War is coming to Draenor.

Another Blizzcon has come and gone and, as usual, details have been released about what is next for the major Blizzard properties. Today we will be looking at the most significant reveal; the next World of Warcraft expansion Warlords of Draenor. The story of the coming expansion will carry on from the current one, so anyone who has not yet watched the cinematic after defeating Garrosh Hellscream may want to skip the next paragraph.

As the title suggests, the next expansion takes place on Draenor, home world of the Orcs, and surrogate home of the Draenei. After his his defeat in Orgrimmar, Garrosh is taken away to stand trial for his crimes. With the help of a Bronze Dragonflight ally (the faction of dragons who look after time), he escapes to the Dark Portal which is now linked to Draenor of thirty-five years ago. This is before the planet was destroyed, and the Orc clans have not yet been united. Garrosh attempts to united the clans into a new, stronger horde that utilises technology from the present day. Despite how it looks, events will spiral out of his control and Garrosh will not be the major villain this time around, though he may get the ‘it was just a setback’ moment that Blizzard loves to use in every expansion.

So, Warlords is set on Draenor of the past. This means that the hellish landscapes found in Outland are much more pleasant to behold. Yes, a few locations share their names with areas used in The Burning Crusade, but the experiences will be completely different. For example, the Black Temple was a raid used in Crusade. This used to be the city of Karabor, a location that will become the home the Alliance for the expansion. There are eight zones planned for the expansion, one of which will be a world PvP zone. Other islands appear on the map, but will be used for content in later patches.

The new models share similarities with the old, as seen in this comparison.

As with every expansion, there will be tons of new content. First on many players list will be the ability to build a garrison on Draenor. This not only gives the player an instanced area to call their own, but will also form player housing that has often been requested. The base can be built in any of the seven questing zones and features many different buildings. The layout is decided upon by the player, allowing for plenty of customization. Each building has a unique function and can be upgraded twice. The prime example of this is the Inn, a structure that allows the player to hire NPC followers.

Followers can be equipped with gear and sent on missions (quests, dungeons and even raids!) from an interface that is very much like the pets and mounts. They even have a rarity like pet collecting, allowing rarer followers to have access to powerful abilities or skils, such as the ability to use a profession that the player would not normally have access to. Like the farm in Mists, a garrison could be tooled for producing materials and end game epics, or running missions for rewards. Trophies gained from achievements could even be put on display for when the player decides to invite their friends over.

New player models will be coming with Warlords as well. Blizzard have been working or this feature for a long time, and have decided to roll it out with the expansion rather than one race at a time. The designs are not radically new, instead the old hair and facial styles have been used so that players feel the soul of their character is still the same. Players will also find their bags are a little lighter, as toys, tabards, and heirloom items now have their own UI. This also solves the problem of moving heirloom items to a character on a different server, as once bought, are accessible on any character.

Mythic is the new difficulty to challenge top-tier guilds.

The new level cap for Warlords is 100, and there will be plenty of content to explore over the ten new levels. At launch the expansion will feature seven dungeons and two raids. The most controversial change of the expansion comes in the new raiding structure that will be introduced. Flex mode will be gone. Instead, Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic difficulties will have a flexible raid size from ten to twenty-five. At the bleeding edge will be a new Mythic difficulty that lets groups of twenty take on the most difficult challenges the game has to offer.

Warlords is unlikely to be the last expansion for Warcraft, but could be the one that destroys it. Many guilds are setup to tackle one of the existing raid sizes, and may be put off that the hardest difficulty requires a different amount of players. The game has gone through a change in raid size before, but that was when it was still gaining players. With dwindling subscribers, a new change many not help. Looking past that though, player housing and followers will do wonders to keep more casual players around and, if done right, could keep veterans sweet as well.

What are your thoughts on the new raid structure? Does managing a town in Warcraft appeal to you? Can Warcraft gain subscribers with this expansion? Let me know in the comments!

One lonely night in Stormwind.

Hello and welcome to Friday! Yes, I am writing about World of Warcraft again. I spend at least an hour a day playing/working to make some gold in the game. I think many of my fellow guildies see me as an easy source of cash if they need a loan. What many people do not know though is that I have two different accounts; one for Europe and one America.

I raid on both accounts, each having a level eighty-five restoration druid who is trained in herbalism and inscription. That is as far as the similarities go though. One account has been logged into daily, while the other has sat inactive (while fully subscribed) for the last fortnight. What reason do I have for different play style on each account? Simple, I am waiting for new content.

On the American account I went from level one to eighty-five in two weeks. In that time I also managed to get myself raid-ready by the end of the second week. Despite Mists of Pandaria being two months away at the time, I was able to jump into a guild with Lusipurr and raid each week, max each of my primary professions and run dungeons for valor. I was unable to get into the glyph market there because the server is too old and over populated, glyph prices were lower than some materials sold for. On the European realm I had done all of this long ago, and my guild was taking a break before the expansion, so very little happened than I needed to log in for.

That all changed when the Pandaria patch hit the live servers. Raiding dwindled as other features became active, players became less interested in serious raiding when their characters were ‘incomplete’. The patch left everyone without their final talents, and a great many did not have access to their preferred glyphs. These are unavailable until Mists launches in a week and a half. I logged in and had a play with all my new toys, but ultimately decided that there was nothing much to do right now. Most raids happen at odd times for me, so what little I could do was out of my reach for the time being. I could not even force myself to make gold.

A lifetimes worth of gold

On the European realms the situation was completely different. I had logged in daily to craft glyphs and post them on the auction house, while buying the majority of materials from the auction house as well. When the patch hit, the market changed. No longer were inks readily available. Herb prices went through the roof, as did glyph prices. I flew around collecting materials myself as the opportunity to increase my profit was obvious. I conducted business deals with friends to produce goods we believed would be highly sought after come launch day. As I was spending more time online, I got chatting to people in the community who were looking for an extra to come raiding with them, presenting me with the perfect opportunity to see how I would perform in the future.

Sadly, this did not continue. I am once again back to my purchase-materials-and-craft routine. The American account still sits unplayed. Content is king, and right now Warcraft is in between content. Sure, soon we will have the launch event and right after, the full expansion. That does not give me much reason to play right now. Instead, I spend my time filling out my pokedex, reading or finding a new RPG to review for this site. Some of it is worthwhile work, but I want to go back to the challenge of leveling and gearing my characters as quick as possible.

So the minute Pandaria launches I will be racing my guild mates to level ninety, failing that, I aim to get a realm first for one of my professions. I have the next week off to prepare myself for the long grind, though I doubt I will spend much time in the game. That is how goes when a major expansion looms around the corner.

Readers, have you been avoiding Warcraft recently? Maybe you would like to come and join us on the Moon Guard server in the new Lusi-guild, Perpetual Disappointment? Let me know in the comments!

Think about it.

It is a combination of two evocative, powerful words. They are short, concise, but loaded with intention. End. Game. End. Finality. Game. Fun. Taken literally, they signify the termination of what was fun about the game, the experience on reaching the end.

But the ends of stories, however bittersweet, are also the best parts, if done correctly. A good storyteller will develop storylines and plots throughout the “rising action” of the development, culminating in the zenith of the action as plot points are resolved, storylines end, and resolution fades into denouement. Many iconic scenes in literature and film happen at the end of a story. The end is the best part, and so there is a definite disconnect between the literal meaning of “endgame,” which ought to be a terrifying and saddening prospect, and the actual meaning of “endgame,” which is the most exciting part of gaming.

In a player-versus-environment (PVE) MMO, the “endgame” refers to the high-level, story-driven dungeons that large groups of players must take down together. It is the highest level of PVE play in the game, and ostensibly, what the PVE MMO game is all about. This is where the bads are separated from the champs, where server firsts are earned, and what competitive PVE gameplay is all about.

And I love it.

I have always been a sucker for cooperative gameplay, and firmly believe that a joy shared is a joy doubled, whereas a loss shared is a loss halved. Even on an 18% wipe on a very tough boss, the elation of getting her down to 18% is a rush.

A long, long time ago, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and we all played Everquest, endgame raiding was seen as an elite tier of gaming that only the truly dedicated could (or would want to) reach. The original idea of MMOs was that only hardcore gamers cared about that sort of thing, whereas everyone else just wanted a shiny new chat channel and some rats to kill.

So primitive.

The problem, however, is that the really cool stuff that developers, artists, encounter designers, class designers, musicians and story writers put into the game goes in to making the endgame experience rich, fulfilling, and just plain awesome to see. If developers make endgame play exclusive, the barrier to entry is too high, and the effort required too great, and the majority of the player base never sees the hard work. This is not a good strategy for player retention, let alone player base growth.

Come, minions, soldiers of the cold dark... obey the call of Kel'Thuzad

If, on the other hand, endgame gameplay is too easy and admits everyone, it quickly bores skilled players, who will beat it, shrug, and throw it away. While this works for single-experience console games (and plays into Gamestop’s evil pawn-shop like scam), the point of an MMO is to create a lasting, social world where the storyline can continue well past the nominal “end” of the game. Again, making things too easy is not a sustainable design.

The trick, then, is to strike a balance, which is notoriously difficult, even for successful MMOs like World of Warcraft. The Wrath of the Lich King expansion tried to broaden the endgame player base, by making gear necessary for entry into 5-man dungeons lower, increasing the ability to each class to do their job with lower skill requirements, while still tuning harder content for more skilled players, and lowering the raid size down to ten players (although 25-player raids are still possible). Back in the days of Everquest, raid size could grow well above 50. Sometimes, the bosses would be random spawns or non-instanced, requiring people to spend hours “camping” a likely spawn point. Wrath of the Lich King made the “casual” raid possible.

Much to the chagrin of (largely) self-styled “hardcore” raiders.

In an effort to fix this, Blizzard began to experiment with different ways of mixing up hardcore and casual-focused gameplay. Starting with the Secrets of Ulduar raid, casual players could experience the entire raid on “easy mode” (though I contend some fights, such as the Yogg-Saron fight, are not truly “easy”), while better players could activate “hard modes” that provided better/more rewards. This was a continuation of a mechanic first introduced in the Obsidian Sanctum, where, by leaving mini-bosses alive, players could increase the difficulty of the resulting final boss encounter.

I GUESS IT DOESN'T BEND THAT WAY... :(

Although this model was largely successful, it had some drawbacks. Namely, “hard mode only” loot required more time from item developers and a whole gaggle of artists to create the wireframes, textures, animations, et cetera. Developers had to work in ways of activating hard modes (and finding ways to increase the difficulty) that fit seamlessly within the fights, such as destroying XT’s heart, or reaching Thorim in two minutes.

A new experiment was adopted in the next level of raiding, the Argent Tournament. In this experiment, Blizzard simply created two versions of each size of raid, ten-person and ten-person-heroic, and twenty-five-person and twenty-five-person-heroic. Each of these four (yes, four) raids were available week after week. The gear was no different between any two paired regular/heroic modes, except that “heroic” level gear contained straight-line increases of all stats. Thus, players were tempted (and many did) to run the same raid four times over the course of a week, simply rotating through ten and twenty-five player modes. This lead to unbelievably-fast burnout, and for good reason: running the same dungeon four times in a week is madness.

TRIFLING GNOME!!! *zap*

Realizing that this model was unworkable, the designers stepped back from it in the final raid of the expansion, the Icecrown Citadel raid. In “ICC,” players can activate the “heroic” modes via a clunky user-interface based toggle after the raid leader (only one person!) has performed a single Lich King kill in the normal mode germane to the size of the raid currently underway. Thus, the number of total lockouts was lowered to two, but now every boss has a “heroic” mode that rewards the same straight-line increase gear. Some fights, like the Gunship Battle encounter, are laughable even on heroic, while others are so punishingly hard that only a few guilds worldwide have managed them.

The balancing act, however, is not finished: lead developer Ghostcrawler (UT REPRESENT WHAT WHAT) has revealed to the player populace that in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion, it will no longer be possible for players to complete both the ten and twenty-five raids in the same week: players will have to choose. Also, ten and twenty-five player raids will no longer drop differing pieces of gear. Difficulty between the two raid sizes will be comparable. The only difference is that it will still be more efficient to gear a raid through twenty-five player raiding because it will drop proportionately more loot.

So, the Light's vaunted justice has finally arrived? Shall I lay down Frostmourne?

Because the logistics of getting 25 people together are more difficult and not always feasible, raids can be split mid-week, thus allowing players to start a week on a 25 but break it up into three separate 10s groups.

Incomprehensibly, this eminently sensible idea is being derided by the community.

Here is why everyone else is wrong, and Ghostcrawler and I are right: by most accounts, the Ulduar model of heroic versus normal mode was the most successful. Sure, it means more work on the developer side, but all that means is that players need to be (1) more patient and (2) more appreciative of the hard work put in. I hope that the hard mode model continues, but the clunky, fourth-wall breaking interface of saying, “OK, I am flipping the heroic switch now!” goes away. It was much more fun to push Mimiron’s Big Red Button than it is to walk up to Deathwhisper and whimper and cower as the heroic switch gets flipped.

Capping the amount of emblems a single character can earn per week, as well as reducing the incentive to spend 3-4 nights week raiding on a single character to maximize emblem and gear gain makes a lot of sense as well. That way, players can decide whether they can denote 1-2 nights a week to raiding, and spend the rest of their in-game time doing other fun things like PVP, profession work, or other related aspects of gameplay. Or, players that wish to raid four or more nights a week could start a second raid from an alternate character and see the game from a new side, such as moving from a tank to a healer, or a healer to a damage-dealing position.

This also encourages better gameplay. The problem with the current setup is that bad raiders can either be carried by a sufficiently-powerful 25-man group (or worse; 2-3 bad raiders can ruin an otherwise competent 25-man group), or bad raiders can simply outgear a 10-man raid by spending a minimal amount of time gearing up in a 25-man raid, because of statistic inflation on gear between the two raid levels. With the difficulty between the two raids hopefully meeting somewhere in the middle, it will be less likely that bad raiders can hide in either group. With the attention focused on being able to bring alt characters as well, players will hopefully increase their own skillsets as they see a raid from several perspectives.

Going forward, here is what I hope Blizzard takes away from the historical experience of Wrath raiding.

First, the first tier of raids needs to be smaller. Naxxramas was a fun dungeon, and not terribly difficult (meaning it could be used as an effective training ground for fresh recruits), but it was entirely too long. Eighteen bosses is over the top. If, instead, there were around three to four smaller raids, each displaying different fight mechanics, it would be possible for progression-oriented raiders to introduce those recruits to more advanced concepts in a step-wise and effective manner.

Second, buffs need to be redesigned. I know that each class is supposed to provide at least one benefit to the entire group, but if certain buffs are going to be “always on” (like Paladin blessings, Priest prayers, or any number of special abilities like Improved Icy Talons or Leader of the Pack), then those need to be simplified in that melee DPS provides one buff, the healers another, the tanks another, and the ranged DPS another. That way, a balanced group always has these buffs. Other buffs need to be redesigned from their “apply once at the start and forget about for an hour” model. A good example of a well-used tactical buff is the Shaman’s Bloodlust or Heroism spell. For a short duration, everyone gets a small attack speed buff that really helps the raid push its throughput. The decision of “when to Hero,” as my raid calls it, is fun and strategic. Because it cannot be an “always-on” buff, it makes sense to use it when we do.

Each class should provide a single raid buff based on their role, and this should be the only one that is factored in when tuning the encounter. Every spec should have at least one unique, strategic buff that they can apply at special times. For instance, Fury Warriors should get a Battle Shout that temporarily increases the health and attack/spell power of all party members for 30 seconds. Paladin tanks could receive a Divine Guardian buff that adds an extra 5,000 armor to players below 30% health once every two minutes. Healing Druids could receive a form that increases all healing done on all raid members, but at the cost of halving the Druid’s current mana pool. That way, these buffs could feel situational and responsive to emerging conditions in the fight, rather than something that raid designers assume groups will have, especially the more limited ten-player groups. Players of “support classes” that bring extra situational buffs would be more in-demand, as their situational buffs could make up for a lowered damage or healing output.

A current example of this model already exists: a tank’s cooldowns. Tanks love to endlessly strategize over the best place to burn cooldowns, hoping to time it right so that they have an “oh rats!” button when they need it, but also providing a way to ease the load on healers. As it stands, healer cooldowns act like additional tank cooldowns, and DPS cooldowns are merely one more button to press when available, rather than waiting for a strategic time to deploy.

Third, play needs to be more strategic overall. Many fights in Wrath are mindless, mash-buttons-as-fast-as-you-can affairs. Once a spell rotation is learned, a fight becomes simply an exercise of following that rotation while avoiding environmental cues within a certain timeframe. That is to say, very, very boring. If instead fights required players to interact with the environment, choose specific abilities to use in response to what the environment or the boss is doing, or perform other types of non-rotational actions, the fights would feel varied and require a broader swath of strategies to complete. As it stands, this is more or less what competent raiders will do on hard modes. But normal modes should train less-competent raiders to do these things, not simply avoid having to play well.

Lastly, there needs to be greater NPC involvement in the fights. One complaint about the focus on smaller raid sizes is that battles feel less “epic” because less people are involved. The solution is to bring in major lore figures (such as Tirion Fordring in the Lich King encounter) and have them do things while the raiders assist in some way. For instance, a major lore figure could lead one force in to neutralize a large mass of enemy soldiers while players focus on the boss. Even if this is largely cosmetic and part of the scenery, it helps immerse players within the lore itself, instead of having large, evil beings taken down by a group of ten yahoos hastily assembled in the bowels of Ironforge.

In short, Blizzard seems to have learned from past experiments (I will not call them mistakes per se) and is applying their evolving concept of raid design well. However, I think that, for whatever reason (nostalgia?) too much of the old style of raid design still exists in what is, in other respects, a very modern game. My concern is not out of anything but make the game as accessible–and fun–to as broad a range of players as possible, which means lowering the barrier to entry and completion for casuals while still providing the sorts of things (intense strategy and challenging encounters) that more skilled players need to hold their interest in the game.