Since the early days of WelcomeGaming.com I have always dedicated myself to Blizzard titles and in particular to World of Warcraft, one of the games that reading my articles in recent years you will have understood is practically my daily bread.
With the advent of the new version of the site we noticed a big hole among the many guides and articles dedicated toMMO most famous ever: A real review dedicated to this title and its expansions. Precisely for this reason, waiting for the release of Shadowlands, we will go here to analyze and evaluate the whole process of the flagship game of Blizzard Entertainment.
World of Warcraft (2004)
After the successful series of successes with the RTS Warcraft trilogy, Blizzard thought it well to give players the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in that world they created by continuing the story from where they left off in Warcraft 3.
“Four years have passed since the mortal races have united to fight the peril of the Burning Legion. Although Azeroth has been saved, the difficult coalition between the Horde and the Alliance is close to collapse. The drums of war are rumbling again. "
These are the words with which, in 2004, the cinematic of the game opened and also gave the basis of the setting in which the game would be set from then on.
At this point the players were faced with one of the most important questions after choosing the starter in Pokémon: Alleanza or Orda? On the one hand the typical assortment of fantasy races with humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves and on the other hand those have always been the "monsters" faced by these races such as orcs, trolls, undead and tauren (say a species of minotaurs). Rather than dividing them into good and bad, Warcraft has always aimed to underline that in a war there is not really this clear distinction but only different points of view and objectives.
What made it special
How does all this translate in terms of gameplay? A huge open world fully explorable and littered with missions in which players work together for a single goal: to reach the maximum level (60) and face raids to defeat dangerous bosses and conquer epic loots. The journey to level 60, however, was a real undertaking where every little thing required time and above all grinding. This feature is the basis of both the success and the bad reputation of the game (if I had a euro for every time someone told me "eh but that game is a drug" now I would have no problem paying for the subscription), the influence of other mmo but above all of rpgs like Dungeons & Dragons e Warhammer fantasy allowed Blizzard to create absolute depth and immersion for their missions: Are you a shaman in search of power? Go on a pilgrimage to the earth elemental on top of the mountain, do you want to face the dragon? Collect your own fire resistance set. Of course, in a game in which two factions go to war, a PvP component that was first "free" in the areas of the world where you met and then in the battlefields included in the following patches could not be missing.
Overall rating
The slow pace of the game, the time required and an internet still not as boundless as we know it today made the completion of each quest or level advancement a small epic moment and the journey to the level cap a titanic undertaking along the way. which were born friendships and loves between people even in the real world, a real media phenomenon destined to become a real piece of nerd culture and more.
Vote: 9
From here on we will call the base game Vanilla.
The Burning Crusade (2007)
As tensions between the Horde and the Alliance continued to grow, Azeroth's sworn enemy, the Burning Legion, continued to weave its own plots beyond the Dark Portal.
After three years of perilous adventures on Azeroth, Blizzard is ready to take its players to Outland, a puzzle of cosmic remnants of what was once Draenor, the planet from which the orcs come, now completely subject to the fury of the Demons of the Burning Legion.
What made it special
The first expansion of WoW was a real bomb surprising the players with a series of contents and even more epic challenges such as new races, new zones, missions, flying mounts but above all the opportunity to clash against some greats in Warcraft history such as Archimonde, Kil'Jaeden and above all Illidan stormrage.
The arrival of the new races was an excellent ploy to give the respective factions what they lacked both in an aesthetic sense and in class balance: For the Horde the Blood Elves, noble and graceful High Elves with the ability to be paladins and for the 'Alliance the Draenei, a mix between the genie of the lamp and the Protoss of Stracraft, perpetually pursued by the Legion first on Argus and then on Draenor where the proximity to the orcs has taught them the shamanic arts.
In addition to the new zones and missions, the level cap raised to 70 allowed players to have access to a new set of talents and abilities to experiment with new and powerful builds. But what most revolutionized the gameplay was the introduction of flying mounts, if previously having an epic land mount was a feat, being able to fly meant being a hero because of the high cost of gold that this skill required.
Overall rating
The Burning Crusade was an expansion as literal as possible by expanding the already vast game world without radically changing the gameplay already proposed previously and going to improve the end game experience with a whole series of new activities and increasing the success even more. of the Blizzard title.
Rating: 9
Wrath of the Lich King (2008)
It didn't take long before Blizzard dropped another ace on the Warcraft 3 enthusiast's table by announcing Wrath of the Lich King.
In this expansion, players were sent north to the freezing lands of Northrend, where the Lich King he had restarted his army of the undead with which to subjugate Azeroth.
What made it special
The atmosphere of the second expansion was much darker and heavier than ever before, as players embarked on a real crusade against the Scourge while the threat of the Lich King was present around every corner, almost as if Arthas himself was watching our every move. The narrative in this one becomes much less dispersed by placing a goal in the minds of the players from the beginning and bringing them patch after patch to a true rise to power to defeat one of the greatest antagonists in the history of Warcraft.
If the hype generated by the return of the Lich King was not enough, what shocked the community at the time was the introduction of the first heroic class: the Death Knight. This class, which rebelled against the yoke of Arthas, was available to all races, started at level 55 and it was necessary to have at least one character at level 55 (or higher) to be unlocked. The Death Knight presented himself as the exact opposite of the paladin with necromantic magic instead of light and blessings with even the possibility of having a ghoul in tow. Of course during the first few months of its release this chasse was lousy OP, it wasn't hard to find groups of just Death Knights cleaning dungeons without the help of healers.
The whole game enjoyed a breathtaking landscape, far from the destroyed lands of the Outland but above all an audio sector between music and memorable dialogues capable of making you feel the cold of those lands and characterize every single boss to the maximum, especially JARAXXUS EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION! Another important mention must be made of the use of cinematic with the game graphics engine within the quests themselves such as that of Wrathgate which appears during the leveling phase.
Overall rating
Wrath of the Lich King marked the peak of success reaching 12 million players worldwide, in 2008 even the stones had tried the Blizzard MMO at least once. A linear storyline rich in content, a villain with controfiocchi and an unforgettable endgame experience.
Rating: 10
Cataclysm (2010)
"No King Reigns Forever"
These are the words with which Arthas's father accompanies the defeat of the Lich King almost as if to foretell the trend of the following years.
After the success of WotLK Blizzard was faced with a question: "How do we manage to meet the multitude of players who are approaching our title for the first time and at the same time satisfy that slice of playerbase that is clamoring for a return to the "difficulty" of Vanilla? " The solution was literally the end of the world.
What made it special and what not
To rejuvenate its title and make it more attractive to the ranks of new players, Blizzard decided to anticipate the Mayan prophecy (do you remember the one of 2012, don't you?) And reinvent the world, the quests and the way to play of Vanilla forever. awakening Deathwing: a huge dragon, now corrupted by the Old Gods, which alters the balance of elemental spirits (and even burning everything in its path) leading to a series of catastrophes. Flooded canyons, burnt forests and old players who wrote “here was once all countryside” in trade chat, the world of Warcraft as we knew it was gone.
Despite this post-apocalyptic scenario, however, the whole series of quests from 1 to 60 were completely modernized by applying everything the developers had learned from Wrath of the Lich King such as the use of vehicles and a greater use of in-game cinematic. The same goes for the new areas of Azeroth accessible from level 80 to 85 via the ancient slopes of Mount Hyjal to the deserts of Uldum to the depths of the world within the Maelstrom. This new way of leveling, the introduction of Worgen (werewolves) for the Alliance e Goblin for the Horde and new class / race combinations are perhaps the only positive aspects of this expansion.
Now let's talk about the negative aspects: First of all the possibility of flying from the beginning of the expansion, a real double-edged sword that on the one hand favored a faster resolution of quests in the new areas but on the other completely killed the immersion that so much had made the title famous since 2004.
The main goal of this expansion was to make the game as user friendly as possible at the expense of all those rpg and social components that led players to communicate with each other, with an implementation of the dungeon finder (later also raid finder at the end Cataclysm). Thanks to this system, players could queue for the selected instance as was the case for the battlefields, making the travel component to the entrance of the instance disappear completely.
The final blow was the endgame that for almost the entire expansion presented an excessive level of difficulty accompanied by a bad level design. The most striking example was the Firelands: literally a flaming plain full of monsters and bosses that move on it where every wrong millimeter was equivalent to having everyone against. If you add to all this reforging, a system that allowed you (indeed forced) to change the statistics of a piece of armor to optimize its effects, so if you were raiding you had to hope not only to take the most suitable piece for you but to also have the money and currency to be able to reforg the statistics.
Overall rating
Cataclysm tried to please all the choirs but ended up with a weak result that led to the dissolution of many guilds and the abandonment of many veteran players. The renewed quest design is certainly one of the strong points of this expansion but otherwise left with a bad taste in the mouth of many players while the newcomers will surely have enjoyed the title just started.
Rating: 6.5
Mists of Pandaria
Amid the general discontent generated by Cataclysm, the trailer for this expansion came as a punch in the stomach for most of the community.
“We were there when we defeated the enemies of Azeroth. We were there when we traveled to an alien world. We have defeated the Lich King. Deathwing will soon fall under our giant hands too. And then? Panda."
After that announcement I have seen people abandon the game, cancel their account or curse Dreamworks for creating Kung Fu Panda (without knowing of course that Po came long after the brewmasters of Warcraft 3), I myself have walked away for a kinda from WoW after knowing what to expect, but for Light's sake how wrong we were.
What made it special
Contrary to what superficially thought (myself included) Mist of Pandaria turned out to be a great expansion, if not one of the best, the game has ever had. You may not like the oriental setting, but cabbage if the graphic sector had not made a qualitative leap: the attention to detail, design and colors seem almost those of a Disney film, consecrating the cartoon style typical of this game.
Never as in this case the storytelling sector makes a crazy leap forward taking the players by the hand to discover the different areas, focusing on themes such as oriental philosophy and colonialism to end up showing the horrors of a totalitarian regime by Garrosh. Among the novelties of this expansion are the introduction of the Pandaren as the first playable race to be neutral and the monk class which, unlike the death knight, starts at level 1 like all classes.
Mists of Pandaria marks another great milestone, the arrival of the española localization and the servers dedicated to our country. This addition still animates furious discussions among the local community but it is undoubtedly an important recognition within a context as broad and global as that of WoW.
Overall rating
Pandaria has certainly been one of the most talked about expansions that has been able to kidnap those who have gone beyond appearances not only with a captivating story but also with a fun gameplay and class design. In terms of content, we tried to please anyone by introducing a system of battle pets (similar to Pokémon) for those with a slightly more casual approach and the new challenge mode for hardcore lovers.
Rating: 8
Warlords of Draenor (2014)
There is nothing to do, when time travel is put in the way the chances of failing soar (see Kingdom Hearts).
The idea of the developers was simple: to want to show the players what the Outlands were like before the arrival of the Legion and to give the possibility to meet old heroes of the past like Grommash Hellscream or Ner'zhul (the first Lich King). And what better way than by allowing Garrosh to escape after the Mists of Pandaria ending in an alternate timeline to prevent his father and the other orcs from drinking the blood of the demon Mannoroth? (pivotal moment in Warcraft history)
What made it special and what especially not
This expansion arrived in time with the achievement of 10 years of the game, a real milestone in game developing and to celebrate an incredible advertising campaign was made with animated shorts dedicated to the protagonists and huge statues at Hellfest but above all the arrival of the new 3D models of playable races. A real restyling for the characters of the players who were now out of tune with the surrounding environment so as to standardize the style in the many cutscenes created with the game's graphics engine. But Warlords of Draenor is unfortunately a story of broken promises, missed opportunities and cut content, let's go in order:
The Garrison
One of the most requested features by the WoW community has always been housing, a function present in almost all other MMORPGs that gives players the opportunity to have a personal home to decorate with the rewards obtained during their adventures. In WoD, fans' prayers are heard: Being stranded on an alien planet in an alternate timeline puts players in the position of general of their faction's troops. With this premise it will therefore be our task to found and manage a garrison from which to plan survival and victory against the Iron Horde of Garrosh. The intentions of this feature were the best but in fact proved almost damaging to the essence of the game. In a nutshell, the Garrison instead of encouraging interaction between players (such as visiting the structures of their guilds) had divided them even more, not because the average player has become less social but because the "routine" activities to progress you they literally kept nailed to the garrison with a series of NPCs doing the conga. In short, being all day with your troops, the lack of a main hub and seeing other players only in the instances via dungeon / raid finder had kind of killed the sense of the world and MMO as we knew it.
I Signori della Guerra
For those who have started playing WoW with this expansion, certain details will have no weight, but for those who have followed the franchise from its beginnings, surely seeing the treatment given to those characters who literally set everything in motion was really a disappointment. To give some examples we could mention Ner'zhul downgraded to boss at the end of the dungeon at the beginning of the expansion, Orgrim Doomhammer as a simple extra and above all Grommash Hellscream (who is the frontman on the cover of the game) who literally does nothing but a motivational speech at the beginning. and end of expansion.
Content cut
It is very normal that in the development of a game something is cut, the speech changes when the content is cut to quickly close an expansion and work on something else. This is exactly what happened here, leading the game to have end-of-expansion content for a year or so.
Overall rating
Warlords of Draenor wasn't exactly a bad set in some respects but more than anything else it can be called boring. New players or those who prefer single player activities will surely have enjoyed the linear storyline and troop management activities while longtime players will have turned their noses up on multiple occasions. Some of the advantages that this expansion has certainly had are certainly the attention to the exploration of the vast game areas full of easter eggs and hidden treasures and the new approach to the mission system. In short, a big filler that did not shine as hoped.
Rating: 5.5
Legion (2016)
WoD's ending points directly to the following expansion: Gul'dan is sent by Archimonde to our timeline to bring the threat of the Burning Legion to Azeroth once again. Horde and Alliance must once again form a common front against one of their greatest enemies.
Legion marks the return of another fan favorite, Illidan Stormrage, and the arrival of a new heroic class, the Demon Hunter.
What made it special
Already for Illidan and that mood a la Burning Crusade Legion underwent a real surge in terms of active players that erased the discontent caused by WoD and saw veterans who have not played since time immemorial return.
In Legion we find the idea of the garrison but improved thanks to the class enclaves, real meeting places where the representatives of the different classes gather to plan their counter-offensive against the Legion. So think of slums full of thieves, churches under which paladins gather or a Valhalla with its warriors. Within these structures you can meet several well-known NPCs who will help us in the search for the different Artifacts, special weapons that accompany us throughout our adventure, if you have always dreamed of wielding Thrall's Doomhammer or creating swords from the fragments of the Frostmourne it's your time.
The class identity in this expansion is very strong enough to find itself with each specialization with a unique gameplay and fantasy background. Thanks to the enclave campaign we will find ourselves facing personalized challenges that best reflect our specialization.
The areas we are going to explore not only refer to old RTS titles but expand the already great lore of the game by introducing new races and key characters.
Now let's move on to the most drawn element of this expansion: The Demon Hunter. A class that until a short time before seemed impossible to achieve is presented here in a big way. A conglomerate of agility and demonic power, the Demon Hunter is the second heroic class introduced in the game: With only two specializations (tank and DPS) this class features unique double jump gameplay and the ability to equip Warblades, new type of weapons in the same style as Illidan.
Overall rating
Legion was certainly a noteworthy expansion loaded with novelty and with an epic narrative that led players to explore even Argus, the home planet of the Draenei to face Sargeras, the fallen titan. Unique in this chapter was a slightly forced redemption story for Illidan and the Artifact Power system that channeled most of the players' activities into trying to upgrade their weapon and negatively impacted the development of the following set.
Rating: 8
Battle for Azeroth (2018)
We talked about it some time ago, read our special!
Final considerations
World of Warcraft is a title that despite having begun to go on and off in recent years continues today to attract many players in search of adventure. It must certainly be acknowledged that in its 15 years of age WoW has managed to become a real pillar of its kind that continues to dominate in an era in which most MMOs are now a distant memory. The title has been able to adapt to the trend of time (and of the market) evolving more and more, introducing novelties and renewing itself expansion after expansion.
