What is the latest version of VOV. A Brief History of World of Warcraft. Mists of Pandaria release

Declamer:
This material outlines the history of the MMO game World of Warcraft.
You can find the history of the Warcraft universe, or more precisely, 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 a top 10 best games first decade of the 21st century. World of Warcraft took first place in this ranking.

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 became 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 repeat its success. And offline games on the PC platform received a boost and became more popular. Its impact on the industry, gamers, and even non-gaming culture has been profound, albeit controversial. It is played not only by ordinary gamers, but also by politicians, cultural figures, sports stars and pop stars. People meet in Azeroth and marry in real world. Players draw pictures, mount machinima, write fan fiction and cosplay, and maintain resources and blogs. For several million people this game has become more than a game.

World of Warcraft is celebrating its tenth anniversary. For game project it's a lot. Some MMO projects that were considered “WoW killers” have already collapsed. Despite the fact that the subscriber base has been slowly drying out 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 passed through World of Warcraft.

What were those fourteen years like? Below is a brief history of the game, which contains 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 became one of the best additions to the game.

So - let's go.

Development stage, 1999-2004

We are unlikely to know when exactly the development of the game began. Although this screen shows that development was already underway 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, the promising genre certainly interested Blizzard.

The game was announced on September 2, 2001. The big boss from Blizzard, Bill Ropper, flew to London for the ECTS exhibition to, among other things, announce the company's new project. By that time, Blizzard had already become a major league player, a hit company. RTS Warcraft, Diablo1/2, Starcraft - these games became cornerstones in their genres and the company was looked upon 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 reaction was mixed. At the time, MMOs were a niche genre. Some have wondered whether the developers understand what they are getting into? Judging by the first months after the launch of the game, they understood it poorly. Nevertheless, we got involved. This is how WoW appeared before the eyes of a slightly dumbfounded public.

Time passed, the team uploaded screenshots and videos, promised when it was done, and quietly did the job. In April 2002, the team replenished its ranks with hardcore members from Everquest. Rob Pardo, Alex Afrasiabi, Jeff Kaplan - all of them were experienced MMO players. The move was correct and laid the foundations for the success of the game in the initial period. In principle, we can talk a lot 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 playing areas already existed, but those that were designed for levels above 15 were empty.

How much we have done in 9 months!

During this time it was done great job. For example, not all classes were present in the game yet: there were no hunters and druids, and robbers were heavily reworked. Consider that three classes had to be created from scratch. In addition, not all major gaming systems were ready: combat system although it was present, it had to be completely reworked in the last 9 months. The game mechanics and performance characteristics have been completely changed. Much of what makes the game spirit - how dodging and parrying works - 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 post office, no talents, no battlefields, no honor points. When I joined the department, it was planned to develop a PvP system, but we quickly realized that this would have to wait. Based on feedback from players who participated in internal alpha and beta testing, 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 a matter of external differences, but rather a gameplay that was identical for everyone: the experience of passing was the same for everyone...”

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft release

The game was released on November 21, 2004 in the USA. The game took several months to reach European users, and only in February 2005 the first European servers opened.

So what was WoW 1.1.x like? Two continents, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Maximum level— 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... It's probably easier to say what was not in the release, what is now taken for granted. There were no summoning stones near the instances; we had to walk to the entrances on our own two feet. Moreover, there was not even a group search channel. Auction houses were only located in Ironforge and Ogri. There were no guild banks. The griffins flew only to the nearest station, where the player dismounted and selected the desired route point. And so again and again. We only dreamed of personal flying mounts. There were no battlefields or 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 no paladins for the Horde. There were no daily quests.

The list will be long, but I think you’ve got a rough idea of ​​“vanilla,” which we started playing almost ten years ago. What happened next?

Patch 1.2.0 “Mysterious of Maraudon”

Release (US): December 14, 2004
The first vanilla content patch that added the 5ppl Maradon instance in the Wasteland to the game. Here, in the massive caves, lives Princess Teredras and the first son of Cenarius, Zaetar, who deviated from the path of the Guardian 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 family of centaurs and ruled the caves of Maradona for many centuries.

Designed for players level 40-49, Maradona was typical of those times - massive, with a lot of trash and a decent number of bosses. Even in nerfed form on him complete walkthrough it took three hours. True, it’s worth giving credit to the developers - the instance turned out great.

Patch 1.3.0 “Ruins of Dire Maul”

Release (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. Night Elves lived in it. Built many centuries ago, the city of Eldre'Thalas reliably protected the secrets of Queen Azshara. The city was destroyed during the Great Schism, but even its ruins are amazing. Its three wings are inhabited by many different types of creatures, including Highborne ghosts, satyrs, and ogres. The remnants of the Night Elf inhabitants - members of the Shen'dralar sect - have also survived. The instance was designed for players level 55-60.

Other major innovations:

• the first outdoor bosses, killing which required the efforts of a large group of players. So Azuregos appeared in Azshara, and Lord Kazzak appeared in the Blasted Lands;
• Meeting Stone, which was supposed to help players find suitable party members; with their help it is not yet possible to summon (summon to an instance) other members of the group;
• A limit on the number of players has been introduced for instances:

1. Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair - 40 people;
2. Black Mountain Peak - 15 people;
3. Forgotten City - 5 people;
4. The remaining instances are 10 people;

Patch 1.4.0. "Call to War"

Release (US): April 8, 2005
The main innovation of the patch is a 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. "Battlegrounds"

Another excerpt from an interview with Tom Chilton:

"- Last question. You've been working on this game for 6 years now. What would you say is your most memorable moment?
- It’s difficult to single out one such moment. The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, the release of new games. Output World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. As for updates, I remember the appearance of battlefields - I still remember the first day of their existence. Before that, PvP battles were completely ill-conceived and unsystematic, almost meaningless: no rewards for victories and no sense of satisfaction, except moral: like, ha, how did I like him!.. And compare with the first battle in Alterac Valley or Warsong Gulch, when you you fight for real, and then you 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 the Black Wing Lair" (Assult of Balckwing Lair)

The content patch brought new raids to Blackrock 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 Black Mountain, equal in scale to Ragnaros and who is in constant war with him.

In addition, patch 1.6.0 brought the Dark Moon Fair and Battlemasters to the game, which made it possible to queue up on the battlefield in any city, rather than run to the portal that leads there.

This is what vanilla WoW was like in the first months of its existence in terms of content. Not bad, let's say. There was a lot of content, but progress was slow. The average casual player crawled to the cap for several months. For hardcore players, raids on forty bodies were still a challenge, and two clothes from the boss also did not particularly contribute to getting dressed quickly, so the cries of “give me more content!!! 11” were not heard so often.

But from an organizational point of view, the game stalled in all respects. As mentioned above, the Blizzards had little understanding of what they were getting into. The demand for boxes with the game in the first months was, frankly, frantic. At times, the supply of these boxes even had to be cut back, because in addition to the boxes, servers were 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 of ​​what the so-called “casual” wants to get at the advanced levels of the game.
- Back then, we didn’t even hear about “casual” games in online games.
- That's it.
- And when did this approach take shape?
- I think during the time 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 who also wanted to master the final content, so they endlessly went through the Upper Black Mountain and could not advance anywhere else - further development they were ordered. Then we started dividing the updates into those that would open new dungeons for small guilds, and those that would add 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-person raid instance in WoW. The instance was the first step taken by the blizzards towards the “casual” and filled the gap between UBRS ( Top part Blackrock Mountain), Scholomance, Stratholme and a massive Molten Core at 40. Zul'Gurub was a relatively small raid - six mandatory and four optional bosses. In it, novice raiders not only got dressed, but also acquired 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:

• In addition to Warsong Gulch and Alterac, another battlefield is being added - 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;
• Now, before purchasing an item, you can see how it will look on your character.

Patch 1.8.0 “Dragons of Nightmare”

Release (US): October 10, 2005
Emerald Dream. The first time he was mentioned was in Warcraft III. After the War of the Ancients, Malfurion retired there with the druids and was called back by Tyrande to resist the invasion of the Burning Legion.

Not much is known about him in this space. The Emerald Dream is the “reference” version of Azeroth created by the Titans. Pristine, untouched by intelligent activity, wars and disasters. This is how the world was at the dawn of time. Then trolls, tauren, elves and other races appeared. Sargeras decided to crush the planet under himself and after the battle with the Burning Legion, the united Kalimdor split into several parts. Then other intelligent creatures 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 on Wikipedia. Malfurion says that the Dream is multi-layered and there are levels in it - unfinished parts of the world. The Titans made some sketches that didn’t go into action, but it was a shame to throw them in the trash. Isn’t the Emerald Dream some kind of digital copy of Azeroth, and the “unfinished 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.

During the development of the original game, it was planned that the Emerald Dream would become the endgame 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. In any case, the appearance of four Dragons from Ysera's flock was considered as a prologue to the storyline of the Emerald Dream. Lost mad and aggressive towards all living things, Dragons appeared near the Trees, with portals to the Emerald Dream. Before the release of the first expansion, we thought that this would be the main theme. Moreover, particularly curious players found a way to get into the Emerald Dream, which was contained in the game files. Only with the release of Cataclysm and Richard Knaack’s novel “Malfurion”, it became clear that Metzen’s comrades had put an end to the Emerald Dream.

However, Metzen still has one more epic theme left - the Ancient Gods and Titans, where he expanded his fantasy to the fullest already in patch 1.9.

Patch 1.9.0 “The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj”

After the War of the Ancients, one of the Titans' opponents, the Ancient 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. As conductors of his will, he chose primitive creatures, the Silithids, from which he bred the Qiraji race, endowing them with intelligence and will. The Qiraji built a fortress in the south of Silithus and began preparing for the conquest of Kalimdor and the coming of their lord 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 had made C’Thun’s task easier - now he could calmly prepare for the next war with the peoples of Azeroth.

Centuries passed and the heroes of Azeroth decided to open the Gate and give battle to the invaders...

The highlight of patch 1.9.0 was the massive raid zone, the entrance to which was located in the south of Silithus. Or rather, there were two raids. The first, Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, continued the "casualization" of raid content and accommodated 20 people. The second was developed for those who have already gone through fire, water and Molten Core and BWL copper pipes. Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, another 40-man raid. The final boss of the last raid was the Ancient God C'thun. Bosses in Ahn'Qiraj were more difficult than in previous instances.

But in order to get into the raid zone, you had to not only be equipped with latest fashion. The opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj was preceded by a large-scale The War Effort was 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 complete a difficult quest to restore the Scepter of Shifting Sands. Only top raid guilds could complete the quest. For example, one of the tasks required not only defeating Nefarian from BWL, but also doing it within 5 hours after the raiders talked to Valeastrasz.

Neither before nor since has such an event occurred in the game as the Opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Is it good or bad? The game really lacks events like this. Yes, the battle at the Gates of Wrath was well presented, but it was much more interesting to take part in a large-scale event yourself.

Patch 1.9 made significant changes to the game's economic system. The auction houses of the factions have been linked into a single entity. A neutral "black" market for goblins appeared, where factions could trade among themselves. The trading system took the form we know now.

For PvP fans, it has become possible to queue for all three battlefields at once.

The reset calendar for raid instances has undergone a major 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 every three days.

Patch 1.10.0 “Storms of Azeroth”

Release (US): March 28, 2006
This patch did not bring any new end-game content, but nevertheless, it introduced several very noteworthy aspects into the game. First, weather has finally appeared in the world of Azeroth. It would seem like a small thing, but still important and creates a certain atmosphere in the game.

Another change concerned flights. Previously, in order to move from point A to point D, we had to fly from A to B, dismount, get back on the griffin and select point C, at point C we were thrown off the griffin and we finally chose point D. Now imagine how much we struggled then to get from Tanaris to Winter Springs. In patch 1.10.0, the flight from A to D was non-stop.

For 60s, the patch included a useful thing. Now the experience they received for completing quests was not lost, 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 newly minted 60s, the Bleaks improved loot in instances for 5-10 people and introduced new Dungeon Sets 2. The second set was an upgrade over the first and could be obtained by completing quests in instances.

Patch 1.11.0 “Shadow of the Necropolis”

He was one of the members of the high council of magicians of the Kirin Tor, a powerful order of magicians and wizards. His colleagues did not share his passion for the mysteries of necromancy, but he wanted to know more. The Lich King, then still consisting of only Ner'zhul, recognized a promising cadre in the powerful mage. Kel'thuzad eventually found his way to Northrend, where he began to serve the King. Kel'thuzad was later killed by Arthas while he was finding out what happened to the residents of the town of Brill. When Arthas himself switched to dark side forces" Kel'thuzad, then resurrected him, forever desecrating the waters of Silvermoon. The place of his habitat (as well as the undead subordinates 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 hair-raising raid. The Pyramid of Naxxramas appeared in the sky above the burning Stratholme. “Original Naxxramas” or Naxx-40 became the most difficult to obtain instance of the “vanilla” era. To complete it, players were required in Tier 2-2.5, raid sets from Black Wing Lair and Ahn'Qiraj. It’s clear that not everyone was dressed like that.

It’s no wonder that Nax-40 turned out to be content that a tiny number of guilds were able to complete. According to some estimates, about one percent of all players were able to overcome it. Even back in the days of The Burning Crusade, a raid required 25-30 well-equipped players, and the Four Horsemen of Nax-40 was considered the hardest encounter in the game.

However, then not only Naxxramas, but also other necropolises appeared in Azeroth. During this World Event, fortresses flew all over Azeroth and spawned undead that players fought with.

Patch 1.12.0 “Drums of War”

The main innovation of this patch was the introduction of cross-realm battlefields. The BG gathered players from different servers and of course, much faster than it was when groups were formed from players of one server.

Let's summarize. Over the course of two years, the game developers have added a lot of content, 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 - at the beginning of 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 60 took a lot of time.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

The announcement of the first addition to WoW took place at Blizzcon 2005. The fact that the theme of the Burning Legion would be central was not a surprise, although the Emerald Dream was also considered. In the files, players found both Outland and the Emerald Dream. We settled on Outland and the Burning Legion. RTS Wacraft 3, a shock game from the Blizzard series, was dedicated to precisely this confrontation between the peoples of Azeroth and the army of Sargeras. It was 2007 and many of those who played Warcraft III Reign of Chaos, as well as the continuation of The Frozen Throne, remembered these stories. So from a marketing point of view, the move was correct.

What did The Burning Crusade bring to the gaming universe? Outland is the ruins of a world once called Draenor and destroyed by the magic of Ner’zhul, an orc shaman who became a conductor of the will of Sargeras. The world, once home to orcs and draenei exiles, has become a patchwork quilt of territories somehow clumped together. New zones and instances have appeared in the Old World. The Tower of Medivh, one of the most mysterious places in Azeroth, has become a raid instance.

Mysterious Caverns of Time have opened in Tanaris, giving access to the entire 5ppl group. In one instance we had to help Medivh, and in the other - Thrall. The caves really were a great find for the designers.

Lor TVS was experimental and, in some ways, provocative. Yes, in the Old World, the mysterious Tower of Medivh became available to everyone to visit, but still this part of the content remained traditional fantasy. But take the draenei. Humanoids with horns and hooves are associated with devils, evil creatures who run affairs in the underworld. Here the race of horned-hoofed animals took the side of the conditionally positive Alliance. True, to do this, Metzen had to rewrite a large chunk of the history of the world. The draenei were originally the eredar, a sinister race first defeated by Sargeras but then serving him after his fall. 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 main henchmen. Velen did not succumb to the promises of Sargeras and took part of the people literally into open space. They left their home planet and... became the draenei. The “cosmic” lore of TVS did not end there, but the “technocratic fantasy” of WoW deserves a separate discussion.

The matter was not limited to content. Levelcap increased to level 70. Two new races appeared in the game, in addition to the already mentioned draenei, the ranks of the Horde were replenished by blood elves. They did this because a significant part of the players refused to play Horde characters due to aesthetic reasons. At that time, the Horde did not have many attractive races. Orcs, tauren, Forsaken, trolls looked warlike, 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. While developing the addon, Blizzard made Outland without seams and glitches, so flying mounts finally appeared. Things now had sockets for precious stones, which in turn had to be made by someone - this is how jewelers appeared in Azeroth.

The concept of endgame has changed radically. Raids for 40 people are a thing of the past. Only large guilds could organize them, and hardcore ones could lead them to success. Raids of two formats were introduced - for 10 and 25 people. True, the system was not yet what it became in WotLK. Raids for ten people were Karazhan and Zul’Aman, introduced much later. Everything else was intended for tougher guys who were used to walking big company. But this was another step towards meeting the casuals.

Secondly, “heroic” versions of instances for five people appeared. They were worn in the 70th and, as veterans say, they were more difficult than the “heroics” of all other additions. 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, Lairs of Gruul and Magtheridon, Serpent Sanctuary, Tempest Fortress and Hyjal. Moreover, in order to get into the raid, you needed not just equipment, but also a key, which was given for completing the quest chain. Some quests could only be completed in a group. So, for example, to access Karazhan, the player went through the Dark Labyrinth, Arcatraz, the Steam Dungeon, and also something in the Caverns of Time. Then it’s more fun - they weren’t allowed into the Serpent Sanctuary without completing quests in the heroic version of the Prison, 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 an instance from the street just like that, even into a heroic 5ppl.

And now a little more detail about what actually happened in the period from January 2007 to 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 Strom”

• new talent trees and, accordingly, new talents;
• The group search interface has changed;
• a new PvP parameter appeared in items - “resilience”, which reduced the chance of being hit by an enemy’s critical hit and the amount of damage received; the honor system for PvP activities was radically changed. It was simply reset to zero. As a consolation, players were given the opportunity to wear over the head of their avatar the highest title, which was obtained during the process of farming honor;
• Arena. A new format of PvP battles has been introduced, in which players now have the opportunity to choose teams 2?2, 3?3 and 5?5.

Later, in November 2009, Rob Pardo admitted that the introduction of the Arena was a mistake.

“You also asked about the most serious mistake... if we talk about mistakes in game design, it is important to note that in fact, we never developed WoW as a platform for e-sports, but the desire to improve this part of the game was present, and there was consumer demand didn't 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 without taking into account the need for serious balance. We were just adding new things, so it's really difficult to work on balance now. It's impossible to even say for sure if WoW is a co-op pve game or if it focuses on PvP content. The balancing team is constantly changing something in the game system, the game in general is constantly changing, and a crowd of players who prefer pve look at all this and cannot understand why the class they preferred becomes different from time to time. We did not foresee how much work would have to be put into making game process at least a little more balanced. If I could 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 even if I didn’t do this, I would at least try to claim that this influence it does not matter. Now WoW is very confusing game and we are always trying to figure out what we have screwed up ourselves.”

However, the Arena became popular and this component of WoW became a separate game with its own tournaments, stars and prize pools.

Patch 2.0.3 “The Burning Crusade”

Another pre-TVS patch that corrected some bugs and started an event dedicated to the opening of the Dark Portal. Hordes of monsters poured out of the gates, and Lord Kazaak, who brought fear to the Blasted Lands, went to the other side, to Draenor, leaving his deputy Kruul.

Release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

The addition officially started on January 16, 2007. Dry numbers say that 2.4 million copies of the game were sold in 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 stores 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 laggy starting area. However, this did not bother true fans.

Patch 2.1 “Black Temple”

The add-on animation clearly hinted that Illidan would be the main villain of the add-on. Another good guy who went over to the “dark side of the force.” The story of Malfurion's twin brother is well known to those who played Warcraft III Reign of Chaos and its expansion. The Frozen Thorne. The brother, moreover, the twin brother of Malfurion, who could not stand the test of power and ultimately became a demon.

In TVS, he chose the place of the Black Temple, which was once Karabor, the temple of the draenei. The massive complex, which was both a fortress and a temple, changed hands several times. The orcs of Gul'dan drove out the draenei, settling in the Black Temple, but they were expelled from there by the Burning Legion. In the end, these were kicked out by Illidan.

The instance was positioned as the final one 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 at that time. True, given the complexity of the TVS content, few have reached it. If you believe the statistics from www.guildprogress.com, ~15% of guilds were able 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 can be farmed 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 to the game:

• Druids received a budget option for moving through the air - a “flying form” that could be learned by completing quests in the Settek Halls;
• The first dragon in the game, the Void Dragon, has become available to players. Now, having completed the chain of quests, you could start farming your reputation in order to eventually get one of the most beautiful flying mounts in the game. And even now, despite the fact that there are more flying dragons, “netzerdrakes” still remain popular among collectors;
• A new arena was introduced for pvpeers - in the ruins of Lordaeron.

It is interesting to compare the structure and order of input of end-game content in TBC and WotLK. In WotLK and subsequent expansions, shooting ranges were introduced sequentially, one by one. Every new patch This is a new raid range. TVS started with two shooting ranges (T4 and T5), and six months later they introduced T6. Six months after the start of the expansion, endgame existed in the game in its full spectrum.

Was this the right strategy? Perhaps for that time, yes, because raids were more difficult and the speed of development was far from the same as now. Even the "heroics" of Outland were quite complex content, more demanding than the "heroics" of other expansions. Except that the cataclysm “fives” were given 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 players mastered the content of T4 (Lairs of Gruul and Magtheridon). Some were ready to go there by the time the Black Temple came out, while others had not yet completed Karazhan. Previously introduced raids remained relevant until the release of the new addition precisely because they were complex and, in fact, it was only possible to dress in them. Such intermediate options, such as the “Zandalariks” of patch 4.1 or the “Champion’s Trial”, with a body kit equal to the “ten” level of Ulduar did not exist then. Except that in the most recent patch 2.4.0, badges were used to buy things equal in level to the raid kit.

On the other hand, the change in the system led to the fact that in later additions we had a situation where previous raids were “killed” by new ones. Thus, the luxurious Ulduar was ruined by the drab “Trial of the Crusader”. Throne of Thunder was luckier, but they could have released Siege in November and October and, I think, Throne would have continued to please by then.

Perhaps it was precisely because the content was difficult that in the fall of 2007, the developers released Zul’Aman, the fourth tier raid. A little illogical, but still. Obviously, a lot of small guilds were stuck in Karazhan and they also needed to be given some kind of entertainment. However, more on this a little later, let’s go in order.

Patch 2.2.0. "Voice Chat"

Release date: September 25, 2007
The patch introduced features into the game voice communication, as well as some changes to class balance. The benefits of real-time voice communication, especially in raiding or arena battles, are not worth describing. True, I personally have never used the voice chat function from Blizz. As far as I remember, it was always either TeamSpeak or the more popular “Ventrillo” in Russian-speaking latitudes 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 descended from trolls who mutated after living near the Well of Eternity. Troll cities, most of which are instanced zones, have also always turned out to be picturesque.

Patch 2.3.0 introduced another troll city into the game, 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 attune, which made life easier for casual players. True, one cannot say that the instance was passable. Even for groups in T5, the final bosses were challenging. The instance is also interesting because it was the first time the hardmode was tested, which rewarded players with special loot. Veterans remember what and why. The Amani War Bear was in the fourth bonus chest. But 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 know that 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 baerrsha who paid 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 gouged out. Afterwards he managed to escape, and for this he had to cut off his hand. Outraged that the Horde had accepted his sworn enemies the elves into their ranks, he and his tribe left the Horde. Hiding in Zul'Aman, Zul'Jin created a new army of trolls to deal with the Blood Elves.

What else is notable about patch 2.3.0? Firstly, it was this patch that introduced guild banks into the game. Secondly, leveling was nerfed. On the one hand, they reduced the amount of experience required for leveling up between 20 and 60 levels, on the other, 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 difficulty of elite mobs was reduced, now some of them could be taken down alone. This was one of the first global content nerfs.

To sum it up, patch 2.3.0 was a big step towards casual players.

Patch 2.4.0 “Fury of Sunwell”

Spring 2008. There were more than six months left until the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Hardcore guilds have been farming the Black Temple for several months now and are starting to get bored. In response to the expectations of the most advanced part of the gaming community, the Bleaks are releasing a furious instance for 25 people - “Sunwell Plateau”.

The Sunwell was founded by the High Elves using water that 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 spoiled energy.

As for the raid itself, it was tailored to a group of fighters in T6. Interestingly, it was here that the developers first used the content gating system. Since release, only three bosses were available, then the gates to the next ones opened. The first gate opened on April 8th, the second on the 29th, and the third on the 20th. In this way, Blizzard artificially reduced the pace of development of the instance. The main villain, Kil'Jaden, was pushed 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 just a few guilds.

Patch 2.4.0 pleased not only hardcore players. There was enough group content and solo content too. In the north of the Eastern Kingdoms, a whole island arose - Quel'Danas, on which the faction of the Shattered Sun, an alliance of Aldors and Seers, waged a siege of the Sunwell. Players were invited to take part in this event by completing new daily quests, the number of which increased to 25. Phasing technology was first tested on Quel'Danas. As players completed daily tasks, new vendors opened up and sold all sorts of goodies for badges farmed in heroics.

In addition to the raid instance, a 5ppl instance has also opened - the Magisters' Terrace. It was notable not only for its plot and the new mount that dropped from the last boss. Notable was the boss himself - Prince Kael'thas, whom players had already killed in Tempest Fortress.

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 became cheaper 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 two weeks before the patch and bought my first ram at the old prices. And here - 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 little background. 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, who unknowingly created a Persian on such a realm, saw Russian speech in the channels and exclaimed “WTF??? Speak English!”, after which he was sent along the sexual-pedestrian route without any restrictions. In addition, a large number of “Russians” were found on Shadowmoon, not to mention the fact that a lot of people played on “pure” English-language servers. Bliz turned a blind eye to this, but in the end they decided to localize it 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 on the localized version or not. In July 2008, testing of Russian WoW began, and the localization release took place on August 6, 2008. Then the “great Russian transfer” began.

Initially, three servers were opened - “Pirate Bay”, “Azuregos” and “Ash Forest”. The transfer was accompanied by queues, glitches and similar troubles. It immediately became clear that three servers would not be enough. Over the course of several weeks, several more severas were introduced. They moved en masse, entire guilds. Despite all the controversy, it became clear to even the most stubborn that “fresh blood” and new recruits could only be obtained on “Russian” servers. As a result, the previously occupied Stonemaul, Warsong, Molten Core and Shadowmoon were completely empty. Those few foreigners who played there received a free transfer to other European servers. In the end, after the “Russians” left, the servers were closed. This was the first and last time the team did this in the entire history of the game.

However, the matter did not end there. In September, the neighbors offered a freebie - when converting a Euro account to a Ru account, you were given a month free game. The subscription fee on ru-servers was lower. The people fell for the freebie. 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 European servers.

Finally, it’s worth remembering some numbers. The Burning Crusade expansion, without exaggeration, 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 grew to over 11 million. There is no other way to call it success. Maybe that’s why many people call this addition the most successful.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Before the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, 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”, which in the original sounded like “children of Wrath”.

Technically, I started playing six months before WotLK came out. But in those days, leveling up was harder and I got to the endgame exactly two weeks before the release. I never found out what endgame is in TVS. Why, I didn’t even complete all the quests in Outland. So I consider myself one of the “children of the Lich.” Why am I writing about this? Then, so you can forgive me some bias, because WotLK for me is the best addition to WoW.

Let's move on to the events of that time.

Summer 2008. Hardcore players are mastering Sunwell, casuals are banging their heads on 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, and more and more information about innovations in the game is appearing from official sources.

Perhaps the most discussed topic of that period was the achievement system that the developers were going to introduce into the game. Yes, now the phrase “link achievement” is something that goes without saying. And then, six years ago, the concept of “complete the task - get ten points” in most cases caused the reaction “lol, is that all?” Well, as the locals would say, we will also give out titles and mounts. “And the epics?” - asked the community. No, go on raids for epics, answered the close ones. “Okay,” the community said and froze in anticipation.

For the raiders, the fate of Naxxramas became a hot topic of discussion. One of the heaviest raids in “vanilla” at the moment was attended by a tiny number of players. Even in the days of TVS, the instance required knowledge of tactics. And they continued to go there, not least for the legendary staff of Medivh - Atiesh. The developers made a decision that caused another wave of confusion - to remake Nax into formats relevant to WotLK. So Nax-40 became Nax-10/25. Atiesh and the T3 raid set were cut out of the game forever. Having flown from the Plaguelands to Northrend, Nax-40 turned from an impassable 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 contained included:

• achievement system;
• new profession - inscription;
• a barber shop where you could change your hairstyle;
• talent tree with the number of points increased to 51;
• The stat system has undergone a slight modernization.

Speaking of content, it is worth mentioning the completion of the construction of the port in Stormwind, from which a route to Northrend opened for the Alliance, as well as Naxxramas, which flew to the north. Following Naxx, Dalaran also flew to Northrend. He was destined for a neutral capital for the next two years.

For hardcore raiders, patch 3.0.2 remains in the memory for another reason. In it, all TBC raid encounters were subject to a global nerf. Not only their health was seriously reduced (by 30%), but also the amount of damage they dealt. Some difficulty fans viewed this as bad news, believing that the patch killed PvE in TBC. It wasn't just the over-the-top bosses who got it. The quest to access Onyxia's Lair has been removed. Those who were far from the endgame and were leveling up their characters were also given a relaxation. The amount of experience required to reach new levels has been reduced by 20%.

The user interface has undergone changes. First, the guild calendar appeared. Secondly, mounts and pets no longer take up space in bags and bank cells. A special bookmark was made for them in the character menu. Just like the keys, there is also a separate bookmark.

What else is 3.0.2 memorable for? Of course, a zombie invasion. Braiiiinnnnzzzz!!! This world event was similar to what already happened in patch 1.11 when Naxxramas was released, and consisted in the fact that flying necropolises appeared on Azeroth and were attacked by hordes of undead. Invasion of Zombies 2.0 was quite funny. Zombies could and should have been killed, and the shards that fell out of them could 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 (a non-scribe 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. Over the next couple of weeks, the capitals of the cities from time to time turned into cemeteries - those who liked to misbehave became kamikazes and blew themselves up in crowded places, preventing them from trading on auction, buying up from vendors, and handing in and taking quests. Overall, it was fun.

And shadows have also appeared in Azeroth.

Release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of The Lich King

Release date: November 13, 2008
Bearing in mind the lags at the start of TBC, when both factions were pouring into the Peninsula through the narrow neck of the Dark Portal, they made four entry points into Northrend, two per faction.

Northrend amazed with its landscapes, grandiose structures and northern lights. We must pay tribute to the work of the designers - they did their best. We made a lot of solo content in WotLK. Much more than was needed to level up a character in the range of 68-80. I remember that I received the 80th, and all the quests of Gundrak, Icecrown and Storm Peaks remained unfinished. And this was good, obviously, the developers took into account the fact that many gamers have not one, but at least a couple of characters, and leveling up in the same places will not please such players too much.

What was interesting was the introduction of so-called inherited items that could be sent to your characters. Their characteristics were tied to the character’s level, 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 kind of non-linearity and scale. In general, it’s normal; it took an average of an hour to complete such an instance for 80 people in patch 3.0.x. Another step towards the 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 WotLK starting raid content. At the start of WotLK there was one long Naxxramas and three short raids - Crypt of Archavon, Eye of Eternity and Obsidian Sanctum. The developers did not hide the fact that the first tier of WotLK raids would be simple, but hardcore raiders were unlikely to expect such a simplification. After all, at one time only the Four Horsemen in the original Naxxramas were killed for several weeks. And here we had three days, and we still had to upgrade the characters to the maximum level.

A few personal memories. Naxxramas was my first "actual" raid. I got there quite late, after the release of 3.1, but then, under the old emblem system, passing Nax was a mandatory step in the process of dressing a character for Ulduar. Our guild was more than casual, and we made the top ten without any problems. I won’t say that it was completely 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 clearing was not always uniform. Sometimes they reached Thaddius, sometimes they did not crawl across Razuvius. I think that for new raiders, Nax-10 has become a good training ground for beginners and casual raiders. It was there that one could gain experience playing in a large group and with bosses that were more difficult than in 5ppl “heroics”. From the point of view of bringing raiding to the masses, Blizzard did the right thing in principle.

But the hardcore fans were expecting something completely different. And this other thing 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 Nax. 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.

Double major. By paying 1000 gold, a player already at level 40 had the opportunity to switch between two talent layouts without running to the trainer every time.

This was especially convenient for hybrid classes, which needed to change the layout quite often. A built-in outfitter, which made it possible to quickly change the character’s body kit, was very usefully added to this innovation. The mounts began to float. And not only horses and sheep, but even engineer motorcycles. Previously, if the depth of a water obstacle 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 Vanguard opened the Argent Tournament, where both Horde and Alliance warriors could compete without lethal results. Either the builders let us down, or the supplies, but at the time of the opening of the Tournament, the main structure of the Arena was not ready. Those who then carried out the daily quests of the Tournament brought a lot of stones and wood to the two goblin superintendents so that the construction could be completed. At the Tournament, it became possible to fight without getting off mounts (though specific ones, not yours). Plus a bunch of dailies and goodies such as level 200 epics, again mounts and pets, which the most enterprising began to trade. Trading pets of the opposing faction through the use of a neutral auction was especially profitable. However, this place was supposed 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 was long awaited and which met these expectations. In it, Blizzard for the first time fully implemented the concept of hard modes (complicated modes). Let me remind you that the first hardmode was implemented in the Obsidian Sanctuary, where three minibosses came to Sartharion’s aid (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 those who liked wipe difficulties, more difficult battles were provided, for victories in which, of course, more serious rewards were given. The culmination of the hard modes was the fights with Mimiron and Yogg-Saron, the final boss (without the help of the Guardians) and the fight with Algalon the Observer. Naxom history did not repeat itself. Ensidia (the same TwentyFifthofNovember) was able to kill Algalon in the top ten only at the beginning of June 2009.

The culmination of the raid content was Hardmode, in which players fought Yogg-Saron without the help of the Guardians. Experts on the forums have calculated that in the current 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 had 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 done with a solid A+. There was everything here - from Freya's green gardens and the metro to Mimiron's workshop to huge open spaces with hundreds of hostile mobs. The lore of Ulduar deserves its own article and, according to some, is much more interesting than Icecrown Citadel. The encounters were also pleasing. Even a year after the release of the instance, a raid dressed in T10 was wiped on Yogg-Saron with one Guardian if they did not know the tactics. Zerking in overgear did not work.

Ulduar was a success from all points of view. In a good way, this should be the last WotLK raid. Still, if you look at it this way, then the Ancient God of Death Yogg-Saron is not some kind of Lich King. Larger figure. But Wrath of The Lich King is still the story of the Lich King, and no matter how great the Ancient God was, his storyline still turned out to be secondary.

And at the beginning of June, the developer announced a new raid instance, which was supposed to become the basis of content patch 3.2. The Trial of the Crusader was destined to play a fatal role in the fate of Ulduar.

People started talking about the fact that “WoW is not a cake” 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 argue until they are hoarse about when the grass was greener. Some say that WotLK was the expansion in which the blitz took a big step towards casuals and thus began to “kill the game.” Despite the relative simplicity of the updated Nax, the first half of WotLK was not casual, if only because of the far from simple hardmodes of Ulduar.

The watershed was patch 3.2.

Before 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 / Onyxia's Lair - Black Wing Lair - Ahn'Qiraj 40 - t; Naxxramas (original version). A player who received 60 today could hardly expect to end up in the Black Wing Lair even in a month. The same situation persisted throughout almost the entire TVS.

Before 3.2, a newly minted 80k had to first go to heroics, then to Nax, and only then could he count on a raid in Ulduar. A radical change to the emblem system in patch 3.2 meant that any player could equip the latest raid tier, and it was not at all necessary to go through all levels of the raid content. On the one hand it became the right decision, suitable for beginners who have just come to the game or for an alto leader rocking the third or fourth player.

On the other hand, 3.2 became a gravedigger for the content that was released before it. And if Naxxramas was no longer sorry, then Ulduar was just the opposite. Such an instance could remain relevant for at least nine to ten months. Fourteen bosses, interesting hardmodes, impressive design, powerful storyline. In 3.2, players received... However, read the details below.

Patch 3.2.0 “Call of Crusade”

Release date: 09/04/2009

For PvP fans, 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 infighting. But still, the main innovations were in the PvE aspect of the game.

One of the bombs that exploded in the community in June was the news that prices and the required level for purchasing riding skills had been reduced. Now they promised to sell the first mount for mere pennies already at level 20. The budget epic flyer was given at 60 and its speed increased to 150%, whereas previously it was taken at 70 and the speed was 60%. Life has once again been made easier for the players.

The news about the change in the emblem system made an even stronger impression. Now, every boss from 5ppl “heroics” to Ulduar-25 dropped Emblems of Conquest, for which vendors in Dalaran sold level 226 equipment (equivalent to Tier 8.5). Moreover, for completing a daily quest in “heroics” the player received two Emblems of Triumph, for which the entire Tier 9 starter kit was purchased. Naturally, all this caused a serious vine.

Two more points regarding PvE have changed dramatically. The first is the ability to extend the period for saving a copy of an instance by a week. For many guilds this was a great solution. Especially for casual and semi-hardcore guilds, who in one or two evenings managed to reach the Guardians and, perhaps, kill one of them. Now, instead of the annoying clearing of what they had been seeing for weeks, the cooldown was extended and it was possible to kill other bosses.

The last radical change concerned such a delicate item as loot. The ability to transfer items between raid members within two hours was a great innovation, especially if mistakes were made when “distributing elephants.” At the same time, this change gave impetus to such a segment in the WoW economy as the GDKP, where enterprising GMs sold loot from bosses for “very extra” money.

Construction in the Tournament area was completed and now the Vanguard Coliseum building 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 very modest decoration and a couple of legendary non-pissers in the stalls. Two instances were placed in the Colosseum at once - 5ppl and a raid for 10 and 25 persons, with two difficulty levels for each. However, the action took place in the same round room. Three bosses in 5ppl and five in the raid. No trash, except for the horse fight in the Challenge of the Champion. The loot that dropped in the normal version of the ICH was equivalent to what dropped in the old “heroics”, in the “heroics” - the drop in Ulduar-10. In the raid instance, the loot was higher in level than in the hardmodes of Ulduar.

The Colosseum has become a farming zone for players of all levels. Characters who have just upgraded to the 80th are guaranteed to quickly join the new 5ppl and, after running through the old “heroics”, gain badges. It was clear to the naked eye that they were dragging maximum amount players for the final raid instance - Icecrown Citadel.

Patch 3.2.2 “Return of Onyxia”

Release date: October 04, 2009
Onyxia's Lair, a raid instance for forty people, was one of the first to be introduced into the game together. On disk from collector's edition TVS has a lecture from Tigol about how they developed this boss. Towards the end of 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 by 80s.

Obviously, the developers were fed up with such mockery of the legendary encounter and they remade the raid to suit the realities of WotLK. Two versions for 10 and 25 people, slightly changed combat mechanics, new loot, among which only the helmet models remained old. A couple of weeks after the patch, Onyxia began to be killed by pugs. The instance became a good addition to the IR farming zone - the loot in them was the same. And also a mount dropped from Onyxia with a scanty chance.

The very fact that Bliz are reviving old content was perceived by some as an outrage against the classics, by others as a significant fact. Demands to update Old World raids were heard long before the announcement of the Cataclysm. All the same, these places were empty and were of interest to lovers of antiquities, achievements and legendary items. Be that as it may, the experiment turned out to be 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 ones in the lore of the Warcraft setting. The plot of Warcraft: Reign of Chaos and the sequel The Frozen Throne are tied to it. For many players, the second addition became a logical continuation of the main plot of the RTS Warcraft series. As some players said afterwards, 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’s comrades never 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 have become one of the most significant innovations. Before 3.3.0, gathering a company of five people into low- and mid-tier instances was a problem. Especially on servers with medium and low population density. It took an hour or two to get ready, then it took another twenty minutes to get to the instance, then someone dropped out of the group and everyone sat smoking bamboo, trying to find a replacement. In general, the matter was dreary. After 3.3.0 the situation has changed radically. Now there was no need to spam in trade or hang in the LFG to form a group. All that was left was to simply select an instance and press a button. The system assembled the group itself and, moreover, dropped everyone there automatically. And it threw back after the instance was completed.

Like any serious innovation, players received it ambiguously. Of course, many were happy that now they didn’t have to spend a lot of time searching for and assembling a group. On the other hand, sometimes the system “packed” groups in which there were both strong players and downright weak ones. All this gave rise to a lot of vines on the forums.

As for the 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 that were released in 3.0 -3.2. The playing public again remembered what it was like to wipe on trash. The battles turned out to be original, especially with the Lich King. This was the first boss where the fight consisted of running away from him, not killing him. The loot in the Halls was equal in quality to what dropped in the top 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 “raiding for the masses” concept. As in IR, the blizzards created two difficulty levels - “normal” and “heroic”, with the second being opened only after defeating the Lich King in the normal version. In principle, the normal difficulty level turned out to be within the capabilities of many casual guilds and 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 opened sequentially. Until January, only the first wing with four bosses was available. Then the pace accelerated and the hardcore players came to Leach himself in early February.

The killing of the Lich King is normally associated with a scandal in which the top guild Ensidia was seriously damaged. Let me remind you that Arthas was killed first in the top ten by Blood Legion. They killed cleanly, for which they received a well-deserved achievement. Kungen and his company were first in the top twenty, but a day later Ensidia was banned. They used a cheat with saronite bombs. Ban for three days, selected loot and canceled achievement.

Our guild “Exorsus” also took part in this race of progress. They were the first to kill Putricide, Lana'thel and Sindragosa in CLK10xm and completed the "Glory to the Icecrown Raider" achievement.

Some time after the discovery of hard modes and the killing of the Lich King in the “heroic” version, a zone buff was introduced, which increased the damage and amount of health inflicted by players. Every month five percent was realized and by summer the buff was 30%. In other words, the TsLK was nerfed into the trash. Lich’s first first kill in “heroic” was done by the Finnish team Paragon. True, they did this after the first 5% buff. Later, having farmed 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 WotLK era, the TsLK became something similar to the current OO. In order to lighten up the bored raiders a little, the developers have released a “raid filler” - the Ruby Sanctuary. Three mini-bosses and the dragon Halion were intended to scare the raiders a little. What can I say, one boss is like that, you need to master it for one CD, and then farm it until you are exhausted. Actually, patch 3.3.5 was significant not only for this.

It was in this patch that the Blizzards introduced Real ID, a feature with which you could communicate via battle.net with your friends who play other Blizzard games. As the name suggests - "real ID" - your real name was visible to your friends. No matter what alt you used to enter the game, your Real ID friends saw that it was you.

Well, okay, that’s all right. But when the developers announced that it would be possible to write on the forum only by logging in with a Real ID, perhaps the biggest vine in the history of the game arose. One of the blizzards decided to prove that everything is fine, it’s not scary to go online under your own name. A couple of hours later he was inundated with pizza, ordered by the good players to his home, after they had figured out his address, as well as all his personal details. After this, Blizzard refused to de-anonize players and closed the issue.

This is how WotLK ended. The addition that marked the peak of World of Warcraft's popularity. December 2010 was approaching and the release of the expansion was approaching, which turned out to be truly a cataclysm in all respects.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Cataclysm was the most anticipated addition to the game. In August 2009, at Blizzcon, a lot of things were said 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 lots and lots of raid and other content. We'll talk about what we got as a result later. For now, let’s talk about what preceded the most devastating catastrophe in Azeroth. Destructive in every sense.

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 of hunters were taken away and mana was replaced with concentration. Rotation had to be relearned. The others got it too. The evening after the release was remembered for a cheerful chat in which the grateful residents of Azeroth sent rays of goodness to the developers and threatened to cancel their subscription.

To these troubles were added minor inconveniences - plaster began to fall from the ceilings. Tremors were felt in all cities. In early November it became clear what was happening. An invasion of elementals began on Azeroth, awakened by Deathwing. It all started out quite fun, but somehow quickly fizzled out. It all came down to random running through the streets of the capitals and completing a simple chain. Those who took part in the event before the release of WotLK noted that then it was “ok”, but now it’s “not very good”. Players got used to the new class mechanics and received a “great feat” for closing portals. Everyone was waiting for the release.

Patch 4.0.3

Release date: November 16, 2010
The patch loaded all the new Cataclysm content that was supposed to become available after the release in December.

Patch 4.0.3a “The Shattering”

Release date: November 23, 2010
It was this patch that changed the Old World of Azeroth forever. Many locations in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor have been seriously changed. For example, the Barrens used to be one location, the Wasteland fully lived up to its 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 appeared. 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 December 6th to 7th. The servers went down at midnight European time. For the inhabitants of densely populated servers, the chances of getting back were close to zero. However, those who succeeded already in the morning “delighted” 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 “heroics”.

And this is where the “pain and suffering” began. The “fast bajrans” that fearless heroes were accustomed to in the second half of WotLK did not work. The “heroics” of “Cataclysm” required control, careful dismantling of packs, knowledge of tactics and your class. A serious vine began on the forums.

The raids were also hard. The tough fighters who knocked out the bosses of the Citadel with half a kick ran into problems. Moreover, it was not only the fins that set the heat. Many simply did not reach them, stumbling over the blind dragon Atramedes and the Council of the Reborn. Some managed to wipe on Magmar for a month. Yes, the hardcore fans were happy, but the rest of the public did not enjoy these difficulties.

The problem was further complicated by the fact that little content was made for leveling up to levels 80-85. Frail 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 auction and spent half of the game 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 the focus of the marketing campaign, did not live up to the developers' hopes. Yes, they passed it, lore lovers savored the new quests, critics complained that Outland is now completely incomprehensible, but it didn’t work. Because with inheritances and guild bonuses, leveling up turned into an easy walk.

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 the number of subscribers.

Patch 4.1 “Rise of Zandalari”

The announcement of this patch caused mixed reactions, which, given the mass exodus, were mostly negative. Traditionally, content patches contained full-fledged raids. 4.1 was one of the first patches in which there were no raids, but only 5ppl instances. Moreover, these were “creatively reworked” TVS raids - Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. Yes, these raids for twenty people have long attracted only lovers of antiquity. This mainly concerned Zul'Gurub, where the bosses dropped mounts - lizard and panther. Therefore, the reformatting was met with hostility.

After the release of the patch, the vine about the laziness of the blizzards was joined by cries about the excessive complexity of the new instances. Yes, that's exactly what happened. Firstly, even in the reduced form there were too many bosses for 5ppl. Over the last couple of expansions, players have become accustomed to compact instances. Added to this is the complexity of the “Zuls”. In the first CD, it took a group with an average level of play about two hours to complete. Groups gathered in LFD sometimes couldn’t get to the end at all, falling apart on intermediate bosses. Jin'do, the last boss of Zul'Gurub, gave cabbage soup to even guild groups. On the one hand, this 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.

Plotwise, patch 4.1 was out of line. The return of Deathwing, the invasion of 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 is belittling the importance of this tribe in the history of Azeroth, but it all looked like some kind of local conflict that was sewn onto the main plot, simply because it was necessary to revive old raids.

Patch 4.1 turned out to be controversial. “Zuls” turned out to be too difficult for the 5ppl format, but did not live up to traditional raids.
Summarize. The first months of “Cataclysm” were pleasing with its novelty, but already in the spring problems loomed ahead - people began to leave the game. The reworked Old World was not appreciated. The starting raids of Cataclysm turned out to be too difficult for the general public, accustomed to the nerfed Central Command. The developers did not provide alternative entertainment in the endgame. Archeology rightfully received the title of the most tedious profession, which, moreover, did not provide any tangible profit. The result was a massive exodus of players. It was in the summer of 2011 that people started talking about the project starting to lose popularity.

The first months of the add-on were interesting, but by the summer it became clear that “there would be no movie.” Moreover, this became clear not only to the players, but also to the blizzards. The game literally needed to be saved. The fire was thrown into the fire by RIFT, released in the spring, the first AAA project since Warhammer (autumn 2008), which laid claim to the WoW audience. It’s worth saying that RIFT at that time managed to steal a decent portion of WoW’s subscribers. Something had to be done, because another WoW competitor was expected to be released in December - Star Wars the Old Republic. So the situation was terrible.

Patch 4.2.0 “Rage of Firelands”

The first "final" WoW boss at one time there was the Lord of Fire, Ragnaros. In patch 4.2, the second coming of the Fire Lord awaited us, because, as it turned out, those forty heroes who stormed the Black Mountain never defeated him, but only pushed him back into... these same Fire Expanses. Now our task was to finally put an end to Ragnaros, who had become an ally of Deswing. The raid itself turned out to be, let's say, controversial. The huge wasteland of fiery black shades, across which six bosses and Ragnaros’ “reception room” 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. Everyone else was boring and expressionless.

A separate theme of patch 4.2 was the Fiery Frontline. Realizing that not all players are keen on raids, the team created an epic quest location called the Fiery Front. The main feature here was that the location was phased and opened sequentially after handing over the badjiks to the main non-writers, who farmed only through daily games. Along with the new phases, the player gained access to new areas of the location and vendors with all sorts of goodies such as weapons and recipes. The idea, of course, was good, like here’s some content in which everything depends on your actions. But it turned out to be Ristalishche-2 with daily games that got stuck in the teeth already in the third week. In short, the content turned out to be of a “second freshness”, because similar quest hubs already existed, and they even had phasing.

What else is notable about patch 4.2? Of course, with the legendary caster staff. The chain for obtaining the staff turned out to be long and in order to get the staff, it took a long time to farm. The easiest thing, of course, was for those who farmed OP25xm - the hardcore players collected the first staff in early August.

As was already written in the previous posting about this addition, “Cataclysm” lived up to its name and not only in terms of Azerothian lore. The total exodus of players by the summer was about 900 thousand people (compared to the pre-release state). The situation had to be saved. And rescue urgently. Probably, the decision on how to do this was made even before the release of Firelands, because the raid turned out to be surprisingly small. Seven bosses are not enough. Yes, in WotLK there was the Colosseum with five, but before it there was Ulduar with 14, and after it there was the Central League 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 a theme such as “War of the Ancients” and a raid on a naval theme. After all, we never found out what Ozumat did with Neptulon. So we were expecting this too. But everything turned out completely wrong.

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 efforts were now being thrown into the next addition. However, the locals still prepared something tasty for 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 that time - SWTOR. Online universe based on " Star Wars"looked menacing. Created by a famous studio based on a cult franchise, it’s a killer combination. Time has shown that the budget and popularity of the setting are not yet components of the success of an MMO project. However, the team have prepared one of the largest patches since the late TVS. The endgame 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 with them. The package also included three instances in which players who were late for the holiday could quickly get dressed - the things that fell there were equal in ilvl to what fell from bosses in the Firelands.

What was depressing about this component was not only the fact that there were only eight bosses. The raid itself was made from "old scenery". The action took place in the Dragonblight, the Eye of Eternity, on ships that at one time stormed the Citadel of the Lich King. It was clear to the naked eye that the team followed the minimum program, saving resources. Instances for five persons were made, apparently, on the basis of what the Bleez managed to finalize for the “War of the Ancients” raid. The disappointment was also compounded by the fact that the plot part 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 “War of the Ancients” was mediocrely leaked. Is Azshara a boss in a five-person instance? And not the final one. A battle between dragonflights and Deathwing could be a very interesting encounter. Not to mention that the city of Zin-Azshari deserved to be implemented on a larger scale. It was possible to do something like Ulduar.

The paucity of endgame was compensated by the introduction of several game systems. The first is transmogrification, the ability to “apply” the “skins” of other objects to armor. Similar “cosmetics” already existed in other games and proved their popularity. The topic really took off well, becoming a serious hobby for some collectors. Transmogrification was in charge of the Ethereals, who also opened additional storage for items.

The second major innovation was the raid assembly system (LFR). Automatic raid assembly was promised back at Blizzcon 2009, when the add-on was announced. Many were waiting for it after the release, but it was introduced only in the second half of the addon. Now anyone who wants it and has the appropriate body kit can simply press a button to join the company of the same “adventurers.”

The latest innovation is that the Darkmoon Fair has moved to a separate island and grown. New attractions, quests and badges with vendors have appeared. However, nothing particularly interesting appeared there. So, another quest zone that appears once a month for a week.

The last thing the patch brought was the legendary chain for robbers. 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, he took an active part new character, who began to play a large role in Pandarian history - Wrathion, son of Deswing.

In general, patch 4.3 turned out to be quite voluminous and in some places radically changed the attitudes of players. For example, transmogrification has become a popular activity and many sites on this topic have appeared on the Internet. And LFR opened up access to raids to a mass of players who did not have the opportunity to regularly play in a permanent group.

That's all. In November, when patch 4.3 was released, it was already known what the next addition would be about. "Mists of Pandaria" caused mixed reactions in the gaming community. Who knows how many more subscribers the game would have lost if the team hadn’t come up with the “Annual Subscription”. By paying for WoW for a year in advance, the player automatically bought Diablo III and access to the Mists of Pandaria beta. The move was the right one, because there was essentially nothing to do in Cataclysm, but there was really nothing to play in Diablo III and Mists of Pandaria.

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 local team tensed up and released an addition that was literally crammed with innovations. But I'll tell you 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 them to quickly reconsider plans and make unpopular decisions. It was clear to the naked eye that everyone nearby had thrown all their efforts into the new addition. Which?

In August, right after the announcement of the latest losses, a rumor spread across the network. Bliz registered the rights to the literally vague name - “Mists of Pandaria”. People scratched their heads in bewilderment and decided to wait for Blizzcon. We waited for Blizzcon, and with it confirmation of the main theme of the add-on. Then the playing audience was divided into two parts. The first was loudly indignant at the attempt to please the Chinese audience, the second said “we’ll wait and see.” In order to somehow retain the audience and get a penny from them, the brothers decided to take a bold step. The “Annual Subscription” promotion gave 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 some sense this saved the game from an even greater outflow of players in the first half of 2012, which was very 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 was on August 24, 2012. Nearby, these old knuckleheads, who still knew how to beat the game to their 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 fundamental changes to the game. The main changes included the following.

Another radical overhaul 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 uproar in the style of “what, again?!!!”, but in fact the new system was entirely justified. The MoP was going to introduce scalable content in the form of test modes for 5ppl. The old system was of little use 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, instances for five persons became cross-severed. Patch 4.3 made raids cross-server. The assembly of LFR groups was carried out automatically from among the players of the same battle groups of the servers, and Battle Tag made it possible to assemble groups from friends. And now, technology has reached the open world. Now players from servers could play together in open locations and cities, except capitals.

This step was long overdue, since most of the locations of Old Azeroth, Northrend and Outland were deserts in terms of population. While 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 back then I was playing the old main Deckven on Nordrassill-EU, a server that was somewhere in the top 100 in terms of progress. So, I made achievements for killing rares in Outland and Northrend without much difficulty, because the locations were completely empty. Some players said so - by introducing cross-server zones, the blizzards are secretly merging servers. However, the real merger was still far away.

Mounts and achievements have become unified for the entire account. This innovation was perhaps the most noticeable and delighted many players. Especially those who unsuccessfully mained for the Ashes of A’lar for several years in a row, and then accidentally looted it with an alt in a pugofan raid. Yes, owners of prestigious titles such as “Death Conqueror” could now choose them for alts. In short, the innovation was excellent and now mount-wankers could run after the dragon of Onyxia or Anzu with all available characters, and the “Messenger of the Titans” could be worn by the main, although the title was earned by a specially created character.

All this was cool and correct, but this time the team let us down with the Prerelease event. Instead of an action spread out over several weeks, as was the case before the releases of other add-ons, we were given a short, about twenty minutes, scenario. The sad story that happened to Theramore replaced the event for us. Greg Krabovich Street then said that it was better to spend resources on making some long-term feature than making a one-time event. Everyone I knew disagreed with this.

Mists of Pandaria release

Once upon a time, the release of an add-on involved rebooting the servers. That is, after 00-00 server time, the game was buried, and then depending on your luck, because it is almost impossible to get through the authorization server at the same time as thousands of others. This time the team 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. At 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. I had been to the beta before and knew that completing the quest was not at all necessary. The decision turned out to be correct. The helicopter quest turned out to be a trap for many players, who, due to lags in the starting location, could not properly complete it or pass it. However, this didn’t bother me much, I ran headlong through the Jade Forest and only when I reached the Valley of the Four Winds did I feel relief.

So, what new did the Mists of Pandaria expansion bring to the game in September 2012? In addition to the above goodies, the following has been added:

• new continent - Pandaria. The appearance out of nowhere of an island that had been wandering for almost ten thousand years turned out to be a little far-fetched, but we must give it its due, everyone else came up with a pretty good idea;
• a new race - pandarens and, of course, a new starting location in the form of a giant turtle. The Pandaren are the first race in the game to be available to both factions;
• new class - monk. Depending on the type of beer drunk, he could become a tank, a healer, or a damage dealer;
• the level cap increased to level 90;
• seven new instances for five players, and three instances that were remade versions of classic dungeons.
• A special format has been introduced for all Pandaria dungeons - a challenge mode. In this mode, all body kit characteristics were brought to level 463, and the monsters became fatter and angrier;
• three raids - Mogu'shan Dungeons, Heart of Fear and Terrace of Eternal Spring. There were a total of fourteen bosses in these raids, which was quite a decent number for a starting tier;
• fighting pets. Pets, which previously ran after players, 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 Azerothian hucksters who began to trade in animals, which quickly turned into a popular and quite expensive product;
• Black market. Among the pandarens there were not only brewers, farmers and fighting monks. The local mafia and one of its leaders, Madame Goya, managed to establish trade in Azerothian antiques and shortages. At the “point” in the Hidden Staircase area, Madame Goya was selling rare mounts, pets, pieces of T3 and even a heroic body kit. At first, a certain category of players had a fierce buttheart about this, but then nothing, they got used to it;
• PvE scenarios. The Blizzards have always been famous for their ability to effectively process other people's ideas. So, the developers of SWTOR created in open world locations designed to be traversed by several characters, and the passage was not tied to the rigid classical scheme of “tank-heal-several damage dealers”. H2-H4 zones were sometimes passed through with pure DD setups. The Blizzards adapted the idea and got good entertainment for three people, untied from the classic scheme;
• "Farm Frenzy" After completing a chain of quests, the local cooperative of farmers “Farmers” allowed the player to stake six acres in the Polugorya region. Now a brave warrior of the Light or a child of the Horde could wave not only a sword or a sokira, but also a hoe.

Despite the steep oriental theme, Pandaria was generally received positively. True, some moments still caused gnashing of teeth.

Firstly, reputation with the factions of Pandaria was pumped up exclusively through quests, regular and daily. No fan t-shirts or hero races, which were widely practiced in previous expansions. Secondly, in order to start leveling up your reputation with the Shado-Pan and the Celestials, you first had to level up to exalted status 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 larger amulets, which provided the opportunity for 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 up all your reputations, then you were forced to do daily sessions solely for the sake of small amulets. And lastly, the twenty-five daily daily limit has been lifted. That's why the hardcore people made them until they were blue in the face, “more and more pandarei every day.”

Patch 5.1 “Landfall”

Patch 5.1 was the first “digital” patch in many years that did not include a raid. Instead, Blizz did " highlight of the program» Patch 5.1 quest content, namely two “campaigns” for the Alliance and the Horde. After the landing of the advanced detachments of mercenaries, that is, us, the heads of the factions decided to send regular units to conquer new territories, which were supposed to gain a foothold in the new bridgehead. The Alliance's campaign was called "Operation Barrier", while the Horde's was called "Army of Conqueror". There were also two new factions with which you could level up your reputation. In general, “Landing” is considered the most successful implementation of such content when compared with the Grounds and the Fiery Front. But the innovations of patch 5.1 did not end there.

As far as I remember, there was talk about the PvE arena back in the days of early WotLK. Why not? For what it’s worth, the blizzards know how to make bosses. And it won’t hurt to practice one more time. It was in patch 5.1 that they introduced the “Fighter’s Guild,” where in front of other players you fight computer-controlled monsters. In order to get into this arena, you had to receive a special invitation. It was either knocked out from rarities in the new quest zone or bought for a lot of money on the Black Market. At first, prices went through the roof. In general, people liked the new entertainment.

Upgrade items. Even the most casual players will sooner or later develop surplus badges. Therefore, the brothers 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 shell out 750 valor points, but nevertheless, people liked the innovation. Moreover, not everyone’s raid progress was going well.

The grindfest didn't end there. Wrathion's legendary chain is simply 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 his reputation with the Black Prince to respect. And yes, this was all just the beginning.

In general, Pandaria 5.0.4-5.0.5 was a success and the players had enough to do. And the neighbors, 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 more patches 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 was certainly memorable. We are talking about the resurrection of the legendary mogu king Lei-Shen by the Zandalari trolls. This king was famous for the fact that once upon a time, he defeated all the other Mogu leaders and united his people. Moreover, he was able to defeat the “curator” of the Titans, Ra-den, and take possession of the technology of space aliens. And now, after thousands of years in another world, Lei-Shen returns to take revenge, defeating his former slaves, the pandarens. True, Lec-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. Not only are regular units of the Alliance and Horde marching around the island, but also crowds of mercenaries who have gone through fire, water and copper pipes are hanging around. Both I and their long-time, even before the Schism, allies in the person of the Zandalari trolls will have to deal with them.

This plot unfolded 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 daily encounters, there were rare mobs on the island that required the efforts of several players to defeat them. Another little thing that pleased me was the arcade zone - the Treasury of the Thunder King. Once a week, a key dropped from the island’s mobs, which opened access to a solo scenario, in which you had to run through a location in which chests with all sorts of goodies were scattered. Money, valuable items, Large amulets for Tier 14 raids. The experiment turned out to be successful, but, unfortunately, the developers did not provide more such content in the MoR.

As mentioned above, the island’s content was phased, that is, it opened after players completed a certain number of tasks. Overall, the place turned out to be atmospheric, although rather gloomy. It seemed that the island was a giant cemetery where someone decided to resurrect the dead.

Thunder Island wasn't the only one. Near the northern coast of Pandaria, out of nowhere (as usual, out of the fog), another island appeared - the Island of Giants. It was inhabited by dinosaurs and large animals, all of them elite. This horde was led by Undasta, a giant dinosaur that required an “old-school” raid of forty people to win. Dinosaurs dropped bones, and the bones could be replaced with all sorts of useful things.

Now about the highlight of the program - the Throne of Thunder raid. Even at the PTR testing stage, it was clear that the developers were preparing something large-scale. This is how it turned out in the end. Blizzard managed to create a raid zone in their best traditions. Twelve bosses and one “secret” one in “heroic” mode, many of which featured original mechanics, impressive interiors and a lot of trash, interesting story. 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 rather dull raid content of the late Cataclysm in all respects, the developers showed that there is still gunpowder in the flasks. True, a couple of fly in the ointment did end up in this barrel of honey.

There were some shortcomings, yes. The first is instance linearity. Why the brothers decided to make the 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 needed. Here the order was the same. This was made worse by the fact that the difficulty of the bosses increased unevenly. So, after a pass with a rather simple Jin’rok, the raiders ran into Horridon. A typical trash fight, the essence of which consisted mostly of fighting adds, became a barrier that some guilds could not pass through for weeks. Then came the relatively simple Zandalari Council, and then came the most chaotic fight in the instance - Tortos. Next, again, the relatively simple Megaera and Ji-kun. And then again there is a barrier in the form of Durumu. Having gone through all the vicissitudes of the first three quarters, the players found themselves in the fourth. The first two bosses there were the classic “don’t stand in the fire” and only Lei-Shen was original there.

It seemed that different groups of designers made different blocks of the PG. Although that's not the point. The combination of straightforwardness and “barrier” bosses led to another decrease in the number of raiders in the “normal/heroic” bracket.

Added to these delights is the fact that in 5.2 we were offered a continuation of the “legendary” chain. The Black Prince offered us to farm twenty plus twelve “badzhiks”. The drop rate of these next orange things left much to be desired. Added to this was a 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 – solo players, hardcore raiders and fans of achievements. The people were delighted and waited for the next portion of content, which did not take long to arrive.

Patch 5.3 “Escalation”

Release date: May 21, 2013
The fact that Garrosh is Thrall's biggest personnel failure was clear even during the Cataclysm. Cairn's murder alone is worth it. The further we went, the worse things got. Eventually, a rebellion was launched against Garrosh, led by Horde leaders. Of course, to conduct combat operations, you first need to organize supplies. This is what the leaders of the Horde did with the help of their troops and mercenaries (that is, players).

This is the plot background of patch 5.3. In order to implement this in the game, the developers borrowed the concept of “dynamic events” from ArenaNet. High-level characters were stationed in the Steppes to guard the extraction sites for timber, oil, and other useful resources. These places had to be plundered, and from time to time, a korovan appeared in the steppe, which had to be protected from raids by Garrosh’s troops. Overall, it turned out well, although this idea did not live up to the dynamics of the original.

Another innovation of the patch was “heroic” scenarios. Since the usual ones had already become boring to everyone, and were no longer suitable in terms of rewards, GSs became the main source of “valor” and body kit for those who were late for the holiday. The purple chests that were given for completing the scenario had a fairly high chance of dropping a level 516 epic, which was quite okay.
And, of course, the Black Prince Wrathion again pleased the players with a new stage in the legendary chain.

Patch 5.4 “Siege of Orgrimmar”

Resources have been gathered and the attack is prepared. The "moment of truth" came when Garrosh decided to cast the Black Heart of the Old God into the sacred springs of Pandaria. The head of Shado-pan tried to remind Garrosh of his father's fate, 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 punch Garrosh in the teeth all together.

In 2013, the developers did not slow down and kept their promise - to make updates faster and thicker. In terms of intensity, patch 5.4 was not much inferior to patch 5.2, and in some ways it was even superior, because it introduced serious structural changes to the game. Let's start with the fact that an “experimental” location has appeared - the Timeless Island. There were few quests there, but there were a lot of rares that spawned quite often. In addition, all sorts of chests were scattered around the island. Mobs and chests dropped Small amulets of good luck, as well as “blanks” for level 496 epics. In the middle of the island there was an arena where four Celestials tested players' strength.

The developers stated that they wanted to make a location where players did not feel limited by completing dozens of daily missions. This is a kind of “freedom zone”. Yes, indeed, for WoW the Timeless Isle was an experiment, but they got excited about “freedom of action”. There were quests, killing rares was immediately put on stream, and now people came here for Small amulets, instead of doing daily routines that had become ingrained in their teeth. But, in essence, a farm zone was created for dressing alts, new players, as well as returning veterans. After putting the freshly baked 90 into the 496 body kit, you could forget about the Island.

The next two innovations concerned changes to the raid system. A new format was introduced - a “flexible” raid. If previously the number of people in a group was either 10 or 25 people, now their number could fluctuate within these limits. This was perhaps the most useful structural change in the entire MoP. Firstly, it gave small guilds the opportunity to take everyone they wanted into a raid. Secondly, the complexity of such a raid was higher than that of LFR, but at the same time lower than normal. This somewhat lowered the bar and gave the opportunity to play for those who were slightly below the normal class level, but at the same time did not want to play with LFR-bogeys.

The second most significant structural change was Connected Realms - “united 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. True, things went wrong with the merger of the servers - they are still being merged.

Another interesting innovation was the Test Arena. This was a solo scenario, a sort of “training ground” where players could test their damage, healing, and tanking skills. Those who previously performed one role could practice in another. There has been a need for such a “simulator” for a long time, since it is better to train “on cats” than to do it in instances.

Wrathion's "legendary" chain has been completed. As a reward, players received a legendary cloak. The award is not that dubious, but the cloak has become the most popular legendary item in WoW. To obtain 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 are no joke. Few raids in WoW can boast so many encounters, many of which have interesting mechanics. On the other hand, it was clear that the neighbors were molding the OO “from what was.” The scenery for the first and second quarters was the Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Orgrimmar. No one really struggled with the new boss models either. The third point concerned Horde players more. The patch did not make any changes to the capital itself. That is, Garrosh stood still, the auction was running, vendors and trainers were selling services. And after you received an invite, you found yourself in a version of the capital that is under siege. In short, cognitive dissonance.

Why this happened, I think, is obvious. As in “Cataclysm,” the team took the path of least resistance, using already existing scenery and models. By the way, according to rumors from insiders, the first quarter is part of a completely different raid, which the team decided not to complete, but included in the Siege. That is why we are launching an attack on Orgrimmar, making 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 then. OO will be a raid that will set a record for “longevity” - fourteen months. That's two months longer than Icecrown Citadel lasted.

Let's summarize. Overall, the Mists of Pandaria expansion was a success. Compared to “Cataclysm”, the developers have introduced a lot of new entertainment for cap players – pet battles, challenge modes, Brawler’s Guild, Challenge Arena. The raid content didn't disappoint. Not only was it done more than in Cataclysm, but it was also of high quality in the best traditions of Blizzard. Despite all the skepticism, the lore and atmosphere of the addon were also a success. Some people say that Pandaria is too homey, like “family, friends, food, and the rest doesn’t matter,” but if you look at the quest chains, you can find a lot of dramatic moments and the notorious “epic” in them.

At the same time, the addition 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 after, at the beginning of the MoR, the developers assured that content would be delivered more often. Actually, that’s how it was for the first year. And then, something went wrong. Yes, Blizzard did not initially plan for Warlords of Draenor to be released in November 2014. And recent interviews say that they delayed the release of WoD by six months. The excuses do not 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 indicate this.

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

Let's start a little from afar. November 2013, Blizzcon, Metzen portrays an orc, the audience roars with delight - presentation of the add-on. Of course, Warlords of Draenor was the highlight of that convention. The plot caused surprise, outrage and controversy, which continued for several weeks. The garrisons intrigued me the most. What was voiced by Blizz aroused genuine interest and timid hope that they would finally be able to move at least a little away from the concept of the game laid down in vanilla. Garrisons seemed like another system that would allow character development at the cap. Various combinations of structures with various bonuses- just what you need. Let's add to this a bunch of followers who can also be upgraded and, voila, almost the Path of the Titans.

On the other hand, what was shown at the convention left a feeling that the game was damp. And that the team’s promises to release content more often and more are somehow too optimistic. People hoped that WoD would be released in the spring, or at least in the summer. Well, the Blizzards can’t torment people with a final raid for a whole year, they can’t. How long can you step on this rake? However, it turned out that Siege broke all previous records, becoming an active raid for over 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 there was a pre-patch with an event and all sorts of changes in the game mechanics. The event consisted of orcs with weapons that had never been seen before starting to emerge from the suddenly red Dark Portal. The Iron Horde is trying to gain a foothold on the borders, but we are not allowing them further than the Blasted Lands. All this was more interesting than the Terramor scenario, but did not even reach the pre-catalism events, not to mention the fact that the zombie festival before WotLK could not be surpassed.

In addition to changes to class mechanics, major adjustments were made to the raid system. Heroic difficulty became mythical, the size of which was designed for 20 people. Normal began to be called heroic, and flex - normal. This was the final nerf to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, and over the remaining few weeks people were intensively farming the iron scorpion.

Release of Warlords of Draenor

The release took place on November 13, exactly six years after the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. So, what did the addition promise so interesting? Let's start with the plot.

...Garrosh Hellscream makes a daring escape from prison. One of the dragons of the Flock of Infinity helps him get into an alternative reality, thirty years ago before the events taking place. Garrosh finds his father Grom in an alternate Draenor. As a result of the 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 Hellscreams family and Mannoroth, the latter dies and Gul'dan is relegated to the background. Thunder informs ordinary clanmates that they will not be slaves, but will be conquerors. Using the 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 alternative reality and prevent a new Horde invasion of Azeroth.

So, the setting of the new addition is the alternative Draenor. For those who are not aware of the intricacies of the lore, Outland is what remains of Draenor after Ner’zhul’s unsuccessful experiments with fel magic. Therefore, in the alternative Draenor, a lot of locations correlate with the locations of Outland, 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 - the 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.

The level cap, as expected, increased to a round figure of 100. In addition, it became possible to upgrade one character to 90, and for a certain amount, others. This caused a slight butthurt on the forums, but, on the whole, it was swallowed by the community as a fact that could no longer be escaped.

Another innovation that was positioned as a big step forward was new character models. We added polygons using models and made a new animation. True, not everyone, for example, had Bloodelfs on the list. We also left goblins, worgens and pandas unchanged, since the models were made relatively recently.

The game mechanics were greatly simplified - sockets were removed from armor and weapons, the number of chanter scrolls was greatly reduced, and reforging was eliminated. The game “dress the Masha doll” has become even easier.

The main innovation was the garrison - the personal fortress of the conqueror of Draenor. The concept was actually not bad. A set of buildings that could be upgraded and provided bonuses for crafting and combat. Thus, it became possible to customize the character on the cap. Built this building - received this bonus, built another - this bun. Having a personal squad of followers gave us weight and also created a certain field of opportunity for diversity. In addition, the garrison seriously affected the game's economy. Take, for example, the fact that grass grew in the garrison and there was a mine, and most importantly, you didn’t have to be a miner or herbalist to extract them. And 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 cobbled together on your knees, 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 had the worst launch in WoW history. They say that perhaps the first months of vanilla were similar to what happened after the release of WoD. Characters got stuck in textures and hung in the air. In the dressing room in front of the garrison there were crowds who could not get into it. People were afraid to go into the garrison itself, because there was a risk of staying there for a long time. There were indignant cries in the chat about rolled back quests. The most enterprising offered paid services for extracting characters from textures inexpensively. In the open world, the crossserver played tricks and NPC quest givers turned into ghosts. It was terribly laggy. When trying to log out and then log back into the game, there was a risk of encountering a “Character not found” message. All this trash continued for several days. The worst thing for the blizzards was probably the start of Diablo III.

Then everything was fixed and the full game began.

What can I say, Blizzard knows how to create 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 encountered in Pandaria. Yes, there was brutality there too, but overall the island of fog turned out to be much more peaceful than Draenor. The continent itself came out on top. Snow-capped mountains, scorched valleys, wild jungles. What was Shadowmoon Valley worth? Not only were the locations varied and interesting, but also the cities turned out to be, perhaps, the largest of all that is already in the game. Shattrath was simply huge. It turned out that there was only one small area left in TVS.

However, that's where the positives ended. Crafting has been greatly simplified. He was heavily tied to the garrison, tied to buildings, which hit hard those who had workshops of crafting low-level alts. Those who had collecting professions on the mains also suffered. Now everyone could swing a pickaxe in the garrison and provide themselves with the required amount of materials on their own. Further, to make Draenor items it was not necessary to level up the skill to 600. This practically killed the market for reagents for leveling up. All this led to the simplification of crafting and the slow death 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 daily events that are not called daily events. Run through the mine and garden, collect junk from buildings, give new crafting tasks, puzzle followers. And this happens 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 many effective building setups, and some buildings were not needed at all. There was also a slight mess with the followers. It took several weeks at most to assemble, pump and dress. Forming a group for a mission did not require much brainpower, especially with the appropriate add-ons. So a month after reaching the cap, followers could be dressed and put on shoes and that was the end of it. In other words, hopes that the garrison would become an alternative plane of development remained hopes. Players received veiled daily quests and overpowering game mechanics with a very limited set of possible options.

Legendary item. Even before the release, the team said something about how they had taken into account the mistakes of MoP and that there would be a “budget” legendary and something for hardcore comrades. The budget legend turned out to be rather lackluster. Firstly, it was a ring, that is, on appearance it had no effect on the character. Secondly, you could get it by farming a bunch of stuff in a 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, High Hammer - turned out to be moderately nice and difficult. True, the number of bosses (seven in total), as well as the absence of tokens in the loot table, seemed to hint that this raid would not be relevant for long. And yet, yes, the High Hammer was passable and pleased the players for only two and a half months. Already at the beginning of February, the second raid T17 was opened - the Foundry of the Black Mountain Clan. Ten bosses, the last of which was one of the warlords of Draenor, Blackhand. Here everything was already more interesting. True, some cramped conditions were unsettling. Narrow corridors, relatively small rooms, dark corners, equipment, conveyor lines. The High Hammer was small overall, but there was more space there.

The release of a new raid, as always, breathed a little life into the game, but, as you know, not only raiders play WoW. After going through all the story content with several characters, leveling up the army of followers several times and kissing all the Draenor squirrels, the players got really bored. And already at the end of February, the Blizzards rolled out a new patch numbered 6.1 to the servers.

Patch 6.1 “Garrison Update”

This was one of the content patches that did not introduce a new raid. In some ways, 6.1 continued the tradition of MoP patches, which went one after another without raids, making changes to the game mechanics. Although technically 6.1 is still more associated with the period of LCCG than with the start of WoD. So, what's new with this content patch? First, about the “minor innovations”:

The biggest changes concerned the garrisons:

• Every day, visitors began to come to the garrison and give quests. Among the visitors were: famous personalities, such as Harrison Jones. Quests were related to both open locations and raid bosses;
• The level of followers' items could be increased to 675;
• there are new missions for followers related to professions, including archaeology, as well as new raid missions for followers related to the Blackrock Clan Foundry;
• The follower mission interface has changed;
• a new vendor that sold books for retraining users;
• another 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 Primordial Spirit. This slightly screwed up the game's economy and made the game more interesting on the market;
• changes also affected the buildings of the garrison;
• appeared new level difficulty of invading a garrison - platinum;
• music box - if you wanted, you could get a device that would play you melodies 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, we have two main aspects that the patch was aimed at. The first is to diversify the garrison. It was obvious to the naked eye that this mechanic had exhausted itself a couple of months after release. It was necessary to give the players new opportunities and fix what was preventing them from playing. Secondly, there was an attempt to correct crafting, which, without exaggeration, was killed, but it should have been brought up to the realities of 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 only had two shooting ranges. In addition, it was still believed that the bliz would keep their promise and would provide 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, with the exception of a small quest chain at the start. The Tanaan Jungle was essentially a full-fledged location, comparable in size to other locations in Draenor. 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.

Two strongholds of the Horde and Alliance were also located here, from which players raided the surrounding area in order to undermine the power of the Iron Horde. True, this power had already been considerably undermined - of the leaders, Gul'dan and Killrog remained alive, and Grommash was overthrown and captured. The Burning Legion now completely controlled the Iron Horde and was preparing for another invasion of Azeroth. The main concentration of the forces of the Legion and Horde became the Hellfire Citadel. In the citadel, players faced battles with thirteen bosses, 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 players. We build a ship, equip it and send it on a voyage. 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 during the mission and then they had to be built and upgraded anew. The addition was pleasant, but cosmetic.

More dramatic changes affected the format of instances for five people. In patch 6.2, two new types were introduced - Mythic difficulty dungeons for WoD instances and a time travel mode for 5ppl old content. In Mythic instances, the difficulty and level of loot dropped from bosses has increased. Ordinary items dropped 685 items, and flippers dropped 700 items with some chance. “Time Travel” were old instances of previous expansions, in which the character’s level and body kit were scaled to the level of the instance. “Time Travel” became an event when instances from, say, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion were opened in some weeks. The idea of ​​travel itself was announced a long time ago and, in principle, turned out to be quite successful. Dungeons were just as fun as they were back when they were a thing.

Bonus events. Every week, players were treated to bonus events, which gave a significant increase to the Apexite crystals and other in-game currency received for completing tasks.

Legendary chain. In patch 6.2 the legendary chain was continued. As a reward for completion, players received a level 735 ring, which could be upgraded further. In order to do this from Archimonde in normal or heroic mode a certain contraption was knocked out, which, when used, increased the level of the item by several points.

Flights 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. The flights were announced, but in order to get into the air it was necessary to complete a bunch of different achievements. The list of good deeds for the “Pathfinder of Draenor” achievement included: opening all locations of the continent, finding 100 treasures, leveling up the reputation of three factions to reverence, completing all quests for the “Lorekeeper of Draenor” and a rather long list of daily tasks. In general, it was necessary to sweat.

In general, the patch turned out to be quite good and quite voluminous, with some good innovations such as new 5ppl formats. Everything would be fine, but the old problem again played a role - the pace of patch releases. It’s hard to say why such a tradition has developed, one can only guess, but now for the fourth addition, the latest content patch has been on live servers for more than a year. Yes, of course, there were some changes, for example, for killing Archimonde they began to give an elk mount, and things can again be upgraded for valor. But the tradition remained unshakable. The first half of the new addition is characterized by a fairly vigorous release of patches, then the last one comes and the situation freezes for a year.

Actually, if we talk about patch 6.2, that’s all. Now let's summarize.

Warlords of Draenor: recap

Let's start with dry numbers. At the beginning of August 2015, Blizzard published its 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 decline in the number of subscribers. No other expansion has seen such a sharp decline. Perhaps out of frustration, Blizzard said they would no longer release subscriber numbers because they have other ways to measure performance. The motivation is clear - why demoralize the audience once again? Moreover, as the experience of other MMO projects shows, even with several hundred thousand subscribers they 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 would be worth repeating. home world problem of Warcraft is that the project has not changed conceptually for many years. This applies to both the character development system and the main content formats. Year after year, players complete quests, go through dungeons, and then farm raids or grind for titles, mounts, and pets until they’re blue in the face. Trick whistles such as battle pets do not bring fundamental changes to this scheme; they can distract players for a while, but do not in any way affect the main thing - the character development system and the realization of his potential in the game world.

What else played a negative role? 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 upgraded in a couple of months. Secondly, the variety of garrison layouts was very modest. All this led to the fact that interest in leveling was exhausted quite quickly.
• simplification of character characteristics. The decision to remove reforging and sockets from the body kit and reduce the ability to chant to a minimum was fundamentally wrong. Yes, probably, for some players the “knock out your clothes, put them on, and run on” approach is quite acceptable. But the dress-up-the-Masha-doll game has always been one of the cornerstones of WoW. Returning 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.
• The crafting aspect of the game was almost completely killed. This was partly due to changes in character characteristics, and partly due to changes in crafting itself. This aspect of the game was interesting even at the end of the expansions, not to mention the periods after release. In WoD, crafting has again been simplified to the point of disgrace, reducing interest to a minimum. It’s easier to farm several raids with three high levels than to produce anything. I’m generally silent about collecting profs - the garrison negated the need to have them on the character.
• Grinding and farming are still the mainstay. We look at the same “time travel”. Again badges, and again things for these badges. Do you want to add the hundredth konyak to your collection? 5000 badges and konyak are yours, farm for your health.

Actually, this is quite enough to accept the simple fact: Warlords of Draenor turned out to be another disastrous addition. The innovations of Mists of Pandaria were able to seriously slow down the decline in the number of subscribers. Warlords of Draenor, with its crooked concepts, simplification of everything and everyone, an awkward attempt to play on nostalgia, led to the current state of affairs.

Two months later in the history of the game and the entire franchise opens new chapter“The Burning Legion wants to destroy Azeroth again, and we don’t want that again.” The World of Warcraft: Legion expansion is a wild card that Blizzard decided to play in light of a serious decline in popularity. Playing on nostalgia again? The future fate of the game and the entire franchise will be discussed in the next post.

Indeed, the history of the Warcraft universe cannot simply be retold, but understanding how it is organized and which side is best to approach it is not so difficult. The following review will have a navigation function, and may be useful even to those who are in the know but would like to expand their knowledge. My goal in this answer will not be to retell the content of numerous sources, but to give the most general outline of events and show what place each source occupies in this outline.

Conventionally, the history of the universe can be divided into three sources: strategy, MMORPG World of Warcraft, books and comics. It seems that there are also desktop ones card games, but I don’t know anything about them, and these three layers of the universe will be more than enough for you.

The history covered in strategies can be divided into three parts, in accordance with the parts of the games.

Warcraft I, it’s the first war. A recently released film was made based on this part. It tells about the Horde's invasion of Azeroth, about Medivh, about the fall of Stormwind, about the death of King Llane.

Game: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans

Warcraft II, second war. Events after the fall of Stormwind, the story of how Anduin Lothar, Turalyon and Daelin Proudmoore fought back against the Horde. Then - the Alliance’s counter-offensive on the homeland of the orcs, Draenor, where Ner’zhul, since nothing worked out with Azeroth, wants to open portals to other worlds.

Games: Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness; Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal.

Warcraft III, third war. The most intense and popular part of the game. The remaining orcs in Azeroth are kept in camps, and short-term peace and tranquility comes to Lordaeron. However, not everything is so rosy, since on the northern continent of Azeroth, Northrend, Ner'zhul, imprisoned in an ice throne, is gathering forces to start a third war.

Simultaneously with these events, the young slave Thrall begins to have strange dreams in which a stranger calls on him to lead the orcs to Kalimdor, the western mainland of Azeroth. In this part of the strategy, we get acquainted with the most famous heroes of the universe, with whom Warcraft is now actually associated: Arthas, Illidan, Kael’thas.

Games: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

The explanations that I give for each part are not even a retelling, but almost randomly selected facts to just give an idea of ​​what is happening in the game series, and, naturally, so as not to spoil it.

A logical continuation of the history of strategies was the famous World of Warcraft, which is also divided, but not into parts, but into addons.

WoW Classic: The Forsaken (Undead who no longer obey Arthas) join the Horde, so we get two coalitions that are unfriendly to each other.
Alliance: People, Dwarves, Dwarves, Night Elves. Horde: Orcs, Trolls, Taurens, Forsaken. The main antagonists of this stage are black dragons, ancient gods and Kel'Thuzad, who again began to spread the plague across Azeroth on the orders of Arthas, now the Lich King.

WoW Burning Crusade: A new people appears in Azeroth, the Draenei, whom the Alliance accepts into its ranks. The blood elves under the leadership of Lor "themar Theron join the Horde. The Dark Portal through which the orcs entered Azeroth during the first war opens again. The antagonists of the addition: Kael'thas, Illidan and the Burning Legion itself in the person of Kil'Jaden.

WoW Wrath of the Lich King: Some death knights join the Alliance and Horde, who decide to take the fight to the Lich King on his territory in this expansion. In this expansion, players will have to confront the Titans themselves, the creators of Azeroth and the Lich King.

WoW Cataclysm: The maddened Aspect of the Earth, the black dragon Deathwing, has awakened in the depths of the Underdark and is determined to destroy all of Azeroth with the help of the cult of the black hammer. Recently, the Kezan goblins have made enemies within the Alliance - several unexpectedly unprofitable transactions have forced some merchant magnates to abandon their comfortable position of neutrality. Old agreements with the Horde were renewed, and the Horde welcomed the goblins with open arms. Behind the wall of Greymane, in the city of people Gilneas, meanwhile, a strange madness gripped the inhabitants. It turned people into bloodthirsty werewolves, attacking anyone and everyone. Having dealt with this madness, the Gilneans began to call themselves Worgen, half-human, half-wolf, and found their home in the ranks of the Alliance.

WoW Mists of Pandaria: Suddenly, a new continent, Pandaria, previously hidden from view by a dense layer of mists, was discovered in the southern part of Azeroth. The Horde and the Alliance raced to this continent, started a war on it, thereby awakening strange Sha creatures, personifying our bad emotions and feelings. Some Pandaren decide to join the Horde and Alliance. Garrosh Hellscream, who became the leader of the Horde during the Cataclysm era, goes mad and brings back to life the heart of the ancient god I'Shaarj in order to strengthen his army and destroy the Alliance. Heroes of both factions are forced to begin the siege of Orgrimmar, the main city of the Horde, in order to overthrow the tyrant.

WoW Warlords of Draenor: Garrosh escapes justice with the help of the bronze dragon Kairozdormu (bronze dragons in World of Warcraft have the ability to manipulate time). Garrosh returns to the past, to a time when the orcs had not yet made their way into Azeroth. There he finds his father, Grommash, and shares the technology with which Garrosh hoped to destroy the Alliance. Grommash united all the scattered clans of the orcs of Draenor under his banner, making their leaders his warlords and began an invasion of Azeroth, not in the Azeroth of the first war, but in the times after the Pandaria campaign. Players become participants in the events of this most changed Draenor of the past.

And in August Legion awaits us, new page in the history of Warcraft.

As you can see, the further the game's story develops, the more confusing and uninformative my retelling becomes. The reason for this is the complication of the story, the number of key characters increases several times. If for Warcraft I Garrona, Durotan and Lothar are important to us, then in Warcraft III Jaina, Arthas, Uther, Kel'Thuzad, Thrall, Medivh, Illidan, Maev and Kael'thas are equally important. Naturally, in order to adequately complete the stories of all these characters, the game space is completely insufficient. Therefore, the creators attract the third and final layer of sources - books.

On this moment 22 books have been published, which are divided into three series.

I. Warcraft Series
Includes books that are not connected by a common plot:

1. Blood and Honor - the very first novel in the Warcraft universe, written by Chris Metzen (the father of the entire Warcraft universe). It tells the story of Tirion Fordring. The timeline, if I'm not mistaken, is after the second war.
2. Day of the Dragon - tells about the events after the second war. Main character books - the magician Ronin rescues the supreme aspect, Alexstrasza, from captivity of the Horde.
3. Lord of the Clans - tells the story of Thrall (the same little orc who makes GRRR at the end of the film), about how he began to revive the Horde, freeing the orcs from the Alliance camps.
4. The Last Guardian - narrated by Medivh the Guardian, with whom many are now also familiar thanks to the film.

II. Warcraft Series: War of the Ancients Trilogy
It tells about the events after the Battle of Mount Hyjal (Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos) and at the same time about those events that took place several thousand years before the first war.

Books included: 1. Source of Eternity 2. Soul of a Demon 3. Schism

III. World Series of Warcraft
Also included are books loosely connected by a common plot:

1. Circle of hatred - events a year before WoW, that is, after the first war. It tells how Jaina Proudmoore and Thrall tried to maintain peace between the Horde and the Alliance.
2. Rise of the Horde is the book that everyone should read before going to the movies to see Warcraft. It tells us who the orcs are and why they needed to attack Azeroth. He also introduces us to the draenei people, these are the same blue-skinned dudes who were killed at the beginning of the film.
3. Dark Tides - tells about the events of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.
4. On the other side of the dark portal - tells about the events of Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal.
5. Day of the Dragon - is, in a sense, a continuation of “Night of the Dragon” and tells about the events between the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.
6. Arthas: Rise of the Lich King - biography of Arthas, naturally.
7. Stormrage - the only book that I cannot localize in a time frame tells about what the Emerald Dream is and about Malfurion Stormrage.
8. The Sundering: Prelude to Cataclysm - tells the story of the events between Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm.
9. Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects - continuation of the previous book.
10. Heart of the Wolf - tells about the events after the Cataclysm, about how the leaders of the Alliance tried to protect Ashenvale from Garrosh, who was already beginning to go crazy.
11. Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War - tells the story of Jaina Proudmoore, events before Mists of Pandaria.
12. Dawn of the Aspects - tells about the events after the Cataclysm, about what happened to the five Aspects after they gave up immortal power in the name of defeating Deathwing.
13. Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde - captures the events of Mists of Pandaria, specifically update 5.1.0 tells us about Vol'jin, who at the end of this addon becomes the new leader of the Horde.
14. War Crimes - talks about the events after Mists of Pandaria, about what happened to Garrosh after the Siege of Orgrimmar.
15. Illidan - the book was published in 2016, and as far as I understand, is a biography of Illidan Stormrage.

As you can see, these books are crazy, but there are also manga and comics that I won’t even write about here.

Of course, this begs the question: where to start studying this diversity? I would advise starting with mastering the history of strategies. And then - choose books from the list, in accordance with which period/character is closer and more interesting to you. At the same time, it is not at all necessary to play them. Once upon a time, in 2006, on some website I came across a rather dry, but very accurate retelling of the events of all strategies. Now there is no website, but I still have the text of this retelling. Despite not best quality text and untranslated names, I believe that this text is the best for introducing the universe. I provide a link to download the text from my dropbox :)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xnzjx191uincnvv/WoW%20history.doc?dl=0

Hello, dear readers!

The long-awaited patch 6.2 was recently released, which, according to the developers, is the last major update in WoD. Perhaps patches 6.2.X will still be released with small portions of new content, but at the moment there is no exact information about this. Despite all this, there are already heated conversations on the Internet about the next addition to WoW.
This is clearly supported by information from Comic Con about a Warcraft movie. Of course, many players associate the theme of the future add-on with the film. They argue that people who are not familiar with the universe will most likely want to plunge into the atmosphere of Azeroth after watching the film. And what can help with this better than a game? And this is a logical marketing move. If I'm not mistaken, "Lego. The movie" increased profits from sales of construction sets from Denmark by 2-3 times. It’s hard to compete with such conclusions, but there is one point that makes me consider another scenario. I think that you will agree with me that our friends from Metelitsa often do what is not expected of them. And vice versa: they do not do what is expected of them. It was these thoughts that became the foundation for today's reasoning. Let's get started!)

Upcoming addition to WoW.

Each player naturally has his own favorite theme that he would like to see in the game. Of course, I have it too. I will tell you about it below. But first, let's remember the addons that players would like to see live. We’ll also think about why this or that addition may or may not come true. We can do anything with words, so let's pretend that the next addition will not be related to the film. Let's fantasize!

Emerald dream.

It's simple: read the book "World of Warcraft Stormrage". The addon that many were waiting for was not included in the game, but in the book. I’ll briefly add that it’s a shame when such an interesting topic remains without implementation and disclosure in the game itself. But we have pandas)))

Sargeras. Planet of the Burning Legion.

I hope that everyone understands that Sargeras is the local Lucifer/universal evil/the main trump card of the Blizzard. If he is not in the latest addon, then he will definitely be in some grand addition with the goal of resurrecting WoW. Let’s say if the number of subscribers drops to 4-5 million people. Then the trump card will come into play. Like a nuclear bomb. “The cities will be filled with rivers of boiling water from joyful players.” And after killing Sargeras, Blizzard will delicately return the trump card back to its sleeve, saying that we didn’t kill him completely or that there was another Sargeras in a parallel universe. We know how they do it) And one more thing. For those who for some reason expected to see the Dark Titan as the final boss of Hellfire Citadel, I inform you: at the time the orcs accepted the curse of fel, the physical shell of Sargeras was destroyed by Aigwynn, and the spirit of the titan controlled her son Medivh. I understand that this is an alternate timeline, but only the history of Draenor has been changed. For now.

Now let's talk about the central world of the Burning Legion. Many believe that this is Argus. This is not true. Argus may be a Legion base. I repeat: POSSIBLE. Argus is the homeland of the Eredar. There, Sargeras tempted Kil'jaeden and Archimonde with the prospect of power, and the couple agreed. But their third brother Velen realized that the demonic filth would bring no good to his race, so he and a group of like-minded people left Argus. Those eredar who sided with Velen began to be called draenei. And the eredars who joined the Legion are man'ari. Another thing is that the lore was rewritten several times. At first it was said that the Eredar were simply creatures gifted in magic, now I am increasingly finding articles that say that the Eredar were originally mostly warlocks, and supposedly it was because of their greed and thirst for power that they devastated their planet. But this version seems strange to me, because in the game itself, in the dialogues of the draenei, they do not mention the warlocks on Argus or the devastation of the planet. Maybe they are ashamed, or maybe those responsible for the lore got something wrong. Not the point. The main thing here is that Argus is possibly a base for the Legion, because... commanders (Archimonde and Kil'jaeden) lived on this planet. But this is just a version. At the moment, we can only say with certainty that the home of the eredar is consumed by the flames of corruption, like many other worlds. Regarding my opinion: I believe that the home of demons is the Twisting Empty.

Naga.

In Cataclysm, the naga should have been given more time, but as some of you probably know, Ragnaros required a lot of attention from the developers for his raid. I had to sacrifice nagas for this. As for Queen Azshara, she is in the game. Yes. Is it true. But she suffered from Dungeon Search. Leveling up in the game today comes down to the fact that you level up to level 15 on quests, and then grind on instances until you lose your pulse, bypassing quest zones. Even if you do quests, I don’t think you’ll be attracted to a location like Darkshore. But it is there that there is a quest chain that is connected with the nagas and Azshara. I wouldn't call it epic, but if anyone is interested, then visit the night elves.

That is why I believe that in the near future we will not hear about the scaly inhabitants of the depths. Should we make a new addon entirely about nagas and Old Gods? Thematically, it will be the same Cataclysm, only instead of Deathwing there will be Azshara. Most likely, nagas will appear in some add-on about Azeroth with a new continent, where they will play a secondary role, like the botani in Draenor or the yaungol in Pandaria. Yes, a threat, but local. A long quest chain in the location and an instance at the end. But not more. Maybe I'm wrong. But you must admit that nagas have always appeared in the game as part of something. In BC they were part of Illidan's army, in Cataclysm they were part of Deathwing's army. What will they be a part of next?

Old Gods.

The list of guys who are worshiped by bugs and the Twilight's Hammer cult is constantly growing. At first they said that there were only 3 of them. Now I read that there are about 5 Old Gods, and some of them are even at war with each other. If the addon is dedicated to them, then the players are clearly waiting for us to finally be shown N'Zoth and Ny'alotha. But the following fact confuses me. Cataclysm is an expansion about Deathwing and the Old Gods. But do you remember the Old Gods there? Yes, we learned about N'Zoth, but that's just a name. We didn’t really know his appearance, location, or characteristics. We saw only his servants, who are no different from the servants of Yogg-Saron. Of course, we were shown that N'Zoth borrows ideas from the zerg and transports troops using the Nidus network, but then what? In fact, this is an addon about the servants of the Old Gods, but not about them themselves. And here the problem of the fact that a lot of things were cut out from the Cataclysm makes itself felt. Perhaps there were interesting ideas that would have shown us not only Deathwing, but also his rulers, but unfortunately this did not reach the public.

I believe that Blizzard will not repeat their experience with the Old Gods as the theme of an entire expansion at this time. I don’t know why, but they are now better at making small stories than global stories. That is why they will most likely give the Old Gods some kind of patch, but not an addon. These creatures are shrouded in mystery, so interest in them remains only when we receive information in small portions.

Zandalari. South Seas. Pirates.

I often notice that people like to talk more than listen. This is probably normal for our nature. This is why we especially value those who know how to listen. But why am I doing this? And besides, after the Cataclysm, the home of the trolls from the Zandalari tribe was covered with a copper basin. Loremaster Cho in Pandaria tells you this. Therefore, there cannot be any addon about the island of Zandalar. So Blizzard delicately washed away the players’ hopes for an addition about trolls.

The addition about pirates of the South Seas and uncharted islands also often comes up in discussions. I won’t lie: this topic for addition does not particularly attract me. But we will not remain silent about it. Briefly, let’s just say that the theme of islands and sea voyages at the moment is weak in scale to an entire addition. There are no notable figures among the pirates. The quest chains associated with them, which remained in WoW, were clearly not completed by anyone (dungeon search). Therefore, if such an addon is released, it will clearly be with the goal of extending the lifespan of WoW with at least some content. But, I will be glad if in the comments someone suggests an interesting plot for such an addition. Interesting villain. New functions related to ships and the sea. Little desire. Use your imagination. Think about how you can implement interesting gameplay based on a marine theme. If you have such an idea in your head, then formalize it.

Alternative Azeroth.

And this is an addition that many are expecting, because it intersects with the film. We don't know where Gul'dan went. He may have died, he may have fallen into the clutches of demons, or he may simply be floating somewhere in the great void, but after Pandaria, we can't deny that the ending of this expansion could be bridged to the next one. Based on this, players predict an invasion of an alternative Azeroth. But how does this intersect with the film? There is a story about the period of the First War and the invasion of the orcs. And then will we invade or Gul'Dan? If we connect the film and the game, then it would be logical to release Draenor along with the film. Then there would be two different plots, but with one starting point. People would watch a movie about orcs invading our world. And in the game they would look at the situation from the other side: people would feel like aliens on Draenor. But this scenario can no longer be played out. Based on the above, the question of the connection between the film and the game still remains open.
On the one hand, in the footage from Comic Con, Gul'Dan looked exactly like in the game. Most likely, other things from the film will also be close to game realities. This is good, because after watching the film, people will go into the game and many of the characters will be familiar to them, even though this is an alternative Azeroth.
On the other hand, many players care about the process of the games themselves, and not about the lore and plot intricacies. They will watch a cool movie (hopefully), find out that they can play as the same brutal orc as on the screen, and immediately run to the store to buy the game so they can start swinging an ax as soon as possible.

Of course, this opportunity should not be missed, and some product should still be timed to coincide with the release of the film, but should it really be WoW? In part, they are making this film for fans who played the very first Warcraft in the 90s. It’s not for nothing that they chose precisely the fundamental moment in the history of Azeroth. And therefore, it seems to me, it would be better to make it into a film new Warcraft. More precisely, an updated Warcraft or a re-release of parts 1 and 2 on the Starcraft II engine. I think that both old fans and new players would be happy about this. Because you just sit down and play. In WoW, one way or another, you first need to level up your character. Players won't be able to jump right into the new expansion right away. Of course, if Blizzard doesn’t increase the character boost from level 90 to level 100. But do we need it? Question.

In conclusion, as promised, I will tell you about my thoughts about the next addition. Before Draenor was unveiled, rumors circulated online about an Abyss-themed expansion. This news got me a lot more interested in alternate timelines. We know little about abyssal demons and ethereals. Even small handfuls of information would be interesting. We already know Lord Dimensus, who conquered the world of ethereals. Why not, in the absence of the heroes of Azeroth on Draenor, the Lords of the Abyss invade our world? Of course, there are not enough significant villains, but there have been rumors in the community lately that the developers somehow want to bring Illidan and Kael'thas back into the game. Perhaps these are just rumors, but if true, then they could be tied to the expansion. Or the Abyss could invade not Azeroth, but Outland, where the ethereals hide. In general, the plot could be connected with both new villains and “frozen” ones. But the truth is, I have this feeling inside of me that we will all be wrong. The introduction of each new add-on became unexpected. So we can only hope that Blizzard will give us a break from the complex plot confusion and return to our timeline. Wait and see.

2. Thoughts on Warlords of Draenor.

The final stage of the expansion has arrived. We hope that it will not drag on for a year.
And perhaps the developers will still add small portions of content.

In my previous article, I already discussed the main controversial points regarding this addition. Now I want to express my thoughts on the addition as a whole:

1. Developers have increasingly become more concerned with their own interests than the interests of the players.
2. The snowstorm does not solve the problem, but only tries to remove unpleasant consequences.
3. In pursuit of quantity, developers began to forget about quality.

Now let's look at these thoughts in more detail. All of these problems are partly interconnected. Because Blizzard wants to release addons faster, they have to sacrifice something during development in order to meet the deadline. Accordingly, they need to somehow conveniently organize their work in order to have time to create content in a short period of time. But convenience for the developer does not always mean convenience for the player. And here we are faced with the fact that a convenient mechanism for the developer causes negative feedback from players, and this is already a problem. But instead of solving the problem, developers begin to fight the consequences or the players.

But enough empty talk. Let's move on to specific examples. What particularly irritates me about Draenor? Presence of bugs. A large number of bugs. I'm not talking about the start of the addon. There were a lot of people there and at the beginning of the expansion you are more tolerant of some technical errors. But then I would like to see them eliminated. I'll be honest: I rarely encountered bugs in WoW personally. I watched videos on YouTube about various errors, and in the old days I myself ran near Stormwind. But in Draenor I became more familiar with bugs. The garrison is pleased that the task table does not respond to a click the first time, just like the boxes with orders. If earlier this was solved by relog, then the marina does not even accept this. With my character, I could not send ships on missions for three days, and what this was connected with is unknown. Another time, I decided to talk to an NPC near Auchindoun, and he responded by throwing my character back to Shattrath. So we talked. It's also worth mentioning some quests that don't work or items that are required for a quest but that people stubbornly refuse to take. And this all spoils the experience of the game. And you immediately ask yourself: why is this so? And here, unfortunately, again lies the money issue.

Developers have long cherished the idea of ​​releasing content faster. At first glance this doesn't seem like a bad thing. After all, this is good for us players: we don’t have to wait long for new raids and quests. This is great for developers too. The faster the patches come out, the closer the new addon is, which means a new wave of profits. But in reality everything is much more complicated. You can reduce the development time by increasing the staff, but this reduces profits, because part of it (possibly a large part) will go to new employees. Another option is to increase the load. That is, with the same staff you will have a lot of money, but not everyone will be able to work in such conditions. A person is not a machine, and even with a strong desire he cannot work 24 hours. Most likely, Blizzard made a compromise here. Perhaps they increased their staff a little and at the same time began to look for ways to produce content quickly.

And then the good old copy-paste came into play. The Cataclysm Dragon Soul raid only Deathwing lets us know that this is not a Lich raid. The dungeons leading to the raid were also skillfully copied from existing locations. Except that the Source of Eternity smacked of something new, although there were a lot of borrowings there too. I'm not saying that this is completely bad. The developers are adding new mechanics.

Another thing is that they are starting to abuse the use of old models and heroes.
I understand that it is difficult to write a new villain from one addon. Remember Garrosh. As many as 3 additions brought us to the fight with him. He appeared in Lich, where he annoyed everyone. Then in Cataclysm we were shown that he has qualities that make him worth respecting. And in Pandaria, he became obsessed with his desire to make the Horde stronger, which led to his downfall. Remember the video 5.4, in which Garrosh's phrases were breathtaking. He passed long haul to be cut into epics. This makes it even more offensive that we defeated him and handed him over to the Pandaren for trial, where he escaped. It was necessary to put an end to this story. Finish beautifully. But the developers had other plans. Instead of dying with dignity in battle, Garrosh fell helpless and without a weapon in his hands to Thrall's one-shot. Okay...

But we digress. As I said before, a villain needs time to mature. And therefore the choice of Draenor as an add-on is successful from this point of view. There are already villains here whose background is registered. Yes, they joked about Gromash as the main villain, but Archimonde? Seriously? Then it would be better for Kil'jaeden, because it was he who tempted the orcs. In general, if you want to know my opinion, then the main villain of Draenor should have been Gul'dan. It is not Archimonde we must destroy, but the green-skinned orc. If you look at the plot, Gul'dan appears even more often than Hellscream. He is a real threat to Azeroth. Even Khadgar is more concerned about Gul'dan's capture than the threat from Iron Horde. So why are not only us, but also Khadgar left unsatisfied in the game? Why does a really dangerous enemy escape again? Maybe in the next expansion of Gul'dan Thrall will one-shot again? (Sorry, not Thrall, but Go'el. This is not racism). Something started to freak me out a little. But I hope that I conveyed to you the idea that Blizzard can make interesting villains, but for some reason instead of them they give us old whipping toys.

Let me make a small digression. Regarding patch 6.2, I would like to add that the situation is reminiscent of Pandaria. In cutscene 5.4, Garrosh talks to the leader of the Shado-Pan, who is kneeling. Garrosh passionately describes to the pandaren that in his hands there is an unstoppable force that the pandaren tried to contain, did not use, resisted. After which the pandaren says that Chief Hellscream will not get away with this and he will answer for everything. Garrosh then desecrates the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. I think everyone remembers this.

Now let's move on to the video of patch 6.2. Here it is no longer a pandaren, but Grom is on his knees, and Gul'dan has taken on the role of Garrosh and is talking about what Grom was trying to hold back, not use, to resist the unimaginable power that Gul'dan serves. After this, Thunder declares that the warlock will answer for everything. And then Gul'dan desecrates the Tanaan Jungle. Does this remind you of anything?)

Now let's return to the problems of developers. They want to earn more. You can't blame them for this. Although the introduction of an in-game store already speaks of greed. But let's not count other people's money. Let's just focus on the fact that faster release of addons is tied to profit. It goes without saying that the appearance of bugs on live servers is due to the fact that Draenor is essentially unfinished. It feels like they cut out a lot, but despite this they still didn’t have time. And patch 6.2 is another signal to developers that they should reconsider the idea of ​​speeding up the release of content. Quality suffers. Moreover, the gentlemen from Metelitsa do not inform the players about all the corrections. Over the past two weeks, I noticed that they increased the health of mobs in quest zones in Tanaan by about 1.5-2 times. The same goes for bosses. Some numbers have been changed. And more than once. So maybe we shouldn’t rush into development so much? I think players are willing to wait for quality content. But not for a whole year, of course. And such a quick change of addons does not allow the theme of the addon to be revealed. Alternate Draenor contained many possibilities within itself. The Ogre Empire is not limited to Nagrand. What about Faralon Island, which is now just a handful of floating islands in Outland? All this disappeared due to lack of time and resources. We buy addons, pay a subscription and, judging by the mounts, the in-game store is also popular. Is there really a need for accelerated work on content? How do you think? Or are you satisfied with the state of affairs?

We discussed thoughts related to the decrease in the quality of content and the fact that some solutions that are convenient for developers (for example, a raid assembled from recycled materials) are not always good for players. Let's move on to the last thought, which sounded like this: developers do not solve their problems. An example would be garrison resources. They came up with a new currency. OK. But it was used only during the development of the garrison. When you have already built all the buildings, the resources lose their value. Yes, it was possible to buy items to redistribute the characteristics of comrades, but this was done by those who cleared the gold farm chip with the help of the garrison. Reconnaissance reports could be purchased to obtain additional apexits, but these in turn also had little value. And the players’ resources continued to accumulate. And how did the developers solve this problem? But no way. They simply came up with a haven for players where they can dump tons of resources. I think you noticed that the pier missions require different features from ships (mines, whirlpools, icebreaker). Of course, everything is structured so that you equip your ships for resources (for a significant amount of resources), otherwise you will not be able to upgrade your ships or you will simply fail the task. But that is not all. The developers took into account that sooner or later you will upgrade your ships to the maximum, and upgrades for them will also become less frequent. This means resources will accumulate again. Therefore, you need to make sure that the pumping does not end. A solution was found: the ships could be destroyed. That's all. Consequences in the form of accumulation of resources have been eliminated. Well done! But from such a mini-game, players do not get pleasure, but irritation. And the question is, what comes more from the game itself or from the fact that the developers resorted to a lazy solution to the problem?

To conclude this article, I would like to briefly gather all my thoughts together. In the last article, I set out to look at Draenor's problems with different sides and try to draw some hopeful conclusion. I wanted to show that all is not lost, that developers just need to seriously think about their next steps. Now I am somewhat cautious. At one of the past Blizzcons, the developers said that they have plans for WoW for 10 years in the future. And now we are in an alternative world. Many of the epic villains of Metelitsa have already been laid to rest by glorious heroes. And here's what worries me: are these long-term plans related to the fact that the developers will milk an alternative line of the Warcraft universe? For comparison, think about comic books. There are often reboots and multiple universes, which allows writers not to create something new, but to somewhat rework the old. What if Blizzard is now planning to do the same thing? Alternative history of Azeroth. Thousands of characters and events that can be slightly reshaped. Change people's destinies. For example, in alternative world Illidan became a druid, and Malfurion was obsessed with magic. There is no need to invent anything. Just put all the details back together with minor adjustments. What do you think of it? Is it possible? And if so, would you be happy with this outcome? Do you stand up for something new or do you want to see old heroes in new images? Write your thoughts in the comments. I'd be happy to hear others' opinions.

Today we sorted out some questions about additions to WoW.
Be healthy and enjoy the game!)

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (2003) – and now a pinch of RPG... oops!

Each race in the add-on for the third part was given as many as one new unit, but the heroes... Now, in addition to leveling up, they could stock up on fashionable gear in stores, there were more skills, the role of heroes in each mission became almost key.

Neutral heroes also appeared who could be hired additionally. And the campaign for the orcs was generally more RPG than RTS. What can we say, if it was in the form of a mod for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne that the legendary Defense of the Ancients (aka Dota) appeared, which generally represented a completely new genre of MOBA at that time. It was “The Frozen Throne” that completed both the plot and gameplay transition from the first slaughter of people and orcs to that bomb that exploded the very next year after the add-on’s release.

World of Warcraft (2004) – Creation of the world... Warcraft

Now it’s difficult to say whether the gradual addition of RPG elements to the Warcraft games was just following trends or part of a grander plan. Only one thing is known for certain - in 2004, Metelitsa released one of the best MMORPGs of all time, which brings the company a billion dollars a year and breaks all possible online records and the number of awards.

Paradoxically, it was the release of WoW that most likely put an end to the history of Warcraft as a series of real-time strategies. There is simply no point in the company releasing Warcraft 4 - yes, millions of WoVka players will buy it. They will buy and proceed, leaving the servers for this time. This means that in the future, Metelitsa will lose more than it will gain. Therefore, within the framework of the franchise, any games will continue to be released for any platforms (such as Hearthstone or Heroes of the Storm) – but not RTS on PC. Warcraft is dead, long live World of Warcraft!