World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

While World of Warcraft celebrates nine years since launch this year, there are plenty of WoW players who haven't experienced a large part of the history and lore of Warcraft. Characters like Durotan, Grom Hellscream, Orgrim Doomhammer, Gul'dan and Ner'zhul may have been part of the background tapestry of Azeroth for a long time (several have had cities named after them), but to a lot of players they're simply names.

Enter Warlords of Draenor. Thanks to some hocus pocus with timelines, the everlasting pride of Garrosh Hellscream and some involvement by bronze coloured Dragons, we travel back in time to Draenor - homeworld of the Orcs - and meet with many of the Orcs that are responsible for the rich history of Azeroth.

We travel all the way back to before the opening of The Dark Portal when Orcs invaded Azeroth. Back to when the Orcs drank of Mannoroth's blood and fell under the power of the demon. It is Garrosh Hellscream, who, feeling the shame of his defeat at Orgrimmar, travelled back to raise a new horde - the Iron Horde - full of free, blood hungry Orcs, equipped with modern tech, and fully capable of stomping all over Azeorth.

Garrosh and his Iron Horde managed to adjust the Dark Portal so it points to our current age. Alliance and Horde, lead by Vol'jinn, must act hastilly.

If you're worried about having to deal with Garrosh as the main villain again you can relax. The anger-filled Orc is not the main antagonist - he's simply the one that puts the events in motion and soon thereafter he's on the sidelines. Who the main villain is still something Blizzard won't reveal, but Blizzard's master of Warcraft lore Chris Metzen says he assumes players will be able to figure out who it is. All he said is that it won't be another Orc.

Draenor is the area that will later become Outland, and there parts of the geography will be easily recognisable to most players. But it will still feel fresh. Hellfire Peninsula's golden desert is (or is it was?) a lush Jungle while Zangarmarsh is a bay called Zangar Bay. Black Temple is instead the Dranei temple Karabor, that will serve as the Alliance hub in Draenor. Terokkar Forest is called Talador, where the village Shattrach is under siege (there's a harbour, as there is lots of seas in Draenor, unlike the empty space that Outland hovers in). The snow-covered mountains and wastelands of Frostfire Ridge is home to the Frostwolf Clan and this is where Horde players make their home also. All told Draenor is made up of seven zones, many of which will be all new to most players.

Apart from the new continent to explore, the biggest single new feature of Warlords of Draenor is the so-called Garrisons. Imagine the small farm you kept an eye on in Pandaria, but this time on a grander scale, and you get an idea of what to expect. Your Garrison is your own personal fort.

You pick which zone you Garrison is placed in and thereafter you start expanding it by collecting people through a questline. With time your Garrison will grow to accomodate an Inn, Baracks, a smith, and more as you begin to attract followers. These NPCs have their own levels and earn experience, and you can send them on quests in the world, such as dungeons and raids - and profit from their efforts upon their return. Through your Garrison you can collect epic gear, crafting materials, items from profession your character doesn't have, and more.

The level cap will be raised to 100, and there is good news for those who haven't played World of Warcraft before, or perhaps jumped off ship somewhere along the way. All players who purchase Warlords of Draenor will be able to boost up their character to level 90, so you're able to enjoy the new adventures the expansion offers up. You can use your boost on anything from a brand new level 1 character to one at level 89 (even if that sounds a bit wasteful to us).

Since Orcs are at the center of Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard have spent some time on updating the aging character models in the game. Most of the player races look the same today as they did as World of Warcraft launched in 2004.

The new character models are far more detailed with more shadowing and higher polygon counts. It was still important for Blizzard that the new models looked similar to the old ones. Upon logging in players should immediately recognise their character even with the new models. At BlizzCon we were presented with the new character models for Dwarves, Orcs and Gnomes and Blizzard seems to have done a good job.

There is also a range of "Quality of Life" improvements - changes that aim to removed annoyances and streamline the user interface. This means we take farewell of Hit and Expertise stats - that up until now had a huge influence on whether you hit or missed a raid boss. The stack caps of most crafting and profession related materials is raised to 100 - and heirlooms, quest items and perhaps even tabards won't fill your inventory. Instead they're given their own windows like mounts and combat pets.

Meanwhile Blizzard have adjusted the stats for pretty much all items. Stats have been hit with massive inflation with each expansion, and after a while the numbers have become difficult to relate to. That's over now. Stats on all items from Wrath of the Lich King and onwards have been adjusted to where your character in Mists of Pandaria may have sported 300,000 hit points, but in Warlords of Draenor he will land closer to 20,000-30,000. All monsters have naturally been adjusted accordingly. If your fireball took 20 percent of the health of a monster it will do the same relative damage post the "item squish".

The change has been made for two reasons - partly to make stats easier to take in, and partly for practical reasons. Lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas explained to us that they had reached the limit to how much life a raidboss could have - simply how large a number the game engine could handle. This is part of the reason why Garrosh heals himself as much as he does in the last fight in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. Not because the design team is particularly fond of bosses healing themselves, but because they wanted to make the fight last longer even with the limitations.

Blizzard feels Warlords of Draenor is one of the best expansions they've made for World of Warcraft. Of course, they say this ahead of every expansion, but with Warlords of Draenor it feels as if longtime fans will really get their fill. The conflict between Alliance and Horde remains central to the story, but the expansion explores the conflict that was the origin and that is even more central to the universe. The essence of Warcraft. No firm release date exists, but if previous expansions is anything to go by late summer or early fall 2014 seems like a good bet.