the race are swiftly moving through development, bringing the Horde's magical addicts up to par with the rest of the faction. As with the other updated models, the differences are subtle but notable. Blood Elf women have slightly wider torsos and a more defined neck, while the men have better anatomy and a more natural stance. There's no precise ETA, but the team is hoping to have these updated models into the game soon, as rigging and animating are currently underway. You can get some idea of what the finished product will look like by checking the preview.
Garrison Secrets, Easter Eggs and Hidden Surprises
Leave it to Blizzard to slip a few in-jokes into their new Garrison feature in Warlords of Draenor. From riffs on celebrity names to hidden caches of Garrison resources to a special bird that will make you the envy of all your RP friends, we've compiled a list of everything we've found so far. First, of course, is Pepe, the bird that you can wear on your head. As outlined by our very own Anne Stickney earlier in the week, Pepe is a bird hiding in a tree in your Garrison. If you can get to him and click on his little feathered figure, he'll perch on your head for the next hour. Yes, even as your run the special 40-man Molten Core or hunt elites for desperately needed Garrison resources. And, in case you were curious, Pepe's secret origin has been published by his creator.
