Blizzard Entertainment has laid down the groundwork for its major effort to arrest the significant drop in the subscriptions that its massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) “World of Warcraft” experienced at the start of the year. It is obvious that the game developer has set its sight on recovering lost gamer subscription even as it strives to entice new ones in the process.
One of its immediate initiatives towards such end is to release updates or patches to the game, meant to bring new features and improve the game further. Blizzard released Patch 6.2.0 officially titled “Fury of Hellfire” on June 23 which contained Tanaan Jungle and the Shipyard and provided players with a host of new gameplay options.
Some fans thought that “Prepare for Flying” was to be the game’s Patch 6.2.1, but it turned out that those were just wishful thinking as it seems that Blizzard Entertainment have skipped the update.
On September 1, the game developer released Patch 6.2.2 officially titled “Draenor Pathfinder: Prepare for Flying,” giving gamers who already have the Draenor Pathfinder achievement to take the skies of Draenor, notes the World of Warcraft website.
The update is now available for testing on the Public Test Realms (PTR) where gamers who shall take part will be able to try out the patch before it makes it to the live realms. They can also provide feedback so that Blizzard Entertainment can take note of those to further improve the patch and make the game really entertaining.
The most awaited strategy game
However, the biggest initiative that Blizzard is planning for the game is the development of its expansion pack “World of Warcraft: Legion” which it announced during the Gamescom 2015 held on August 5 to 9 at Cologne, Germany.
Since its announcement last month “World of Warcraft: Legion” has become one of the most awaited strategy games that the generation is to come across with, notes Venture Capital Post.
Jonathan LeCraft, senior game designer, revealed some of the most important additions that will be useful to gamers of “World of Warcraft” when the expansion pack is finally released sometime in the second half of next year.
The expansion brings a variety of new features to the “World of Warcraft” MMORPG for existing players to enjoy and to entice new gamers to join in the fun.
The “World of Warcraft: Legion,” which will be the sixth expansion to arrive since the release of the “World of Warcraft” game in 2004, will be bringing new challenges to combat for long-time players .
It shall also raise the level cap to 110, and a new hero class called Demon Hunter will be introduced, offering spectral sight, metamorphosis, and unrivalled mobility. There will also be a new area called The Broke Isles to explore, with new dungeons, raids and bosses, in addition to Artifacts, which are customizable weapons that grow in power as players do.
More tweaks and improvements
The Demon Hunters are magic/melee based class, with an astonishing starting level of 98. The transmogrification system was also tweaked giving it a user interface of its own.
Most class specializations will be refurbished accordingly due to the changes that Blizzard will make to specify the traits of which the game will be undergoing. As some classifications will be perhaps renamed, so will other resources for the classifications.
The Shadow Priests will have a feature to be called ‘Insanity’ for their resource. This, however, shall not signify the replacement of mana for the Shadow Priests entirely.
Weapons cannot be dropped. Blacksmiths and scribes will not have new weapons to create as well. Damage-only classes will be unable to heal or have tank specialties.
And last but not the least, the multi-strike feature is omitted from the system while other statistics are being changed wholly. Moreover, Survival Hunters will be melee-based, and this may stir a little controversy because the developers think that it is a wise move for diversity.
Instead of playing hardball with gamers as it originally intended with regards to the flying problem in the “World of Warcraft,” Blizzard has come up with a compromise solution.
Weapons cannot be dropped. Blacksmiths and scribes will not have new weapons to create as well. Damage-only classes will be unable to heal or have tank specialties.