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Recruit Leorajh the Saberon as a Garrison Bodyguard
The saberon are a new race, introduced for Warlords of Draenor -- a group of humanoid cat-people who by and large aren't terribly happy to see you, with very few exceptions. One of those exceptions is Leorajh. Leorajh isn't exactly on the good side of his clan, but he's happy enough to see you -- if you can find him, that is. One of a very few followers with the Bodyguard trait, Leorajh is hidden away in the Spires of Arak, awaiting those who are determined enough to locate him. As a Bodyguard, Leorajh can be assigned to the level 2 Barracks and accompany you on your travels in Draenor. There are a limited number of followers with the Bodyguard trait, and Leorajh is one of three that is available to both Alliance and Horde. Each Bodyguard has their own reputation bar -- taking them on missions with you will raise your reputation and unlock follower-specific quests, and eventually, a follower specific perk. Leorajh's perk? He'll grant you access to your command table from anywhere on Draenor -- meaning you can turn in and hand out missions from anywhere you happen to be on the world map.
Garrison Followers, traits, abilities, and training
If you've been playing Warlords of Draenor fairly regularly since release, you should by now be familiar with the traits and abilities of your followers. These abilities and traits are randomly generated when you obtain your new follower, but there are some items in game, obtainable via missions, that will teach a chosen follower a new trait. Apparently there had been some confusion regarding these items, so CM Crithto took to the forums to further clarify how these items work. Crithto There's been some confusion regarding the various items you can use that allow you to change a trait on one of your Garrisons followers, so we wanted to clarify how these items work. If you use an item such as the Supreme Manual of Dance or the Hearthstone Strategy Guide, the targeted follower will gain the trait associated with the on-use item, and lose a random trait which cannot be selected or changed after the fact. Currently, the tooltips for these items are not specific enough about the randomness associated with their outcome, and we're working on getting them adjusted. So if you're now missing a follower with a specific trait you want or need, remember that you can level your Inn or Tavern to tier 2 to gain access to an NPC who will hunt down new followers. When one becomes available, you can then limit your search based on the traits you desire. source
Dungeon Hotfixes, Need before Greed now default
When Warlords of Draenor launched, it brought with it a new loot system - the personal loot of Raid Finder was now in place for dungeons. There were advantages and disadvantages to this - one of the advantages was that loot didn't drop that no one wanted, for example. But a lot of players found it a less than compelling system. And apparently their voices have been heard, because it's back, baby. Rygarius posted a host of dungeon and raid hotfixes, including but not limited to the return of Need before Greed as the default loot system in dungeons. What else is happening? Completing your first Heroic Warlords dungeon nets you a reward of 50 Garrison Resources. The return of the Call to Arms feature for in-demand roles like tanks and healers. You will now once again be able to queue for dungeons from the Ashram cities of Stormshield and Warspear. What do you think of these changes?
WoW previews Highmaul raid, kicks off anniversary events today
Are you ready to start in on the raid cycle of Warlords of Draenor? Yes you are; that's what you do here. You can start by checking out the latest World of Warcraft development blog that shows off Highmaul in all its glory. The raid's release will be staggered into four parts, with Normal and Heroic releasing on December 2nd, Mythic and the first part of the Raid Finder difficulty releasing on December 9th, and the final two wings being added to the Raid Finder on December 16th and January 6th. Highmaul contains seven bosses, three of which are optional and two of which are mandatory. Players will take on Kargath Bladefist to kick off the raid experience, while the ultimate encounter leads players against Imperator Mar'gok, the pinnacle of ogre power in the region. You can also take the time to play around with the game's new Twitter hashtag campaign while you wait. That won't help you with the raid at all, really, but it will help pass the time. In other WoW news, Blizzard will be kicking off its previously announced anniversary events today. Both the 40-man, level 100 version of Molten Core and the Southshore vs. Tarren Mill battleground will become available to players through the raid finder and battlemaster queue, respectively. Everyone who logs in will receive a molten corgi pet as a happy birthday present from the team. The events end January 6th.
The Think Tank: Assessing Draenor's launch
World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor launch has come and gone, driven by the chaos we've come to expect from this year's MMO launches. Was it a bad launch... or the baddest launch ever?! In today's Think Tank, I asked the Massively writers, as players or industry watchers, how the launch and Blizzard's response stacked up next to those of 2014's other offerings.
Highmaul raid schedule revealed
We've all been assiduously leveling through Warlords and now we get to find out what it was all for - starting this December 2nd, Highmaul unlocks, the first Warlords of Draenor raid zone. Blizzard has put a spotlight up on the zone, talking about specific boss fights and when the various wings of the raid unlock. As expected, mythic opens the week after normal/heroic, and LFR unfolds in wings, with wing 1 opening the same week as mythic, then wings 2 and 3 over the following weeks. I'm interested in the decision to have Kargath Bladefist, an iconic character who even got his own Lords of War short, as the very first raid boss of the expansion. I'm also interested that there are three optional bosses this time out, with the Butcher, Tectus and Brackenspore all listed as optional. It reminds me a little of how you could go from Flame Leviathan straight to XT once your raid had geared up enough, and I'm all for it. Head on over to the official site to get started on the preview and thinking about raid strategies. December 2 isn't far off.
WoW subs back over 10 million, WoD sells 3.3 million
World of Warcraft's global subscriber base now numbers over 10 million, and several of those subscribers can even log in and play! In all seriousness, Blizzard did announce that its MMO is experiencing "growth across all major regions," not to mention that it sold 3.3 million copies of the Warlords of Draenor expansion in its first 24 hours. Blizzard defines subscribers in its press release: World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet game room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.
New WoW video is proof that Blizzard hates Gnomes
It's been a long-running contention of the World of Warcraft Gnome community that Blizzard, erm, hates that race with a molten passion of a thousand forges. Now our pint-sized characters have proof. Blizzard posted a new video today showcasing Warlords of Draenor's updated character models. Depending on how you look at it, the video could either be a cheeky promotion of the expansion feature or a horrific exposé on a developer straight-up torturing a Gnome. We have it for you to watch after the break. Consider it NSFW if you are a diminutive underground gadgeteer.
Blizzard reveals how new character models are made
It turns out it's a little rougher on them than you might expect. This is one of those times that the video pretty much speaks for itself. The ending is a nice reveal, though.
World of Warcraft apologizes and compensates for Warlords of Draenor issues
Blizzard is so, so sorry for the expansion launch issues -- and it is trying to make things right. This is the word from World of Warcraft Executive Producer J. Allen Brack, who issued a public mea culpa on the forums for the problems with Warlords of Draenor's launch. "The quality of the content does not excuse the subpar launch experience we delivered, and I apologize for that," Brack wrote. He outlined the events and studio response over the past weekend, saying that the team is expanding its instancing tech to reduce queues on realms. To compensate players for their troubles, Brack said that Blizzard is giving five days of game time for all subscribers as of last Friday.
Last Week on Massively: Let's hunt some orc
This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post. World of Warcraft's fifth expansion, Warlords of Draenor, launched on Thursday, and predictably, the combination of design blunders and brutal DDoS attacks turned the first few days of launch into a circus of clownshoes. So, you know, an MMO launch. Here are the highlights: Warlords of Draenor's rocky launch saga and Reddit controversy continue World of Warcraft hit by DDoS attack on expansion launch day World of Warcraft deals with downtime, bugs, DDoS attacks World of Warcraft vows faster expansion development You're too late: People are already 100 in WoW WoW's Iron Horde declares war on Times Square World of Warcraft's garrisons 'like a personal guild' Watch the unboxing of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor's CE World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor launch-day roundup Read on for the rest of this week's top MMO stories.
WoW's Dark Portal has reopened in a Shanghai subway
A Shanghai subway station now boasts its very own World of Warcraft-flavored Dark Portal, and all we got was this lousy beat-up taxi. Polygon reports that in honor of the Warlords of Draenor launch, the Xujiahui subway station in Shanghai has been decorated with WoW promotional materials, including a scaled-down but still swanky replica of the Dark Portal with a flat screen positioned in the center where the portal ought to go. Cameras embedded in the structure teleport subwaygoers into the action. In WoW lore, the Dark Portal was once the gateway between Azeroth and Outland but now links Draenor to the core gameworld. Plus, it looks pretty badass as a real-life simulacrum. We've included the promo video below.
Meet Pepe, your feathered garrison pal
Garrisons are one of the most ridiculously cool parts of the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Part ever-evolving quest hub, part resource and profession management system, part place-to-park-your-butt at the end of the day, garrisons work seamlessly and effortlessly with the flow of the expansion itself. But if you really needed another reason to love your home away from home, you should keep your eye out for Pepe, and consider adding him to your daily routine. Who's Pepe? He's a happy little bird that lives in your garrison's trees. He's the only named bird on the premises. And if you manage to reach him and click on him, he's also a fashionable chirpy hat -- or maybe your head is a warm and cozy nest. Either way, Pepe will stick around with you for an hour, or until you die, whichever comes first. After a period of time, he'll reappear in your garrison, just so you can click him and begin your adventures together all over again. There's no achievement for Pepe, nor is he an item you carry in your bags, or a pet you can battle with. He's just a fun side bonus in your garrison, tucked away for player to discover. Pepe is available to both Alliance and Horde players, in all three stages of garrison construction. He can be found in the trees around your stronghold, but if you're having a hard time, you can always target him by typing /tar Pepe to hunt him down a little more efficiently. Because he's in a tree, it may take some creative climbing to get to him. But once you do, you'll obtain the buff Pepe, which does nothing other than state "You've got a friend!" And honestly, on a harsh and unforgiving world like Draenor, who wouldn't welcome another one of those?
Warlords of Draenor's rocky launch saga and Reddit controversy continue
We've heard a lot of "it's a good problem to have" in regards to the struggles that World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor has faced this past week, as a huge influx of players have met laggy servers, lengthy queues, and DDoS attacks. But we're sure that Blizzard would prefer no problems, period, which is why the studio has been updating the community on an hourly basis regarding its efforts to stabilize the game. Blizzard says that it's currently monitoring the servers and has seen an improvement in performance around the world. In the past day, the studio has performed rolling restarts, hotfixes, and increased the population caps on various servers. Massively's own writers have had mixed experiences thus far; while we had to cancel Mike's Friday stream because of queues and the servers were down a large portion of Saturday, by Saturday night queues and lag issues were clearing up on some servers, like Bree's, no doubt thanks to increased capacity. But some gamers are taking their reaction to the extreme. The core moderator of the WoW subreddit shut that subreddit down last night in protest over his personal login difficulties. While the forums have since been restored with apologies from other Reddit mods, participants are still arguing over the events. "r/WoW shouldn't be a hostage," Blizzard bluename Zarhym admonished via Twitter.
Draenor bestiary updated with the creatures of Nagrand
The bestiary for Warlords of Draenor has been updated with a new entry focusing on creatures primarily found in Nagrand. Most players won't be seeing Nagrand until level 98 or 99, but the entries still make for a pretty interesting read, considering most of the creatures involved are encountered in other areas of Draenor as well. Because of this, you won't really be running into too much in the way of spoiler content. Four different creatures are highlighted in this installment, from the familiar clefthoof to the not so familiar saberon. Most interesting perhaps are the Pale, emaciated creatures that are encountered all over Draenor, but concentrated most heavily in Nagrand. Players will recognize the Pale on sight, as they are some of the first enemies encountered in both Frostfire Ridge and Shadowmoon Valley. I don't know what I was expecting in regards to their back story, but what's presented in the bestiary is a pretty creepy, interesting history with some pretty cool implications. Check out Blizzard's official post for all the new creatures -- and while you're there, you might want to see if there are any earlier installments you may have missed along the way.
BlizzCon 2014 interviews feature Cory Stockton, Alex Afrasiabi
Just in case you missed it in the madness of Warlords of Draenor's launch, WoW Insider had the opportunity to interview not one but two developers this year at BlizzCon 2014. Both interviews were posted earlier this week and are well worth the look -- and may have been missed in the flood of Warlords expansion announcements and updates. For those with more of a bent towards lore, the interview with World of Warcraft's Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi focused on the story behind the expansion, including discussion on alternate universes, some surprising stories about Garrosh Hellscream and the development of Warlords, and even an interesting tidbit about alternate Azeroth. For those with more of a technical bent and burning questions about Warlords of Draenor's features and content, check out our interview with Lead Game Designer Cory Stockton. In the interview, we take an in-depth look at garrisons and their development, the new look of Warcraft's professions, and some cool new things to look forward to with transmogrification, as well as a few other fun features of the latest expansion.
World of Warcraft deals with downtime, bugs, DDoS attacks [Updated]
If you had been hoping to experience the launch of World of Warcraft's expansion without queues, well, that was never going to happen. If you had hoped to face the launch without issues like disconnecting from the servers as soon as your character moved or major Garrison bugs, well, that shouldn't be happening, but it apparently is. A number of hotfixes have already been applied to the game with more on the way, including several increased spawn rates for enemies in heavily congested zones. This comes on the heels of DDoS attacks that have made logging in and playing even more difficult and make it difficult to identify genuine bugs amidst server issues. Fans have compiled a list of the most common errors experienced on launch, some of which seem perfectly normal (long queue times after many server merges prior to launch) and some of which are not (server crashes from flying mounts). If you want to take a little time off from trying to get in and play, you can take a look at the recently posted glance at the creatures of Nagrand. Otherwise, there's not much to be done other than waiting for the latest round of hotfixes and hoping that corrects the major issues. [Massively's sister site WoW Insider has published a detailed editorial explaining the launch issues and who bears responsibility for which ones. Managing Editor Adam Holisky argues that while Blizzard is responsible for the quest bottlenecks, broken terrain, server funneling, and griefing toys, it can't do much about DDoS attacks and their resulting latency and lag and queues, and therefore the studio should not be blamed for them.]
The Daily Grind: Have you made use of an advanced character in an MMO?
World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor expansion launched yesterday, and if you managed to preorder in time, you now have a shiny new level 90 character upgrade awaiting you. WoW isn't the first or only game to offer advanced characters, of course; RIFT, EverQuest II, and Ultima Online, among others, all sell boosted characters so that players can skip over the early game and jump right to the new stuff. This feature has been tremendously helpful to some of my guildies who haven't played WoW in a while and wanted to join us in the new content without catching up an old toon. Without the feature, I'm not sure some of them would have returned at all. I've taken advantage of the feature in UO especially to avoid the tedium of skill grind. On the other hand, I've still never had the urge to seriously play the cute Gnome Mage I rolled the last time Blizzard offered free character boosts. I just have too many characters with history already (plus my husband mains a Gnome Mage!). What about you, Massively readers? Have you ever made use of an advanced character in an MMO? What did you think of the experience? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
World of Warcraft hit by DDoS attack on expansion launch day
There's something about a major launch that brings out all of the cyber griefers, and Warlords of Draenor's launch day is no different. Blizzard confirmed this evening that the game was hit by direct denial of service (DDoS) attacks that have been causing issues, and the studio is taking steps to combat it, including temporarily lowering the maximum populations on servers: We're excited to finally launch Warlords of Draenor and explore this new world with you, but we know that the experience has been less than ideal as we approach our first full day of launch. Europe was our first region to launch, and we encountered a few issues due to the sheer number of players attempting to enter Draenor from a single location. We worked to add multiple new ways to access Draenor, and this helped ease some of the initial rush into the new expansion as players were able to access it from their capital cities, as well as from the shrines in Pandaria. While that solution helped a ton for our North American launch, we ran into a few other issues, including a distributed denial of service attack, that resulted in increased latency. Later this evening, Bashiok updated players on the ongoing server issues as they unfolded over US prime time: We're continuing to work toward greater realm stability and address the service issues impacting latency. Our current biggest hurdle is the concentration of players in specific areas and zones, and an unexpected effect of that concentration on the realm stability. We're continuing to maintain a lowered realm population cap to help with the stability, which is resulting in increased queue times. We're seeing some increase in individual zones drop which are causing localized player disconnections as we get into primetime in the Americas, and if someone is disconnected they will quite likely run into a queue to log back in. Work is progressing on improving realm stability through fixes targeting individual in-game issues, as well as on the backend game and network services.
Garrisons, professions and more with Cory Stockton
Warlords of Draenor has arrived, with tons of new content, quests, dungeons, raids, zones, and of course garrisons! During BlizzCon 2014, we sat down with Lead Game Designer Cory Stockton to discuss the development and design behind the new feature, in addition to a closer look at the changes to professions and profession design in Warlords of Draenor. But what's a talk with Mumper without a little transmog talk thrown into the mix -- and it appears we've got more transmog changes on the distant horizon that we'd originally thought.
