World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Review

Blizzard shoves you into Garrisons as early as they can manage in Warlords of Draenor and you know what? It's not half bad.

My first experience with the Garrison was slightly annoying, there were issues phasing into my garrison from the get go, but after the servers calmed down I didn't experience many other problems with it. Questlines have you exploring the capabilities and requirements of building up your Garrison, although the Garrison is somewhat forced on to you it doesn't impose itself upon you. Unlike dailies there is a sense of freedom in Garrisons, there is no oppressive nature to it.

The reason behind the Garrison, by the way, is to fight off the Iron Horde – just in case you didn't know.

Similar to some mobile games (or even FaceBook games) Garrisons having collecting resources, plopping down buildings and upgrading them as you go. As you build up and progress your Garrison you gain followers, these followers can be sent out on missions to gather Garrison Resources, vanity items, follower experience, and even gear. Follower missions require nothing more than a couple of clicks and then waiting, you send them out on tasks, they succeed or they don't and that's it. While you have the option to ignore you Garrison after finishing up the questline based around it, you might not want to. Garrisons (as it turns out) are pretty closely tied with your professions, they even can give you new recipes.

Dungeons in Warlords of Draenor are more or less the standard mix of 'don't stand in that' and 'rinse and repeats.'

Progressing in World of Warcraft without running dungeons (both normal and heroic) isn't that easy, you need the gear and more often than not you need the XP. The new dungeons don't leave you feeling like a worthless lump of coal, they're not the wipefest you're dreading. They can be completed using the dungeon finder, perhaps not with the most ease, but completed is completed. I will admit some might find the content too easy.

In Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm I sat down and raided for hours (and I mean hours). I would either lead a raid or PuG (a pick up group) into a guild run — sometimes I would even PuG into a raid that was filled with strangers and die on repeat for hours… In Warlords of Draenor, the raids were set up in a more open and straightforward manner (think Firelands). The raids are similar to the dungeons, you either get into a group with minimum communication and wipe or you do pretty well. Old time WoW players might find it a bit too simple.

In the end, Warlords works well with casual and hardcore players alike.

I've been around WoW for a couple expansions, I am a Wrath baby – I have no shame in stating that.

Catch me on Twitter @TatiMo_GZ

Damn, it feels good to be back in Azeroth — so far. World of Warcraft's fifth and latest expansion, Warlords of Draenor, has officially launched as of last night, and it's brought back the little rogue on my shoulder that says "Why are you going to bed? Just one more quest…Don't go to work either!!"

The perks of being on a low population server are limited to the release of expansions, while there were reports of queues to log on to WoW five hours before launch —  I didn't suffer from a single queue or lag. That isn't to say that the launch of Warlords of Draenor was smooth; half of Europe's servers went down and North America didn't fare all that well either, but my experiences with server issues were limited.

The biggest gripe I have is the bottlenecking. You'd think that after so many years of expansions Blizzard would know better than to push everyone into one area, but for lack of better reasoning, it happened yet again. At times, it was a battle to grab my quest under the mammoths, drakes and AFK individuals.

Warlords of Draenor starts off by bringing you into the Blasted Lands and through the Dark Portal. There's no dilly-dallying; it's straight to business. The business is stopping the Iron Horde from taking Azeroth with a band of about seven or eight heroes (Thrall included) against thousands of hell-bent Orcs. Blizzard brings you right into the story in a way says, "See, this isn't Mists of Pandaria. This isn't Cataclysm. This is Warlords of Draenor." Somewhere between the mix of the crunched numbers (smaller health pool on everything, smaller damage/heal numbers) and the way Blizzard approached the expansion brings you to a pre-Cata state — which is nice.

The opening quests are pretty much the typical no-brainer, kill eight of that, collect nine of those — the NPC's you're fighting don't always put up that much of a fight. My Death Knight's crits could knock a peon out in two hits, and I wasn't even in raid-worthy armor (I raided on my Priest prior to this expansion). The bigger targets can be a little trickier, but again the opening area is pretty easy (this might change later on in the quest line).

The environment in Draenor is beautifully done and feels exactly like a Warcraft game. I might only be speaking for myself, but Mists of Pandaria (while incredibly detailed) somehow felt less like Warcraft than its predecessors. Warlords of Draenor brings World of Warcraft back to itself solely in the design. There is some recycling when it comes to some barracks or huts, although recycling in these areas is to be expected — I mean we are in a re-imagined Outlands after all (here's a comparison of Shattrath City and Black Temple from Outlands to Draenor and a map comparison between the two).

The character design for the NPC's is a mix of something new and something old. The Orcs themselves are familiar, the ogres are looking better than ever, and there are some new critters in Draenor (once I noticed them I knew I needed them as pets). I mentioned earlier that there was a pre-Cata feel — the armor echoes that feeling. It's definitely not as flamboyant as previous armor, and the tier 17 armor only further proves it. It's much more simple, while retaining the feel of each class.

Draenor is painfully easy to traverse, so there's no chance of getting lost (as though you could ever get lost with the quest marker). I will note that I'm an explorer and I don't like being limited to specific areas. Once you leave the Dark Portal area to the very next quest hub, you cannot return to the Dark Portal. You will be ported back to quest hub and be told not to stray far. I see World of Warcraft as a game that allows me unlimited exploration. I can swim until I die of fatigue. I damn well expect to be able to walk back to the Dark Portal.

Garrisons, dungeons and raids…

I've been around WoW for a couple expansions, I am a Wrath baby – I have no shame in stating that.

Catch me on Twitter @TatiMo_GZ