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How heirlooms will work in Warlords of Draenor
We learned from BlizzCon that heirlooms will become truly Bind on Account. What we didn't learn was how that would be accomplished. Bashiok took to the forums to explain. Bashiok It's a new UI of (essentially) buttons that will "light up" when you obtain one (or have obtained one) of the heirlooms. Click the button and an item of that type will be generated and put into your bags. source Questions from the forum that he didn't answer were What will happen with heirlooms you can wear two of, such as weapons? Will the heirlooms keep their enchants? Will we get a refund for having more than one of each heirloom? My speculation is that it will let us generate more than one of the item so that we can dual wield heirloom weapons if we like. I also expect that the heirlooms will not be generated with enchants but that the gear that is already on characters or in bags will remain enchanted. And I expect that just like mounts and pets, we will not get refunded for having more than one of any heirloom. But all of this is just what I infer from the information given, and we'll need to wait and see what Blizzard's exact system is.
Breakfast Topic: What was your favorite expansion?
With the Warlords of Draenor expansion just announced, it seems like a good time to look back on expansions past. And while we've played through them all together, everyone has a favorite expansion. Perhaps you prefer to play a draenai from The Burning Crusade, maybe you enjoyed battling Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King, or perhaps playing through one expansion has particularly good memories -- but whatever your reason, one expansion probably stands out against the rest. So tell us, readers: what's your favorite WoW expansion? %Poll-85671%
Ghostcrawler: "Feels like we are farther along for WoD than we were for MoP"
There has been rampant speculation as to when World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor will be coming out -- and all of it is just that, speculation. We have very little evidence of anything being said by anyone. However, there have been some off the cuff remarks dropped here and there. One such remark was made by Ghostcrawler tonight. He compared the development state of Warlords of Draenor to that of Mists of Pandaria. Put simply, he feels that they're further along in Warlord's design and development than they were in Mists at this time. Take that for what you will, or won't. Don't read into Ghostcrawler's tea leaves too much, or he'll start posting this picture on Twitter.
Warlords of Draenor gameplay impressions
Of course, one of the best bits of attending BlizzCon in person, apart from getting to hang out with so many awesome people, is that you get to play the games on the floor. And, of course, I had to maximize that resource to bring you all some information on the new expansion, and how it was from a player perspective. As luck would have it, I was sitting with someone to my left who played a tank, so the first thing I did was to grab 3 DPS and forge ahead into Bloodmaul Slag Mines. Squished At first, setting up bars, gear and abilities in a hurry, I didn't actually notice the item squish. As we were pulling mobs, health bars were moving just as I'd expect them to, everything was taking damage and everyone was being healed in the manner to which I was accustomed. It was only when I glanced at my character sheet after noticing that my mana regen was good that I noticed: I'd been squished.
Mythic Raiding: Why 20-man?
Mythic raiding in Warlords of Draenor won't be the first time we've seen this particular raid size. Both vanilla Zul'Gurub and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj were 20-man raids. It also won't be the first time guilds were fractured by raid size changes, such as the vanilla to BC transition. Heroic raiders in both 10-man and 25-man guilds are wondering why neither of them was chosen to be the official raid size going forward. Why do both raid sizes need to have their teams disrupted? Community Manager Lore chimed in on the forums to explain why Blizzard chose 20 as the magic number. Essentially, the problem with the 10-man raid size is they can't reasonably guarantee you will have a specific class to handle a unique mechanic. This isn't a problem in 25-man, but when you are trying to make both raid sizes equal in difficulty you cannot design mechanics which only work in 25-man.
The Soapbox: Instant leveling and the whining fringe
Over the weekend at Blizzcon 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced the fifth World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor. The content add-on brings most of the things one might expect from an expansion -- new zone, new features, new quests, new dungeons -- but perhaps most notably includes the option to instantly raise any one of your characters to WoW's current level cap of 90. While you'll still face 10 levels of Warlords of Draenor questing, killing, and fetching if you opt to take the insta-level, the feature has re-ignited the argument among MMO fans as to whether offering players a maxed-out character somehow violates the core rules of the MMO genre. Should developers really provide high-level characters just to get/keep players in the game? The short answer, of course, is "duh." Here's the long answer.
Warlords of Draenor interview with Senior Game Producer Ray Cobo
Over the hectic BlizzCon weekend, I had the pleasure of sitting down with World of Warcraft Senior Game Producer Ray Cobo. Ray oversees various aspects of game design, with a specific focus on the art and design elements of WoW. WoW Insider: So, the character models we've seen so far look amazing, the dwarves, gnomes, the orcs and draenei, what else are we expecting to see at the launch of the expansion? Ray Cobo: Well, we're also going to have gnomes, we're also going to have undead, I think we're working on everything we can up to launch. Our hope is to be able to get them all out at the same time, and that includes trolls, that includes draenei. But it comes down to, you know, we only have so many hands in the fire, so we will just have to see what we can do. So are you able to say anything about the ones that are furthest from completion? The ones that we're least likely to see at launch? Well, of course the ones that we've seen at the con are the ones that are furthest along, we feel they're kind of representative of the kind of direction we want to go there, and we feel really good about them as a set.
BlizzCon 2013: World of Warcraft Adventure Continues Q&A
The World of Warcraft: The Adventure Continues panel during Friday's action-packed BlizzCon featured Lead Narrative Designer Dave Kosak giving a short presentation on the story behind the new expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Along with the history lesson, which was summed up by Matthew Rossi, the panel also featured a brief Q&A session that wasn't advertised in the program, but proved to be a pretty good list of questions and answers about the new expansion and what we can expect to see. Along with some clarifications on whether or not this is a time travel expansion (it isn't), there are also a few new lore reveals regarding the next expansion, and some tasty tidbits of odds and ends that have yet to be addressed. Read on for the full list of questions -- some of the answers may surprise you.
Warlords of Draenor: 5 cool things you may have missed at BlizzCon 2013
There has been so much news over the past few days that it can be difficult to keep up. I'm still finding little bits of information here or there that I managed to miss amidst the onslaught. Here are a few interesting things that may have slipped under your radar. 1. The in-game group finder is being expanded No, I'm not talking about random matchmaking with the dungeon finder. I am talking about Blizzard's answer to the oQueue addon. According to Ghostcrawler in the gameplay and systems panel, they recognize this is a feature players really want, so they've decided to add it to to the base game. You'll be able to create and browse for groups of all types and sizes. Want to PUG a cross-realm RBG team? No problem. Want to set up a group to do an achievement run in Icecrown Citadel? You can do that. Maybe your guild raid group is short a healer and you're looking for another? This is all possible since normal mode raids (soon to be heroic mode) will work cross-realm out of the gate. Blizzard would prefer if you pugged and made new friends rather than use random matchmaking, so they've added a new mechanic called "stacking the deck" which will earn you bonus valor for every member of your group who isn't added via random matchmaking. Random matchmaking via dungeon finder and raid finder will still exist, of course.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: All we know so far from BlizzCon
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Let's go over some things we learned this weekend that will have an effect on us as warriors (as always, keep in mind this is all subject to change): We learned that there will be new level 100 talents (which we'll go over) Hit and expertise are gone, baby. In their place are will be new stats like movement speed and Cleave, which will act like the Siege of Orgrimmar trinkets we've seen that allow either damage or healing to chain to other nearby targets. Also gone? Dodge and parry as stats on gear. We will still be dodging and parrying, but not via gear itemization. Also also gone? Reforging. A lot of gear changes, in total. There will also be changes to armor itemization to make it easier to share gear between classes and specs. Plate will switch primary stat based on your spec, so all plate with be strength plate unless you're a holy pally (which you aren't) whereupon it will switch to int plate. Plate is plate now. You will be able to choose one character and boost it to level 90, be it a new fresh level 1 you roll as soon as you get Warlords of Draenor or an old alt you left by the wayside. Did you stop playing in Wrath? Your level 80 can skip those 10 levels. Since we know a lot of people have rerolled other classes, this could be useful to get some warriors back in the saddle. I don't pretend that this is all we'll end up finding out, but it's enough to start talking about.
Officers' Quarters: Officers of Draenor
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. BlizzCon 2013 gave us a glimpse into WoW's future. As officers, it's never too early to plan and adjust for the evolution of the game. Let's take a look at the some of the issues that could affect your guild next year. No new perks It appears that guilds will remain capped at level 25, which also means no new perks. In the systems panel, Blizzard said that they don't see the point of piling on perks. They said, "The system accomplished what we wanted it to accomplish." That's good news, in a way, for smaller guilds or people who plan to start new guilds in the future. For those of us who hoped for more, it's a bit disappointing.
The Queue: A rising tide of blood and iron that will wash over this world... and all others!
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi is already getting his 'Maraad and Yirel kick everyone's asses' fan script written. Tell me you don't hear Grom belting that out (I am absolutely convinced the cinematic is in Grom's voice) and immediately get pumped up. I get pumped up, and my sympathies are entirely with the draenei. Man, this expansion, it's the Robert E. Howard expansion, guys. Remember how apathetic I was about the farm in Mists? Well, I am totally excited about the garrison concept. It's so ancient D&D to me, I can't even tell you. When Grom says "Our bond is iron, our will unbreakable... who will stand against us?" it's all I can do not to yell We will in a ridiculously over-excited yawp. I am completely marking out for this expansion, and I don't even care. Let's go to Draenor. I'll drive. Yes, the draenei is driving. No, I'm not going to crash anything. Even if I do, shut up. Onward to Karabor. Guys, I am seriously on the edge of writing draenei fanfic here. You don't know. Let's answer some Queue questions before I start writing a ten part Maraad story. grayknights asks: Reforging: is getting rid of it while also getting rid of hit/expertise overkill? Not having stats with hard caps that need to be reworked everytime you get something new seems like it would allow Reforging to operate closer to its original intent. To be honest, when I first hear that reforging was gone, I was a trifle upset. I like reforging. I like dumping all that haste into crit for my fury set. My hope is, they take this opportunity to improve how stats work so that every stat is at least somewhat valuable to as many as possible. With dodge, parry, hit and expertise all gone and reforging gone, we're basically going to be playing the stats Jenga game the way we played it back before Cataclysm, and I remember back in Wrath just flat out not using certain gear because it had the stats you didn't want. If they can improve how stats interact, then hopefully we won't need to reforge. I've decided to be optimistic for now.
Flying mounts may not be allowed in Draenor until patch 6.1
In episode 347 of The Instance podcast, which was recorded at BlizzCon in front of a big crowd, Ghostcrawler was kind enough to answer some fan questions live on the podcast. The topic of transportation in Draenor came up and he revealed that Blizzard wants to delay flying as much as possible, and has even considered delaying it until patch 6.1. Their goal is to have Draenor feel like a very dangerous place. The comparison Ghostcrawler used was Fel Reavers in Outland, only instead of Fel Reavers there will be giant Gronn like the ones seen in the Warlords of Draenor trailer. Situations like that are much less dangerous when you can just hop on your drake and fly away. The topic comes up at 58:30 in the podcast for those interested, but the entire episode is worth a listen.
Breakfast Topic: What character will you be boosting to level 90?
In case you were living under a rock for the past few days, one of the biggest announcements to come out of BlizzCon was that everyone who purchases Warlords of Draenor will be able to boost one character to level 90 instantly. There are no restrictions -- you can even use this on a fresh level 1 character. After taking a gander at the newly revamped character models, I am pretty settled on using my boost with a level 1 female dwarf warlock. The new model they showed looks great, and it's such a unique class/race combination that I can't even remember seeing one before. I've already reserved her name and she's sitting in Dun Morogh, patiently awaiting the expansion. Have you decided who you'll be boosting to level 90?
BlizzCon 2013 in photographs
BlizzCon might be over, but pictures last forever, or at least until something happens to our data center. Don't get any ideas. Hey, where are you going with that tornado?! Enjoy our view of the con! Massively's on the ground in Anaheim during the weekend of November 8th, bringing you all the best news from BlizzCon 2013. Whether you're anticipating World of Warcraft's and Diablo III's next expansions or reveals from Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, we aim to have it covered!
Warlords of Draenor: Breed battle pets in your garrison
In the player garrisons coming in Warlords of Draenor, one of the medium-size construction options is the Pet Stable. While we were all initially uncertain as to its purpose, more has since been revealed. Below is an explanation from Cory Stockton's Twitter account. .@perksnpeeves @gloriaboboria current plan is you can merge two pets of the same family and pick the breed. Doing this gives chance at epic. - Cory Stockton (@mumper) November 10, 2013 Do note that he specified current plan. The expansion has just been announced. Many things will change before any beta phase. Even more will change before launch.
Why I don't hate Warlords of Draenor's level 90 boost
BlizzCon 2013 announced Warlords of Draenor and one of its highlighted features is the ability to instantly boost one of your characters to level 90 instantly. Though it is limited to one level 90 boost per Warlords of Draenor license, there is an interesting loophole, which I discussed in a previous post on this topic. To quote myself: If players want to boost an additional 90, there's nothing stopping them from purchasing a new World of Warcraft box, Warlords of Draenor license, and a character transfer to move additional, instant level 90s to their primary account. In an attempt to cut out the extraneous steps involved in that loophole, the Blizzard development team is considering simply allowing players to purchase extra boosts. Some like that idea. Some hate that idea. I'm one of those that does not hate it. I'd like to take a moment to explain why.
Warlords of Draenor: The Story So Far
So by now, we're all digesting the announcement that the next expansion is Warlords of Draenor, and it involved a trip to a Draenor not destroyed by Ner'zhul and his portals, not corrupted by Gul'dan and the Burning Legion, but rather one of aggressive (some might say savage) orc warlords attempting conquest of an untainted, untamed world. All that stands in their way are the besieged and beleagured, but still defiant and intact draenei civilization - and a few heroes from another world. That would be us. But how did we get to this? How can Draenor be intact when we know it got blown up by Ner'zhul? Here's the overview of how we're going to go confront these Warlords on their Draenor.
BlizzCon 2013: Warlords of Draenor panels dish out details on raiding, garrisons, and more
BlizzCon 2013 continued on Saturday, hosting more panels and Q&A sessions that offered players additional details about World of Warcraft's newly announced Warlords of Draenor expansion. Designers working on the expansion held a Q&A session for fansites that dished out morsels of news from garrisons to looting to buying high-level characters. The Systems Panel, on the other hand, laid out more details about raiding, dungeons, gear, and the leveling experience.
Know Your Lore: The warlords of Draenor
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. Originally, Draenor was a planet with a nigh-uneventful history until a series of progressively more incredible and unusual events, brought to the world from outside sources, plunged it into chaos. According to what we knew -- which was admittedly very little -- the orc clans of Draenor had no issues with the rest of the world, or with each other. There may have been the occasional squabbles between clans, but there was nothing remotely resembling full out war ... at least nothing that's been recorded in history as we know it. However, the announcement of Warlords of Draenor seems to indicate a big history lesson is on the way. Draenor's history, one distinct moment in time has been altered, creating a separate fork -- a bubble of time, if you will -- that has changed the fates of these old heroes. So who are the Warlords of Draenor? We have their names. What we don't have is the new history revealed in the expansion just yet. But even in the original timeline, these orc warlords each had different, unique histories that all tied in together, courtesy of the Burning Legion's meddling and influence.
