“Four years have passed since the races of mortals united and stood shoulder to shoulder against the might of the Burning Legion. Although Azeroth was saved, there was no trace of the fragile alliance between the Alliance and the Horde. The drums of war have sounded again." With these words the era begins World of Warcraft. This game is rightfully called the crown of creative thought of programmers, screenwriters, artists and designers from Blizzard. A project that combines all the best ideas and developments of modern role-playing games. Released in 2004, this game still has a huge army of fans around it. And this army is replenished every day and becomes more numerous.
World of Warcraft, in the common people "WWII", refers to the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) genre, and in translation into Russian it is a Collective Online Role-Playing Game. In the world of Warcraft, you will find almost everything that you meet in your daily life. Thousands of people live in a parallel world - a virtual universe World of Warcraft. In it, you can travel across continents, gain new knowledge and experience, enter into alliances, fight ruthless monsters and complete interesting assignments and tasks that can change not only your fate, but also the fate of the whole world. As soon as you create your unique character, choose his abilities and give him a name - you will go on an exciting journey through a giant game world where you will have to communicate with other players, travel between huge cities and complete numerous and interesting tasks. Game developers create and upload new game additions almost every month. If you have ever played Warcraft and you were fascinated by the plot, and you like the atmosphere reigning in the game, then hurry up to find yourself in a world full of mysteries and magic in the world WWII!
The plot of the game originates from the third part of the legendary and interesting Warcraft, in which the ancient world of Azeroth did not have time to recover from the wounds inflicted by the ruthless Prince Arthas, as a new conflict arose among the former allies...
Your newly minted hero starts the game in a starting area that is specific to your chosen race. Everywhere in WWII You, from insidious caves to dense forests, will meet a variety of monsters on your way. The main part, first of all, wild animals: wolves, spiders, scorpions, crabs, kites, hyenas, tigers, lynxes, panthers, bears and many others. There are also more serious opponents: pirates, bandits, warriors of the opposing faction, as well as magical creatures: Centaurs, slugs, griffins, elementals, undead and many other dangerous creatures. They will lie in wait for you everywhere. You will also encounter creatures familiar from Warcraft III. These are ogres, marlocks, gnolls, etc. But the most dangerous are the Monsters that are waiting for you in the dungeons (special places to hike with friends and get trophies). They are much stronger than ordinary animals or monsters and you cannot cope with them alone.
If you have played world of warcraft 2, then remember the places where you had to travel with your squad, and now you have to go alone. You will see the fallen Lordaeron, in which the undead settled, sit on the throne of Terenas Menethil, who died at the hands of his only son, Orgrimmar built by Thrall and destroyed by Arthas Stratholme, the ruins of the city of Dalaran, covered with a magic shield, and much more. The journey promises to be exciting.
But you will also have to work hard for glory. You have to earn money for your needs, and in what way - it's up to you. Various crafts are waiting for their masters. It is in your power to master several professions that will help you and your friends in the future! Removing the skin from dead animals, sewing various things from it and selling it is one of the ways to earn some gold. You can spend the money you earn as you wish. You can learn new techniques for the battle, you can profitably buy, and as a result, sell various goods. You can learn how to make new items for your craft in order to continue improving your chosen profession. Or you can just buy yourself a mount and travel around the world on it. The choice is yours. Also in the game there are various so-called hobbies. If you are an avid fisherman and think that you will not trade your favorite fishing rod for a computer, you will be very happy to learn that in World of Warcraft there is also your favorite activity. Explore the world, find new types of fish, buy new fishing equipment and tricky bait, fish in the great seas and mountain rivers, quiet lakes and small streams. All this and much more is available only in World of Warcraft. There are over 1000 spells and skills in the game that can be learned or bought with money. Trophies earned or won in your campaigns can be sold at special auctions that are held inside the game. To convey emotions in the game and communicate with your friends or other players, there is a special chat and special animated and voiced commands. The game interface is easy to change. You can completely customize or change the look of the game as you see fit. This is very important, because you have to not only travel the world, hunt and discover new lands. Do not forget that thousands of players from all over the world share this universe with you, they do not intend to retreat a single step, just like you and your goal to survive in this confrontation. Who knows, perhaps it is you who will become the winner in the next battle, it will be you who will get the rarest epic sword! Perhaps it is you who will become a legendary player who your friends will be proud of, who will be talked about, and who will be afraid of! It is in your hands the fate of your character and the fate of World of Warcraft. Dare...
| operating system | Windows XP/ Vista/ 7/ 8 |
| CPU | Intel Core i5 2400 |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| Free hard disk space | 35 GB |
| Videos card | Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 |
| DirectX Version | 9.0c |
The game "World of Warcraft" requires a lot of computer resources in order to work properly. Its graphics are at a normal level, but you can only enjoy them with a good video card from the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT category or better. You can find information about the video card if you use the context menu on the desktop in the "Settings" tab, or it's better to open the computer's system settings and look in the "Display" tab.
In addition to the video card, the computer must have Direct X version 9.0c or higher. Versions higher than 9.0 are not supported on Windows XP, which means that for Windows 7 or Vista, you will have to install more advanced versions of Direct X on your computer. You can download Direct X from the official website, where you can choose the current version that suits your operating system.
The game is functional on Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 operating systems. The game will not work on older versions, and on newer versions it is not able to work correctly.
RAM is an important piece of hardware. The game requires about 2 Gb. You will need about 35 Gb of hard disk space to install the application. You can find out if there is enough memory on the hard drive using the context menu that appears when you click on the local drive in the "My Computer" window.
An Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor or better is capable of adequately processing World of Warcraft game data without overloading.
Ways to check system requirements
1. The system parameters of the computer can be found using the key combination Win + R, after which you need to type dxdiag and press Enter.
2. On the desktop, right-click on the icon of my computer, in the window that opens, select the Properties item.
If the computer starts to perform poorly while the application is running, you can reduce the settings to the minimum levels, which will increase performance at the expense of worse graphics. If this option does not fix the problem, then you can familiarize yourself with other similar games on the site that will meet the system requirements of your PC.
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Description of the game World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft, made online, is one of the most popular games in the genre. World of Warcraft has a very rich game world that successfully combines witchcraft, combat and different races, with their own characteristics. You can choose one of two sides for which you are going to play: the Horde or the Alliance. In addition, you choose the class of the hero, each of which has its own characteristics. The game offers different modes of gameplay. You can fight opponents in PvP battles, or you can complete missions and fight bots in co-op mode.
Diclamer:
This material outlines the history of the MMO game World of Warcraft.
You can find the history of the Warcraft universe, or rather, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd volumes of the Warcraft Chronicles.
A very brief history of the world is described.
A few years ago, on the Gamasutra website, game developers compiled the top 10 best games of the first decade of the 21st century. The first line in this rating was occupied by World of Warcraft.
The justification for the decision was not only the polished design and gameplay, elements of which were borrowed from almost all game genres. The game was a breakthrough in the MMO genre itself, opening it to the general public. The game set the standard for MMO projects and became a benchmark for developers trying to replicate its success. Yes, and offline games on the PC platform have received a boost and become more popular. Its impact on the industry, gamers, and even non-gaming culture has been great, albeit mixed. It is played not only by ordinary gamers, but also by politicians, cultural figures, sports stars and pop scenes. People meet in Azeroth and get married in the real world. Players draw pictures, mount machinima, write fanfiction and cosplay, maintain resources and blogs. For several million people, this game has become more than just a game.
World of Warcraft is celebrating its tenth anniversary. That's a lot for a game project. Some MMO projects that were considered "WoW killers" have already curtailed. Despite the fact that the subscriber base has slowly dwindled over the past four years, after the release of Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard reported having 10 million subscribers. That is, the population of Azeroth is now comparable to the population of a small European country. In total, more than thirty million people have passed through World of Warcraft.
What were those fourteen years like? Below is a brief history of the game, which summarizes the edited posts from the WoW - history in patches series, as well as my other materials from my blog and texts on the game that were published on other resources.
In the video below, you can find out why Legion has become one of the best additions to the game.
So - let's go.
Development stage, 1999-2004
When exactly the development of the game began, we are unlikely to know. Although this screen shows that the development was carried out already in 1999.
Let me remind you that in 1999 one of the pillars of the MMO genre, Everquest, was released. Like Ultima Online, "eka" was designed for hardcore nerds, but, nevertheless, Blizzard was certainly interested in the promising genre.
The announcement of the game took place on September 2, 2001. Blizzard's big boss, Bill Ropper, flew to London for ECTS to announce the company's new project, among other things. By then, Blizzard had already become a major league player, a hit company. RTS Warcraft, Diablo1/2, Starcraft - these games have become cornerstones in their genres and the company was looked at as an industry leader. In London, many were waiting for the announcement of Starcraft II (naive, right?). When Ropper said that the company was developing an MMO, the response was mixed. MMOs were a niche genre at the time. Some wondered if the developers understand what they are getting into? Judging by the first months after the launch of the game, they understood poorly. However, they got involved. This is how WoW appeared before the eyes of a slightly dumbfounded audience.
Time passed, the close ones threw in screenshots and videos, promised when it is done, and quietly did the job. In April 2002, the team expanded its ranks with hardcore players from Everquest. Rob Pardo, Alex Afrasiabi, Jeff Kaplan are all seasoned MMO players. The move was correct and laid the foundation for the success of the game in the initial period. In principle, one can talk about this time for a long time (and, perhaps, we will return to this topic), but, perhaps, it is better to quote from an interview with Rob Pardo, which he gave five years ago.
“... It was the beginning of 2004, February somewhere. The game already had an atmosphere, it had its own style and concept of mission-oriented gameplay, but the character could only reach level 15. By that time, most of the playable areas already existed, but those that were designed for a level above the 15th were empty.
How much we have done in 9 months!
During this time, a lot of work has been done. For example, not all classes were present in the game yet: there were no hunters and druids, and robbers were heavily processed. Consider three classes had to be created from scratch. In addition, not all the main game systems were ready: the combat system, although present, had to be completely reworked in the last 9 months. The game mechanics and performance characteristics have been completely changed. Much of what creates the spirit of the game - how dodge and parry work - has been changed.
There was a system of guilds and chats, but that was all the ways to communicate with other players. There was no auction house, no mail, no talents, no battlefields, no honor points. When I joined the department, it was supposed to develop a PvP system, but we quickly realized that this would have to wait. According to feedback from players who participated in the internal alpha and beta tests, there was a lack of character customization options. Some complained, for example, that their warrior was no different from any other. And it was not so much in external differences, so much in the gameplay that was identical for everyone: the experience of passing turned out to be the same for everyone ... "
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft release
The game was released on November 21, 2004 in the USA. The game reached European users for several months, and only in February 2005 did the first European servers open.
So what was WoW 1.1.x like? Two continents, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. The maximum level is 60. Stratholme was designed for 10 people and the main part of the 5ppl instances of the Old World was ready to receive guests. Two raid instances, Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair... Probably, it's still easier to say what was not in the release, what is now taken for granted. There were no summoning stones near the instances, they got to the entrances on foot. Moreover, even the group search channel was missing. Auction houses stood only in Ironforge and Ogri. There were no guildbanks. Griffins flew only to the nearest station, where the player dismounted and chose the desired waypoint. And so again and again. They only dreamed of personal flying mounts. There were no battlefields and Arenas, PvP was reduced to spontaneous skirmishes in open locations. There were no instances like Maraudon and Dire Maul. There were no shamans for the Alliance and paladins for the Horde. There were no dailyquests.
The list will be long, but I think that you got a rough idea of \u200b\u200b"vanilla", which you started playing almost ten years ago. What happened next?
Patch 1.2.0 "Mysterious of Maraudon"
Release date (US): December 14, 2004
The first vanilla content patch that added a 5ppl instance of Maradona in the Wasteland to the game. Here, in massive caves, lives Princess Teredras and the first son of Cenarius, Zaetar, who has strayed from the path of the Keeper of the Grove and succumbed to the vicious influence of the elements of the earth associated with the Old Gods. They gave rise to the race of centaurs and for many centuries ruled in the caves of Maradona.
Designed for players level 40-49, Maradona was typical for those times - massive, with a lot of trash and a decent amount of bosses. Even in the nerfed form, it took about three hours to completely complete it. True, it is worth paying tribute to the developers - the instance turned out well.
Patch 1.3.0 "Ruins of Dire Maul"
Release date (US): March 7, 2005
The second WoW content patch introduced another "classic" instance - Dire Maul (Forgotten City) in Ferallas. Before it was inhabited by satyrs and ogres, the city in the center of Feralas was called Eldre'Thalas. It was inhabited by the Night Elves. Built hundreds of years ago, the city of Eldre'Thalas was the stronghold of Queen Azshara's secrets. The city was destroyed during the Great Sundering, but even its ruins are amazing. Its three wings are inhabited by many different kinds of creatures, including Highborne ghosts, satyrs, and ogres. The remnants of residents from among the Night Elves - members of the Shen'dralar sect - have also survived. The instance was designed for players of 55-60 levels.
Other major innovations:
- the first outdoor bosses, the killing of which required the efforts of a large group of players. So in Azshara appeared Azuregos, and in the Blasted Lands - Lord Kazzak;
- Meeting Stone, which were supposed to help players find suitable party members; with their help, it is not yet possible to summon (summon to the instance) other members of the group;
- for instances, a limit on the number of players was introduced:
- Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair - 40 people;
- Black Mountain Peak - 15 people;
- Forgotten City - 5 people;
- Other instances - 10 people;
Patch 1.4.0. "Call to War" (Call to War)
Release date (US): April 8, 2005
The main innovation of the patch is the change in the PvP system in terms of introducing ranks. Depending on the player's PvP activity, he could receive different ranks for killing other players.
Patch 1.5.0. "Battlefields" (Battlegrounds)
Another excerpt from an interview with Tom Chilton:
"- Last question. You've been working on this game for 6 years now. What moment would you say is the most memorable?
- It is difficult to single out one such moment. The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, the release of new games. Release of World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. As for the updates, the appearance of the battlefields was memorable - I still remember the first day of their existence. Prior to that, PvP battles were completely ill-conceived and haphazard, almost meaningless: no rewards for victories and no sense of satisfaction, except moral: like, ha, how I like it! .. And compare with the first battle in Alterac Valley or Warsong Gulch, when you fight for real, and then see the response of other players ... "
The first battlegrounds (Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley) appeared in patch 1.5.
Patch 1.6.0. "Siege of Blackwing Lair" (Assult of Balckwing Lair)
The content patch brought new raids to Black Mountain. Advanced players who had already farmed Ragnaros were offered eight bosses with Nefarian, son of Deathwing, as the final opponent. Another boss has appeared in Blackrock Mountain, equal in scale to Ragnaros and in constant war with him.
In addition, patch 1.6.0 brought the Darkmoon Faire and Battlemasters to the game, which made it possible to queue up on the battlefield in any city, and not run to the portal that leads there.
That's what vanilla WoW was like in its early months in terms of content. Not bad, let's say. There was a lot of content, pumping was slow. Before the cap, the average casual player crawled for several months. Forty-body raids were another challenge for the hardcore players, and the two items from the boss also didn't really help to get dressed quickly, so the shouts of "give more content!!! 11" were heard not so often.
But from an organizational point of view, the game stalled in all respects. As already mentioned above, the blizzies did not understand what they were getting into. The demand for boxes with the game in the first months was, frankly, booming. The times of delivery of these boxes even had to be cut, because in addition to the boxes, servers are also needed. As the developers later admitted, they did not expect this.
September 2005. WoW was approaching its first anniversary. The players mastered the content, the developers looked at the players and also learned. Another excerpt from an interview with one of the lead developers, Tom Chilton, about those days.
“...- We had little idea what the so-called “casual” wants to get at the advanced levels of the game.
- Then in online games and did not hear about the "casual".
- That's it.
- And when did this approach take shape?
- I think in the days of Zul'Gurub. Then we began to understand that not everyone can organize 40 people, much less lead them to success. At that time, there were many small guilds that also wanted to master the final content, so they endlessly passed the Upper Black Mountain and could not advance anywhere else - they were ordered to develop further. Then we started dividing the updates into those that will open new dungeons for small guilds, and those that will introduce a raid zone for hardcore players…”
Patch 1.7.0 Rise of the Blood God
The basis of the content patch was Zul'Gurub, the first 20-man raid instance in WoW. Instance was the first step taken by the Bleeks towards casual, and filled the gap between UBRS (Upper Blackrock Mountain), Scholomance, Stratholme, and the massive Molten Core at 40. Zul'Gurub was a relatively small raid, with six mandatory and four optional bosses. In it, novice raiders not only dressed up, but also gained raiding experience. True, veterans say that the “intermediate link” did not work out, the instance remained difficult for players without raid training.
In patch 4.1, this raid was creatively reworked, turning it into a five-person instance.
Other innovations:
- one more battlefield is added to Warsong Gulch and Alterac - Arathi Basin. For the Gorge and Arathi, brackets are introduced at the following levels - 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60;
- for lovers of a relaxing holiday, a weekly fishing competition opens in Stranglethorn Vale;
- Now, before buying an item, you can see how it will look on the character.
Patch 1.8.0 "Dragons of Nightmare" (Dragons of Nightmare)
Release date (US): October 10, 2005
Emerald Dream. It was first mentioned in Warcraft III. After the War of the Ancients, Malfurion retired there with the druids and was summoned back by Tyrande to confront the Burning Legion.
He is not known much in this space. The Emerald Dream is the "reference" version of Azeroth created by the Titans. Primordial, untouched by intelligent activity, wars and disasters. This is how the world was at the dawn of time. Then came trolls, tauren, elves and other races. Sargeras decided to crush the planet under him and after the battle with the Burning Legion, a single Kalimdor split into several parts. Then other intelligent beings appeared, including aliens from other planets - orcs and draenei. The Emerald Dream has remained unchanged throughout the history of Azeroth.
There is an interesting phrase in Wikipedia. Malfurion says that the Dream is multi-layered and has levels - unfinished parts of the world. The Titans made some sketches that did not go into action, but it was a pity to throw them in the trash. Isn't the Emerald Dream a kind of digital copy of Azeroth, but "incomplete versions" that have not reached the status of approved design documentation, according to which the world was built, are working files of a program written by the Titans.
When developing the original game, it was planned that the Emerald Dream would be the end game in vanilla. Back in 2003, Tigol said that this is a really cool place.
At the end of 2005, the developers kept plans for the Emerald Dream. If anything, the appearance of the four Dragons from Ysera's flock was seen as a prologue to the Emerald Dream storyline. Crazed and aggressive towards all living things, Dragons appeared near the Trees, with portals to the Emerald Dream. Before the release of the first expansion, it was thought that this would be the main theme. Moreover, especially curious players have found a way to get into the Emerald Dream, which was contained in the game files. It wasn't until the release of Cataclysm and Richard Knaack's Malfurion that it became clear that Metzen's comrades had given up on the Emerald Dream.
However, Metzen still has one more epic theme left - the Old Gods and Titans, where he developed his fantasy to the full already in patch 1.9.
Patch 1.9.0 - The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj
After the War of the Ancients, one of the opponents of the Titans, the Old God C'Thun, was thrown into Silithus, where he remained in a coma for thousands of years, gathering his strength and preparing to return to the surface. He chose the primitive creatures, the Silithids, as the guides of his will, from which he developed the Qiraji race, endowing them with reason and will. The Qiraji built a fortress in the south of Silithus and began to prepare for the conquest of Kalimdor and the coming of their master, C'Thun. The Qiraji raided the lands of Kalimdor, causing much trouble for the elves, who eventually erected the Scarab Wall to protect the rest of the world from the Qiraji. In the last War of the Shifting Sands, the Elves and Dragons drove the Qiraji back to their city and sealed the Gate. With all their wisdom, they did not know that by doing so they made it easier for C'Thun to do his job - now he could safely prepare for the next war with the peoples of Azeroth.
Centuries passed and the heroes of Azeroth decided to unseal the Gates and give battle to the invaders...
The highlight of patch 1.9.0 was a massive raid zone, the entrance to which was located in the south of Silithus. Rather, there were two raids. The first one, Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, continued the "casualization" of raid content and had a capacity of 20 people. The second was developed for those who have already gone through the fire, water and copper pipes of Molten Core and BWL. Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, another 40-man raid. The final boss of the last raid was the Old God C'thun. Bosses in Ahn'Qiraj were more difficult than in previous instances.
But in order to get into the raid zone, it was necessary not only to be equipped according to the latest fashion. The opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj was preceded by a large-scale The War Effort - a global event during which players had to collect and hand over resources. A lot of resources. To open the gate, it was necessary to do a difficult quest to restore the Scepter of Quicksand. The quest could only be completed by top raid guilds. For example, one of the tasks required not only to defeat BWL Nefarian, but also to do it within 5 hours after the raiders talked to Valeastrasz.
Never before or since has there been such an event in the game as the Opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Is it good or bad? Events like this are sorely lacking in the game. Yes, the Wrathgate battle was well staged, but it's much more interesting to take part in a large-scale event yourself.
Patch 1.9 introduced significant changes to the game's economic system. Auction houses factions tied into a single eat. There was a neutral "black" market for goblins, where factions traded among themselves. The trading system took the form that we know now.
For fans of PvP, it became possible to queue up for all three battlefields at once.
The calendar of resets for raid instances has undergone a radical overhaul. Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Temple of Ahn'Qiraj were updated once a week. Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, Zul'Gurub, and Onyxia's Lair once every three days.
Patch 1.10.0 "Storms of Azeroth" (Stroms of Azeroth)
Release date (US): March 28, 2006
This patch did not bring another end-game content, but nevertheless introduced some very noteworthy things into the game. First, weather has finally arrived in the world of Azeroth. It would seem a trifle, but still important and creating a certain atmosphere in the game.
Another change concerned flights. Previously, in order to move from point A to point D, it was necessary to fly from A to B, dismount, again sit on the griffin and choose point C, at point C it was dropped from the griffin and we finally chose point D. Now imagine how much we toiled then, so that get from Tanaris to Winterspring. In patch 1.10.0, the flight from A to D was non-stop.
For the 60s, a useful thing was provided in the patch. Now the experience that they received for completing quests did not disappear, but was converted into gold.
There was more raid content, but apparently not many people saw it. Obviously, in order to make life easier for the freshly baked 60s, the Blizzards improved the loot in instances for 5-10 people and introduced the new Dungeon Sets 2. The second set was an upgrade in relation to the first and could be obtained by completing quests in instances.
Patch 1.11.0 "Shadow of the Necropolis" (Shadow of the Necropolis)
He was one of the members of the high council of mages of the Kirin Tor, a powerful order of mages and wizards. His passion for the mysteries of necromancy was not shared by his colleagues, and he wanted to know more. The Lich King, then composed of only Ner'zhul, recognized the mighty mage as a promising shot. Kel'Thuzad eventually ended up in Northrend, where he began to serve the King. Kel'Thuzad was later killed by Arthas while he was investigating what had happened to the inhabitants of the town of Brill. When Arthas himself went over to the "dark side of the force" Kel'Thuzad, he resurrected him, permanently desecrating the waters of Silvermoon City. His habitat (as well as the undead subordinate to him) was the former nerubian necropolis - Naxxramas, extracted from the ground by the magic of the Lich King.
Six months have passed since the introduction of Ahn'Qiraj and Blizzard has pleased hardcore gamers with another furious raid. The pyramid of Naxxramas appeared in the sky above the burning Stratholme. The "Original Naxxramas" or Nax-40 has become the most inaccessible vanilla instance. To complete it, players were required in Tier 2-2.5, raid sets from Blackwing Lair and Ahn'Qiraj. Of course, not everyone is dressed like that.
No wonder that Nax-40 turned out to be content that a meager number of guilds could go through to the end. According to some estimates, about one percent of all players were able to overcome it. Even during The Burning Crusade, the raid required 25-30 well-equipped players, and the Four Horsemen of Nax-40 was considered the most difficult encounter in the game.
However, then not only Naxxramas appeared in Azeroth, but also other necropolises. During this World Event, fortresses flew all over Azeroth and undead spawned for players to fight.
Patch 1.12.0 "Drums of War" (Drums of War)
The main innovation of this patch was the introduction of cross-realm battlefields. Players from different servers gathered at the BG and, of course, much faster than it was when the formation of groups went from the players of the same server.
Let's summarize. For two years, the game developers have added a lot of content, and changed a number of game mechanics, improved the interface, and introduced convenient innovations. The success of the game in the first two years of its existence was phenomenal - in early 2007, before the release of The Burning Crusade, the audience exceeded 8 million people. Despite the fact that the endgame was made for hardcore players, and leveling up to the 60th took a long time.
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
The announcement of the first add-on to WoW took place at Blizzcon-2005. The fact that the Burning Legion theme will be central was not a surprise, although the Emerald Dream was also bet on. In the files, players have found both Outland and the Emerald Dream. We settled on Outland and the Burning Legion. RTS Wocraft 3, an impact game from the Blizzard series, was dedicated to this particular confrontation between the peoples of Azeroth and the hosts of Sargeras. It was 2007 and many of those who played back in Warcraft III Reign of Chaos, as well as the continuation of The Frozen Throne, remembered these plots. So from a marketing point of view, the move was correct.
What brought The Burning Crusade to the gaming universe? Outland - the wreckage of the world, once called Draenor and destroyed by the magic of Ner'zhul, an orc shaman who became the conductor of the will of Sargeras. The world, once home to orcs and draenei exiles, has become a patchwork quilt of unexplainedly entangled territories. New zones and instances have appeared in the Old World. Medivh's Tower, one of the most mysterious places on Azeroth, has become a raid instance.
The mysterious Caverns of Time have opened up in Tanaris, giving access to the entire 5ppl group. In one instance, we had to help Medivh, and in the other, Thrall. The caves have really become a great find for designers.
Lore TVS was experimental, and, in some ways, provocative. Yes, in the Old World, the mysterious Tower of Medivh became available for everyone to visit, but still this part of the content remained a traditional fantasy. But take the draenei. Humanoids with horns and hooves are associated with devils, evil creatures and those who run affairs in the underworld. Here, the horned-hoofed race took the side of the conditionally positive Alliance. True, for this Metzen had to rewrite a fair chunk of the history of the world. The draenei were originally eredar, a sinister race first defeated by Sargeras, but then, after his fall, serving him. In the new version of the history of the world, the Eredar were at first good guys, but it was Sargeras who spoiled them. Of the three Eredar leaders, Archimonde, Kil'Jaden, and Velen, two became his chief henchmen. Velen did not succumb to the promises of Sargeras and took part of the people literally into outer space. They left their home planet and ... became draenei. The “space” lore of TVS did not end there, but the “technocratic fantasy” of WoW deserves a separate discussion.
Content is not limited. Level cap increased to level 70. Two new races have appeared in the game, in addition to the already mentioned draenei, blood elves have joined the ranks of the Horde. We did this because a significant part of the players refused to play Horde characters due to aesthetic considerations. At that time, the Horde did not have many pretty races. Orcs, tauren, Forsaken, trolls looked belligerent, yes, but they clearly had more fangs and horns than the Alliance. And the girl characters were not much different from the boy characters.
In addition to purely aesthetic purposes, this innovation gave the Alliance shamans, and the Horde - paladins. By developing the addon, Blizzard made Outland seamless and glitches, therefore, flying mounts finally appeared. Sockets for precious stones now appeared in things, which, in turn, had to be made by someone - this is how jewelers appeared in Azeroth.
The concept of the endgame has changed dramatically. Raids of 40 people are a thing of the past. Only large guilds could organize them, and hardcore ones could lead to success. Introduced raids of two formats - for 10 and 25 people. True, the system was not yet what it became in WotLK. Ten-man raids were Karazhan and the much later introduced Zul'Aman. Everything else was intended for more severe guys who were used to walking in a big company. But it was another step towards meeting the casuals.
Secondly, "heroic" versions of instances for five people appeared. They were worn on the 70th and, as the veterans say, they were more difficult than the "heroics" of all other expansions. By the way, the 5ppl themselves became shorter and many of them were built according to the “wings” scheme - that is, geographically the instance was located in one place, but was divided into several separate parts.
In the release, TVS opened such raids as Karazhan, Lair of Gruul and Magtheridon, Serpentshrine, Tempest Keep and Hyjal. Moreover, in order to get into the raid, not only equipment was required, but also a key that was given for completing the quest chain. Some quests could only be completed by a group. So, for example, to access Karazhan, the player went through the Dark Labyrinth, Arcatraz, the Steamvault, and also something in the Caverns of Time. Further more fun - they were not allowed into the Serpent Sanctuary without completed quests in the heroic version of the Penitentiary, as well as in Gruul's Lair and Karazhan. And in order to get into the heroic versions of the dungeons, you had to have a certain level of reputation with the factions. In general, it was difficult to get into the instance from the street just like that, even into the heroic 5ppl.
And now a little more in detail about what did happen between January 2007 and November 2008. The January release was preceded by patches 2.0.1 and 2.0.3, which were not an addition, but introduced changes to game mechanics and classes.
Patch 2.0.1 "Before the storm" (Before Strom)
- new branches of talents and, accordingly, new talents;
- group search interface has changed;
- a new PvP parameter appeared in items - “resilience” (resilence), which reduced the chance of “falling” under an opponent’s critical hit and the amount of damage received.; The honor system for PvP activities has changed dramatically. She was simply cancelled. As a consolation, players were given the opportunity to wear the highest title, which was obtained during the process of farming honor, over the head of the avatar;
- Arena. A new format of PvP battles has been introduced, in which players have the opportunity to choose teams 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5.
Later, in November 2009, Rob Pardo admitted that the introduction of the Arena was a mistake.
“You also asked about the biggest mistake… speaking of mistakes in game design, it’s important to note that we never actually designed WoW as an esports platform, but there was a desire to improve this part of the game, and consumer demand did not lag behind. That's why we decided to create the Arena. Now I am no longer sure that such a move was reasonable and correct.
We designed the game and the classes with no serious balance in mind. We were just adding new things, so it's really hard to work on the balance right now. It's impossible to even say for sure if WoW is a cooperative pve game or is it focused on PvP content. The balancer team is constantly changing something in the game system, the game in general is constantly changing, and the crowd of players who prefer pve look at it all and can’t understand why the class they preferred changes from time to time. We did not foresee how much work would have to go into making the gameplay even a little more balanced. If I managed to get to a time when no one had even heard of WoW, I would change the rules of the game so that it was less dependent on the influence of eSports, and if I didn’t do this, then at least I tried to say that this influence it does not matter. Now WoW is a very confusing game and we are always trying to figure out what we have done.”
However, the Arena has become popular and this component of WoW has become a separate game with its own tournaments, stars and prize pools.
Patch 2.0.3 "The Burning Legion" (The Burning Crusade)
Another pre-TVS patch that fixed some bugs and started the event dedicated to the opening of the Dark Portal. Hordes of monsters poured out of the gates, and Lord Kazaak, who inspired fear in the Blasted Lands, went to the other side, to Draenor, leaving his deputy Kruul behind.
Release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
The add-on officially launched on January 16, 2007. Dry figures say that 2.4 million copies of the game were sold on the first day. In the first month - 3.5. The excitement that accompanied the start of sales was high. People lined up in the evening, waiting for the shops to open at midnight, so they could rush home, install the add-on and go through the Dark Portal and find themselves ... in a crowded and lagging starting area. However, this did not bother the true fans.
Patch 2.1 Black Temple
The animated video of the add-on clearly hinted that Illidan would become the main villain of the add-on. Another good guy who switched to the "dark side of the force." The story of Malfurion's twin brother is familiar to those who have played Warcraft III Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Thorne expansion. The brother, moreover, the twin brother of Malfurion, who could not stand the test of power and eventually became a demon.
In TVS, he chose the Black Temple, once the former Karabor, the draenei temple, as a place. The massive complex, which was both a fortress and a temple, changed hands several times. The orcs of Gul'Dan expelled the draenei, settling in the Black Temple, but were expelled from there by the Burning Legion. In the end, these were driven out by Illidan.
The instance was positioned as the final piece in the TBC raid content chain and contained nine bosses, including Illidan. In fact, until patch 2.4.0, when the Sunwell appeared, killing Illidan was the high point of a raider's career of those times. True, given the complexity of TVS content, few have reached it. According to the statistics from www.guildprogress.com, ~15% of guilds managed to kill Illidan, and this is taking into account the nerf in patch 3.0.2.
However, this raid is still interesting, because it is there that the legendary blades of Azinoth fall. Now the instance farms solo with any 100th in half an hour. So if you have a character capable of carrying this weapon - try it, try your luck. The weapon is very beautiful.
In addition, patch 2.1.0 introduced the following into the game:
- druids received a budget option for moving through the air - a "flying form" that could be learned by completing quests in the Settec Halls;
- the first dragon in the game, the Void Dragon, became available to players. Now, having completed the quest chain, it was possible to start farming reputation in order, in the end, to get one of the most beautiful flying mounts in the game. And even now, despite the fact that there are more flying dragons, the “non-zerdrakes” still remain popular among collectors;
- A new arena has been introduced for pvpechers - in the ruins of Lordaeron.
It is interesting to compare the structure and order of entering end-game content in TBC and WotLK. In WotLK and subsequent additions, shooting ranges were introduced sequentially, one by one. Each new patch is a new raid tier. TVS started with two shooting ranges (T4 and T5), and six months later they introduced T6. Six months after the start of the add-on, the endgame existed in the game in full spectrum.
Was this the right strategy? Perhaps for that time, yes, because the raids were more difficult and the speed of development was far from the same as now. Even the Heroics of Outland were fairly complex content, more demanding than the Heroics of other expansions. Unless cataclysmic "fives" gave a light in the first month after the release.
In fact, raid bosses then existed only in the hardmode format. Statistics from guildprogress.com said that no more than a third of the players mastered the content of T4 (Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon). Some were ready to go there by the time the Black Temple came out, while others hadn't passed Karazhan yet. The previously introduced raids remained relevant until the release of the new add-on precisely because they were difficult and, in fact, it was only possible to dress in them. Such intermediate options, such as, for example, the "Zandalariks" of patch 4.1 or the "Trial of the Champion", with a body kit equal in level to Ulduar's "top ten", did not exist then. Except that in the latest patch 2.4.0, badges were used to buy things equal in level to the raid body kit.
On the other hand, the change in the system led to the fact that in later expansions we had a situation where previous raids were "killed" by new ones. Thus, the luxurious Ulduar was ruined by the gray “Trial of the Crusader”. Throne of Thunder was luckier, but the Blinders could release Siege in November and October, and I think that by then the Throne would have continued to please.
Perhaps it was due to the fact that the content was difficult in the fall of 2007 that the developers released Zul'Aman, a fourth-tier raid. A bit illogical, but still. Obviously, there were a lot of small guilds stuck in Karazhan and they also needed to be given some kind of entertainment. However, more about this later, we go in order.
Patch 2.2.0. "Voice chat" (Voice Chat)
Release date: September 25, 2007
The patch introduced the possibility of voice communication to the game, as well as some changes in the balance of classes. The advantages of real-time voice communication, especially in raiding or arena fights, are not worth describing. True, I personally have never used the voice chat feature from blizz. As far as I remember, it has always been either TeamSpeak or the more popular in the Russian-speaking latitudes "Venta" (Ventrillo) or Raidcall.
Patch 2.3.0 Gods of Zul'Aman
The "troll" theme in World of Warcraft deserves a separate discussion. A very colorful race, "built" by the developers "based on" the Mayan civilizations and voodoo beliefs. Trolls have always held a special place in the history of Azeroth. Take, for example, the legend that the night elves are descended from trolls who mutated while living near the Well of Eternity. The troll cities, most of which are instanced zones, have always been picturesque too.
Patch 2.3.0 introduced another troll city, Zul'Aman, which, like Zul'Gurub during vanilla, served as an intermediate link between Karazhan and raids of higher tiers.
The instance contained six bosses and did not require attuning, which made life easier for casual players. True, it cannot be said that the instance was passing. Even for groups in Tier 5, the final bosses were challenging. The instance is also interesting in that it was the first time that a hardmode was tested in it, which rewarded players with special loot. Veterans remember what and why. The Amani War Bear was in the fourth bonus chest. But in order to get it, you had to meet the timer. The task was quite difficult and not everyone could complete it. Before the release of WotLK, the bear was removed from the loot table. So if you see a player on such a mount, then you know - he was an excellent raider already in the days of TVS. Or a very rich player. At one time, there was an article on Vovinsider about a barrshe who laid out twenty thousand for paravosing.
The instance was also interesting in terms of lore. The final boss was the leader of the forest trolls, Zul'jin, whose tribe took part in the Second War on the side of the Horde. At the end of the war, he was captured, tortured and his eye was gouged out. After he managed to escape, and for this he had to cut off his hand. Outraged that the Horde had accepted his nemesis the elves into their ranks, he and his tribe left the Horde. After hiding in Zul'Aman, Zul'jin created a new army of trolls to deal with the Blood Elves.
What else is noteworthy about patch 2.3.0? Firstly, it was this patch that introduced guild banks into the game. Secondly, they nerfed the pumping. On the one hand, they reduced the amount of experience required for leveling between 20 and 60 levels, on the other hand, they increased the amount of experience for quests between 30 and 60 levels. Quests in instances began to give more experience and reputation points. The third interesting point is that the complexity of elite mobs was reduced, now some of them could be brought down alone. This was one of the first global content nerfs.
In summary, patch 2.3.0 was a big step forward for casual players.
Patch 2.4.0 Fury of Sunwell
Spring 2008. The next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, was over half a year away. Hardcore guilds have been farming the Black Temple for more than a month now, and they are starting to get bored. In response to the expectations of the most advanced part of the gaming community, the Blizzards are releasing a furious instance for 25 people - the "Sunwell Plateau".
The Sunwell was founded by the High Elves using water they took from the very first Well of Eternity. This happened before the world fell apart for the first time (the Great Rift). Silvermoon was built around him. After Arthas used the Well to resurrect Kel'Thuzad, its waters were corrupted. At the same time, the well continued to feed the High Elves with its already corrupted energy.
As for the raid itself, he was imprisoned for a group of fighters in Tier 6. Interestingly, this is where the developers first applied the content “gating” system. Since the release, only three bosses have been available, then the gates to the next ones open. The first gate opened on the 8th April, the second on the 29th, and the third on the 20th. Thus Makar blizzy artificially reduced the rate of development of the instance. The main villain, Kil'Jaden, was shoved back into the Well by the SK-Gaming Guild on May 25th. True, it is believed that the most difficult boss of the instance was not KL, but Muru, nicknamed Guildbreaker. Before the nerf, he was killed by a handful of guilds.
Patch 2.4.0 pleased not only hardcore players. There was enough group content and solo too. In the north of the Eastern Kingdoms, an entire island arose - Quel'Danas, on which the faction of the Shattered Sun, an alliance of Aldor and Scryers, led the siege of the Sunwell. Players were invited to take part in this event through the completion of new daily quests, which increased to 25 daily quests. Phasing technology was first tested on Quel'Danas. As players completed the dailies, new vendors opened up that sold all sorts of goodies for badges farmed in heroics.
In addition to the raid instance, a 5ppl instance was opened - the Terrace of the Magisters. It was remarkable not only for the plot and the new mount that fell from the last boss. Notable was the boss himself - Prince Kael'thas, whom players have already killed in Tempest Keep.
Patch 2.4.0 was the last content patch before the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. The last of the 2.4.x patches was 2.4.3, in which another nerf took place - mounts fell in price and, most interestingly, became available from level 30, and not from level 40. Now I remember this news with a smile. I received the 40th, and two weeks before the patch, I bought my first sheep at the old prices. And then - such a reduction in prices and the required level.
What else is remarkable about the summer of 2008? Of course, the localization of World of Warcraft in Russian.
A bit of prehistory. Russian-speaking WoW players liked it. And so much so that in the Euro-segment, the "Russians" occupied three servers - Stonemaul, Warsong and Molten Core. The stray burg, unknowingly creating a Persian on such a realm, saw Russian speech in the channels and exclaimed “WTF??? Speak English!”, after which it was unrestrictedly sent along the sexual-pedestrian route. In addition, a large number of "Russians" were also acquired on Shadowmoon, not to mention the fact that a lot of people played on "clean" English servers. The locals turned a blind eye to this, but in the end they decided to make localization for the “Russians”. Mike Morhaime announced this decision in December 2007, which caused not only jubilation, but also very heated discussions about whether to play the localized version or not. In July 2008, the Russian WoW test began, and the localization was released on August 6, 2008. Then the “big Russian transfer” began.
Initially, three servers were opened - "Pirate Bay", "Azuregos" and "Ashenvale". The transfer was accompanied by queues, glitches and similar troubles. It immediately became clear that three servers would not be enough. Within a few weeks, several more north were introduced. They moved en masse, whole guilds. Despite all the controversy, it became clear even to the most stubborn that "fresh blood", new recruits can only be obtained on "Russian" servers. As a result, the previously occupied Stonemaul, Warsong, Molten Core and Shadowmoon were completely empty. For those few foreigners who played there, they opened a free transfer to other Euroservers. In the end, after the “Russians” left, the servers were closed. This was the first and last time in the history of the game that Blizzard did this.
However, the matter did not end there. In September, the Blizzards offered a freebie - when converting a Euro-account to a ru-account, a month of free play was given. The subscription fee on the ru-servers was lower. The people were taken for free. The catch was that after the conversion, the player could no longer create characters on the Euroserver. Thus, the notorious “Russian ghetto” was formed. Our players were not able to transfer and create characters on euroservers.
Finally, it is worth remembering some numbers. The Burning Crusade expansion literally continued the success of the game and led to the fact that the population of Azeroth increased to the size of a small real country. By the fall of 2008, the number of subscribers had grown to 11-odd million. There is no other way to call it a success. Maybe that's why this supplement is called the most successful by many.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Before the release of the Wrath of the Lich King add-on, an interesting article was published in one of the English-language blogs. It talked about different generations of players depending on when they started playing. At that time there was a generation of "vanilla" and TVS. The author talked about the difference between them, and also talked about the "children of Wrath", in the original it sounded like "children of Wrath".
Technically, I started playing half a year before the release of WotLK. But in those days, leveling was harder and I got to the endgame exactly two weeks before the release. What is the endgame in TVS, I never found out. Why, I didn’t even go through all the quests in Outland. So I consider myself a “child of the Lich”. Why am I writing about this? Then, if you'll forgive me for being a bit biased, WotLK is the best WoW add-on for me.
Let's move on to the events of that time.
Summer 2008. Hardcore players master Sunwell, casuals bang their heads against Zul'Aman. Both are waiting for the same thing - the release of the second addition to the game - Wrath of the Lich King. The beta test is in full swing, the network is filled with screenshots of Northrend, more and more information about the innovations in the game appears from official sources.
Perhaps the most discussed topic of that period was the achievement system, which the developers were going to introduce into the game. Yes, it is now the phrase "link achiv" is something taken for granted. And then, six years ago, the concept of "complete the task - get ten points" caused in most cases the reaction "lolshto and that's it?". Well, as the close people would say, we will also give titles and mounts. "And the epics?" the community asked. No, for epics, go to raids, the close ones answered. “OK,” the community said, and waited.
For the raiders, the fate of Naxxramas has become a hot topic for discussion. One of the heaviest vanilla raids in the current time was attended by a meager number of players. Even in the days of TVS, an instance required knowledge of tactics. And they continued to go there, and not least for the legendary staff of Medivh - Atiesh. The developers made a decision that caused another wave of bewilderment - to remake Nux into formats that are relevant for WotLK. So Nax-40 became Nax-10/25. Atiesh and the T3 raid set were cut out of the game forever. After flying from the Plaguelands to Northrend, Nax-40 turned from an impenetrable raid into a sandbox for beginner casuals.
Patch 3.0.2 "Echoes of Doom"
Release date: October 14, 2008
WotLK prepatch, which was released a month before the release of the add-on. The main goodies that were contained were:
- achievement system;
- new profession - inscription;
- a barber shop where you could change your hairstyles;
- talent tree with the number of points increased to 51;
- The stat system has undergone a slight upgrade.
Speaking of content, it is worth mentioning the completion of the construction of the port in Stormwind, from which the route to Northrend was opened for the Alliance, as well as the Naxxramas that flew north. Following Nax, Dalaran flew to Northrend. He was destined for the neutral capital for the next two years.
For hardcore raiders, patch 3.0.2 has stuck in the mind for another reason. In it, all raid encounters in TBC were subjected to a global nerf. They seriously (by 30%) cut not only their health, but also the amount of damage they deal. Some difficulty buffs took this as bad news, saying the patch killed PvE in TBC. Got not only outlandish bosses. The quest to access Onyxia's Lair has been removed. Those who were far from the endgame and pumped their characters were also given an indulgence. The amount of experience required to reach new levels has been reduced by 20%.
The user interface has been redesigned. First, there was a guild calendar. Secondly, mounts and pets no longer take up space in bags and bank cells. They made a special bookmark in the character menu. Like the keys, a separate tab also appeared.
What else is remembered for 3.0.2? Of course, the invasion of zombies. Braiiiinnnzzzz!!! This world event was similar to what was already in patch 1.11 when Naxxramas was released, and consisted in the fact that flying necropolises appeared on Azeroth and hordes of the undead attacked. Zombie Invasion 2.0 was quite funny. Zombies can and should be killed, and the shards that fall out of them can be used to buy all sorts of useful things, including low-level epics. But the most interesting thing was that the Scourge again brought with it an infection that affected players and NPCs. If you were infected, then within ten minutes you had to find a healer (non-pissing or a player who could dispel the infection). If this failed, the player turned into a zombie and acquired interesting abilities - the ability to infect other players and NPCs, as well as explode. For the next couple of weeks, the capitals of cities from time to time turned into cemeteries - lovers of dirty tricks became kamikazes and blew themselves up in places of mass gatherings of people, preventing them from trading on auk, buying from vendors and handing over and taking quests. In general, it was fun.
And there are shadows in Azeroth.
Release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of The Lich King
Release date: November 13, 2008
Mindful of the lags at the start of TBC, when both factions burst through the narrow neck of the Dark Portal to the Peninsula, the Bliz made four entry points to Northrend, two per faction.
Northrend amazed with landscapes, grandiose structures and northern lights. We must pay tribute to the work of designers - they did their best. A lot of solo content has been done in WotLK. Much more than it was necessary for pumping the character in the interval 68-80. I remember that I got the 80th, and all the quests of Gundrak, Icecrown and Storm Peaks remained unmastered. And it was good, it is obvious that the developers took into account the fact that many gamers have not one, but at least a couple of characters and leveling in the same places will not please such players too much.
An interesting thing was the introduction of the so-called hereditary things that could be sent to your characters. Their characteristics were tied to the level of the character, and some also gave bonuses to experience. A very good solution for those who liked to download twinks and alts.
The format of instances for five people continued the tradition of TVS - short, linear with 3-4, maximum 5 bosses, combined into hubs. Unless the Old Kingdom had some non-linearity and scale. In general, it’s normal, it took an hour on average to complete such an instance for 80 in patch 3.0.x. One more step towards casuals. But the most interesting surprise awaited the players in the endgame.
Three days after the release of the add-on, the TwentyFifthofNovember guild, formed by the merger of SK-Gaming and Nihilum, cleared all the starting raid content of WotLK. At the start of WotLK, there was one long Naxxramas and three short raids - Crypt of Archavon, Eye of Eternity and Obsidian Sanctuary. The developers did not hide the fact that the first tier of WotLK raids will be simple, but it is unlikely that hardcore raiders expected such a simplification. After all, at one time only the Four Horsemen in the original Naxxramas were filled up for several weeks. And then three days, and still had to pump the characters to the maximum level.
A few personal memories. Naxxramas was my first actual raid. I got there rather late, already after the release of 3.1, but then, under the old emblem system, the passage of Nax was an obligatory step in the process of dressing a character for Ulduar. Our guild was more than casual, and we did the “top ten” without any problems. I won’t say that it was quite simple, but after 5-6 fights the mechanics of the boss became clear, as well as what needed to be done. "Twenty" turned out to be more difficult, however, the composition of our raid constantly fluctuated and the sweep was not always uniform. Sometimes they reached Thaddius, sometimes they did not crawl over Razuviya. It seems to me that for beginner raiders, Nax-10 has become a good training ground for beginner and casual raiders. It was there that you could get the experience of playing in a large group and with more difficult bosses than in 5ppl “heroics”. From the point of view of bringing raiding to the masses, Blizzy, in principle, did the right thing.
But hardcore players were waiting for something completely different. And this other one came in April with patch 3.1.
Patch 3.1 - Mysteries of Ulduar
This patch was awaited by many raiders who farmed both versions of Nux. Judging by the PTR, Ulduar promised to be more complex and interesting than Naxxramas. But first, a few words about what patch 3.1 brought to the bulk of the gaming community.
Dual Specialization. Having paid 1000 gold, a player from level 40 already got the opportunity to switch between two talent layouts without running to the coach each time.
This was especially convenient for hybrid classes, which needed to change the layout quite often. The built-in outfitter, which allowed you to quickly change the body kit of the character, was very conveniently screwed to this innovation. The mounts began to float. And not only horses and sheep, but even engineering motorcycles. Previously, if the depth of the water barrier did not allow running through it, the mounts dismounted the rider. After 3.1, this annoying moment was removed.
In the far north, away from Icecrown Citadel, the Argent Crusade opened the Argent Tournament, where both Horde and Alliance warriors could face off without death. Either the builders let us down, or the supply, but at the time of the opening of the Tournament, the main structure of the Stadium was not ready. Those who then completed the daily quests of the Tournament brought a lot of stones and wood to the two goblin superintendents so that the construction was finally completed. At the Tournament, it became possible to fight without getting off the mounts (though specific ones, and not yours, relatives). Plus a bunch of dailies and goodies like level 200 epics, again mounts and pets, which the most enterprising people began to trade. Trading pets of the opposite faction was especially profitable, using a neutral auction. However, this place was to become the center of life a little later, in August 2009. The highlight of the program was, of course, Ulduar.
Ulduar. An instance that has been long awaited and that lived up to those expectations. In it, Blizzard for the first time fully implemented the concept of hardmodes (complicated modes). Let me remind you that the first hardmode was implemented in the Obsidian Sanctuary, where three minibosses came to the aid of Sartharion (if you didn’t kill them before the fight with the brss). For those who “just wanted to watch the content”, normal modes were left, for fans of difficulty wipes, harder battles were envisaged, for victories in which, of course, more serious rewards were given. The hardmodes culminated in the fights with Mimiron and Yogg-Saron, the final boss (without the help of the Guardians) and the fight with Algalon the Watcher. The history of Naxom did not repeat itself. Ensidia (those same TwentyFifthofNovember) was able to kill Algalon in the "top ten" only at the beginning of June 2009.
Raid content culminated in a hardmode where players fought Yogg-Saron without the aid of Guardians. Experts on the forums have calculated that in the current body kit this boss is mathematically unkillable. Despite this, at the end of June 2009, the news spread around the gaming community that Exodus from the Ysondre-US server mastered this mode. True, a bug helped them win and the Exoduses were banned for three days. However, ten days later the Chinese from Stars made the impossible possible.
The design of the instance was made on a solid five. Everything was here - from the green gardens of Freya and the subway to Mimiron's workshop to huge open spaces with hundreds of hostile mobs. The lore of Ulduar deserves its own article and, in the opinion of some, far more interesting than Icecrown Citadel. Encounters also pleased. Even a year after the instance was released, a T10-clad raid would wipe on Yogg-Saron with one Guardian if they didn't know the tactics. Zerg didn't work in the overgear.
Ulduar was a success from every point of view. In a good way, this should be the last WotLK raid. Still, if you figure it out like this, then the Ancient God of Death Yogg-Saron is not some kind of Lich King. The figure is larger. But Wrath of The Lich King is still the story of the Lich King, and no matter how great the Old God was, his storyline still turned out to be secondary.
And in early June, the developer announced a new raid instance, which was supposed to be the basis of the 3.2 content patch. The Trial of the Crusader was destined to play a fatal role in the fate of Ulduar.
The fact that "WoW is not a cake" began to be talked about after the release of the first add-on, The Burning Crusade. This topic is a classic holivar of all thematic forums. Players of different generations are hoarsely arguing about when the grass was greener. Some say that WotLK was an expansion where Blizzard took a big step towards casual and thus began to "kill the game". Despite the relative simplicity of the updated Naxx, the first half of WotLK was not casual, if only because of Ulduar's far from simple hardmodes.
The watershed was patch 3.2.
Prior to this patch, the endgame concept in WoW largely retained the features that were in vanilla. Raid content was mastered progressively. The player who reached the level cap had to go through all the steps without fail. For example, for "vanilla" such a sequence was 5ppl 55-60 levels - Upper Black Mountain - Zul'Gurub / Molten Core / Lair of Onyxia - Lair of the Black Wing - Ahn'Qiraj 40 - t; Naxxramas (original version). The player who received the 60th today could hardly count on getting into Blackwing Lair even in a month. The same situation persisted throughout almost the entire TVS.
Before 3.2, the newly minted 80-k had to first become heroic, then Nax, and only then could he count on a raid in Ulduar. A radical change in the emblem system in patch 3.2 led to the fact that any player could dress up in the last raid tier, and for this it was not at all necessary to go through all the stages of the raid content. On the one hand, this was the right decision, suitable for beginners who have just entered the game or for an alt driver who is swinging a third or fourth Persian.
On the other hand, 3.2 became a gravedigger of the content that was released before it. And if Naxxramas was no longer a pity, then Ulduar is just the opposite. Such an instance could remain relevant for nine to ten months at least. Fourteen bosses, interesting hardmodes, impressive design, powerful storyline. In 3.2, players got… However, read the details below.
Patch 3.2.0 Call of Crusade
Release date: 09/04/2009
For fans of PvP, the patch brought a new battleground - the Island of Conquest, where wall to wall with forty bodies on each side, players could take part in cabals. But still, the main innovations were in the PvE aspect of the game.
One of the bombshells that exploded in the community in June was the news that prices and the required level to purchase riding skills were lowered. Now they promised to sell the first mount for mere pennies already at the 20th level. The budget epic flier was given at 60 and its speed increased to 150%, while before it was taken at 70 and its speed was 60%. Players once again made life easier.
Even more impressive was the news about the change in the emblem system. Emblems of Conquest have now been dropped from every boss from 5ppl Heroics to Ulduar-25, for which vendors in Dalaran have been selling ilvl 226 gear (equivalent to Tier 8.5). Moreover, for completing the daily quest in Heroic, the player received two Emblems of Triumph, for which the entire Tier 9 starter kit was bought. Naturally, all this caused a serious vine.
Two more points that relate to PvE have changed dramatically. The first is the ability to extend the copy of an instance for a week. For many guilds, this has been a great decision. Especially for casual and semi-hardcore guilds, which managed to reach the Guardians in one or two evenings and, maybe, kill one of them. Now, instead of the boring clearing of what they saw for weeks, the cooldown was extended and other bosses could be spent.
The last fundamental change concerned such a delicate item as loot. The ability to transfer items within two hours between raid members to each other was a great innovation, especially if mistakes were made during the “distribution of elephants”. At the same time, this change gave an impetus to such a segment of the WoW economy as the GDKP, where enterprising GMs sold loot from bosses for "very extra" money.
The construction in the Tournament area was completed and now the building of the Vanguard Colosseum stood proudly in the middle of the Stadium. In terms of interior design, the Colosseum is the most primitive and dull not only in WotLK, but in all of WoW. A large round room with a very modest finish and a couple of legendary non-pisyas in the stalls. Two instances were placed in the Colosseum at once - 5ppl and a raid for 10 and 25 persons, two levels of difficulty for each. However, the action took place in the same round room. Three bosses in 5p and five in the raid. No trash, except for mounted combat in the Trial of the Champion. The loot that dropped in the normal version of the HI was equivalent to what was dropped in the old "heroics", in "heroics" - a drop in Ulduar-10. In the raid instance, the loot was higher in level than in Ulduar's hardmodes.
The Colosseum has become a farm zone for players of all levels. The characters that just hit the 80th were guaranteed and quickly dressed in the new 5ppl and, running around the old "heroics", gained badges. With the naked eye, it was clear that they were dragging the maximum number of players under the final raid instance - Icecrown Citadel.
Patch 3.2.2 Return of Onyxia
Release date: October 04, 2009
Lair of Onyxia, a raid instance for forty people, was among the first to be introduced into the game together. On the CD from the TVS Collector's Edition there is a lecture by Tigol about how they developed this boss. At the end of the TVS, the raid began to be carried out in groups of 5-6 people. After the release of WotLK, Onyxia was killed solo and not even 80s.
Obviously, the developers got fed up with such a mockery of the legendary encounter and they remade the raid to match the realities of WotLK. Two versions for 10 and 25 people, slightly changed combat mechanics, new loot, among which only helmet models remained old. A couple of weeks after the patch, Onyxia started being killed by bugs. The instance was a good addition to the IR farm zone - the loot in them was the same. And from Onyxia, a mount fell with a meager chance.
The very fact that the Blizzards are reanimating old content was perceived by some as a desecration of the classics, by others as a significant fact. Demands to update the raids of the Old World were heard long before the announcement of the Cataclysm. Anyway, these places were empty, and were of interest to lovers of antiquity, achievements and legendary items. Whatever it was, but the experiment was successful.
Patch 3.3.0 Fall of the Lich King
The figure of the Lich King, formerly Prince Arthas, is certainly one of the central figures in the lore of the Warcraft setting. The plot of Warcraft: Reign of Chaos and the continuation of The Frozen Throne are tied to it. For many players, the second addition has become a logical continuation of the main plot of the RTS Warcraft series. As some players said after, for them WoW ended in WotLK. If the first half of "Cataclysm" was still an attempt to harmoniously continue the old storylines, then after patch 4.3 Metzen, his comrades do not cease to "surprise" with their delights. Let's move on to the details.
New content is good. Especially with the final raid of the expansion. However, there are things that have a more serious impact on the game.
Cross-server 5ppl and automatic group assembly system has become one of the most significant innovations. Prior to 3.3.0, building a company of five people into low- and mid-tier instances was a challenge. Especially on servers with medium and low population density. They gathered for an hour or two, then got to the instance for another twenty minutes, then someone dropped out of the group and everyone sat smoking bamboo, trying to find a replacement. All in all, it was a mess. After 3.3.0 the situation changed radically. Now it was not necessary to spam in the trade or hang in the LFG to form a group. All that was left was to select an instance and press a button. The system assembled the group itself and, moreover, parachuted everyone there automatically. And threw back after the instance was completed.
Like any major innovation, the players took it ambiguously. Of course, many were glad that now they do not have to spend a lot of time searching for and gathering a group. On the other hand, sometimes the system "packed" groups, which included both strong players and frankly weak ones. All this gave rise to a lot of Vine on the forums.
As for new content, in 3.3, not only the long-awaited Citadel was released, but also the Ice Halls, as many as three 5ppl instances, each of which had two or three bosses and which differed significantly in complexity from the "old" 5ppl, released in 3.0 -3.2. The audience playing in them again remembered what it is like to wipe on trash. The fights turned out to be original, especially with the Lich King. This was the first boss where the fight was to run away from him, not kill him. Loot in the Halls was equal in quality to what fell in the "ten" of the Trial of the Crusader.
As for the Citadel itself, the instance has become, let's say, a completely logical embodiment of the concept of "raiding for the masses." As in IR, Blizzard added two levels of difficulty - "normal" and "heroic", with the second being unlocked only after defeating the Lich King in the normal version. In principle, the normal level of difficulty turned out to be within the power of many casual guilds, players who did not have much raid experience (especially after the consistent introduction of the buff). Sindragosa and the Lich King himself were considered really serious bosses, especially in the "heroic" version. The wings of the Citadel were opened sequentially. Until January, only the first wing with four bosses was available. Then the pace was accelerated and the hardcore players came to Leach himself in early February.
Normally, the Lich King's kill is also associated with a scandal in which the top guild Ensidia was seriously affected. Let me remind you that the first in the top ten Arthas was killed by Blood Legion. They killed cleanly, for which they received a well-deserved achievement. Kungen and his company were the first in the Top 20, but a day later Ensidia was banned. They used a cheat with saronite bombs. Ban for three days, selected loot and canceled achievement.
In this race of progress, our guild "Exorsus" was also noted. They were the first to kill Putricide, Lana'thel, and Sindragosa in TLK10hm and completed the Glory of the Icecrown Raider achievement.
Some time after the opening of hardmodes and killings of the Lich King in the "heroic" version, a zone buff was introduced that increased the damage and amount of health dealt by players. Five percent was understood every month, and by the summer the buff was 30%. In other words, the CLC has been nerfed to rubbish. The first furthkill of Lich in Heroic was made by the Finnish team Paragon. True, they did it after the first 5% buff. Later, after farming Arthas to the fullest, they still killed him without a buff.
Patch 3.3.5 Defending the Ruby Sanctum
Release date: June 22, 2010
It's not for you to tell me what it means to farm one raid for more than six months. For the raiders of the times of WotLK, the CLC has become something similar to the current OO. In order to dispel the bored raiders a bit, the developers have released a "raid filler" - the Ruby Sanctuary. Three mini-bosses and the dragon Halion were designed to scare the raiders a little. What can I say, one boss is like that, master it for one cd, and then farm until it becomes dull. Actually, patch 3.3.5 was significant not only for this.
It was in this patch that the Blizzards introduced Real ID, a feature that allows you to communicate via battle.net with your friends who play other Blizzard games. As the name implies - "real ID" - your real name was visible to your friends. It doesn't matter under which alt you crawled into the game, your Real ID friends saw that it was you.
Well, okay, it's still all right. But when the developers announced that it would be possible to write on the forum only by going under Real ID, perhaps the biggest vine in the history of the game rose. One of the blizzards decided to prove that everything is fine, it's not scary, to enter the network under his own name. A couple of hours later, he was flooded with pizza ordered by good players to his house, after they figured out his address, as well as all personal details. After that, Blizzard refused to deanonize the players and closed the issue.
This is how WotLK ended. Supplement, which accounted for the peak of the popularity of World of Warcraft. December 2010 was approaching and the release of the expansion was truly cataclysmic in every way.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Cataclysm was the most anticipated addition to the game. In August 2009 at Blizzcon, a lot of things were told about him. And about the fact that the Old World will be changed and it will finally be possible to fly over it. And about the new character development system on the level cap, proudly called the "Path of the Titans". And about archeology, as something with which you can develop the path of the Titans. And, of course, about a lot of raid and other content. We will talk about what we got as a result later. In the meantime, about what preceded the most devastating catastrophe in Azeroth. Destructive in every way.
Patch 4.0.1
Release date: October 12, 2010
The prepatch, released in mid-October 2010, introduced fundamental changes to the class mechanics. For example, the brains were taken away from the hunters and the mana was replaced with concentration. The rotation had to be relearned. The rest got it too. The evening after the release was remembered for a cheerful chat in which the grateful inhabitants of Azeroth sent rays of good to the developers and threatened to cancel the subscription.
Minor inconveniences were added to these troubles - plaster began to pour from the ceilings. Tremors were felt in all cities. In early November, it became clear what was happening. Azeroth was invaded by elementals, awakened by Deathwing. It all started out pretty fun, but somehow quickly deflated. It all came down to random running around the streets of the capitals and the implementation of a simple chain. Those who took part in the event before the release of WotLK noted that it was “ok” then, but now it is “not very good”. The players got used to the new class mechanics, they received a “great feat” for closing the portals. Everyone was waiting for the release.
Patch 4.0.3
Release date: November 16, 2010
The patch downloaded all of the new Cataclysm content that was supposed to be available after the release in December.
Patch 4.0.3a "The Shattering"
Release date: November 23, 2010
It was this patch that forever changed the Old World of Azeroth. Many locations in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor have received major changes. For example, the Barrens used to be one location, the Wastes fully lived up to their name without any oases in the middle, Thousand Needles was not flooded, Azshara was deserted, and Booty Bay was safe and sound. Many quests have been removed and hundreds of new ones have been added. New combinations of races and classes have also become available, such as tauren paladins.
Release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Thunder struck on the night of the 6th to the 7th of December. The servers went offline at midnight European time. For the inhabitants of densely populated servers, the chances of breaking back were close to zero. Nevertheless, those who managed to do this already in the morning “pleased” the public with server-firsts. The first 85 hatched in less than six hours. By evening, a bunch of 85s were already running on the top servers, looking for a group in the “heroics”.
And this is where the "pain and suffering" began. "Fastbajrans", which fearless heroes got used to in the second half of WotLK, did not roll. The "heroics" of "Cataclysm" required control, careful disassembly of packs, knowledge of tactics and their class. A serious vine has begun on the forums.
The raids were also tough. The tough fighters who knocked out the bosses of the Citadel with a half-kick ran into problems. And the heat was set not only by flippers. Many simply did not reach them, stumbling over the blind dragon Atrameda and the Council of the Reborn. Some managed to wipe on Magmar for a month. Yes, hardcore players were happy, but the rest of the audience did not enjoy these difficulties.
The problem was further complicated by the fact that little content was made for leveling up to level 80-85. Chilya on half-bent, any casual could pump up to the cap in a couple of weeks. Personally, it took me a month, but then I played a lot on the auk and spent half of my playing time at the auction. There were practically no alternatives left. Either in heavy raids or in PvP.
The content for levels 1-60, which was relied upon during the marketing campaign, did not justify the hopes of the developers. Yes, they passed it, lore lovers savored the new quests, critics complained that Outland is now generally incomprehensible which side, but did not shoot. Because with heirs and guild bonuses, leveling up turned into a cakewalk.
As a result, by March-April, disappointment resulted in a mass exodus of players. For the first time since the release, there has been a negative trend in terms of the number of subscribers.
Patch 4.1 Rise of Zandalari
The announcement of this patch caused a mixed reaction, which, against the background of the mass exodus, was mainly negative. Traditionally, content patches have contained full-fledged raids. 4.1 was one of the first patches to not have raids, just 5ppl instances. Moreover, these were "creatively redesigned" TBC raids - Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. Yes, these twenty-man raids have long attracted only lovers of antiquity. This mainly concerned Zul'Gurub, where the bosses dropped mounts - a lizard and a panther. Therefore, reformatting was perceived with hostility.
After the release of the patch to the Vine about the laziness of the blizzards, screams about the excessive complexity of the new instances were added. Yes, that's exactly what happened. Firstly, even in the reduced form of the bosses, it was too much for 5ppl. Over the last couple of additions, players have become accustomed to compact instances. Added to this was the complexity of the Zuls. In the first cd, it took a group with an average level of play two hours to complete. Groups assembled in LFD sometimes couldn't make it to the end at all, falling apart on intermediate bosses. Jin'do, the last boss of Zul'Gurub, even gave guild groups a kick. On the one hand, it was liked by lovers of complexity, who saw in this the correctness of the chosen course. On the other hand, the silent majority continued to leave the game.
The plot of patch 4.1 was out of the ordinary. The return of Deathwing, the invasion of the elementals, the cult of the Twilight's Hammer. It all started very epic. The people were waiting for the continuation of the banquet in the form of a continuation of the story with the kidnapped Neptulon, further outrages of Deswing and his minions, and then some Zandalari. No, no one belittles the importance of this tribe in the history of Azeroth, but it all looked like some kind of local conflict that was sewn into the main plot, simply because it was necessary to revive the old raids.
Patch 4.1 turned out to be ambiguous. Zuls proved to be too difficult for the 5ppl format, but fell short of traditional raids.
Summarize. The first months of "Cataclysm" pleased with the novelty, but in the spring problems loomed ahead - people began to leave the game. The reworked Old World was not appreciated. Cataclysm's launch raids proved to be too difficult for the general public, accustomed to the nerfed CLC. The developers did not provide alternative entertainment in the endgame. Archeology rightfully received the title of the most boring profession, which, moreover, did not give any tangible profit. The result was a massive exodus of players. It was in the summer of 2011 that they started talking about the fact that the project began to lose popularity.
The first months of the addon were interesting, but by the summer it became clear that "the kin will not be." And this became clear not only to the players, but also to the blizzards. The game literally needed to be saved. Logs were thrown into the fire by RIFT, released in the spring, the first AAA project since Warhammer’s (autumn 2008), which claimed the WoW audience. It is worth saying that RIFT at that time managed to pull a decent part of WoW's subscribers away. Something had to be done, because another WoW competitor, Star Wars the Old Republic, was expected to be released in December. So the situation was ugly.
Patch 4.2.0 "Rage of Firelands"
The first "final" boss in WoW was the Firelord, Ragnaros. In patch 4.2, the second coming of the Fire Lord awaited us, because as it turned out, those forty heroes who stormed Black Mountain did not defeat him, but only pushed him back into ... these same Firelands. Now our task was to finally put an end to Ragnaros, who became an ally of Deathwing. The raid itself turned out to be, shall we say, contradictory. A huge wasteland of fiery black shades, in which six bosses and the "reception" of Ragnaros were distributed, personally made me sad. Some did not tolerate this bright range of colors at all. As for the mechanics of the bosses themselves, in my opinion, only Ragnaros himself was normally interesting. All the rest were boring and inexpressive.
A separate theme of patch 4.2 was the Molten Front. Realizing that not all players are fond of raids, the Blizzards filed down an epic quest location, which was called the Fiery Front. The main feature here was that the location was phased and opened sequentially after handing over badjiks to the main NPCs, who farmed only through dailies. Along with the new phases, the player got access to new locations and vendors with all sorts of goodies such as weapons and recipes. The idea, of course, was good, like here is the content for you, in which everything depends on your actions. But it turned out Ristalishe-2 with dailies, which were stuck in the teeth already in the third week. In short, the content turned out to be “second freshness”, because there were already similar quest hubs, and they even had phasing.
What else is noteworthy about patch 4.2? Of course, the legendary staff for the caster. The chain to get the staff turned out to be long and in order to get hold of the staff, it took a long time to farm. The easiest way, of course, was for those who farmed OP25xm - the first staff was assembled by hardcore players in early August.
As already mentioned in the last posting about this add-on, Cataclysm lived up to its name and not only in terms of Azerothian lore. The total outcome of the players by the summer was about 900 thousand people (compared to the pre-release state). The situation had to be saved. And rescue urgently. The decision on how to do this was probably made before the release of Firelands, because the raid turned out to be surprisingly small. Seven bosses is not enough. Yes, in WotLK there was a Colosseum with five, but before it there was Ulduar with 14, and after - the CLC with 13. That the topic was merging became clear after the announcement of patch 4.3. Even before the release of the add-on, they promised a raid on such a theme as the "War of the Ancients" and a raid on a marine theme. After all, we never found out what Ozumat did with Neptulon. So we were waiting for this. But everything turned out quite differently.
Three 5ppl instances were made from the War of the Ancients raid. The "sea" raid was cut out of the plans. According to the announcement, the final raid was supposed to contain eight bosses, which was sad in itself and hinted that all forces were now thrown into the next expansion. However, something tasty nears still prepared the players.
Patch 4.3.0 "Hour of Twilight"
Patch 4.3 was released three weeks before the release of one of WoW's main competitors at the time, SWTOR. The online Star Wars universe looked menacing. Created by an eminent studio based on a cult franchise - a killer combination. Time has shown that the budget and the popularity of the setting are not yet the components of the success of an MMO project. However, the Blizzards have prepared one of the biggest patches since late TVS. The end-game part contained the Dragon Soul raid of eight bosses, and we had to fight Deathwing in two battles. First on his back, forcing him to land in the Maelstrom, and then four times with his claws on them. Also in the package were three instances in which players who were late for the holiday could quickly dress up - the things that fell there were equal in ilvl to what fell from the bosses in the Firelands.
In this component, it was not only the fact that there were only eight bosses that was depressing. The raid itself was made from "old scenery". The action took place in the Dragonblight, the Eye of Eternity, on the ships that once stormed the Citadel of the Lich King. With the naked eye, it was clear that the close ones were following the minimum program, saving resources. Instances for five persons were made, apparently, on the basis of what the blizzards managed to finalize for the War of the Ancients raid. Adding to the disappointment was the fact that the plot was sucked out of thin air - the search for the Dragon Soul in the distant past looked far-fetched. Personally, I was most offended by the fact that such an epic theme as the "War of the Ancients" was mediocrely merged. Is Azshara the 5-man instance boss? And not the final one. The battle of the dragonflights with Deathwing could be an interesting encounter. Not to mention, the city of Zin-Azshari deserved a bigger incarnation. You could do something like Ulduar.
The scarcity of the endgame was compensated by the introduction of several game systems. The first is transmogrification, the ability to "impose" on the armor "skins" of other items. Similar "cosmetics" already existed in other games and proved their popularity. The theme did really well, becoming a serious hobby for some collectors. The transmogrification was handled by the Ethereals, who also opened up additional storage for items.
The second cardinal innovation was the raid assembly system (LFR). Automatic raid assembly was promised back at Blizzcon 2009, when the expansion was announced. Many were waiting for it after the release, but introduced it only in the second half of the addon. Now anyone who wants to and has the appropriate body kit, by simply pressing a button, got into the company of the same "adventurers".
The latest innovation was that the Darkmoon Fair moved to a separate island and grew. There are new attractions, quests and badges with vendors. However, nothing particularly interesting appeared there. So, another quest zone that appears once a month for a week.
The last thing the patch brings is the legendary rogue chain. It was for them and only for them that a new quest chain was introduced, as a result of which the character received the legendary daggers - “Fangs of the Father”. In the chain itself, a new character took an active part, who began to play a large role in Pandarian history - Wrathion, the son of Deswing.
In general, patch 4.3 turned out to be quite voluminous and in some places radically changing the attitudes of the players. For example, transmogrification has become a popular activity and many sites on this topic have appeared on the network. And LFR opened up access to raids to a lot of players who didn't have the opportunity to play regularly in a permanent group.
Actually everything. In November, when patch 4.3 was released, it was already known what the next expansion would be. "Mists of Pandaria" caused a mixed reaction in the gaming community. Who knows how much more the game would have lost subscribers if the blizzards had not come up with the "Annual Subscription". Paying for WoW a year in advance, the player automatically bought Diablo III and access to the Mists of Pandaria beta. The move was right, because in Cataclysm, in fact, there was nothing to do, but to play Diablo III and Mists of Pandaria is even nothing.
And "Cataclysm" turned out to be an addition that showed a simple thing - as soon as the developer relaxes, the player will immediately run away to another project. After a sharp outflow of players, the close ones tensed up and issued an add-on that was literally stuffed with innovations. But I will talk about this next time.
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
2011 was the most difficult year for developers. The rapid drop in the number of subscribers forced the fire order to revise plans and make unpopular decisions. With the naked eye, it was clear that near they threw all their strength into a new addition. Which?
In August, just after the announcement of the next losses, a rumor spread around the network. Blizzard registered the rights to the name in the literal sense of the word foggy - "Mists of Pandaria". The people scratched their turnips in bewilderment and decided to wait for Blizzcon. We waited for Blizzcon, and with it the confirmation of the main theme of the addon. Then the playing audience was divided into two parts. The first loudly resented the attempt to please the Chinese audience, the second said "wait and see." In order to somehow keep the audience and get a penny from it, the close people decided to take a bold step. The "Annual Subscription" promotion provided not only the right to play WoW for a year. For the same money, the player received Diablo III, as well as access to the Mists of Pandaria beta.
I think that, in a sense, this saved the game from an even greater outflow of players in the first half of 2012, which was quite rich in new releases. In the first half of the year, SWTOR was still shining, in the summer the controversial but expected The Secret World was released, and in August one of the most promising MMO projects, Guild Wars 2, was supposed to be released. The early start of this game fell on August 24, 2012. Close by, those old-fashioned kalachi, who still knew how to interrupt the game of competitors, launched the Mists of Pandaria pre-patch.
Patch 5.0.4 Mists of Pandaria
Release date: August 28, 2012
Like all previous pre-release patches, this one introduced a number of dramatic changes to the game. The main changes included the following.
Another radical reworking of the class system. The "tree" system was abandoned once and for all, replacing it with the ability to choose one talent out of three every fifteen levels. The announcement of this at the convention caused another bubbling in the style of "sho, again?!!!", but in fact the new system was fully justified. In MoP, the Blizzards were going to introduce scaleable content in the form of challenge modes for 5ppl. The old system was not suitable for this.
Cross-server locations. The first cross-server locations appeared back in the days of the original WoW. They were battlefields. Much later, in patch 3.3, five-person instances became crossover. Patch 4.3 made raids crossserver. The assembly of LFR groups was carried out automatically from among the players of the same server battle groups, and the Battle Tag made it possible to assemble groups from friends. And now, the technology has reached the open world. Now players from servers could play together in open locations and cities, except for the capitals.
This move was long overdue, as most of the locations in Old Azeroth, Northrend, and Outland were deserts in terms of population. Swinging, the player could not meet a single player at all for several dozen levels. This was especially true for low and medium populated servers. I remember playing the old main Deckven on Nordrassill-EU, a server that was somewhere in the top 100 in terms of progress. So, I did the achievements for killing rares in Outland and Northrend without much difficulty, because the locations were completely empty. Some players said so - with the introduction of cross-server zones, nears are behind the scenes merging servers. However, the real merger was still far away.
Mounts and achievements have become the same for the entire account. This innovation was perhaps the most noticeable and delighted many players. Especially those who unsuccessfully went main for the Ashes of A'lar for several years in a row, and then accidentally looted him with an alt in a pugofunraid. Yes, holders of prestigious titles such as "Death Conqueror" could now choose them for alts. In short, the innovation was great and now mountodlers could run after the dragon of Onyxia or Anzu with all the available characters, and the “Envoy of the Titans” could be maine, although the title was earned by a specially created character.
All this was great and right, but with the Prerelease event, the close ones let us down this time. Instead of the action stretching over several weeks, as was the case before the releases of other add-ons, we were given a short, twenty-minute scenario. The sad story that happened to Theramore replaced the event for us. Greg Krabovich Street then said that, they say, it is better to spend resources on writing down some kind of long-playing feature than to make a one-time event. Everyone I knew disagreed.
Release of Mists of Pandaria
Once upon a time, the release of an add-on meant a reboot of the servers. That is, after 00-00 server time, the game burrowed, and then it’s as lucky as it is, because it’s almost impossible to break through the authorization server, simultaneously with thousands of others. This time, the Blizzards promised a smooth start without overloading the servers. And so it happened. After 00-00 server time, players automatically received a quest that sent them to the shores of Pandaria. On the release, I played for the Alliance, and upon arrival at the faction's aircraft carrier, I saw the following picture.
This column of helicopters rising up did not promise anything good, so I decided not to take the next quest, but immediately jumped from the ship into the water. Before that, I visited the beta and knew that it was not necessary to complete the quest at all. The decision turned out to be correct. The quest with the helicopter turned out to be a trap for many players, who, due to lags in the starting location, could not properly complete and pass it. However, this did not bother me much, I ran headlong through the Jade Forest, and only when I reached the Valley of the Four Winds did I feel relieved.
So what's new in the Mists of Pandaria expansion in September 2012? In addition to the above benefits, the following has been added:
- new continent - Pandaria. The appearance of an island that wandered for almost ten thousand years turned out to be slightly far-fetched, but we must pay tribute, everything else was thought up very well;
- a new race - pandaren and, of course, a new starting location in the form of a giant turtle. Pandaren became the first race in the game that is available to both factions;
- new class - monk. Depending on the type of beer drunk, the mog becomes a tank, a healer, or a damage dealer;
- level cap increased to level 90;
- seven new instances for five players, and three instances that were remastered versions of still classic dungeons.
- for all the dungeons of Pandaria, a special format was introduced - the test mode. In this mode, all the characteristics of the body kit were brought to level 463, and the monsters became fatter and angrier;
- three raids - Mogu'shan Dungeons, Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring. In total, there were fourteen bosses in these raids, which was quite a decent number for the starting tier;
- combat pets. Pets that used to run after players with their tails could now be trained and set against each other. This fun turned out to be to the liking of many, both collectors and fans of turn-based games, as well as Azeroth hucksters, who began to trade animals that quickly turned into a running and rather expensive commodity;
- Black market. Among the pandaren were not only brewers, farmers and brawler monks. The local mafia and one of its leaders, Madame Goya, managed to establish a trade in Azerothian antiques and scarcity. At the "point" in the area of the Hidden Stairs, Madame Goya traded in rare mounts, pets, pieces of T3 and even a heroic body kit. At first, a certain category of players had a fierce butthurt about this, but then nothing, they got used to it;
- PvE scenarios. Blizzards have always been famous for their ability to properly process other people's ideas. So, the SWTOR developers created locations in the open world, designed for the passage of several characters, and the passage was not tied to the rigid classic “tank-heal-a few dd” scheme. H2-H4 zones were sometimes covered with pure dd-setups. Blizzard adapted the idea and got good entertainment for three people, untied from the classic scheme;
- "Farm Frenzy". After completing the quest chain, the local cooperative of farmers "The Farmers" allowed the player to stake six acres in the Halfhill area. Now a brave warrior of the Light or a child of the Horde could swing not only a sword or ax, but also a hoe.
Despite the steep leaning towards the eastern theme, Pandaria was generally received positively. True, some moments still caused gnashing of teeth.
Firstly, reputation with the factions of Pandaria was pumped exclusively through quests, normal and daily. No fan t-shirts and heroic runs, which was widely practiced in previous expansions. Secondly, in order to start leveling reputation with the Shado-Pan and the Celestials, you had to first level up to Exalted with the Golden Lotus. Thirdly, for daily quests, they gave not only valor, but also small amulets of good luck. These amulets were exchanged for large amulets, which gave the possibility of an additional roll in raids. True, the exchange rate was 3:90, that is, three large amulets were given for ninety small ones. Therefore, even if you pumped all the reputation, then then you were forced to do daily events solely for the sake of small amulets. Last but not least, the twenty-five daily daily limit has been lifted. Therefore, hardcore people made them until they were blue in the face, "every day all pandarya."
Patch 5.1 Landfall
Patch 5.1 was the first "numbered" patch in many years that didn't include a raid. Instead, the Blizzes made quest content the highlight of patch 5.1, namely two "campaigns" for the Alliance and the Horde. After the landing of the forward detachments of mercenaries, that is, us, the heads of the factions decided to send regular units to conquer new territories, which were to gain a foothold in the new bridgehead. The Alliance's campaign was called "Operation Barrier", while the Horde's was called "The Invading Army". There were also two new factions with which it was possible to pump reputation. In general, Landing is considered the most successful implementation of such content, when compared with the Rally and the Fiery Front. But the innovations of patch 5.1 did not end there.
As far as I can remember, there was talk about the PvE arena back in the days of the early WotLK. Why not? Something, but they know how to make bosses. Yes, and once again to work out will not be superfluous. Here in patch 5.1 they introduced the "Fighting Guild", where in front of other players you fight monsters that are controlled by a computer. In order to get into this arena, one had to receive a special invitation. He was either knocked out of the rarniks in the new quest zone or bought for a lot of money on the Black Market. At first, prices skyrocketed. In general, the people liked the new entertainment.
Item upgrade. Surplus badges sooner or later form even among the most casual players. Therefore, the Blizzards decided to upgrade with the help of points of valor and justice. At first, the prices went through the roof - for four additional levels for the epic, it was necessary to lay out 750 valor points, but nevertheless, the people liked the innovation. Moreover, the raid progress was not going well for everyone.
The grindfest did not end there. The legendary chain of Wrathion is just the apotheosis of the grind. At the first stage, it was necessary to collect ten Seals of Power and ten Seals of Power. In addition, it was necessary to bring the reputation with the Black Prince to respect. And yes, this was just the beginning.
On the whole, Pandaria 5.0.4-5.0.5 was a success and the players had enough to do. And the close ones, who promised to issue content patches more often, kept their word and already at the end of November 2012 they dumped patch 5.1 on the players.
Patch 5.2 Thunder King
At the beginning of the add-on, the developers promised to issue patches more and more often. And, oddly enough, they kept their word. Patch 5.2 was released months after 5.1 and was outstanding in many ways.
The plot in patch 5.2 smoothly continued the main line. For those who completed the Kun-Lai Summit quests in their entirety, one episode is sure to stand out. It is about the resurrection of the legendary king of the Mogu - Lei-Shen by the Zandalari trolls. This king was famous for defeating all the other mogu chieftains a long time ago and uniting his people. Moreover, he was able to defeat the "curator" of the Titans, Ra-den, and take over the technology of space aliens. And now, after thousands of years of being in another world, Lei-Shen returns to take revenge by defeating his former slaves, the pandaren. True, Lets-Shen and his mogu did not take into account one factor - now in Pandaria there are not only good-natured bears softened from drinking beer. The island is not only marching regular parts of the Alliance and the Horde, but also wandering crowds of mercenaries who have gone through fire, water and copper pipes. I will have to deal with them as I can, and their long-standing, even before the Sundering, allies in the face of the Zandalari trolls.
This plot was untwisted both in the new game zone, the Isle of Thunder, and in the raid - the Throne of Thunder. The Isle of Thunder was a phased location with a bunch of quests. The solution is as old as patch 2.4, because it was in it that this concept was first tested. In addition to dailies, rare mobs were found on the island, requiring the efforts of several players to defeat them. Another little thing that pleased is the arcade zone - the Treasury of the Lord of Thunder. Once a week, a key fell from the mobs of the island, which opened access to a solo scenario in which you had to run through the location, in which chests with all sorts of goodies were scattered. Money, valuable items, Large amulets for T14 raids. The experiment turned out to be successful, but, unfortunately, the developers in MoD did not provide more such content.
As mentioned above, the content of the island was phased, that is, it was opened after the players completed a certain number of tasks. In general, the place turned out to be atmospheric, however, rather gloomy. One got the impression that the island is a giant cemetery, where someone decided to take up the resurrection of the dead.
Thunder Island was not the only one. Near the northern coast of Pandaria, out of nowhere (as usual - from the fog), another island appeared - the Isle of the Giants. It was inhabited by dinosaurs and large animals, and entirely elites. This mob was led by Undasta, a gigantic dinosaur that required the efforts of an "old-school" raid of forty men to win. Bones fell from dinosaurs, and bones could be exchanged for all sorts of utility types.
Now about the "highlight of the program" - the "Throne of Thunder" raid. Even at the stage of testing on the PTR, it was clear that the developers were preparing something large-scale. And so it ended up being. Blizzard managed to create a raid zone in its best traditions. Twelve bosses and one "secret" boss in "heroic" mode, many of which had original mechanics, impressive interiors and a lot of trash, an interesting plot. I don't know about you, but for me the Throne of Thunder is on a par with Ulduar and the Black Temple. After the raid content of the late Cataclysm, which was rather dull in all respects, the developers showed that there is still gunpowder in the powder flasks. True, a couple of spoons with tar still got into this barrel of honey.
There were drawbacks, yes. The first is the linearity of the instance. Why the Blizzards decided to make PG like this - God knows. Many instances with a large number of bosses had a "quarter" structure, which allowed you to choose from the bosses that you need. Here the order was the same. This was aggravated by the fact that the complexity of the bosses increased unevenly. So, after a pass with a fairly simple Jin'rok, the raiders ran into Horridon. A typical trash fight, the essence of which was for the most part in the fight against adds, became a barrier through which some guilds could not pass for weeks. This was followed by a relatively simple Council of the Zandalari, and then followed by the most chaotic fight in the instance - Tortos. Further, again, relatively simple Megaera and Chi-kun. And then again the barrier in the form of Durumu. After going through all the vicissitudes of the first three quarters, the players got into the fourth. The first two bosses there were classic "don't stand in the fire" and only Lei Shen was original there.
It seemed that different PG blocks were made by different groups of designers. Although that's not the point. The combination of straightforwardness and barrier bosses has led to yet another reduction in the number of raiders in the Normal/Heroic bracket.
To these charms was added the fact that in 5.2 we were offered the continuation of the "legendary" chain. The Black Prince offered us to farm twenty plus twelve badges. The droprate of these next orange things left much to be desired. Added to this was the solo scenario, which required direct hands, especially for those whose classes did not have self-healing.
However, the patch was a success. Everyone got it - both solo players and hardcore raiders and fans of achievements. The people were delighted and waited for the next portion of content, which was not long in coming.
Patch 5.3 Escalation
Release date: May 21, 2013
The fact that Garrosh is Thrall's biggest personnel failure has been clear since the time of the Cataclysm. One kill of Cairn is worth something. The longer it went on, the worse things got. In the end, a rebellion was raised against Garrosh, led by the leaders of the Horde. Of course, in order to conduct combat operations, you first need to organize supplies. What the leaders of the Horde did with the help of their troops and mercenaries (that is, the players).
This is the story behind patch 5.3. In order to implement this in the game, the developers borrowed the concept of "dynamic events" from ArenaNet. In the Steppes, high-level characters were placed who guarded the places where timber, oil and other useful things were extracted. These places had to be plundered, and from time to time, a cow appeared in the steppe, which had to be protected from the raids of Garrosh's troops. In general, it turned out well, although this idea did not reach the dynamics of the original.
Another innovation of the patch was the "heroic" scenarios. Since the usual ones were already stuck in everyone's teeth, and they were no longer satisfied in terms of rewards, the HSs became the main source of "valor" and body kit for those who were late for the holiday. From the purple chests that were given after completing the scenario, an epic of level 516 fell with a fairly high chance, which was quite nothing.
And, of course, the Black Prince Wrathion again pleased the players with a new stage of the legendary chain.
Patch 5.4 Siege of Orgrimmar
Resources are collected, the attack is prepared. The "Moment of Truth" came when Garrosh decided to trap the Old God's Black Heart into the sacred springs of Pandaria. The head of the Shado-pan tried to remind Garrosh of the fate of his father, then tried to punch him in the face, but nothing helped. Streams of dark energy destroyed the charm of the Valley, desecrating it forever. It's time to kick Garrosh in the teeth all together.
In 2013, the developers did not slow down and kept their promise - to make updates more bowled and thicker. In terms of saturation, patch 5.4 was not much inferior to patch 5.2, and in some ways even surpassed it, because it introduced serious structural changes to the game. Let's start with the fact that an "experimental" location has appeared - the Timeless Isle. There were few quests there, for that there were many rares that spawned quite often. In addition, all sorts of chests were scattered around the island. Small amulets of luck fell from mobs and chests, as well as “blanks” for epics of level 496. There was an arena in the middle of the island, where four Celestials tested the players for strength.
The developers stated that they wanted to make a location in which players did not feel limited to completing dozens of dailies. Such a "free zone". Yes, indeed, for WoW, the Timeless Isle was an experiment, but about the “freedom of action”, the nears got excited. There were quests, the killing of rarniks was immediately put on stream, and now they came here for Small Amulets, and did not make obsessive dailies. But, in fact, a farm zone was made for dressing alts, new players, as well as returning veterans. After dressing the freshly baked 90th in the 496th body kit, one could forget about the Island.
The next two updates dealt with changes to the raid system. A new format was introduced - a "flexible" raid. If earlier the number of people in the group was either 10 or 25 people, now their number could fluctuate within these limits. This was arguably the most rewarding structural change in all of the MoPs. Firstly, it made it possible for small guilds to take everyone into a raid. Secondly, the difficulty of such a raid was higher than LFR, but lower than normal. This somewhat lowered the bar and made it possible to play for those who were a little short of the class in normal, but at the same time did not want to play with LFR-pugs.
The second most important structural change was Connected Realms - “combined servers”. This was a continuation of the ideology started back in patch 3.3, when for the first time players from different servers could play together in 5ppl. Then there was LFR, cross-realm zones in the "open" world and battle tag. However, with the merger of the servers, things went hard - they are still being merged.
Another interesting innovation was the Arena of Trials. It was a solo scenario, a kind of "training ground" where players could test their skills in dealing damage, healing and tanking. Those who previously performed one role could train in another. The need for such a “simulator” has been around for a long time, since it is better to train “on crampons” than to do it in instances.
The "legendary" chain of Wrathion has been completed. As a reward, players received a legendary cloak. The reward is not that dubious, but the cloak has become the most massive legendary item in WoW. To get it, you didn’t even need to go through normal raid modes, you could limit yourself to LFR.
And finally, the final raid of the addon - the Siege of Orgrimmar. The raid turned out to be controversial. On the one hand, fourteen bosses is no joke. Few raids in WoW can boast this many encounters, many of which have interesting mechanics. On the other hand, it was clear that the nears were sculpting the OO "from what was." The scenery for the first and second quarters was the Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Orgrimmar. No one really suffered with the new boss models either. The third point was more about Horde players. The patch did not make any changes to the capital itself. That is, Garrosh stood still, the auction worked, vendors and trainers sold services. And after you received an invite, you got into the version of the capital, which is under siege. In short, cognitive dissonance.
Why this happened, I think, is obvious. As in Cataclysm, the Blizzards took the path of least resistance, using pre-existing sets and models. By the way, according to rumors from insiders, the first quarter is part of a completely different raid, which they decided not to complete, but included in the Siege. That is why we are launching an attack on Orgrimmar with a big detour through the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.
As already mentioned, the patch turned out to be rich and interesting. But ... after it, the developers not only slowed down, but simply stopped doing something new. They haven't released a single major content patch since. OO will be a raid that will set the record for "longevity" - fourteen months. That's two months longer than Icecrown Citadel has stood.
Let's summarize. All in all, the Mists of Pandaria expansion was a success. Compared to Cataclysm, the developers have introduced a lot of new entertainment for players on the cap - pet battles, challenge modes, the Fighting Guild, the Arena of Trials. Raid content did not let us down. It was made not only more than in Cataclysm, but it also turned out to be of high quality in the best traditions of Blizzard. Despite all the skepticism, the lore and atmosphere of the addon is also a success. Some say that Pandaria is too homely, they say, "family, friends, food, and the rest does not matter", but if you look at the quest chains, you can find a lot of dramatic moments and the notorious "epicness" in them.
At the same time, the add-on turned out to be uneven in terms of issuing content patches. I would even say the most uneven. More than a year without updates is too much. Especially since at the beginning of the MoP, the developers assured that the content would be delivered more often. In fact, that was the first year. And then something went wrong. Yes, Blizzard didn't originally plan to release Warlords of Draenor in November 2014. And the latest interviews say that they delayed the release of WoD for half a year. The excuses don't sound very convincing; rather, some kind of discord occurred at the very top of the development team. The departure of Greg Street in the fall of 2013 and the recent dismissal of Rob Pardo most likely testify to this.
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
Let's start a little further. November 2013, Blizzcon, Metzen portrays an orc, the audience roars with delight - presentation of the addition. Of course, Warlords of Draenor was the highlight of that convention. The plot caused surprise, indignation and controversy, which continued for more than one week. Most intrigued by the garrisons. What was voiced by the blizzies aroused genuine interest and a timid hope that they would finally be able to at least slightly move away from the concept of the game, which was laid down in vanilla. Garrisons were presented as another system that would allow you to develop a character on a cap. Various combinations of buildings with different bonuses - just what you need. Add to this a bunch of followers, who can also be downloaded and, voila, almost the Way of the Titans.
On the other hand, what was shown at the convention left the feeling that the game was a bit damp. And that the team's promises to release content more often and more are somehow too optimistic. The people hoped that WoD will be released in the spring, well, at least in the summer. Well, blizzards can't torment people with a final raid for a whole year, they can't. How much can you step on these rakes? However, it turned out that the Siege broke all previous records, becoming the actual raid for more than fourteen months, surpassing Icecrown Citadel and Dragon Soul. However, before the release there was a pre-patch, with which we will begin our story.
Patch 6.0.2 The Iron Tide
According to the good old tradition, before the release of the add-on, a pre-patch followed with an event and all sorts of changes in the game mechanics. The event consisted in the fact that from the suddenly reddened Dark Portal, orcs again begin to shove with weapons hitherto unseen. The Iron Horde is trying to gain a foothold on the borders, but we do not let them go beyond the Blasted Lands. All this was more interesting than the Terramore scenario, but it didn't even reach the pre-catalysm events, not to mention the fact that the zombie festival before WotLK could not be surpassed.
In addition to changes in class mechanics, major adjustments were made to the raid system. The heroic difficulty became mythic, the size of which was designed for 20 people. Normal became known as heroic, and flex became normal. This was the final nerf to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, and over the remaining few weeks, people were hard at work farming Iron Scorpion.
Release Warlords of Draenor
The release took place on November 13, exactly six years after the release of the Wrath of the Lich King add-on. So, what did the addition promise so interesting? Let's start with the plot.
…Garrosh Hellscream makes a daring prison break. One of the dragons of the Infinity Flock helps him get into an alternate reality, thirty years before the current events. Garrosh finds his father Grom in the alternate Draenor. As a result of their propaganda work, Grom and the other leaders of the Old Horde refuse to drink Mannoroth's cocktail. As a result of a fight between the Hellscream family and Mannoroth, the latter dies, and Gul'dan is relegated to the background. Thunder informs ordinary clan members that they will not be slaves, but will be conquerors. With the help of technology that Garrosh stole from his reality, the leaders of Draenor create the Iron Horde and build a portal ... to Azeroth, which they want to conquer. Our goal is to get into an alternate reality and prevent a new invasion of the Horde on Azeroth.
So, the place of action of the new addition is an alternative Draenor. For those not familiar with the intricacies of the lore, Outland is what's left of Draenor after Ner'zhul's failed experiments with fel magic. Therefore, in the alternative Draenor, a lot of locations correlate with Outland locations, but in general they are very different. In short, a pristine, wild and untouched land awaited us. Traditional new content with locations, quests, 5ppl and so on. The only difference from the continents in previous expansions was that one of the locations - Tanaan Jungle - was closed to players. Only the starting quest chain took place there, and after that we immediately found ourselves in the garrison, which was located quite far from the jungle.
As expected, the level cap increased to a round figure of 100. In addition, it became possible to upgrade one character to the 90th, and others for a certain amount. This caused a slight butthurt on the forums, but, in general, was swallowed up by the community as a given that can no longer be avoided.
Another innovation that was positioned as a big step forward is the new character models. Models added polygons and made a new animation. True, not everyone, for example, blooddelphs were not included in the list. Goblins, worgen and pandas were also left unchanged, since the models were made relatively recently.
The mechanics of the game were greatly simplified - sockets were removed from armor and weapons, the number of chanter scrolls was greatly reduced, and reforging was eliminated. Masha doll dress up game just got easier.
The main innovation was the garrison - the personal fortress of the conqueror of Draenor. The concept was basically good. A set of buildings that can be upgraded and that gave bonuses to crafting and combat. Thus, it became possible to customize the character on the cap. Built this building - got this bonus, built another - this bun. Having a personal troop of followers gave us weight and also created some room for diversity. In addition, the garrison seriously affected the economy of the game. Take, for example, the fact that grass grew in the garrison and there was a mine, and most importantly, for their extraction it was not necessary to be a miner or a herbalist. And the buildings associated with crafting made it possible to produce a significant amount of spare parts with a daily cd.
In general, if you close your eyes to the plot stuck on the knee, Warlords of Draenor seemed like a very good addition. The prospects were encouraging. What were the realities?
It's no exaggeration to say that WoD's release was the worst launch in WoW history. They say that only the first months of vanilla were similar to what happened after the release of WoD. Characters got stuck in textures, hung in the air. In the waiting room in front of the garrison there were crowds that could not get into it. People were afraid to meddle in the garrison itself, because there was a risk of staying in it for a long time. Indignant cries about rolled back quests jumped in the chat. The most enterprising ones offered paid services for extracting characters from textures at a low cost. In the open world, the crossserver made tricks and NPCs-quest givers turned into ghosts. It was terrible. When trying to log out and then re-enter the game, there was a risk of stumbling upon the message "Character not found". This whole mess went on for several days. Blizzard's worst was probably only the start of Diablo III.
Then everything was fixed and the full game began.
What can I say, Blizzard knows how to make leveled content. Despite the tension of the plot, the quest chains in the locations turned out to be interesting as always. Brutal orcs, harsh winter landscapes, iron and fire - all this contrasted with what players met in Pandaria. Yes, there was brutality there too, but in general, the island of fog turned out to be much more peaceful than Draenor. The continent itself has come out on top. Snow-capped mountains, scorched valleys, wild jungles. And what was Shadowmoon Valley worth? Not only were the locations varied and interesting, but the cities turned out to be perhaps the largest of all that is already in the game. Shattrath City was simply huge. It turned out that only a small area remained from him in the TVS.
However, that's where the positives ended. Crafting has been greatly simplified. He was strongly tied to the garrison, tied to buildings, which hit those who had workshops from crafting low-level alts hard. Those who had gathering professions on the mains also suffered. Now everyone could swing a pick in the garrison and provide themselves with the right amount of materials on their own. Further, for the manufacture of Draenor items, it was not necessary to pump the skill up to 600. This almost killed the market for pumping reagents. All this led to the simplification of crafting and the slow dying of the market. It became simply uninteresting to engage in crafts and trade.
But the role of the garrison in the player's life has become prevalent. In fact, these were dailies, which are not called dailies. Run through the mine and garden, collect junk from buildings, give new crafting tasks, puzzle followers. And so every day, and if you have several characters - several times. Many quest chains and the entire economy were tied to the garrison.
At the same time, it soon became clear that there were not so many effective building setups, and some buildings were not needed at all. With followers, too, there was a slight crap. Collecting, pumping and dressing took several weeks at most. Forming a group for a mission did not require much application of the brain, especially with the appropriate addons. So a month after reaching the cap of followers, you could put on and put on shoes and that was it. In other words, hopes that the garrison will become an alternative development plane remained hopes. Players got veiled daily quests and overbearing game mechanics with a very limited set of possible options.
Legendary item. Even before the release, Blizzards said something about taking into account the mistakes of MoP and that there would be a “budget” legendary and something for hardcore comrades. The budget legendary turned out to be rather faded. Firstly, it was a ring, that is, it did not affect the appearance of the character. Secondly, you could get it by farming a bunch of stuff in the raid, that is, the process was not original.
Traditionally, the raid part of the content remained strong. The starting raid - the capital of the ogres, Highmaul - turned out to be moderately pretty and difficult. True, the number of bosses (only seven pieces), as well as the absence of tokens in the loot table, seemed to hint that this raid would not be relevant for long. And yes, High Hammer was a passing game and pleased the players for only two and a half months. Already in early February, the second raid T17 was opened - the Foundry of the Black Mountain Clan. Ten bosses, the last of which was one of Draenor's warlords, Blackhand. Here everything was more interesting. True, some tightness was embarrassing. Narrow corridors, relatively small rooms, dark corners, equipment, conveyor lines. Highmaul was small overall, but there was more open space.
The release of the new raid, as always, breathed a little breath into the gaming life, but, as you know, not only raiders play WoW. After going through all the story content with several characters, pumping the army of followers several times and kissing all the Draenor squirrels, the players really got bored. And already at the end of February, Blizzard rolled out a new patch number 6.1 to the servers.
Patch 6.1 Garrison Update
This was one of the content patches that didn't introduce a new raid. In some ways, 6.1 continued the traditions of MoP patches, which went through one without raids, making changes to the game mechanics. Although technically 6.1 is still more associated with the Champions League period than with the start of WoD. So what's new in this content patch? First, about the "minor innovations":
The biggest changes were to the garrisons:
- every day, visitors began to visit the garrison, who gave quests. Among the visitors were such famous personalities as, for example, Harrison Jones. Quests were related to both open locations and raid bosses;
- Follower items could be leveled up to 675;
- there are new missions for followers related to professions, including archeology, as well as new raid missions for followers related to the Blackrock Foundry;
- the interface of missions of followers has changed;
- a new vendor that sold books to retrain users;
- one more vendor began to randomly spawn in the garrison. We are talking about a merchant associated with a certain type of craft. This comrade not only sold new recipes, but also exchanged raw materials for Primal Spirit. This slightly messed up the economy of the game and made the game in the market more interesting;
- changes also affected the buildings of the garrison;
- a new level of difficulty for invading the garrison has appeared - platinum;
- music box - if desired, you could get a device that would play you tunes found in Draenor.
- the legendary quest chain was continued and, as an intermediate reward, we were given a truly legendary follower - Garon (the players especially remembered the final quest in this chain).
Actually, that's all. If we summarize all the innovations, then we have two main aspects that the patch was aimed at. The first is to diversify the garrison. With the naked eye, it was clear that this mechanic had exhausted itself a couple of months after the release. It was necessary to give the players new opportunities and improve what prevented them from playing. Secondly, there was an attempt to fix the craft, which was, without exaggeration, killed, but it was worth pulling it up to the realities of the LCCG.
In general, in the first six months, everything was quite good, especially since it was thought that this addition would not last long. In particular, this was indicated by the fact that only two raid shooting ranges were promised. There has never been a single expansion that had only two shooting ranges. In addition, I still believed that the close ones would keep their promise and would give content more often, and make global additions faster.
Patch 6.2 Fury of Hellfire
The patch turned out to be large and, traditionally, designed for all categories of players. The center of activity has shifted to the Tanaan Jungle, a location that has been closed since release, except for a small quest chain at the start. The Tanaan Jungle was essentially a full-fledged location, comparable in size to other Draenor locations. In addition to the dailies, a lot of rare creatures settled here, all sorts of treasures could be found under the bushes, and in the very center there was a fortress where the forces of evil were hiding.
It also housed two strongholds for the Horde and the Alliance, from which players raided the surrounding area in order to undermine the power of the Iron Horde. True, this power was already undermined in the order - Gul'dan and Killrog remained alive among the leaders, and Grommash was overthrown and captured. The Burning Legion was now in complete control of the Iron Horde and was preparing for another invasion of Azeroth. Hellfire Citadel became the main focus of the Legion and Horde forces. There were thirteen bosses waiting for players in the Citadel, including Killrog, Theron Gorefiend, Mannoroth and, of course, Archimonde. What else did patch 6.2 bring?
The garrison received additional buildings - the harbor and ships became available to the players. We build a ship, equip it and send it on a campaign. Unlike garrison missions, sailors had to be paid not with garrison resources, but with a new currency - oil. In general, the essence was the same, except that the ships could be sunk by the enemy in the course of the mission, and then they had to be built and upgraded again. The addition turned out to be pleasant, but cosmetic.
More dramatic changes have affected such a format as instances for five people. In patch 6.2, two new types have already been introduced - Mythic dungeons for WoD instances and a time travel mode for 5ppl of old content. In Mythic instances, the difficulty and level of loot dropped from bosses has increased. 685th items fell from normal ones, and 700th items fell from flippers with some chance. "Time Travel" was an old instance of previous expansions, in which the level and body kit of the character was scaled to the level of the instance. Time Travel became an event when instances were opened in some of the weeks, say from the Wrath of the Lich King add-on. The very idea of traveling was announced a long time ago and, in principle, turned out to be quite successful. The dungeons were just as fun as they used to be when they were relevant.
Bonus events. Every week, players were waiting for bonus events that gave a significant increase to the Apexis Crystals and other in-game currency received for completing tasks.
Legendary chain. In patch 6.2, the legendary chain was continued. Completion rewarded players with a level 735 ring that could be upgraded further. In order to do this, a certain gizmo was knocked out of Archimonde in normal or heroic mode, which, when used, increased the level of the item by several points.
Flying over Draenor. The topic, without exaggeration, was scandalous. At first, the developers said that there would be flights. Then they said that there would be no flights. There was a noise. Flights were still announced, but in order to take to the air, it was necessary to complete a bunch of all sorts of achievements. The list of good deeds for the achievement "Pioneer of Draenor" was: open all the locations of the continent, find 100 treasures, upgrade the reputation with three factions to Revered, complete all the quests for the Loremaster of Draenor and a rather long list of dailies. In general, it was necessary to sweat.
In general, the patch turned out to be good and quite voluminous, with good innovations such as new 5ppl formats. Everything would be fine, but the old problem again played its role - the pace of release of patches. Why such a tradition has developed is hard to say, one can only guess, but for the fourth addition, the last content patch has been on live servers for more than a year. Yes, of course, there were some changes, for example, they began to give a mount elk for killing Archimonde, and things can be upgraded again for valor. But the tradition remained unshakable. The first half of the new expansion is characterized by a rather cheerful release of patches, then the last one comes and the situation freezes for a year.
Actually, if we talk about patch 6.2, then that's it. Now let's sum up.
Warlords of Draenor: Results
Let's start with dry numbers. In early August 2015, Blizzard published a report for the second quarter. It announced the number of active WoW subscribers at the end of the period - 5.6 million people. Thus, Warlords of Draenor set a record for the rate of subscriber decline. No other expansion has seen such a drastic decline. Probably frustrated, Blizzard said that they would no longer publish figures regarding the number of subscribers, since they have other ways to measure effectiveness. The motivation is clear - why once again demoralize the audience? In addition, as the experience of other MMO projects shows, even having several hundred thousand subscribers provide an acceptable level of income.
Why did it happen the way it did? I have already written about this more than once, but it will not be superfluous to repeat. The main problem of World of Warcraft is that the conceptual project has not changed for many years. This applies to both the character development system and the main content formats. From year to year, players complete quests, go through dungeons and then farm raids or grind for titles, mounts and pets until they are blue in the face. Fake whistles like battle pets don't bring drastic changes to this scheme, they can distract the players for a while, but in no way affect the main thing - the character development system and the realization of its potential in the game world.
What else played a minus? In my opinion the following:
- garrison, as an attempt to create a new plane of character development on the cap failed. Firstly, the garrison and followers were pumped over in a couple of months. Secondly, the variety of layouts of the garrison was very modest. All this led to the fact that interest in pumping was exhausted rather quickly.
- simplification of the characteristics of the character. The decision to remove the reforging, sockets from the body kit and reduce the possibility of chanting to a minimum was fundamentally wrong. Yes, probably, for some players, the approach “knocked out the clothes, put on, ran on” is quite acceptable. But the Masha doll dress up game has always been one of the cornerstones of WoW. Having returned with loot from the raid, we played a mini-game, combining various items and changing their characteristics. It was interesting and made me tense a little.
- almost completely killed such an aspect of the game as crafts. This was partly due to changes in the characteristics of the character, partly due to changes in the craft itself. This aspect of the game was interesting even at the end of the expansions, not to mention the periods after the release. In WoD, craft has again been simplified to disgrace, reducing interest to a minimum. It's easier to farm several raids with three highlevels than to produce something. I generally keep quiet about collective professions - the garrison negated the need to have them on the character.
- grinding and farming is still the mainstay. We look at the same "time travel". Again badges, and again things for these badges. Do you want to stop the 100th cognac in your collection? 5000 badges and brandy is yours, farm for health.
Actually, this is quite enough to accept a simple fact: Warlords of Draenor turned out to be another failed addition. The innovations of Mists of Pandaria were able to seriously slow down the fall in the number of subscribers. Warlords of Draenor with its crooked concepts, simplification of everything and everything, awkward attempt to play on nostalgia led to the current state of affairs.
Two months later, a new chapter opens in the history of the game and the entire franchise - the Burning Legion wants to destroy Azeroth again, and we don't want it again. The World of Warcraft: Legion expansion is a wild card that Blizzard has decided to play in light of the serious drop in popularity. Another game of nostalgia? About the further fate of the game and the entire franchise - in the next posting.
If you take a closer look at the screen of those times, you will see similar characters of small green orcs and fat men that everyone liked so much, even castles and turrets from that old strategy migrated to the new modern WoW game. Particularly impressive is the design style of the game, the highly artistic execution of the inserts and the overall game engine. Something not everyone can boast of.
After nine years, the Blizzard-branded PC game is finally out - the original: (“World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade”) on a CD of just 596.3Mb. The release date of the game in Russia is officially considered: November 22. 2004.
So the era of MMORPG came - Blizzard showed everyone how real role-playing games should look like, if you play the WoW game, you fall in love with it literally from the first steps. Many other companies wanted to replicate the World of Warcraft game and create something similar, but I will honestly say that any new copy is much worse than the original. You can copy the style of the RPG genre, but the game itself cannot be, it is simply unique. The territory of the three-dimensional virtual world of WoW is hundreds of kilometers long, which you will not be able to get around with your character in one day, even on the fastest horse.
In the very first version of the game, you could develop your character by pumping experience up to level 60. But the game doesn't end there, Blizzard is constantly encouraging players by continuing to develop game history, patches continue to be released, new fixes and additions, new versions of the game appear, the territory of the World of Warcraft is constantly growing.
Now the most popular version on pirate free servers is World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
The release of this version in Russia falls on (Date: September 5, 2008) The game has gotten a lot fatter and now weighs more than 17 gigabytes after installation. Now again you can download the character right up to 80 lvl, there are new epic things and dungeons with new bloodthirsty bosses. Unlike previous versions, here, to go to the “Bossa” in the “inst” - dungeon, it is no longer necessary to recruit a large group of 25-50 people as it was before, five is enough, a tank, a healer and several damage dealers. The father-in-law has become much more interesting, new locations of the so-called BGs (translated as a territory for running) have also appeared - fighting for the flag between the Alliance and the Horde.
First of all, I want to note that the World of Warcraft game has gained its popularity mainly due to pirated servers, game emulators, where everyone can play for free, unlike the official game server “http://eu.blizzard.com/ru-ru /”, where you can download for free by playing only up to level 20. That estate, of course, cannot be compared with the original wow and pirated emulators, which have a huge bunch of flaws, but okay with bugs in the game and non-working tasks - of course you can still exist somehow, but what infuriates you the most is just a huge number of cheaters with which there are absolutely not fun to play. Of course, the administration is trying to catch their WoW, but even the bans of such players do not help. Sometimes it happens that baga-uzers rush around the game right in the impudent, they even fly over the admin's head. But it's really not that bad, World of Warcraft arcade is fun, playable, just awesome.
All players of especially high levels are so important, so busy that sometimes I can even just ignore you. What are they doing there, you ask? Yes, at first glance it seems that they are just killing time, in fact they are busy pumping their professions in a role-playing game, and some even get a kind of business when they sell their products at a local store - auction, basically all the people are often in one city in “Storm City” is the so-called main city, it is here at the bank that meetings between players take place, who make deals for the sale and exchange of unique RPG magic items.
When your hero reaches level 80 for a long time and successfully, it would seem that it is useless to play further, but no, then the real game begins. Once you hit level 80, it's really only just beginning: Now you can equip your hero with the best items, knocked out from the most impregnable "dungeon" dungeons. You can earn “honer” experience that is given in fights on the run, for this experience you can buy epic PVP enhanced items in World of Warcraft and that's not all.
For someone else, special PVP are available: Arenas for 2x2 and 3x3 players, that is, you have to pick up such a pair as friends in order to easily go through all the arenas. And successfully accumulate arena points, for which you can also purchase equipment for your hero, for example: weapons, shields or armored armor. The type of equipment of course depends on the class of your hero, armor is usually worn only by “Paladin” and “Warrior”, and the rest of the heroes wear from rags to leather and chain mail.
Short description:
A game World of Warcraft (WoW)) is the most outstanding online project. Under its banners, it has gathered the largest group of fans, more than 11 million people around the world. Her third addition Wrath of the Lich King) became the fastest-selling game in the history of computer games.
The game is unparalleled for several reasons: firstly, its creators are famous Blizzard who bring their games to perfection; secondly, the game has a huge prehistory, because it was not created from scratch, but is a logical continuation of the WarCrfat world, which was released back in 1994; thirdly, it is constantly developing, expanding, improving. It is thanks to constant development, striving for the perfect balance of power and a polished plot full of all sorts of events that World of Warcraft has gained such popularity.
The game takes place 4 years after the events of [b]WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos. Azeroth is gradually recovering and gaining strength after devastating wars. However, a new threat looms over the world, which the players of the World of Warcraft will have to face, uniting in alliances and acting together against a common danger.
There are two factions in the game: alliance and horde. Each of the factions consists of several races. You have to choose a faction and race, as well as a character class that you will play. It can be a hunter, or a paladin, or a druid... it's up to you. Entering the world, get ready to complete a huge number of quests, fight against monsters and players of the opposite faction. In addition to the main storyline, you will come across mini-stories that are concisely inscribed in the general outline and complement the gameplay. A variety of armor, all kinds of weapons, mounts, companions, resources for creating new things, quest items, many large locations, professions that will expand the capabilities of your character, PvP on arenas and battlefields - all this awaits you in World of Warcraft.
Your opinion:
So, I will try in order.
World. The game world is amazing. Impressive is its vastness, impressive locations that are not similar to each other, but at the same time harmoniously fit together without causing dissonance. Locations are inhabited by the corresponding monsters, which may be specific to this area, although there are some that can be found in other areas. In general, the saturation with monsters is balanced - there are not many and not few of them, exactly as many as necessary (ex, it turned out in verse, cool).
NPC. The computer characters are well done. It is felt that everyone has their own character (well, not everyone individually, mostly the key ones). A well-written text of tasks pleases the eye and consciousness. I am also glad that the NPCs do not stand like idols, but walk around the location, do something, from time to time (in some regions) beat off the onslaught of some kind of enemy, monster. Thanks to this, you do not feel like an actor among the soulless scenery, but feel like a part of a living society.
Characters. Characters in World of Warcraft (WoW) excellent. The pronounced features of a particular race make them individuals, and not clones of each other. Yes, in fairness, it is worth noting that within a certain race, the set of available appearance modifications is stingy ... but given the total number of races, the feeling of an "attack of the clones" does not even come close to us, everything is fine.
Tasks. Uuuu ... there are a huge number of quests in the game. All of them are thought out, concise, and fit well into the general outline of the world. There is no feeling (as in some games) that this or that quest is out of place, that it is like an incomprehensible stump of something, lying on the road, taken from nowhere and serving for who knows what. It is a pleasure to do such quests.
The plot of the game as a whole. In short: awesome. WoW is now experiencing the advent of the third global addition, which will bring a new storyline to the game. Alas, due to the peculiarities of the changes, those initial adventures that have been available since the opening of the servers will no longer be available to us ... this is sad of course ... but at the same time, new adventures fascinate the mind .. I want to play, and how!
Now for the more technical aspects. Graphic arts. Perhaps the most controversial and controversial moment in the world of WoW. Some say that the graphics are shit, others say that the graphics are excellent. On the technical side, everything is in order with WoW graphics, another point is the specifics of its style, a logical continuation of the style war craft(remember the third part). When you play in such a world, you have a precise and absolute sense of that. that this is a game, that this is a magical, fantasy world - and that's good. Personally, I do not understand those who strive for photorealism in this genre. For what? a game should be a game...
Control. Keyboard and mouse control is a joyful field of click-and-drop games (where characters move to a point on the terrain that you select with your mouse, LineAge 2 for example).
