Today at 18:30, Blizzard announced the release date of the World of Warcraft expansion Warlords of Draenor. The add-on will be released on November 13.
Blizzard seems to have reached a size where even the announcement needs an announcement. And for the past 2 weeks, fans have been eagerly waiting for the release date of the next expansion of the franchise. The whole thing is accompanied by a cinematic trailer – the actual event takes place Thursday morning local time in Los Angeles. Figuratively, the event takes place in millions of living rooms and computer rooms worldwide, as it will be streamed in many countries.
In an interview with Gamona ahead of the event, it was already announced that a team from Blizzard is currently working on the next expansion of World of Warcraft.
Here is a stream of the current events, we also have a small live ticker:
Small Live Ticker for the World of Warcraft Stream
18:35: The crowd is being heated up with typical stadium announcer tricks. “Who is here for the Horde?” – “Who is for the Alliance?” … I admit, I also shouted!
18:45: Competent developers are talking about open-world PvP or something. I can’t concentrate, I really want to know the release date. Come on! There will be time for details later!
18:48: Wow, first applause. If you slay opposing players in the new open PvP zone, you can loot half of their fragments. You can either sell them as “Back to Alterac” or as “Blizzard learns from DayZ!”
18:53: Uh, Chris Metzen. Immediately fits in with the stadium announcer tricks. Gets a lot of applause. Until now, I thought he looked like a reindeer. Something is not right here!
18:57: Blizzard wants to introduce the titular villains of the expansion, the Warlords of Draenor, with “Lords of War”, an animated series.
19:00: The first one is Kargath Bladefist, a kind of Orc Spartacus, but not the 50s Hollywood version, rather the “10:15 PM on Pro Sieben with naked Xena” version. The comic series uses elements from 300 and the Spartacus Starz series in its depiction.
19:03: The comic is well received, lots of applause. Metzen hints that Warlords of Draenor will be much harder and bloodier than the Pandas.
19:05: The new zones are now being presented in a trailer. Nagrand triggers Talbuk grind flashbacks for me.
19:07: Quick look into the new dungeons. Surely everyone is excited about the train ride! How could one not be? Everyone loves trains!
19:09: People are totally excited and now it’s really just starting. Amazing how they always manage this. Metzen emphasizes the tradition of World of Warcraft. Many ideas and figures are already 20 years old. He also highlights the relationship with the community.
19:11: Metzen goes into the time travel/parallel universe idea, which was received a bit oddly by fans at first – it sounded somehow nerdy/Star Trek-like. Metzen explains that the pivotal moment in Warcraft was the pact between Orcs and Demons. And that’s what the trailer is also dealing with.
19:17: That went quickly. Warlords of Draenor will be released on November 13, 2014. The cinematic trailer shows the exposition of the expansion in drastic images: What would have happened if the Orcs had never consumed Mannoroth’s blood? What would have happened if they had never become slaves of the demons? Sounds like an exciting premise for the expansion.
