This post contains significant spoilers for the legendary quests in 6.1! Keep in mind that this builds off the current story of Warlords of Draenor, so if you missed other major lore moments or cutscenes, those could be spoiled a little too.
I recently finished the 6.1 parts of the legendary quests, which are fantastic. Obviously, there was a lot of grinding and killing raid bosses repeatedly, and that’s not included in my videos. I’ve recorded turning in the quests, picking them up, talking to Khadgar, and all the non-repeatable content.
I broke it into two videos because the final quest, the culmination (that is seriously awesome), is a lot longer. Sure, that probably has to do with me failing repeatedly, but I think it’s interesting to see failures as well sometimes.
What an awesome cutscene. It got a little choppy near the end because I stupidly ran low on disk space on the drive to which I was recording. Whoops. You can always search for the cutscene on YouTube if you want.
There’s an achievement called Time is a Flat Circle that awards a monument of Khadgar fighting Gul’dan. It’s description reads, “Everything we have ever done or will do, we are going to do over and over and over again.” It seems like we’re going to see that even with all the meddling of beings from our timeline, this timeline wants to naturally progress to the same state.
The cutscene at the end of the chain also leads up to the next raid that was recently announced – Hellfire Citadel, complete with the Legion’s Archimonde and the Iron Horde presumably now under control of Gul’dan. I can’t wait to find out what happens to Grommash Hellscream. Can I build by shipyard and launch a naval assault on Tanaan Jungle yet?
It’s been a while since I posted, but what kind of WoW blogger would I be if I didn’t talk about this cinematic? Like most of Blizzard’s lore-rich trailers, this really got me excited. I enjoyed the fact that in both the original timeline and the Warlords of Draenor timeline, Grom gets to kill Mannoroth. I also particularly like Garrosh saving him. And Grom’s last lines? “We will never be slaves. But we will be conquerors.” That’s a terrific line, especially the pause between sentences.
Not all of the dungeons jumped out at me, but two really did – the Iron Docks and Grimrail Depot. I guess I like industrialism, but how could you not like Grimrail Depot? Part of it is actually on a train. Now I realize that when it comes to gameplay, it’ll all likely feel the same. Similarly, the idea of fighting on Deathwing’s back was really cool, but when it comes time to do it, I’m so focused on mechanics and numbers that it feels the same. Still, I really like this.
The 10th anniversary event sounds cool too. Tarren Mill vs Southshore is a great PVP throwback, and I’m super interested to see a deathmatch-style battleground. All I really want to do when I PVP is fight, so why has it taken so long to get a deathmatch battleground? Temple of Kotmogu is close. I’ll be curious to see what this is like.
Molten Core is also a pretty iconic raid to reinvigorate also. It’s a 40-man LFR, so everyone at endgame should be able to see it easily. And a Molten Corgi? Adorable.
My only issue is that it’s for max level characters. Warlords of Draenor drops 11/13/14, and the anniversary event starts within a week and a half or so. Does that mean we’ll need to rush to level 100?
@Celestalon Hey celestalon when warlords hit are we going to be in a rush to get to lvl 100 for the anniversary? because it seems like it
Warlords of Draenor sounds very cool and seems to be bringing a lot of great things. I don’t intend for this post to rehash all the news released at BlizzCon, but I still want to talk about my reaction.
The story
I love the direction of the story; Garrosh escapes and, with the help of the Timewalker Kairoz, travels back in time to Draenor. He stops the orcs from becoming corrupted by the Burning Legion and forms the Iron Horde. He then builds his own Dark Portal connecting that Draenor to our Azeroth. I know that anything relating to time travel can be confusing to people, but I kind of like that Blizzard basically told us not to worry about it and that there wouldn’t be any time paradoxes or consequences. I like it. It’s just an excuse for us to visit Draenor and interact with all the old orcs. Of course, this gives us a lot of potential. Seeing ruthless, old-fashioned orcs should be fun, and of course, experiencing Draenor will be great.
It could also be a vehicle for some interesting character development. What if Garrosh finds his father’s not what he expected? What if Grom thinks Garrosh is a failure? It’ll be fascinating. I also think Blizzard has a chance to do something great with Thrall. Thrall never had the chance to know his parents. We know Durotan is going to side with our Horde, but what if he’s different than Thrall imagined? Even if he’s a good guy, what if he’s still ruthless? What if he thinks the Horde is too soft? In addition, some characters could stick around after the end of the expansion. For example, Durotan could come through the Dark Portal to live on Azeroth.
I’m also fascinated by the idea of circumstance shaping a person, and I hope Warlords of Draenor examines this. I’d like to see some characters act very differently than they did in the original timeline due to the changed events in their lives.
Stats and itemization
Hit was always a boring stat to me. There was no strategy or choice. You just had to get hit-capped. I’m glad to see it and its fellow not-fun stats removed. Movement speed could be a fun stat on gear as well. Plus, being able to move quickly and get back to DPSing or healing means a DPS/HPS boost.
Having gear change to match the wearer’s current spec is very interesting. It means you can use more gear but that there’s more competition. Ultimately, I think it’ll make the game much more offspec-friendly.
Reforging seemed more needless than useful. On the other hand, it is nice to be able to change from a haste build to a crit build without changing gear. I almost feel like it would work better like changing specs. When you’re out of combat, you can could change builds. Oh well. We’ll have to see what it’s like for gems and enchants to be less common as well.
Garrisons
Garrisons are effectively the Sunsong Ranch farm crossed with the companion mission system of TOR (or other games) with a dash of Warcraft RTS. Sounds intriguing. I liked the farm even though it felt like a grind at times, so I’m optimistic about this. Honestly, it’s more of an evolution of the idea of keeps and followers from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It could be pretty fun.
Updated character models
Honestly, I don’t really care about this. I don’t understand it. My character is a pretty portion of my screen. When I play D&D, my representation is, at most, a small metal figure that isn’t even using an accurate weapon half the time. However, a lot of people do care, so I’m glad Blizzard’s doing it.
Boost to 90
I completely understand how some people are bothered by this, but I’m not at all. I’ve never had two characters at the level cap. With the character boost, I’m more likely to get a second to level 100. It’d be nice to check out some other styles of play, because I’ve only ever had my priest at endgame. In addition, being able to boost to 90 combined with updated character models mean that people who haven’t played WoW before can immediately begin playing what is effectively a new, modern game. That’s great.
Collections and quest items
These might be my favorite changes. Currently, mounts and pets are in collections rather than items. In Warlords of Draenor, toys, heirlooms, and possibly tabards will be in collections as well. That’s so much bag space I’ll be regaining. In addition, quest items won’t take up bag space. Finally. I’m pretty excited. The only downside is that I lost all those toys I earned previously. Maybe Blizzard could check that I did those quests and award me the toys. Please, Blizzard?
Raid changes
LFR is still LFR. Flex will be called Normal. Normal will be called Heroic. Heroic will be called Mythic. LFR, Normal, and Heroic will all be flexible (1o to 25 people) and cross-realm. Mythic will not be cross-realm and will be 20 people. As a normal-mode raider currently (so a heroic-mode raider next expansion) in a guild that struggles with attendance, this is great news. We recruit so we have 15-20 people, and then we take everyone every week. Awesome! I do feel bad for current 10-man heroic guilds, but it won’t be my problem at least.
Dailies and dynamic events
Dailies will not be widely used. Great. Dynamic events like those from the Timeless Isle will exist in the world. Also great if not overdone. In addition, they talked about wanting to combine the ideas behind the Isle of Thunder and the Timeless Isle. I think Blizzard is on to something, and I like to see them iterating on the way content is delivered. A combination of these two is exactly what I want.
Story quests
The map will tell you where the next story quest is, and it also indicates how many story chapters you’ve completed. This is awesome news. In Mists of Pandaria, I finished all the zones before I started raiding, and I only did a dungeon once I got to it in the story. It made for a nice, cohesive experience, but it also meant I took longer to get raid-ready. In Warlords of Draenor, I’ll skip all the non-story quests and come back to them. This should speed up the process significantly.
PVP interface updates
I don’t know how anyone could have a problem with being able to see capping progress on the map and on the flags themselves. This is a welcome change.
Warlords of Draenor
I’m pretty excited about all the aspects of the expansion. I’ll admit, things could go wrong. The quests could be boring, or the new content delivery mechanisms could be boring. I won’t know until I see the content. But I’m feeling hyped to experience it. Of course, I’d like to defeat Garrosh in normal-mode first!
Wow. I’m impressed with most patch trailers, but I loved this one. By talking about it, I’m spoiling it, so please watch the trailer before reading.
Okay?
Okay.
Taran Zhu’s back-and-forth with Hellscream was great. They seemed to take turns having the upper-hand. I liked when Taran Zhu brought up Grom Hellscream, although I’m not sure when he learned of Grom. I didn’t catch that he got impaled on Hellscream’s axe on my first watch. I also found it interesting that the trailer opened with butterflies and when the sha energies spread out from the heart of Y’shaarj, it corrupts a butterfly.
I’ve been wondering about something Hellscream said. Taran Zhu says “I have fought besides the tauren, trolls, and others. You are nothing like them.” Hellscream responds, “they are no longer part of my Horde!” Is Hellscream referring to those who are rebelling against him or to all tauren? Up to this point, it seemed like he was still accepting of tauren. He thought of them under orcs, but still felt they contributed. He seemed to consider them much higher than the other races of the horde. Hellscream tolerated the Blood Elves and goblins and largely ignored the pandaren and Forsaken. As far as I can tell, the Darkspear were no longer considered part of his Horde. By the release of patch 5.4, are we to assume that his Horde consists solely of orcs? It seems very plausible that he would have heard that Baine was working with the Darkspear Rebellion, so it wouldn’t be surprising.
The scene in which the navies arrive is also great. When was the last time we saw Horde (well, former Horde at this point) and Alliance forces so intermingled? I found the sails interesting. I see Horde sails, red with the black Horde symbol. The Forsaken are present with their purple sails. I assume both the blue and white sails belong to the Alliance, but I’m actually not positive. (Anyone who plays Alliance care to comment?) I wasn’t sure on black and red striped sails, but YouTube commenters pointed out that those ships belong to the Bloodsail Buccaneers. What are they doing attacking Orgrimmar too? Very interesting!
Blizzard does an amazing job with the story, and it’s in such an odd way as well. There’s really not that much story, and it’s usually not a huge deal in game. They’re excellent at creating background lore to hype people for playing. Escalation’s lore was also great in my opinion. There was a formal declaration of a Darkspear Rebellion led by my own racial leader – much deserved after Garrosh Hellscream declared martial law in the Echo Isles and rounded up the Darkspear in the Valley of Spirits. But in game, it just meant that I farmed Kor’kron in the Northern Barrens. That doesn’t change the fact that I was incredibly excited to be joining the Darkspear Rebellion just as I’m excited to come together with the other armies of Azeroth to bring judgement upon Hellscream.
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 