Warlord's Of Draenor: Game Review

Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft’s most recent, and arguable worst expansion to date. But is it really? I decided to throw in my own two cents on the matter, and at the end, offer idea’s that Blizzard should take from the expansion. This is mostly my opinion, and if you think most of the youtuber’s are right about this expansion, you have been warned, for my thoughts are much different from theirs.

The Good

No Flying: One of the few things about WoD that went right was there was to be no flying in game. Blizzard build a beautiful world for this expansion, and sometime’s I would simply wander around a zone on mount back, taking in the scenery. However, I’m the minority on this one, and one of the few people who started in MoP to hold this idea. Pandaria was big, designed with flying in mind for late game, which made going through on mount a real pain. WoD zones where much smaller, but thanks to being ground bound, they felt much more expansive. The gated flying achieve is kind of a middle finger from blizz, and I’m not going to blame them. They put a lot of time into the zones, and most of the people who want flying are just sitting in their garrison while not raiding or doing PvP.

Questing: I loved the questing experience in WoD. It had great flow and great feel to it, and made you feel like a commander struggling to push back enemies on all fronts. Addition Bonus quest’s for a completionist like me where great, and I kid you not, I did everything I could get my hand’s on. If there is one thing Blizz needs to keep, it was WoD’s questing.

Raiding: I loved raiding this expansion. This is the first time I have raided outside of lfr, and I am loving it. Blackrock Foundry was the first place I raided with my guild, and it was great. Bosses were fun and I felt, matched the raid quite well, despite Iron Maidens giving me a hate toward council fights. I remember downing Blackhand with the guild for the first time. It was a rush like no other, and lets face it, sloppy to boot. Hellfire Citadel is also a blast. The first two are a bit bland, but otherwise I love all the bosses our guild has downed so far. Blizz put a lot of thought into raiding as normal, but I think that these two raid’s will be my favorite raids for quite some time.

The Story: The legendary questline and overall, the whole story of WoD, was very enjoyable for me. The ending cinematics for Frostfire, Talador, and Nagrand where great, while Shadowmoon was still impressive as well. Despite the fact there are some blatant plot holes, but this is a time travel expansion. I’m going to overlook a few things when you have all the crazy time stuff. I loved the just feel and overarching story. The fall of Shadowlord Iskar is something that must have planned early on, because something told me he was going to stab someone in the back. I also love the growth of the characters. Yrel I enjoyed watch grow into a powerful paladin, much like Maarad. Go’el comes to terms that he isn’t all to blame for what Garrosh did, and that part of it may have been him, but Garrosh made his own choices, and forged his own path. The cinematic after the defeat Archimonde raises more questions than answers, and I will not spoil it, but if you want to know, look on youtube, or kill him yourself.  

The World: Draenor is the best world in warcraft I have seen. Hat’s off to the Art team on this one. I love the time and detail they put into each zone. In the part of the legendary questline where you hunt down the bronze dragon Kairozdormu. The swamp in which you fight him also has a time-lost Proto Drake corpse, clearly a jab from blizz, something that in a way simply grinding my gears for quiet some time, since I still don’t have that mount, and don’t have the time or patience to wait for it.      

The Bad

Garrisons: I’m not even going to try and lie about this one, I was hyped for Garrisons. However, it became apparent that no one was actually going out and doing things. The garrison mine and herb hut was a good idea, but people no longer needed to go outside their garrison to get crafting materials, and this pretty much broke the market. Giving a zoned off area in world to each player is a bad idea, and sadly, Blizz wants to keep them for next expansion, if data mining is correct and the next expansion is indeed The Dark Prophet, and as much as I want to get down in the South Sea’s, please no more Garrisons.

PvP: Not much to say here. The human racial is broken, and many classes are overpowered. PvP in WoD is something that isn’t going to salvaged sadly, or at least easily. It doesn’t help that Blizz made only one world PvP zone, and no new battlegrounds and arenas. Lore wise, this may be understandable, considering how close the Horde and Alliance are working together, but it doesn’t warrant the abandonment of one part of the endgame. At this rate, it would be better to make it so spell’s do different amounts of damage based on PvP or PvE. PvP got the shortest end of the stick this time around, and I feel that the Apexis dailies got more love from Blizz than PvP did.

Two “Patch” Expansion: I’m not going to really elaborate on this, but from the looks of it, WoD will be two patch’s long, with only one having major content change. While disappointed by this, WoD is something Blizz wants to get out of, and considering a lot things, I’m not going to blame them. If anyone is to blame, its the people to simply bitch about one thing, with the childish attitude of I don’t like one part of this game, so I’m going to quit. Saddly not how it works in real life, and it’s kind of insulting to Blizz to have people just take a flaming dump on something that they worked hard on.

The Overhype: WoD was in no way shape or form not overhyped. Even though Blizz did cut some cool things, the overhype still went strong from people in beta. Blizz capitalized on this, and sadly it backfired. Outside of Ashran and raiding, there wasn’t really too much to do, and most of the PvP crowd hate’s Ashran, and I don’t blame them.

How many things were cut: From moving your Garrison to other zones, and the dance studio, many things didn’t make it in fully. I think somethings would have been different at the end of the day had so many of these made the cut.

Mandatory Content: For raiders at least, there are quite a few things that feel “mandatory” for raiding. The infinite augment stone, for starters, while not mandatory, is pretty much a you need this to save money deal. Sadily, none Mandatory content is the best. I mean, I LOVE Brawler’s Guild, and you don’t have to do it.  

Selfies: Argue with me on this, I dare you.  

The Ugly

Apexis Dailies: Apexis dailies. I don’t think anyone really likes these things, not that I blame them. I even like the mess of daily quest’s of MoP to these things. However, unlike what some people think, yes it is content. Not great content, but it is content none the less. Still, It could be a lot worse.

Epic Jem’s: The purple gem’s in WoD are a pain. Why did blizz add them not only this late, but also made it so we had to jump through so many hoops to get one? We have to find a recipe, then put it into a machine that makes the gem’s for us. We can’t even make epic gem’s on demand, and if someone wants on mid raid, we need to leave, find a person with a flight path, fly there, then and only then can you make the gem. And you also need Felblight to make them, so they are currently not cheap.

Too Much Gold: Normally I wouldn’t complain about this, but there is so much gold in the Market. In MoP I was a poor player, buying a mount from a vendor with one mount would leave me almost bankrupt. Now I have all the mount’s I can’t make and I still have money to spare. On my server it is cheaper to buy a Jeweled Onyx Panther than make one myself. While when I was working on it in MoP me and a friend would have to take turns buying orb’s for the mount’s. It’s kind of sad really. I never thought I would see my bags and be like, yeah, I have too much gold.

Some of the Player’s: People hate WoD, sitting in their garrison doing nothing at all, and it really just grinds my gears. Many people in the current player base seem to only keep their subscription to bitch about how there is nothing to do when they don’t even see a normal boss. News flash people, Blizzard is made up of people, just like you and me. Nobody is perfect, and a group of people less so. Each expansion has some type of giant ass flaw. And if you think I’m wrong I can easily think of something that was messed up in each expansion. Well, maybe except for WotLK. I don’t think anyone really complained there.

Recommendations

Whatever the next expansion is, Blizz is going to have to learn the harsh lesions of WoD, and there are a lot of things they need to take away. Keep WoD’s leveling and questing formula, but spend some time on PvP. The PvP’ers feel hated this expansion, so Blizzard will have to work on quite a few arena’s and battleground’s to make up for WoD. Blizz, you should also focus on making fun content, nothing based on rewards. Ok maybe some more original mount’s but then again, all the cool cloud serpents and drakes are pretty much reskins anywho. This is game, and I would hope that part of the fun making games in watching others enjoy it. Plus I don’t think the yearly expansion idea is really good. Much rather have completed content and wait then buy something incomplete or not your guys best. WoW is still the biggest mmorpg on the market, and if you keep content good blizz, it will stay there.

Recommendation for the Player’s

Blizzard works hard on these games, but lets face it, nobody is perfect. Blizzard is made up of people, and lets face it, people mess up. Instead of just taking a dump on every single little thing you don’t like, try to understand that Blizz works hard, and they can’t please everyone. There are other people who play this game and like other parts of it than other. You guys want a good expansion, then stop bitching about everything, and let Blizzard work their magic. I’m sure that the next expansion, let it be The Dark Prophet or another expansion, will be great.