World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Review

When was the first time you quit World of Warcraft (WoW)? Mine was back in early 2009, Patch 3.1.0 was in beta and of course I went on and tested Ulduar but I lost that urge, the urge that kept me in Volition - a great raiding guild back in late Burning Crusade and early Lich King, one that also had me ranked, albeit gear ranking sites really mean nothing, as the best geared DPS warrior in Europe in the early stages of Lich King.

This isn’t to say that I haven’t been back, because of course I have. I was back in late 2009, but that lasted about two weeks. I was back yet again for the launch of Cataclysm in December 2010, that lasted the best part of a month. Here I am again and this is the first time in six years I’ve felt like the World of Warcraft that sucked me in is back.

 

There’s a lot that makes Warlords of Draenor (WoD) special, but what really works for me, as what worked with Lich King, is the nostalgia that comes with it being a throwback to the lore that originally got me into this universe - that being the Warcraft strategy games. Not only that, this is also the polar opposite of The Burning Crusade in so many ways, primarily due to Outland and Draenor being the same place, just an alternate timeline of it.

Without going into it too much, Garrosh Hellscream escapes after Pandaria, travels back in time and stops his father, Grom, from drinking the blood of the Pit Lord Mannoroth and damning the orcs. Instead of the timeline we all know, with the wars and events featured in Warcraft I all the way to Mists of Pandaria, it is replaced by this more technologically advanced ‘Iron Horde’ due to the knowledge Garrosh brought back into the past with him. It’s somewhat convoluted, but it works as a framing point for visiting a non-destroyed Draenor.

But honestly, it’s the small stories and the sense of progression along the way that make this brilliant. Blizzard have been fine tuning this aspect for a long time now, since the introduction of Phasing back in Lich King its use has become more and more frequent, to this logical endpoint where it starts to feel like this is your own world and your decisions and actions have genuine impact.

The new feature that adds the most personal of touches to Draenor is the Garrison system. It’s no secret that player housing has been a large feature on the wishlist of many; instead of simply giving us a house, Blizzard decided to give us a whole village and then a few outposts on the side for good measure, with a number of features linked into these personalised plots of land.

 

From the garrison you are able to launch some of the major questlines in your war against the Iron Legion which adds a good sense of purpose, but also featured are a number of smaller things. Regardless of your professions, you are able to mine and collect other resources directly from your Garrison as well as send your followers, which are gathered from a number of the questlines featured in WoD, on small missions that can garner you anything from extra gold and items, to resources to further develop your garrison and outpost.

 

Also featured are specific abilities or features found in five of the new zones in WoD, which can be anything from an artillery barrage which does a brilliant amount of damage, summoning a tank (an actual tank, mind you) to drive and fight in or an underground smuggling run that lets you buy a few of the rarer items available. Your main garrison is personalised with up to seven buildings of your own choice giving your garrison the feeling of your own little town, although four buildings are permanent fixtures.

Moving out into the world is yet another special feature in Warlords of Draenor. Everything has a more living world feel to it. Quests are still a basic feature, with a nice yellow exclamation mark indicating a person you need to talk to, but beyond that there is finally a reason to explore beyond moving from quest to quest. Hidden treasures, mini-bosses and area specific objectives are all features that are there for you to encounter without having to talk to some random chump to activate them. It adds something quite special, moreso when you’re like me and more interested in going it alone, rather than having somebody else tag along.

 

Tied into this is the wonderous sense of exploration that WoW lost back at the end of Burning Crusade and the start of Lich King expansions. A decision that we’re all aware of, due to the backlash, is the temporary inability to fly in Draenor. Gone is the ability to simply zip past everything and land wherever you feel like, usually directly next to whatever you wanted and inevitably missing a lot of small secrets along the way. This has added a lovely sense of exploration; places take a lot longer to move around and you can appreciate those area specific objectives I just mentioned a lot more than you would have if you just just skipped them while flying on your dragon.

 

Of course the other thing you witness is the absolutely lovely scenery, from the luscious green plains and pokey-out rocks of Nagrang, the daunting peaks and dipping trenches of Arak to the desolate wasteland of Gorgrond. Either architectural beauty or environmental wonder, WoW has always been a joy to explore, the only problem is that exploration has been pushed right to the back of the list in the past six years, but this has finally been fixed.

Especially when you look at the visuals, is it the best looking game ever? Of course not, it’s very old now and even the long awaited character models upgrade simply cannot disguise this, not to mention that the armors up close reveal their low resolution textures. Still, I would personally choose the slick, colourful visuals of World of Warcraft over the bland high-definition monotone of modern AAA games any day of the week.

Alongside the increased focus in exploration is a decrease in the management of numbers, as inflated as they got over the last number of expansions. With this decrease in numbers also comes a decrease, or streamlining, of skills. Now, though it came as a little bit of a shock and required some adjustment, playing my two-handed dual-wielding fury warrior has never been easier.

With Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard have proven quite aptly that they are still the forefront of the MMO genre and that they know how to adapt, keeping World of Warcraft the behemoth of the industry that it still is, even with it being far from the peak it achieved in the past.