Why raiding is so expensive in World of Warcraft: Legion

Players who do raids, mythic dungeons and other high-end PvE activities in World of Warcraft may have noticed the high cost of flasks, potions and consumables in the Legion expansion. While the Warlords of Draenor equivalents of these items cost almost nothing, a Legion flask can cost over 1,500 gold on many servers’ auction houses.
               

I’ve written in the past about the player economy in WoW, and what’s been going on with alchemy in Legion is interesting. Here’s what’s going on and why it’s happening.

THE PRICE OF ENTRY

First, let’s talk about why this is a really big deal.

Warcraft’s PvE content is challenging, especially as you get into the higher difficulty levels of raids and mythic dungeons. This content is designed around the assumption that players will use everything available to them in the game to augment their characters and maximize the amount of damage they can deal, tank or heal off.

TIME IS MONEY, FRIEND!

There are four main herbs in Legion: Aethril, Fjarnskaggl, Dreamleaf and Foxflower. There’s also a special plant called Starlight Rose. Each of the regular herbs grows in a different region of the Broken Isles, and the roses grow exclusively in the max-level region of Suramar.

There are four kinds of flasks: one to increase stamina, one to increase agility, one to increase intellect and one to increase strength. Each flask has a different recipe, but all of them require 20 normal herbs — ten each of two kinds — and seven roses.

While you can harvest as many as seven normal herbs from a single node, you can only get one Starlight Rose from each spawn. Unless you have the highest skill level for collecting roses, which requires a lot of grinding, you have a chance for your attempt to pick the rose to fail. This outcome leaves you with worthless dust.

World of Warcraft director Tom Chilton steps down to lead a new Blizzard project

It’s the end of the Chilton era for World of Warcraft.
 

After a decade of overseeing one of the biggest games ever made, World of Warcraft director Tom Chilton is leaving. The designer announced in a blog today that he is stepping down from the lead role on Blizzard’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game now that Legion, the latest (and greatest) expansion has launched. But Chilton isn’t done at Blizzard. He revealed that he is sticking with the company and is now working on something new. The director worked on Warcraft since 2004, and he was key to turning it into one of the most popular and lucrative hits in the history of the $99.6 billion gaming industry.

“It’s with a mix of excitement, sadness, and gratitude that I’m saying farewell to the WOW team and moving on to a new adventure within Blizzard,” Chilton wrote in a message on the Blizzard forums. “My personal journey working on WOW as Game Director is at an end, but my journey with Blizzard isn’t. I’ll still be here, but will be focusing on another project within the company.”

World of Warcraft was long Blizzard’s crown jewel, but it is entering the twilight of its life. It peaked in 2010 with 12 million subscribers, and it has since dwindled to less than half of that — although the publisher no longer releases the figures for how many people pay for a monthly membership. WOW still generates millions of dollars in revenue every month, but fans have still wondered whether Blizzard would replace it with something new. The studio was working on a new MMO called Titan, but it eventually canceled that project and repurposed many of the assets and ideas for the popular Overwatch shooter that launched in April.

The genius behind 'World of Warcraft' just raised $25 million

The guy behind on one of the most successful games ever made just got $25 million to start a new studio: Bonfire Games.
         
       

That man is Rob Pardo, and he's leading a team of game development veterans (like himself) at a new studio. Their focus? "The company will make online multiplayer games, though he has not yet decided whether it will create them for mobile devices, PCs or both," writes Nick Winfield in The New York Times.

The financing comes from one likely and one unlikely suspect: venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (likely), and "League of Legends" studio Riot Games (unlikely!).

You may know "League of Legends" as one of the other most successful games ever made; it's the most widely played eSports game in the world, and commands a monthly playership of nearly 70 million (according to the Riot). Riot is owned by Chinese conglomerate Tencent.

Pardo took to Medium to discuss the new venture. "Often, developers must compromise and decide — do I work on a blockbuster game where I have less personal impact or the gutsy indie studio that struggles to get noticed?," he wrote. "Our vision is to create a studio that doesn’t require them to choose."

Pardo is working with a handful of folks who are coming with him from Blizzard Entertainment — the Activision-owned studio responsible for "World of Warcraft," "Hearthstone," "Overwatch," and many other blockbusters; he's also hiring.

World Of Warcraft Expansions Revisited

With World of Warcraft’s Legion expansion launching next week, we finish off our tour of the MMO’s previous expansions by saying farewell to the amazing strongholds we spent the past year and change building up.

Returning to the ten level jump of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King following a couple of five level jaunts through Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor was exactly the epic chunk of new hotness players like me needed to draw us back in.

On paper it didn’t sound very exciting. We were going through the Dark Portal to Draenor, just like we did in The Burning Crusade, but this was old-timey, alternate universe Draenor, back when more exciting things happened there than standing up to your waist in Zangamarsh.

Treading old ground? Yawn. Building fortresses and gathering followers? Whatever. You go ahead and release the most exciting expansion pack in the game’s then ten-year history. See if we care.

Warlords of Draenor launches with the best marriage of story and gameplay Blizzard’s yet managed. The player walks side-by-side with Azeroth’s greatest heroes, charging into battle against the most dangerous assemblage of orcs in the history of history.

LEGION RELEASE DATE NOT SPECIFIED WHILE A NEW WAY TO ENTER WOW HIDDEN ZONE HAS BEEN DISCOVERED

In World of Warcraft, you will notice that around the northern shores of the Eastern Kingdoms, there is a zone that we can see on Azeroth’s map.

However, compared to all the other zones, it appears to be unmarked and it can only be accessed through some rather tricky ways. The purpose of this tiny area is unknown but speculations suggest that over the years, it was supposed to be the lush forest region of the Quel’thalas.

This was a Vanilla Zone that later got introduced in the game as the starting zone for the Blood Elves during The Burning Crusade Expansion. The plans regarding this zone since the Quel’thalas, was later scrapped and it remained as an unfinished chunk of land that was unreachable by the players.

However, as you might expect, this didn’t put a stop to the ambitions of explorers who wanted to reach this area and HeelvsBabyface’s clearly proves that. Anyone can go there with a series of tricky moves even without utilizing any form of private servers or trying anything unconventional.

You can reach this area through the Eastern Plaguelands’ Stratholme dungeon but check out the method for yourself or the fun could end up being spoilt! The video is a perfect tease for everybody. Reach this zone and you will notice a complete area full of missing textures, invisible walls and placeholders.

Right now, the leaves are turning and the weather is finally cooling down and a result, you can expect the citizens of Azeroth to celebrate the autumn season as well. There are various events that celebrate the fall and all of them are back. There are further recurring favorites all designed for the month of October.

WoW players can keep enjoying in various Brewfest activities that occurs throughout the first week of October and is followed by Hallow’s end which occurs later this month. At the moment, Brewfest will continue all throughout the first week of October.

Players have the chance to visit places like Orgimmar or Ironforge in order to complete quests, participate in various events and also keep racing rams during the event.

You can purchase things like Toy kegs, banners, and backpacks from the event’s Brewfest prize tokens. You can also purchase Battle Pets using these tokens. They include the Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm, the Wolpertinger, and the Stout Alemental.

Meanwhile, the Swift Brewfest Ram and the Great Brewfest Kodo mounts can only be purchased during the Brewfest, according to their references on the official site.

Fast forward a bit and on Hallow’s End, players will be able to celebrate the Halloween Holiday on 18th October. Players have the chance to horde the event’s currency which is Tricky Treats while carrying on with their trick and treat around Azeroth.

Through these treats, people can purchase a number of Hallow’s End battle pets which include the Feline Familiar or pug disguises, Halloween wands and much more. Keep in mind that this event is also the only way through which you can acquire The Horseman’s Reins and from the Headless Horseman in Scarlet Monastery, you can unlock a ghastly mount as loot.

In other news, players have been waiting a long time for World of Warcraft: Legion and Blizzard Entertainment has been releasing new details but in a very slow pace. According to Realty Today, the upcoming title has teased fans for a long time and furthermore, it is said that Legion has been under-development for about 3 years now.

The game director, Tom Chilton said that they go through multiple expansions at a time and there was a certain point when they were trying to decide the order in which they should come first. They finally decided that Warlords should be coming first, followed by Legion next.

According to Tom Chilton, “we have known what we are going to do on core level since two and half three years ago or so now. It was around 2012 we were talking about that.”

There is no specified release date for World of Warcraft Legion but there are continuous patches and updates which keep coming before the title finally gets launched. Fans have the chance to keep themselves posted on the further additions to the game.

With the Bonus events about to start soon, WoW players are excited about the upcoming Hallow’s end. There are many things to be seen and done and a lot of players are apparently getting quite restless.

With the newly introduced things, players will have a lot of goodies to look into and purchase them if they like. On 5th October, the Darkmoon Faire will return with, carnival games, weekly crafting questsand a chance to buy pets, heirloom items, mounts, toys, and additional items.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming events? Let us know in the comments section below and stay tuned for more updates!