Been watching a few videos to get caught up with what’s going on with the Warlords of Draenor Beta, since I’ve never been a beta tester for Blizzard ever since Vanilla WoW.
This post has spoilers, which warned their viewers that if you don’t want to see them, don’t watch the video. The same goes to this post.
Currently, it’s still unclear exactly when in the WoD questline we’ll be able to build a Garrison. There’s actually nothing new about Garrisons that hasn’t been said before. Blizzard seems to be keeping this hush hush to not spoil the surprise. And I really hate surprises. Especially ones like “SURPRISE!! It’s patch day!” or “SURPRISE!! You just walked into a PvP zone and are now flagged and we never told you!”
Moving on, the videos I’ve seen from the over-talented YouTuber, wowcrendor, show footage of the “new” worlds of Draenor, such as the Spires of Arak, and ‘New yet Old’ Nagrand. The only thing I’m glad about, CollectionQuestHellmarsh (Zangarmarsh) is on the bottom of the ocean! No more depressing zone! 😀 And Nagrand, the floating islands are not there. The zone looks… different(there’s no Halaa), yet it still has that “congrats for surviving Outlands this far!” feel to it.
Also, I saw him talking to Thrall, and he calls him a ‘Commander’ instead of a ‘Hero’ or a ‘Champion’. I’ve seen this before of another NPC in one of his videos. Maybe you’re the leader of the force to stop the Iron Horde from invading Azeroth?
Or, maybe you get this sub-title after hitting Level 100 and having your first Garrison? This actually would make more sense, being the commander of your Garrison.
He also says, that he feels if you do the main questline only(no side quests), you’ll have it done in half a day(12 hours). Which, to be honest, sounds pretty sad. But here’s to hoping doing side quests in Draenor is worth it.
I’ve also heard, that once you enter the portal… you can’t leave. As in, go back to Azeroth. It’s like the song Hotel California. You can “check out” as in log out, but you can never leave.
You see, you’re part of a group that has to stay back to make sure the orcs don’t invade Azeroth. You’re pretty much rewriting the lore of Warcraft. Remember going to the two towns in the Blasted Lands and they say they’ve been there for a long time? … You’re now one of them. Maybe this is how you get the title of ‘Commander’.
Moving on, YouTuber Nobbel87, talks about that he feels the lore of WoD doesn’t really fit with our lore. Having never played WarCraft 3 and the other games, I don’t know much about it. Only that the orcs got tainted by fel blood by an evil orc named Gul’dan who worked for the Burning Legion, and then went to invade Azeroth. Garrosh tries to rewrite history by making the orcs not drink the fel blood, yet still attack Azeroth even stronger than they once were(aka, the Iron Horde).
Though the release date of WoD is still unknown to me(I believe it’ll be around October-November of this year), the game nearly looks finished from the footage I’ve seen(there are still a lot of bugs, but that’s why they have beta testers). I really can’t wait to learn about the Arokka(the bird-like people), see what Skettis was like before it was corrupted. It’ll be awesome.
I’ve just learned of another feature. Players and NPCs(anything that can be clicked on) will have an outline representing their faction to you, which will better show if something is hostile(red), neutral(yellow), or friendly(blue). Flagged friendly NPCs and Players will have a green outline. You don’t even have to click on them. Just mouse over.
The feature reminds me of Wurm Online, because you can do the same thing as I did, which was called “sweeping for hostiles” of seeing if I spot a red outline.
To me, that kind of kills the immersion. I hope it’s a clientside feature, and can be turned off.