Recap: World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

WoD to Legion

As i mentioned in my previous post, much has happened in the World of Warcraft that many of us know and love since I last wrote on this blog.

Warlords of Draenor was the first expansion where Blizzard moved towards the idea of "player housing" that so many people have been asking for since the game began.

Garrisons were instanced areas within the game that looked slightly different as to what level of garrison you had unlocked. however there was one style for Alliance and one for Horde. The garrison was instanced solely to you with the phasing software that Blizz have perfected since Cross-Realm Zoning was introduced.

There were many differing opinions on garrisons, and these ranged from people being upset at the content being gated behind a certain point in the garrison storyline, to problems with instance servers and complaints at one factions garrison style looking way better than the other.

Garrison Styles

I spent large amounts of time in both styles of garrison, and personally felt that the Alliance one was more aesthetically pleasing. The Horde design went with the usual outpost full of spikes theme that we seem to get lumped with all the time - I think Blizzard forgot about the beauty of the Blood Elf zones.

So pretty, this was in Shadowmoon Valley

Many spikes! This was in Frostfire Ridge

On the whole the garrisons were a successful Blizzard experiment in the phasing software they use, enabling them to have millions of players in one location but all separated into their own little bubble of privacy.

There wasn't much customisation available for the garrisons, other than seasonal decorations and you could get an auction bot if you collected all the relevant parts, and due to gathering professions such as mining, herbalism and fishing able to be completed in garrisons, many people hardly left them.

Content wise, the questing throughout the zones was decent, and the addition of collecting treasures for toys and a small amount of XP meant that the levelling experience was fast and fun. The whole alternate timeline thing was easy to take in as you followed the storylines. The more you did it the more it was possible to refine it - towards the end I was able to level characters just by collecting treasures, completing area bonus objectives and a few choice quests, managing to skip one or two zones completely (I'm looking at you Spires of Arak!)

Most zones were beautiful in their own way from the snowy wastes of Frostfire Ridge to the lush grasslands of Nagrand.

Frostfire Ridge

Nagrand

Raiding and End Game content

The raids in Warlords of Draenor were each fun in their own way, despite the last raid of the expansion lasting even longer than Siege of Orgrimmar had, burning many people out.

The first raid that many people completed was Highmaul - this was an ogre-centric raid. 

This was a quick seven boss raid, all pretty standard tank and spank encounters, with the exception of Brackenspore where ranged had to use a flamethrower to stem the tides of moss looking to cover the ground.

The second raid most people completed was Blackrock Foundry with assorted orcs and friends.

My personal favourites from this raid were Hans'gar and Franzok (Hanz and Franz) and Operator Thogar.

Seren had fun in this raid, especially on Hanz and Franz

Last raid was Hellfire Citadel which was the last content for well over a year. The raid itself was fun with varied bosses, and the Moose mount for defeating Heroic Archimonde before the next expansion.

This prompted many people to sell "Moose Runs" but the community clubbed together and many people just took some extras with them due to the nature of flex raiding.

Thus ended Warlords of Draenor, an expansion that wasn't too bad in the grand scheme of things but people were very glad for it to end and to move on to more exciting things