Review: World of Warcraft’s “Warlords of Draenor” expansion

Well, here we are: World of Warcraft‘s fifth expansion, “Warlords of Draenor”.

Blizzard has changed things up (a bit) for this new piece of DLC. Compared to “Mists of Pandaria”, a stat crunch has brought the game back to its smalled-numbered roots. It’s refreshing not to be running around seeing characters with over a million hit points, ’cause let’s face it: that was weird.

Gone too is the ability to fly anywhere you’d like in “Draenor”, and I absolutely adore this decision. The move reminds me of classic World of Warcraft in that you have to do a bit of work to get from location to location. After all the work that the game’s developers have done on locales, this’ll make gamers really appreciate how detailed zones are. This is especially apparaent compared to the somewhat lacklustre areas in “Mists of Pandaria”. I find myself hunting through every cave I come across in “Draenor”, keen to explore and see what awaits me.

One of the new things added to “Draenor” is the Garrison. It’s a town of your own, if you like, offering each gamer a fishing hut, mine, and herb garden. You also get to play with various plots of land — 2 large-, 2 medium- and 3-small plots are yours to do with as you wish. You can choose to place a variety of buildings down, each giving you different chances to increase resources and materials. Said materials will help you in various PvP missions, dungeons or the like, depending on what you select. The buildings — and your Garrison as a whole — can be upgraded through three levels, offering up increased resources with each jump up. Also, via your Garrison’s Town Hall, you can run several side-missions, offering up XP and more Followers to send on new side-missions. It’s a nice little side-game that you can run in addition to Warcraft’s established MMO goodness.

Dungeons are wonderfully made in “Draenor”, not only focusing on lore of the Iron Horde but also providing players with a challenge. Granted, said challenges will undoubtedly be lessened as players learn the ins-and-outs of runs and gear up accordingly. Boss mechanics this time around have a nice assortment of strategies and, not just the standard tank and spank-type runs of late, proper gear really helps. If players don’t actually play according to their roles, it’ll surely be their undoing.

With a major push back to world PvP, the zone of Ashran consists of an always-on battle between the Horde and the Alliance. The zone also includes what you’d capital cities for each faction, providing access to a bank, an auction house and portals back to the other cities throughout the game. The only thing new PvP is lacking this time around is a new set of battlegrounds. To me, they’re the meat and potatoes of the PVP experience.

Season 16 of the Arena has just started, and again players rushed the gates to begin earning their Conquest points. The first of the expansions new Raids were opened up to players too, but the Raid finder tool — which is functional from today — will make it easier to find others to play with.

All up, “Warlords of Draenor” is a tight little package, not fixing things that aren’t broken, but adding some streamlining and some polish on an already ridiculously popular game. It’s definitely the expansion that should bring former players back into the fold.

World of Warcraft‘s “Warlords of Draenor” expansion was reviewed using a promotional copy of the game on Windows PC, as provided by the publisher.