Well, this is a big one. As an avid player of World of Warcraft, I have enjoyed the game on and off since launch, and I've bought every expansion. Every one of them has had its ups and downs, and Warlords is definitely no exception. People either seem to love or hate it, and I've noticed that this expansion seems to draw out very strong feelings. Given that the announcement for the next expansion will be released on 8/6, I wanted to post this review before then.
What is it: Warlords of Draenor is the fifth expansion in the long running game World of Warcraft. Once again, you take on the role of a hero of Azeroth, sent into an alternate timeline 30 years or so in the past to ensure disaster does not ensue. Along the way, you meet many familiar faces, and get to know some new ones as well.
Pros:
Leveling: The leveling experience is fantastic. I had an absolute blast working through the storylines, and seeing the new areas. I've leveled a few Horde characters, and one Alliance. The starting areas were both fantastic, and a great introduction in the world of Draenor. The leveling was pretty smooth, and I enjoyed that there tended to be several quests in an area, rather than one, move on, another move somewhere else, and do one or two more. The movement through the zones was good too, I think there were only a few times you didn't see most of the zones.
The Zones: Each zone looked amazing. I've always loved snowy areas, and Frostfire Ridge did not disappoint in the least. It becomes the Blade's Edge Mountains that we see in Outland, and there are certain similarities. Shadowmoon Valley is absolutely gorgeous, and a complete contrast to what we see of our own Shadowmoon Valley. I think this zone showed the most contrast between the Burning Crusade and Warlords version, and I wanted to see this place the most. It was amazing to see the designers' vision of the original Shadowmoon Valley, as well as Karabor Temple. Gorgrond feels very primal and dangerous, which I think became another part of Blade's Edge. Talador is beautiful, and this was another zone I was very excited to see in its original form. I was not disappointed. The Spires of Arak looked amazing, and I really enjoyed exploring this place, as it showed more about the Arakkoa. It is also the only zone that did not have an Outlands analog. Nagrand looked beautiful again, and I loved seeing my favorite Outland zone once more. Tanaan Jungle looked very interesting as well, and I found points on the map that corresponded well with Hellfire Peninsula.
The flightpoints were well laid out, and I had very little trouble getting from point to point.
Garrisons: This has been a long time coming, and I love the concept of having a home base that I could customize to what my character could use. Each building is very useful, and upgradeable to be even more useful. I loved having the Barracks, which grant the ability to have a bodyguard that follows you around through Draenor. Another favorite is the Salvage Yard, as it unlocks a unique transmog set for each class.
[It was at this point my computer had a freakout, so please bear with me as I remember what I can.]
Raids: The raids that we did get are fantastic, even if some of the lore on them seems to be a bit weird. The mechanics of the fights were all a lot of fun from what I experienced. I raided all of Highmaul with my guild, and my favorite fight there was the Twin Ogron, it was chaotic, but a hell of a lot of fun. Even once you learn the fights, you still have to pay a decent bit of attention in order to finish them off. Blackrock Foundry was pretty cool as well, the Gruul fight made me chuckle as I raided his Lair in Burning Crusade. Hans'gar and Fraznok is pretty amusing as well. Though I only saw the Blackhand fight on LFR mode, it was still very enjoyable and entertaining. Finally, we have Hellfire Citadel. I haven't had a chance to finish this yet, but all the fight so far have again been a lot of fun. The Gorefiend fight has a touch of C'thun to it, and you see a few familiar faces from questing, as well as from the Black Temple. I have not progressed passed Velhari yet, but hopefully I will have a chance soon.
Now for the cons...
Garrisons: Okay, I know that this was also on the pros list, but give me a moment. One of my big problems with garrisons is that they completely wrecked gathering professions. Everyone with a garrison can do mining and herbalism without actually having those professions. I would have much preferred to be able to switch one of those out for something useful to me, which also goes for the fishing shack and the pet building.
Apexis Dailies: There are just way too many of these, and they feel way too grindy and necessary. I did them, mostly for something to do. The ones in Tanaan are better, though it's still a ton of grinding. People didn't like them at the start, and people didn't like them very much more in 6.2.
Patch 6.1: Also referred to as the Social Media patch by many, I could only really shake my head. Two of the biggest features were Twitter integration, and an in game selfie camera. Really? Blood elves FINALLY received their model tweaks, something that should have been completed a long time ago along with the other models. There were only two things that I liked about this patch, the heirloom tab, and the daily visitors to the garrison with new profession recipes and quests.
Dungeons: The dungeons themselves are mostly fine... other than there are not enough of them. Instead of adding in new ones, Blizzard decided that they would add timewalker dungeons instead. In short, they returned old expansion dungeons for people to run. They also have two additional levels of difficulty, which is only more difficult from my understanding in that the numbers are bigger.
Content: A lot of content was cut. Tanaan was supposed to be a leveling zone, Farahlon was supposed to be added in as well, and it feels like there are other things missing. It also leaves people who have finished leveling with little to do. Basically... you have Apexis dailies, and LFR. If you like pets, there's a certain amount of pet gathering that can be done. But my druid rarely leaves her garrison now that she's completely all of the Tanaan content. I have little motivation to complete the zone on any of my other characters, and I've not been logging on very much over the last week or so. Also... 6.2 is supposed to last until the next expansion. I just don't see that happening. There is also a HUGE lack of raids. In vanilla WoW, we had 4 raids, Burning Crusade had 8 raids (with some of the best looking gear in the game to this day), Wrath of the Lich King had 9 (though a few only had one boss), Cataclysm had 6, and Mists had 5. In Warlords, we have 3, which is less than the base game. I find that very disappointing.
Shipyards: The idea itself sounds really cool. What we got was another mission table. I wanted to be able to jump on a ship and help complete a mission, rather than looking at the pretty ships while they are sitting in the harbor. Also, the shipyard is necessary for completing the legendary questline, which is a bit annoying if you have difficulty getting it upgraded.
Reputations: While some of the rewards are pretty cool... it is just not worth it. There are no quests for the original Warlords reputations, making them a complete grindfest. I saw this, and it really made me shake my head. The rep grinds in past expansions were much better, I did not mind doing the daily quests, especially when some of them added to the lore of the particular faction. The new ones in Tanaan are better... though there was a lot of room for improvement. The Saberstalkers is probably the worst, especially if you want any of their rewards. They have their own currency, which does not have a very good droprate.
Overall opinion: This expansion makes me sad, truth be told. It had so much promise, and I did not hesitate to buy it after I got to play in the beta. It started out so well, but the subscription numbers reflect the community's feeling. Just today (8/4/15), it was announced that another 1.5 million people have left, which puts the number of people playing back to the days of Vanilla WoW. I am not a fan of PvP, but from what I have heard, nothing has been added for people that do enjoy it. We also paid more for this expansion than the previous ones, and some regions also experienced raises in their subscription prices. I was also very amused at the whole issue of flying. It was something introduced in the first expansion, and something that we have gotten in all the expansions that followed up until now. It was announced that there would be no way we would have flying, and basically "tough shit" was the answer. Then Final Fantasy MMO announced they were adding flying, and the forums went nuts. It wasn't too long after that flying was announced, which was one of the fasted about-faces that I've ever seen.
To be quite frank, I'd have a difficult time recommending this to anyone in its current state, unless they plan on doing nothing but raiding.
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