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WoW Archivist: Warlords of Draenor hates The Burning Crusade
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? In many ways, The Burning Crusade was the birth of modern WoW. Most of TBC's innovations are still going strong in WoW today and have been ever since their introduction. Looking back, it's striking how many key features of WoW were absent in classic, only unveiled during the game's first expansion. Even more striking, however, is how many of these innovations Warlords of Draenor seems poised to undo. Just as Garrosh will undo the transformation of Draenor into Outland, Warlords seeks to unravel most of what Blizzard innovated during TBC. The next expansion will take us through a portal into a very different WoW. Archivist has now covered all the major patches of The Burning Crusade: patch 2.0.1, patch 2.0.3, patch 2.1, patch 2.2, patch 2.3, and patch 2.4. Now it's time to review the expansion as a whole -- and explore how Warlords will make most of TBC's innovations disappear into the nether. Dawn of the quest hub The idea seems so obvious it's hard to imagine that classic WoW actually didn't have quest hubs, at least not in the strict sense. WoW was the first MMO to promote the idea of leveling mainly through quests rather than grinding mobs. So Blizzard had no model to look at when they were designing the original quests. In classic WoW, quests were put into the game wherever the developers thought they made sense, mostly from a lore perspective. Quests didn't necessarily guide you through a zone area by area. Quests were scattered, and their objectives were, too. They weren't breadcrumbs -- they were meant to be discovered. They didn't hold your hand -- they sent you on an adventure, like it or not.
Newest producer letter for Final Fantasy XIV talks patch 1.18, dungeons, and camps
Starting in the next patch for Final Fantasy XIV, the little aetheryte camps won't be the only signs of civilization outside the main cities. According to the newest producer's letter from Naoki Yoshida, new camps and hamlets will be added to the map with the next patch, which is also slated to include the first changes to the game's battle system and instanced dungeons for ranks 30 and 50. These are features that players have been hearing about for some time, and it's excellent to have a more definite timeline for the implementation. The down side to this, of course, is that the larger dose of content and upgrades will mean a longer gap between patches, as patch 1.18 is currently set to be released in mid-June. Yoshida goes on to say that it's quite possible the team will break some of the content down and release a 1.17b patch at some point in May, just to help tide players over. Final Fantasy XIV players are encouraged to read the full letter and get ready for more sweeping changes, along with further previews of the dungeons due in the near future.
