World of Warcraft.
A game I’m sure many have played, if not at least heard of. Celebrating its 9th anniversary last month, this behemoth of the MMO world continues on with millions of subscribers, albeit less than in previous years. This is by all means not a bad thing, as although it’s not good to lose subscribers, Warcraft can afford to and still be extremely profitable.
The community saw the return of BlizzCon to Anaheim in November, and with it the announcement of the fifth expansion – Warlords of Draenor. Set in an alternate timeline, the now ex-ruler of the Horde faction escapes through a portal to go back in time and prevent history from occurring as the players currently know it. It’s our job to go in after him, and ensure this alternate timeline doesn’t merge with the current one.
At first players were understandably a little confused, wondering if everything they’d done in-game up to this point was going to be erased story wise, but this isn’t the case. This is just a divergence, with our current heroes that go back to fix it. If we succeed, our world is safe, and can continue on in (relative) peace.
More importantly, this is Blizzard’s first time in five years taking us to a land outside of Azeroth, the last time being the shattered remains of Outland back in The Burning Crusade. The benefit is that it’s giving us a fresh look at historic events that took place in the Warcraft universe, while making it new and exciting, hopefully reinvigorating the slightly stagnating world within which we play. Mists of Pandaria, a controversial expansion that became perceived as childish and immature, surprised the players with its rich and engaging content, vibrant environments and beautiful soundtrack.
Player Housing is finally making an appearance in some form with the addition of Garrisons – a keep that the player owns that can be populated with services such as a Smithy, Trading Post, Stable, and so on. Buildings can be upgraded through multiple levels, and some can even be specialized (though as to what that achieves is yet unknown). Followers are also being added, with the player given access to command them to do quests, scenarios, dungeons and raids. These tasks reward the player with loot, and take varying amounts of time along with varying amounts of risk. This new feature may serve to anchor more to the game world, with more personal character advancement being added that doesn’t entirely have an effect on the overall balance that persists.
Warlords of Draenor must not only one-up the legacy of The Burning Crusade, but also the future competitors that are approaching, namely Wildstar and Everquest Next.
What does this mean for new players though? With the timeline as it is currently, it’s awfully inconsistent. The third expansion – Cataclysm – revamped the base game and leveling experience for levels 1-60, redoing every zone, all the text, and ‘updating’ the game with the events that have transpired since its launch. Unfortunately, this means new players will journey through the new zones, learn about how the world is right now, then go back in time when journeying to Outlands, and then Northrend. Thankfully we rejoin the current timeline for the higher-level portion of Cataclysm, and then finally onwards to Pandaria where the story currently sits.
Draenor being added serves only to confuse those not well versed in lore, and since external reading is all but required to fully understand if you join now, it’s reasonable for there to be a level of disconnect be left wondering why you should care. Hopefully, Blizzard both takes this into consideration and executes it with care, providing information through the content they’re developing for the next expansion to help players find a reason to fight forward in the past to save the future.
Taking a brief look elsewhere, Wildstar appears to encapsulate its own comical charm and take on MMOs, with a unique sense of humor portrayed through what they’ve revealed so far, and a heavily stylised art style. Featuring more action combat rather than target based like World of Warcraft, as well as an extensive housing system from the get go, it very well may poach some of the more tentative subscribers that long for something similar, yet different.
Everquest Next on the other hand, is in my opinion, the amalgamation of various dynamic elements present in online games over the past 6 years or so, further refined and then put together. Deformable terrain, a layered game world, open-ended class system and action combat are just some of the features it boasts. Sony Online Entertainment, the developers, are releasing periodic updates to keep fans and press in the loop with what’s going on after keeping it in the dark for so long. Everquest Next: Landmark, a spinoff world building game, is set to be released in the first half of 2014 allowing players to craft to their hearts content in a sandbox building game, with the designs that best fit criteria for Everquest Next being chosen to be added in.
I’m very much looking forward to what 2014 will bring for online games, whether it be new expansions for current games, or new games entirely. The market has become saturated over the past few years, and hopefully soon we’ll see the rise of new champions that have succeeded in rising above the rest.