level 97 now in the beta playing a Draenei Warrior and have a few thoughts so far which ill share, nothing is spoiler related as all the info is available anywhere as theres no NDA on the beta.
- from what im seeing the garrison is pretty much essential for anyone, they made plenty of statements saying its optional like the farm but the amount of resources you seem to get from it and the fact that crafting professions need all sorts of reagents from fishing, herbalism, mining shows me that the garrison will be essential for anyone wanting to progress in any kind of way.
For example a run of my level 2 mine will get me about 200 trueiron ore, 100 blackrock ore and some draenic stone for the work orders.
a run round the herb garden offers less rewards prob about a stack of each herb (20)
- imagine a facebook minigame where your called back every hour or so to click another object, click another follower quest, go gather resources from your mine/herb garden, fishing pools, thats your garrison. So far im really enjoying it but im not sure how that will fare on the 2nd or 3rd alt your levelling. Also if you hate these kind of minigames you will hate the garrison.
- i love the reagent bank, great idea and helps tidy up the stuff and allows you to craft from items in your bank without having to have them in your bags.
- the fact that quest rewards and items you find can have a chance to proc as rare or epic variants is another great success. Ive had a few items get upgraded in this way and they really provide a great ilvl boost.
- quest xp seems pretty much bang on in the latest beta build im 97 and ive done all the non bugged quests in tannan jungle, Gorgrond, shadowmoon, talador as well as doing any of the bonus objectives that you see on the map, these typically offer 3-6 extra objectives and reward a decent chunk of xp, gold and garrison resources.
- lore wise im not a huge lore nerd but the parallel timeline actually works quite well and theres some suprisingly big characters to bite the dust as you unravel the story.
- the zones so far are beautiful, id say my least favourite to date is spires of arak but its still visually stunning. Shadowmoon valley (warlords version) is by far my favourite zone ever in wow.
- the stat squish you just done even notice or care about.
- the new stats of versatility, multistrike etc just seem so pointless and confusing, will look forward to seeing some guides on EJ etc as the amount of stat variation on items is abit baffling.
- the new models while great i think for most people will end up being a huge waste of time and resources for this expansion. Once your playing you dont even notice them and much like the stat squish it becomes something you dont even realise has changed.
- altho reforging is gone theres still scope to change stats as every profession crafted items have an ability to reroll the secondary stats a bit like the mystic in diablo 3
Happy to give any more feedback if people have specifics they want to know about
Draenor IS Outland, at least before the Orcs took the blood pact with the demons and were corrupted, therefore kicking off the first two Warcraft RTS games. Eventually a shedload of portals were opened by Ner'zhul (head honcho Orc shaman), and the combined energy inadvertently shattered Draenor.