world of warcraft
Latest
World of Warcraft's garrisons 'like a personal guild'
Experiencing garrisons in World of Warcraft is no longer an exercise in daydreaming but an immediate reality with this morning's launch of Warlords of Draenor. That doesn't mean that Blizzard is finished with talking about it, as it's shouting a final garrison dev diary today to the crowd that's already streamed out of the front door. This fourth dev diary is mostly concerned with showing how this feature can benefit players and how they can be accomodating to different playstyles. "Your Garrison operates more like a personal guild that you lead," Blizzard posted. "Whether you check in on it multiple times per day or a few times a week, you can set up your Garrison to give you rewards and present you with challenges at varied intervals." Every two levels of the expansion will open up more garrison options, and these instances will also offer weekly quests that tie into the storyline. You can even end up building a monument to your mighty ego if you overcome one of a handful of significant tasks.
You're too late: People are already 100 in WoW
Too bad for those of us stuck working today instead of playing video games: There are already folks at the level cap in World of Warcraft. The Warlords of Draenor expansion launched early this morning amid complaints of lag, queues, and horrifically bottlenecked quests, but that hasn't been enough to stop the truly dedicated. On my home server, which my guildies affectionately refer to as Crashridge, there appear to be no 100s roaming the world yet, but Eurogamer reports that European servers have several dozen apiece thanks to the earlier launch there. The level-capped rushers took advantage of legitimate garrison-related experience bonuses and dailies but also repeatable turn-in quests deemed exploits by Blizzard, which temp-banned and de-leveled at least one Polish player for using them as seen in this colorful video. So much for that world first!
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor launch-day roundup
The fifth expansion to 2004's World of Warcraft MMO is now live. First announced at BlizzCon 2013, Warlords of Draenor opened its doors at 3 a.m. EST this morning, so you would be forgiven for having slept through the start. And what would a launch day be without rolling restarts, giant patch notes, and overloaded, bottlenecked entry zones? Wheee! In honor of the launch, we've rounded up the best WoW and Draenor stories from the past year for your perusal during today's inevitable downtimes. Who's playin'?
World of Warcraft vows faster expansion development
Many Azerothian eyes are fixed on tomorrow's release of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, but what happens after that? Will players face a severe content drought as they just did while they wait for expansion #6? Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas said that the team is pushing to increase the pace of expansion development: "Our goal is certainly to release expansions a little faster than we have been... we've increased the size of our team, and we feel like we're in a place where we should be able to move faster than before." He also fielded the eternal question of a hypothetical World of Warcraft 2, saying that the team would need "a different vision" and mechanics that allowed for new types of gameplay. To help with your Warlords of Draenor countdown, Blizzard put out a few expansion-themed posters as well as an Age of Iron trailer that you can watch after the break!
Watch the unboxing of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor's CE
Tomorrow is the launch day for World of Warcraft's fifth expansion, Warlords of Draenor. It's quite possible that you already have your collector's edition pre-ordered and ready to go, and you can't wait to open it up and see what's inside. So wouldn't you like to watch someone else open it up and see what's inside before you get to do that yourself? Michele Morrow (who also helped host the official coverage of BlizzCon 2014 this past weekend) has posted an unboxing video for the Warlords of Draenor collector's edition, going over the various bits and gewgaws located within the box. Sure, you've known about what's in the box for a while, but here's your chance to see it before you get it. If you can't wait until tomorrow to peek inside, jump on past the break to see the video.
The Daily Grind: How do you feel about flying mounts in MMOs?
When World of Warcraft introduced flying mounts with The Burning Crusade, I immediately saw it as a mistake, a viewpoint that I maintain until this day. For those that disagree, you have to address why the studio itself kept coming up with reasons to "ground" pilots in subsequent expansions. I think that even the devs know that it was a mistake but Pandora's Box was opened and there was no shutting it. For the record, I'm not against flying mounts in general, just in games not designed from the ground-up to have them. They tend to trivialize and shrink the game world, since you can just fly over any obstacles and spend your time looking at featureless sky instead of hand-designed landscape. As in real life, I'm OK keeping my feet on the ground in games most of the time. What's your position on flying mounts? Bonus points if you include examples of both bad and good flight implementation. 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!
Global Chat: Why we blog
Why an MMO player decides that he or she needs to take up an additional hobby of writing about these games isn't much of a mystery. We may all blog about a huge variety of topics, but the impetus behind it tends to be very common: We have so many thoughts about and so much love for these games that we can't hold it in. To blog is to open up and share experiences, observations, and hopes. It's to connect with others and to perhaps give another layer of meaning to the time that we spend in-game. We don't blog because we have to; we blog because we simply could not not blog. So let's see a few examples of what MMO bloggers couldn't keep inside of them! From spooky stories to rapturous tales of exploration, it's a testament to the power of words and goofy rejoinders.
BlizzCon 2014: Art gallery celebrates Blizzard's past and present
The Blizzard art gallery on display at BlizzCon is always worth a visit for convention-goers, but this year's gallery was a special treat highlighting the history and development of Warcraft and World of Warcraft. If you were looking for a trip down memory lane, this was the place to be: along with early concept art and design documents, a monitor cycled through screenshots of WoW's past, including an early image of WoW running on the Warcraft III engine, the first Molten Core raid and the first Blackwing Lair raid (the which goes about as well as you'd expect). After the opening ceremony announced Overwatch, an empty part of the gallery filled with Overwatch concept art and attracted most of the attention away from Warcraft's past... but it was fun to venture back into Blizzard's past before heading into Blizzard's future. For more art, check out the full gallery below.
WoW's Iron Horde declares war on Times Square
Finally! Here's the Blizzard we know and love. Why promote a World of Warcraft expansion with a pat press release and gory trailer when you can beat up an actual taxi in Times Square with a 15-foot replica of the epic Gorehowl axe? And that's exactly what Blizz did this morning to bemuse passing New Yorkers. Surveil the carnage in the gallery below. WoW's Warlords of Draenor expansion launches this Thursday. Holla if you know of an Etsy shop where we can buy some #WARLORDS crime scene tape; that has to be a thing someone makes, right?
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs have a 'raid stat'?
Last week, WildStar dev J-Tal outright apologized for the game's poor solo progression, stating that Carbine is "well aware that solo progression in WildStar is pretty much non-existent" and is working on the problem. But as I was researching that quote, what caught my eye is the post right after J-Tal's mea culpa, a benign little question by a player named Nike Online: If progression is driven by need, why is there not a budget-hungry 'raid stat' that only provides benefit inside raid instances and keeps those drops more sedate when taken out into the open world? [...] PvP gear has its own stats to protect its environement from outside gear coming in and dominating. PvP power/defense also drain budget from those items so that it's not the optimal open-world gear. Lots of games have tried PvP stats (for example, World of Warcraft's now-defunct spell penetration and resillience), but I've never seen the equivalent for raid gear. It's definitely a band-aid on a game with innate design and balance issues, but it does seem to solve the problem of overgeared raiders trampling the open world. What do you think: Should MMOs have a "raid stat"? 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!
Watch the full World of Warcraft: Looking for Group documentary
You might have missed the "other" Warcraft movie reveal at BlizzCon this past week, but we're here to make sure that you don't let it slip by completely. Blizzard premiered a special World of Warcraft documentary at the convention called Looking for Group, and you can watch the flick in its entirety right now. Looking for Group examines the phenomenon of the MMO's creation and operation over the past 10-plus years. According to the studio, the documetary will allow you to "explore the history of WoW with its creators, and journey into corners of Blizzard and the WoW community you've never seen before." Grab your Michael Jackson comment popcorn and watch it after the break!
Watch Blizzard's absolutely lore-ful WoW 10-year retrospective
First unveiled at Blizzcon, Blizzard's hour-long World of Warcraft "documentary" celebrates the MMO's upcoming tenth anniversary on November 23. Yup, 10 years, billions of dollars, millions of subscribers, 90 levels, 5 expansion sets and 1 awesome South Park episode. [Image: Comedy Central]
WoW Archivist: The zombie plague event
WoW Archivist is a biweekly column by WoW Insider's Scott Andrews, who 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? It first appeared on our sister site on November 5th and is included here by permission. We have one more week of the Iron Horde invasion event before we can take the fight through the portal to Draenor. Most players seem to think this event is serviceable, if unexciting. Like all such events, it lives in the shadow of the most memorable pre-expansion event in WoW's long history: the zombie plague. It debuted almost exactly six years ago, and Blizzard has never topped it. If you need evidence, just look at the comments on the previous WoW Archivist about patch 3.0. I only mentioned the event in passing as a topic for a future column. Even so, readers posted more about the plague event than about any of the other 3.0 features like achievements, glyphs, or pally nerfs.
BlizzCon 2014: World of Warcraft Q&A liveblog
Get ready to talk Warcraft! The last World of Warcraft panel of BlizzCon is the Q&A, where BlizzCon attendees can pose any questions they like to the development team. Here's what you can expect: Members of the World of Warcraft dev team tank your questions about the game's lore, zones, dungeons, raids, and more. This free-for-all panel always has some interesting moments, so stay tuned for this year's Q&A, live from the BlizzCon floor. The panel kicks off at 3:30 PM PST (6:30 PM EST), so stay tuned!
BlizzCon World of Warcraft - Items, Class Changes, and More liveblog
The halls are abuzz with Overwatch, but what's in store for World of Warcraft? The World of Warcraft panel, covering items, class changes, garrisons and more is starting up at 4:45pm Pacific time, and we'll be liveblogging it right here. An assortment of WoW devs will be on hand to discuss all the changes in Warlords of Draenor, as well as new features of the expansion that's set to launch next week. Updates will be in reverse-chronological order, with newest updates at the top of the page. If you only want the latest update, you can stay near the top. If you missed the beginning of the panel, scroll to the bottom.
BlizzCon Warcraft Movie panel liveblog
The Warcraft Movie panel will begin at 2:15pm Pacific, and we'll be liveblogging it right here. We've heard that we may see some footage during the panel, and we're pretty excited to see what they've got. Duncan Jones and Chris Metzen will be talking about the film for an hour, and should have some amazing surprises in store. Updates will be in reverse-chronological order, with newest updates at the top of the page. If you only want the latest update, you can stay near the top. If you missed the beginning of the panel, scroll to the bottom.
The BlizzCon line has already been started by one dedicated player
BlizzCon 2014 starts tomorrow, and if you're already in California for the event, you've got a whole day of ambling about ahead of you. You might think there's no reason to even think about the lines or the waiting that will come around tomorrow. But you'd be wrong: There is already a line to get into the convention that starts tomorrow, a line started by one dedicated fan waiting patiently at the front gate. Massively's sister site WoW Insider reports that the fan is Brendan "Tibs" Thibodeau, a Navy veteran who has been playing World of Warcraft since 2005 and has racked up 29 level-capped characters with five legendary cloaks among them. Tibs has attended six BlizzCons and been at the front of the line for four of those, due in no small part to the dedication necessary to get in line a day before most people even think about queueing up. At last update, however, the second spot in line is still available. BlizzCon returns to Anaheim during the weekend of November 7th and 8th, 2014! Whether you're anticipating World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor expansion or the latest news from Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm, we aim to have it covered!
Road to BlizzCon Day 2: Fruitcake and Fallout
I couldn't even begin to explain why, but I'm fairly certain my comrade-in-arms Anne Stickney insisted on making our BlizzCon road trip an annual event exclusively so she could get a glimpse of a 104-year-old fruitcake. Our itinerary went through numerous iterations leading up to the start of our journey. The fruitcake was struck from the list countless times, but she managed to worm it back in there every single time. At some point, a guy accepts his fate and travels cross-country to see an old, crusty fruitcake. What can you do? I'll let it slide, though. Day 2 of our road trip also included Goodsprings, Nevada, which I insisted on visiting from the beginning. Anyone who has played Fallout: New Vegas will recognize the location: it's the game's first Vegas locale. And, as it turns out, this supposedly-haunted town and its Pioneer Saloon may be recognizable to even those who have never touched a video game. It's been a standby location throughout modern pop culture, its Hollywood breakthrough predating Fallout by many years.
Blizzard updates WoW's garrison game guide
Blizzard has updated its game guide to World of Warcraft's garrisons. In case you missed it, garrisons serve as your Draenor ops center and allow you to collect resources, send followers on missions, and "create wondrous items to aid you in your journey," the firm says. You've still got a few days before Warlords of Draenor releases on November 13th, so why not give the new guide a look-see?
World of Warcraft: Looking for Group documentary debuts at BlizzCon
This Saturday during BlizzCon, we're going to get to take a look at a new documentary about World of Warcraft, with a lot of familiar faces (seriously, the trailer alone is packed with celebrities) and an interesting perspective on how WoW took what was a pretty niche market in MMO's and made them a lot more mainstream. Here's a short teaser for something we'll be premiering Saturday at @BlizzCon. http://t.co/eRqhe5v15x - World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) November 5, 2014 My first reaction was "Wow, that's a heck of a Garona cosplay!" Which is why I headed up the post with that picture. Seriously, she looks more like Garona than Garona does. WHoever you are, Garona cosplayer, please let me know so I can put your name in this post. But beyond that, as someone who's been playing for ten years, I found it amazing to see it all laid out like that, how we were all just stumbling our way through the game, having no idea what it was or what it would lead to.
