Oh Boy, Oh Boy: WOW’s Next Release Goes Back to Their Roots

Header image courtesy Blizzard Entertainment.

Note: this article was also published on SciFi4Me.com.

Blizzard announced that their next expansion for World of Warcraft, “Warlords of Draenor”, will launch on November 13, 2014.

During the event, which also showed the opening cinematic for the expansion, CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime said that the expansion is partially a way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans game. (Yes – it came out in 1994 – and yes, that’s 20 years ago.)

In fact, one of the new aspects of what will be the fifth expansion to World of Warcraft will be what made Orcs & Humans so memorable: the ability to build barracks, a garrison, and basically build up their side in preparation for a brand new dynamic PvP zone. This PvP zone will include special artifact fragments for you or your team, as well as the ability to loot up to half of your opponent’s Ashran fragments, according to Brian Holinka, senior game designer, in a Q&A alongside lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas, with Chris Watters of GameSpot.

The new expansion is primarily for characters of level 90, and increases the level cap to 100, but Hazzikostas acknowledged that, “every time there’s a new expansion, there’s a way for everyone to dive back in.”

The event then premiered the first episode in a new animated online series, Lords of War, which senior VP of story and franchise Chris Metzen said will set up the expansion for what’s to come, and involves characters central to the expansion’s storyline. There will be four more episodes debuting over the next few weeks, and will affect the story in the game.

Following the episode was the showing of the opening cinematic, which acknowledged the story time traveling back 35 years ago. It then revealed that there will be new character models as well as showing details of the barracks and garrisons.

Warlords of Draenor is available for pre-purchase at www.warlords.com, and those who pre-purchase either the digital standard ($49.99) or digital deluxe ($69.99) will be given the ability to boost one character to level 90. There will, of course, also be a retail-exclusive collector’s edition of the game, retailing at $89.99, and will include the digital bonus items, a full-color hardcover art book, a behind-the-scenes DVD set, a CD soundtrack, and a mouse pad.

The full livestream of the event, as well as the cinematic and the first episode of Lords of War, are all available to view on www.worldofwarcraft.com.