World of Warcraft: Current Year

Dalien

Registered Hodor
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Blue response on thebeta forumsabout the capitol city changes:

Okay, there?s a LOT of misunderstandings and misinformation floating around, so let me try to clarify what I can.

Warlords of Draenor?s story is about the people of Azeroth (namely, the Alliance and the Horde) venturing into an unknown world and building up a force strong enough to take out an enemy stronger than anything they?ve encountered before, on that enemy?s own turf. While there are certainly some alliances to be made along the way, and those are definitely major parts of the story, the core theme is about you and your faction fighting for survival.

So, as development continued, we came to the realization that it just doesn?t make sense for the Horde and Alliance to spend so much energy and resources building up a stronghold on Draenor, only to base their efforts out of someone else?s city. We?re not helping the Draenei or Frostwolves fight off the Iron Horde ? they?re helping us. The Alliance and Horde both have major bases of operation on Draenor. That should be where they?re working from.

That, along with the continued development of Garrisons into the overall quest and story flow of the expansion, led us to the decision to develop the Horde and Alliance bases on Ashran into the major faction hubs instead of Bladespire and Karabor. Promoting the world PvP area on Ashran is a nice perk, but it wasn?t a factor in making that decision.

That said, the Temple of Karabor and Bladespire Fortress are still there. We haven?t removed them or anything like that. You won?t be able to use your bank or check your auctions there, but they?re still fully built home cities for the Karabor Draenei and Frostwolf Orcs, respectively. You?ll still be able to explore them in their full glory.

As to the Alliance and Horde staging areas on Ashran, allow me to lay out a few key facts to hopefully allay some concerns:

They?re located on Ashran as a geographical location on the map, but they?re not part of the Ashran world PvP zone. They won?t be subjected to the realm coalescing we?re using to keep Ashran?s PvP area populated, and they won?t flag you for PvP on non-PvP realms.
We?ve also made some major improvements to the way PvP flagging works on non-PvP realms that removes ?accidental flagging? from mistargeted abilities or ground effects. Unless you manually flag yourself by typing /pvp, you will simply not be able to attack enemy players, or heal friendly players who have flagged themselves.
They?re populated with guards, and the only land-based entrance is directly through the Ashran world PvP zone (including a major fortress). It?s certainly possible for someone from another faction to attack it, but it?s not any easier to do so than it is to attack the enemy faction?s shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.
There will be a fast travel option between the staging areas and your Garrison. You can pop over there quickly, conduct your business, and leave again if you like.

This isn?t a question of whether or not Bladespire and Karabor are cities. They are. It?s just a question of whether the portals to Orgrimmar or Stormwind are there or somewhere else. You?ll still be able to explore them, they?ll still be fully populated, and they?re still going to be every bit as beautiful as they would have been with a Transmog NPC. We?re looking forward to them ourselves!
Pretty shitty that they're scrapping Karabor/Bladespire as capitols and giving us Fort Copypaste to hang out in for the next 2 years. The "new" cities can be seen here:Ashran Preview - Alpha Build 18471 - YouTube, Alliance @ 1:06 and Horde at 6:44.
 

Qhue

Tranny Chaser
7,488
4,438
This doesn't seem to make any sense. Did anyone want generic_human_outpost06 as their main base of operations? So Karabor is still a 'city' eh? Well so was Gilneas and look how well that turned out. So you have this very creative art that gets used for a zone you spend maybe a level in and then never see again? What the hell is the point of the Garrison being no where near the capital and in such a way that instead of you wandering over to the garrison from the capital you instead hop into a teleporter and back again?

Hell why even bother with local capitals at this point? Just stick with Stormwind and Orgrimmar and stuff a bunch of portals over in a corner again.
 

Dalien

Registered Hodor
2,181
2,020
The only two reasons I can think of are either a) they want to push World PvP on everyone, or b) Karabor/Bladespire are going to get destroyed in later patches. Normally you could accuse them of being cheap and wanting to save on art assets or something, but from what I've read on the beta forums (another '04 non-veteran here) both of those areas are mostly done and beautiful. Seriously, Alliance was going to havingBlack fuckin' Templeas their capitol but someone decided "nah, lets just copy paste Honor Hold on the edge of the PvP zone instead, they'll love that!"... what.

They may reverse this decision, the level of buttmad on mmo-champ and official forums is reaching a boiling point right now.
 

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>
<Gold Donor>
5,907
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Lorewise, how are a bunch of orcs stronger than Deathwing? That blue post doesnt make sense
Power levels never make sense in MMO lore, and WoW isn't (or at least GC wasn't) afraid to just say "because... reasons." If you're looking for a real answer, the best I could come up with is the fact that there are a ton of orcs, and they're battle hardened survivors from a SAVAGE world (and blood thirsty to boot). One could probably assume that in the Outland timeline many of the orcs died because they didn't want to become demonic, leaving only the survivors of that conflict - though I'll admit I'm not a lore aficionado. Maybe there is another reason these orcs are more dangerous than they were in the WarCraft RTS's?
 

Rime

<Donor>
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Lorewise, they are absolutely not more powerful than Deathwing. Deathwing was the most powerful being on Azeroth, likely stronger than any single Old God.

The only reason the orcs would be a threat, is due to the fact that there are a buttload of them and they have had months (Maybe longer? Not sure about time dilation for Garrosh/whatever guffin they want to give him) with advanced technology and a nearly untouched planet worth of resources, with all the labor one could want.

Levels do not make sense from a Lore standpoint, so do not think of them. Deathwing was the biggest bad we are likely to face until the Titans swing round or Sargareas pops up.
 

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
9,311
9,418
Im a little rusty on Outlands Lore, but werent the Orcs on Draenor poisoned by a Demonic ooze or some such non sense that gave them Bro do you even lift? kind of powers? I still think Deathwing would be more powerful, but I feel like theyre running into some game play issues and its just easier this way for the player or dev team. One or the other.
 

Jabberwhacky

Lord Nagafen Raider
414
442
Are DK's still sittin at the top as far as soloing old content / bosses / mounts goes? Any other classes on a similar level, if so? I'm getting a hankering to fuck around with stuff I never played through before.
 

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>
<Gold Donor>
5,907
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Acquire More Heirlooms!
Have they mentioned if the different tiers of level 100 heirloom weapons are going to normalize or will they stay proportionally strong? Surely by level 100 your heroic garrosh heirloom weapon will not be on par with t17 weapons?
 

Rime

<Donor>
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Have they mentioned if the different tiers of level 100 heirloom weapons are going to normalize or will they stay proportionally strong? Surely by level 100 your heroic garrosh heirloom weapon will not be on par with t17 weapons?
They mentioned that Garrosh Heirlooms will be replaced either in Heroic Dungeons or the first Raid Zone.
 

spronk

FPS noob
22,700
25,832
reason #37 i won't be buying WoD

2sw6Frk.jpg


"Follow me, this won't take long." - TBC
 

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer
16,532
12,037
After seeing the massive brewmaster nerfs in WoD, not sure if I want to come back now. Clash? Gone. Hamstring/root ability? Gone. Riposte ability? Gone. NPC misfire on drunken haze? Gone.Vengence DPS buff? Gone.

So now we're tanks with much more limited mob control, with reduced damage avoidance (which is what misfire and riposte was) and shitty AOE dmg, whereas I imagine they didn't touch DKs. F U Blizzard.