30-August, Irvine – Game developer Blizzard has launched a new game expansion to their market-leading MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW) running on Mac OS and Windows. Having the core game released to the public in 2004, you could almost call WoW a classic.
While it is great that they crafted a game that could hook the players for longer than a decade, as a developer you are facing certain issues in keeping the game interesting.
The new expansion is called “World of Warcraft: Legion” and it’s the sixth game expansion to WoW. Expansion are usually developed around a well-established game in order to keep the players interested and to address problems that are slowly growing for aging games.
One such problem for instance is the fact that game graphics from 2004 are hardly competition for games designed nowadays. So without scratching the core game engine too much, you need to somehow improve the looks of a game as well as the atmosphere and finally the entire user experience of the game.
x
x
x
In order to offer fresh content and keeping the subscribers hooked as well as maybe motivate old players to return, Blizzard has prepared some exciting new content, some new features and worked in the overall graphics of the game.
What’s new?
So what does the new expansion bring? You loved the cinematic trailer, because Blizzard does the best cinematics around? You are right and here are some of the key features we liked.
- Artifact weapons: These mystic weapons grow in strength along with the hero wielding them. Crush the legion!
- Demon Hunters: Join Illidan’s immortal army with the new hero class.
- Level cap 110: Weary of the endgame? Keep leveling – the level cap has been increased for you.
- World quests: This is very interesting if you already maxed out the leveling. Travel the world and take on ever changing quests.
- Class halls: Everybody needs a home, right? This is for all class buddies to meet and hang out.
- Extended Draw Distance: Great achievement in the game engineering has been done to significantly improve graphics.
- New world areas: The Broken Isles have been introduced and offer a lot of exciting areas to explore.
- New dungeons: Four new dungeons have been announced. Time to battle with your team in new places.
- Profession updates: Some tweaks and improvements have been done on the profession system.
- Order Hall: Command the resistance from your Order Hall. Be a strategist, be a planner, and enjoy this new aspect of the gameplay.
Pricing
As expected, following the Blizzard business model, the expansion will cost you for a purchase and then again you need to keep paying a recurring fee in order to be allowed to play. The Legion expansion standard edition is currently charged at around $50 and if you have a more or less speedy Internet connection, I’d recommend to get the download version. Of course there are boxed physical editions but really who has the space to store all of these things nowadays in a more and more digital-only on-demand in-the-cloud world?
Side note
If you are interested in WoW, you should also have a look at our feature article “Corrupted Blood Incident: When Game Glitches End in a Virtual Plague“. I think you’d enjoy reading that maybe.
YouTube: World of Warcraft: Legion Cinematic Trailer
YouTube: World of Warcraft: Legion — The Fate of Azeroth
Photo credit: Blizzard Entertainment
Source: Press release / News post
