Just completed my RL thing barely, to see the opening of this once in a lifetime event, hosted by Gamestop. I really enjoyed it.
The main highlights of the story. The entire Warcraft series, this marks 20 years since the first Warcraft game, and 10 years since WoW. Also, they talked out the free Level 90 boost for low leveled chars, what you need to expect. They mention how they will “tear down your bars” to learn your class and then unlock more stuff as you advance.
They also mention of a general perspective, that there won’t be as many UI buttons. Some will be morphed to help you.
They also talked about your roll when it comes to Garrisons. How “you need an army on your back” to defeat the Iron Horde. And how the choices you make to customize your Garrison “will pave your way through Draenor”. Quite interesting.
Next, they talk about what you’ll be dealing with once the EP is released. Sounds like you’re going to have one hell of a fight. They mention the ‘suicide mission’ again, but get into a bit more detail. You have to “sabotage and stop it”, but add “you don’t actually die” in spoilers. Sounds awesome. Really awesome.
Later, Chris Metzen shows up who’s a star when it comes to BlizzCon, and he mentions about they will be making five episodes of some of the key Warlords(not all of them, only ones that’ll leave their mark in the expansion), and it’ll be called “Lords of War”. The first video is about ‘Gargath Bladefist’ and how he came to power, and where the ‘Shattered Hand clan’ came from. And it’s quite violent but also well made. Much blood. Many screams. Wow.
The other four episodes will “come in the following weeks”. He also released a teaser video, and it too was pretty good. The reason for the videos, is to show players like me who have never played the original Warcraft games, who these guys are and why they’re a threat to you and all of Azeroth. Mighty nice of them.
After that, they showed a preview of what to expect on your road to Level 100 in the EP. The zones, enemies, and some quest mechanics. And endgame content: dungeons, raids, and the PvP area that will all be a part of the 6.0 release. They also show the redone character models, and the Human Male and (especially) Tauren Male reskins are SICK! 😀 I can’t fucking wait.
Once that’s over, Chris goes on in a ‘Blizzard cares’ speech, saying how he’s so happy people can come together for this game, and how “we’re always listening”. Half of it, I call BS. But..meh.
And then it was time for the main event.. the cinematic of WoD. He goes about how they confused a lot of people with the announcement of WoD back in BlizzCon 2013, with this whole time traveling crap. Yet never really explains the “how” and “why” that I was hoping he would, and that was disappointing.
Thankfully, I did get my answers from people who have read the ‘War Crimes’ book. I now know the “how” and “why”.
The Bronze Dragon that we assisted with the stones on The Timeless Isle, assisted Garrosh to go back in time. He told Grom to not drink the blood. This doesn’t mean the Bronze Dragonflight are betrayers, this dragon is a sub-faction of them.
I hoped that they would show this, without forcing you to read the book. Hopefully, it will be explained.
Finally, the cinematic plays. Starts 35 years ago. 35 years before MoP. Grom, Garrosh’s father, is offered a glass of fel blood by Gul’dan in promise they will be conquers. In Warcraft lore, he’s the first to drink the fel blood. But this time, he questions what he’ll have to give to get this power. When answered to, he dumps it instead of drinking. Mannorth shows up and is all pissed he didn’t accept this ‘gift’. Suddenly, Mannorth is attacked by the Iron Horde, lead by a lone orc who shows up and helps to kill Mannorth and saves Grom from dying like he did at the end of Warcraft 3.
The orc finally reveals himself, as Garrosh. This is when they prepare for war, and build the Dark Portal to invade our world as the Iron Horde.
So the cinematic ends and the official release date shows: November 13th, 2014. So, I was right; October-November. Even though it won’t be early November. This means in October, I’ll preorder it and be ready.
Lastly, they say (yet won’t tell you when), that before the release of WoD, parties of the Iron Horde are going to come out and do bad things to key areas. This also includes, rebuilding UBRS. No more black dragons, just orcs. I did find it funny, that there’s a guy in the video who’s dead, named “Leeroy Jenkins”.
This also does worry me. UBRS won’t be soloable… and the fact they won’t say when it’ll happen is concerning.
So, that’s pretty much it that I haven’t seen already from people playing the beta on YouTube. The event lasted for something like, 45 minutes. Also, we will have BlizzCon 2014. I’ll be paying to watch the live stream for sure.