Tag: Warlords of Draenor

Warlords of Draenor Gets Release Date and New Trailer

by S.J. Borger

After building anticipation since last year’s BlizzCon,  Blizzard announced the release date for the newest World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, at a special event last Thursday.

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The expansion, which takes place 35 years prior to the current game, will drop of November 13th–just a week after this year’s BlizzCon–and is currently available for pre-order here. Player’s can purchase the digital edition for $49.99 or the deluxe edition for $69.99.

While both editions include the level 90 character boost, the deluxe edition not only includes two pets (dread raven and dread hatching), but also continues Blizzard’s trend of combining multiple products in one shiny package with a Diablo III pennant and Starcraft II portraits.

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Blizzard also announced the Collectors Edition (there’s been no official price point announced, but Amazon and Gamstop show it at $90). The collectors edition includes everything in the digitial deluxe edition, as well as:

Physical DVD of the expansion
Behind-the-scene DVD and Blu-ray set
Soundtrack on CD
The Art of the Warlords of Draenor, a 160-pages of concept art, finished images, and CG images
A Blackhand mouse pad

Blizzard also released the almost-five-minute long cinematic, which you can watch below.

What do you think, readers? Can’t wait? Done with Blizzard? Waiting to see? Let us know in the comments!

‘World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor’ Hits 1 Million Pre-Orders!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Activision Blizzard just held their quarterly earnings call, and while they announced the news that World of Warcraft subscriptions again fell slightly (from 7.8 to 7.6 million subscribers… still a huge number), they did reveal that the game’s next expansion, Warlords of Draenor has already received over 1 million pre-orders.

Pre-orders just opened on March 10th, so that’s a lot of people pre-paying for the next chunk of content.

SJ detailed the expansion during BlizzCon. Have you picked up your copy yet? What are you most excited for?

I’m pretty addicted to Hearthstone right now myself.

http://youtu.be/lB0IdIx7DLU

Warlords of Draenor Pre-Order Now Available

by S.J. Borger

Blizzard announced yesterday that Warlords of Draenor,  its newest expansion to the behemoth MMO, World of Warcraft, can now be pre-ordered at the Blizzard website (digital versions only).

Players who pre-purchase the digital version will be able to immediately boost one character on their account to level 90–and if you want to boost more than one toon, you have the option to purchase additional level 90 upgrades (at $60/toon). Players that upgrade their pre-order to the deluxe version will unlock other in-game goodies, including a dread raven mount and dread hatchling pet.

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Warlords of Draenor art.
Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.

The retail-exclusive Collectors Edition is expected to be available for pre-order soon. The Collector’s Edition will feature all of the items included in the digital deluxe, as well as a hardcover art book, a behind the scenes two-disc blu-ray/DVD set, a CD soundtrack and a mouse pad.

Warlords of Draenor is expected to launch this Fall. The expansion sends players back in time (and back to Draenor) to battle Hellscream and his Iron Horde. WoD will feature new character models for all of the races, a Garrison building feature, and a raised level cap of 100.

The standard digital edition is $49.99; the digital deluxe is $69.99 and the Collectors Edition comes in at a not-as-bad-as-expected $89.99.

Take a look at the new WoD  cinematic featuring the level 90 boost below and let us know what you think in the comments! Are you excited? What do you think?

Warlords of Draenor: Closed Beta, New Details Announced

by S.J. Borger

It’s a big year for Blizzard Entertainment–November will mark the 10th Anniversary of World of Warcraft and the 20th Anniversary of the Warcraft series. In anticipation of the upcoming  World of Warcraft expansion, “Warlords of Draenor,” Blizzard Entertainment announced this week that the expansion will soon move into closed beta testing, along with a few other choice tidbits of information.

Warlords of Draenor is the newest expansion to the World of Warcraft mmo. Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.
Warlords of Draenor is the newest expansion to the World of Warcraft mmo.
Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.

Closed Beta: While no official start date for the closed beta has been announced, Blizzard says it is “in preperations” and encourages players to opt in on their Battle.net account beta profile. Make sure your hardware specs are up-to-date!

Pre-purchase: The WoD expansion will be available for pre-purchase soon, with standard digital and Digital Deluxe options (a physical Collector’s Edition is also in the works). Pre-purchase of the digital editions gets players the exclusive pet and mount to use in-game right away.

Level Boost to 90: Now available at the time of purchase of a pre-order. That’s right, before the actual expansion release. Players who pre-order the digital version of WoD will be able to immediately boost one character on their account to level 90. In regards to the change, Blizzard said: “based on feedback, many of you [players] would like a chance to get acquainted with a new class before heading out into the expansion.”

Blizzard is also in the process of evaluating ways to allow players to boost multiple characters to 90, including alts played on other realms/factions; plans to test a feature that allows players to purchase a character upgrade directly are in the works.

WoD was announced at last year’s Blizzcon, to a wild reaction from the crowd. The expansion will take players back to the Outlands of Draenor–way back, to the time of the Iron Horde.

You can see the entire announcement here. Watch the trailer below, and let us know in the comments what you think about WoD, Blizzards announcements and that level 90 character boost!

BlizzCon 2013: An Update On The ‘Warcraft’ Movie

by S.J. Borger

While the Warcraft movie panel here at Blizzcon was short on details, director Duncan Jones was able to slip a few key facts: it’s an origin story, and two of the characters are named Lothar and Durotan.

Those of you familiar with Warcraft lore know this take us back at least a generation. Those of who saying ‘who?’; Durotan was an Orc Chieftain during the opening of the Dark Portal, and the First and Second Wars. He is also the father of Thrall.

Lothar was the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces during the Second War.

Both died horrible, martyr’d deaths and influenced the leaders of the current Azeroth and were responsible for much of the way of the World of Warcraft map looked prior to the Cataclysm.

If the movie goes back to the very beginning of the Orc/Human conflict, it will chronicle the same sequence of events players in World of Warcraft will have traveled back and changed. So that’s not confusing at all.

Jones also showed some concept art that was truly phenomenal and confirmed the Christmas, 2015 release date.

Filming begins next year in conjunction with Legendary Pictures.

While we don’t have any art to show you for the movie, here’s the Warlords of Draenor expansion cinematic to whet your appetite.

 

BlizzCon 2013: ‘Warriors of Draenor’ In-Depth Details From The Floor!

by S.J. Borger

Blizzard Entertainment announced today their newest expansion for their MMO phenom, World of Warcraft. The expansion, title Warlords of Draenor, takes adventures back to the Outlands. Literally…players will follow Garrosh Hellscream, escaping from his war crime trial being held after the Siege of Orgrimmar, as Garrosh goes back in time to the Outlands of Grommash Hellscream, Blackhand, and Ner’zhul.

A sketch of the Nagrand from the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
A sketch of the Nagrand from the Warlords of Draenor expansion.
Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

New Level Cap, Insta-Level…and oh, A House

Warlords of Draenor will feature a new level cap–100–and will also allow a player to instantly level one toon to 90 (either a currently played toon or a brand new one rolled at 12:01 a.m. the day the expansion comes out), complete with level appropriate gear. In addition, Blizzard has also retooled current classes, updating their basic look while maintaining their essential, uh, Orcness. Or Night Elf-ness. Goblin-ness?  Anyway, slightly new looks so that everybody’s basically better looking.

Blizzard is finally giving its players a real home: Warlords of Draenor introduces Garrisons–strongholds built by the player (with some customizing available) in the zone of their choice. Once your stronghold is finished, players can begin to collect NPC followers who can perform various tasks–including gathering and questing for the player. It’s like the Sims, only nobody showers.

In addition to new dungeons and raids, including a retooling of the Flex raid and a new Mythic raid at a fixed 20-player raid size, there are also some changes coming to bags and inventory (heirloom and toy collections! sortable bags! crafting straight from the bank) and PvP, including a new world PvP zone with bonus random rewards, items and honor points, including BoE reward gear and a weekly quest to allow players to upgrade an item.

More details on everything that’s new later, as well as our opinion of the actual gameplay. For now, here’s a video of the new (but chronological older…)/old (i.e. Burning Crusade) Outlands to whet your appetite.

http://youtu.be/lB0IdIx7DLU

 

 

Newest ‘World Of Warcraft’ Expansion Announced! Check Out The ‘Warlords Of Draenor’ Trailer!

by Shane O'Hare

Straight out of BlizzCon we got our first big announcement of the convention. World of Warcraft is getting ANOTHER expansion pack. This time we go back to Draenor the home of the Orcs, with a bunch of nice new features to boot! Take a look at the trailer below!

This new edition if rife with new features. The most noticeable one is that all the original races will be getting updated and upgraded character models. New animations and high def textures are just the beginning. The level cap has been pushed up to 100, with the ability to start new characters at 90 so you can fast track to the top.

The biggest gameplay mechanic that has been added is the Garrisons. Players will be able to build and upgrade a home base of sorts. Setting up trade routes, building up the economy and defenses are some of the things you get to do with your own private fort. Think Warcraft III kind of stuff.

No release date yet, but if you’re an intrepid WoW fan you will be on top of this release!