Countdown to Warlords of Draenor (2 week update/49 weeks to go)

 

There has been a little progress on my goals since my last post. Most significantly is the Proving Grounds Healing Silver Rank and finishing the Wrath of the Lich King Jewelcrafting Dallies.

 

Important Stuff to do:

● Get Holy Item Level to over 553 (515 520/553)
● Do Siege of Orgrimmar (Wing 1 or 4 completed)

● Finish Legendary Cloak Quest line (Chapter 2 of 5)
● Proving Grounds: Proving Yourself: Silver Healer
● Proving Grounds: Proving Yourself: Gold Healer

 

Old Raid Stuff to do:

● Finish Shadowmourn Quest line
● Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 player) (5 14/17)
● Glory of the Cataclysm Raider (6 13/24)

● Get all Classic Raid Pet Drops (7/12)

● Get all Burning Crusade Raid Pet Drops (2/10)

● Get all Raid Reps (0/3) (Hydraxian Waterlords; Avengers of Hyjal; Shado-Pan Assault)

Misc Stuff to do:

● Get all Pristine Archaeology (10/28)

● Do [The Longest Day] Achievement
● Get all Darkmoon Mounts (1/2) (56/180 Tickets) - Swift Forrest Strider

● Get all Argent Tournament Mounts (7/15) (900 Tokens)
● Nat Pagle Friendship to Best Friends (6/64 hand-ins done)

 

Jewelcrafting Recipe Collection:

● 11 Burning Crusade Recipes - 1 Aldor, 6 Sunwell, 3 World Drop, 1 Dungeon Drop

● 0 Wrath of the Lich King (Complete)

● 43 Cataclysm - 2 World Drop; 58 Vendor (155 Cata Tokens)

-23 18 Rares =  54 Tokens; 11 Epics = 44 Tokens; 3 Meta = 12 Tokens; 9 Rings/Necks = 45 Tokens
● 2 Mists of Pandaria Recipes - (from Serpent's Heart or Ancient Guo-Lai Cache).

All JC Recipies done for Wrath of Lich King

After 354 interrupted days, I have finished my Dalaran Jewelcrafting Dallies.

No more will I collect [Dalaran Jewelcrafter's Token]!

No in game achievement. Just a personal victory over the insane daily model for disturbing JC recipes.

Now to continue for the next 150+ days to finish off Orgrimmar JC patterns.

Amber Primordial Direhorn

 

Farming Zandalari Warbringer with Xyn and finally I have a Reins of the Amber Primordial Direhorn drop for me!

 

Draenor: The Red World

 

Draenor. As seen back in Warcraft 2's Expansion Pack "Beyond The Dark Portal".

Era: 8 years after the events of Warcraft 1

 

 

The destroyed Draenor, now called Outland, as seen in World of Warcrafts's Expansion Pack "Burning Crusade".

Era: 26 years after the events of Warcraft 1.

 

The Draenor from another timeline, as seen in the future World of Warcrafts's Expansion Pack "Warlords of Draenor".

Era: This version of the world was created when Garrosh travelled back in time to at least one year before the events of Warcraft 1.

 

I am going to compare parts of the map I found interesting costal comparisons, beyond the obvious vanishing of Zangarmarsh and Nagrand moving north.

 

The Devouring Sea:

 

 

The West end of the WoD Bay matches the WC2 Bay far more than it did in BC's version. However The north shore in the WoD version goes further east than in the WC2 version.

 

Deathwing's Lair:

Deathwing's Lair wasn't in Burning Crusade. If it had been it would have been East of Hellfire Peninsula  & The Dark Portal.

 

Netherwing Ledge served much of the purpose that this island would have served, but it was south of Shadowmoon Valley, not North.

 

There is an island in the spot of Netherwing Ledge in Warlords of Draenor, but it looks very different to Netherwing Ledge. This could be because Deathwing never made it to outland and didn't use his Volcanic Earth Powers to raise up the second mountain, making the island much larger.

 

Warsong Clan Island

 

 

During Warcraft 2, the Warsong Clan occupy and Island North West of Deathwing's Lair and North East off Hellfire Peninsula. This island was not in Burning Crusade and was probably destroyed when the world exploded.

 

I don't know what the island was called before the Warsong Clan occupied it during the Second War, so I'll just keep calling it the 'Warsong Clan Island'. Nagrand is the home of the Warsong Clan according to Burning Crusade and you can see they have territory on the mainland in the WC2 map as well.


EDIT: I have discovered I was wrong. Kamalia pointed out in the comments below that the WoD island I thought was 'Warsong Clan Island' is actually Ashran. According to the wowpedia article on Ashran, it is the island where Deathwing's Lair was. The result is that in WoD, 'Warsong Clan Island' vanished and Deathwing's Lair is in it's old spot.

Glory of the Cataclysm Raider

 

A group from Frostwolves went into Throne of the Four Winds and Blackwing Descent on Heroic to kill the bosses. No group snapshot this time, but Hunterfaith, Kyjenn, Voros, Evea and Punchynok were there.

 

After Blackwing Descent we did some Wrath Raids, including The Ruby Sanctum where I got my Twilight Destroyer achieves.

Pandaria Dungeon Hero

 

I hadn't done three of the Mists of Pandaria Heroics so I queued up and did them. The DPS output the PUG members were giving was very impressive and the fights didn't last long at all.

 

I couldn't say how Where's My Air Support? was done, I was just focused on healing during the event.

15k Achievement Points

 

Just noticed that I am over 15,000 Achievement Points now!

 

The achievements Once Bitten, Twice Shy (10 player) and the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher  from Monday pushed me over.

Game Dev Tycoon - Burning Crusade

 

 This is something I didn't get around to posting until now. The ending to my Game Dev Tycoon game where I made World of Warcraft.

 

After the Thrall and Jaina's Painting Adventure for the Nintendo DS fiasco, subscriptions of World of Warcraft MMO were at an all time low (1.5 million subscribers, nearly half the number at launch).

 

After Painting Adventure was released, the team were given some training then rest. Once back from vacation work started on an expansion for World of Warcraft called Burning Crusade. After a year the game was finished and it was released. The staff assignments for making the expansion were identical to the settings used during classic WoW.

 

 

Burning Crusade got a 9.0, not a 10, but that would do. It boosted subscribers up to an all time high of 3.8 Million.

 

The team were given vacations and training over the next year. The next expansion would be Wrath of the Lich King and it had to be better. After the team was back from their vacation and training, work began on Wrath.

 

Then I went bankrupt.

 

 

Then Zynga purchased my company and IPs. Now that is just rubbing salt into the wound!

 

So what when wrong? Costs of keeping WoW online and costs making the expansions exceeded the income I was making from subscriptions.

 

Subscriptions were down because I think the two year development cycle seemed too long and the fans grew disinterested with the game.

 

 

 Unlike real-world WoW, you can't have two teams, one doing patches during an expansion and the other team developing the next expansion. You got one team with no patches to add content, only expansions  So that means I need to release expansions at a much quicker rate.

 

The first year of the cycle was just training with a vacation at the start and the end. The training was so that Wrath of the Lich King would be an improvement over Burning Crusade. The vacation was to give the team a rest after making Burning Crusade then a rest to be ready to make Wrath.

The second year was supposed to be 50% Development. 50% QA.  That is the game would be made in the first six months then the bugs would be fixed in the other six months. Then the game would launch bug free.

 

I went bankrupt during QA. Active subscribers were down to 1.57 million people at that time.

 

So what did I learn?

1- Cut back on training and QA so the development cycle is only a year. So maybe 2.5% Vacation, 50% Development, 40% QA, and 7.5% Training.

 

2 - Don't make a Warcraft Themed Painting Adventure game for the Nintendo DS.

 

1 - Be willing to pull the plug on an unprofitable game haemorrhaging money, killing a company that used to have a billion dollars.

 

 Complete Simulated History:

 

Simulated World of Warcraft Started = Y50 M11 W4

E3 - 2,47 million visitors

Simulated World of Warcraft Released = Y51 M11 W3

Average Score = 10/10 

 

WoW Year 1: Game Year 52

Simulated Q1: 2.76 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 2.10 Million Subscribers

Painting Adventure Started = Y52 M6 W4

Simulated Q3: 2.67 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q4: 2.27 Million Subscribers

Painting Adventure Released = Y52 M11 W4

Average Score: 4/10

 

WoW Year 2: Game Year 53

Simulated Q1: 1.50 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 1.47 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q3: 2.33 Million Subscribers

Simulated Burning Crusade Started = Y53 M9 W4

Simulated Q4: 2.27 Million Subscribers

 

WoW Year 3: Game Year 54

Simulated Q1: 2.03 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 1.47 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q3: 1.17 Million Subscribers

Simulated Burning Crusade Release = Y54 M9 W3

Average Score = 9/10 

Simulated Q4: 2.80 Million Subscribers

 

WoW Year 4: Game Year 55

Simulated Q1: 3.80 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 2.97 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q3: 2.90 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q4: 2.47 Million Subscribers

Simulated Wrath of the Lich King Started = Y55 M12 W1

 

WoW Year 5: Game Year 56

Simulated Q1: 1.53 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 1.57 Million Subscribers

BANKRUPT - Y56 M8 W1

Scheduled Wrath of the Lich King Release = Y54 M11 W4

 

The real world World of Warcraft information can be found at statista.

In real WoW's 5th year (2009) in Q2 they had 12 million subscribers.

 

Winner: Real World version of World of Warcraft.

Loser: Simulated version of World of Warcraft.

Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player)

 

Back in January I did most of the achievements for the Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player) meta. The last one I needed was Once Bitten, Twice Shy (10 player).  I never could be the Vampire. 

 

Today I went into Icecrown with an agenda: To get the last achievement Once Bitten, Twice Shy (10 player) and the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher!

 

With Azadelta's help we made it to Blood-Queen Lana'thel, I became a vampire. After killing the boss I gained the achievement!

 

Countdown to Warlords of Draenor (51 weeks to go)

 

With Warlords of Draenor announced, it is time for me to get my bucket list of things to do before the new expansion. Nothing like a deadline to motivate someone!Here is a list of things I will be doing for the last half of the Mists of Pandaria Expansion!

 

Important Stuff to do:

● Get Holy Item Level to over 553 (515/553)
● Do Siege of Orgrimmar (Wing 1 or 4 completed)
● Get Holy Spec Shield instead of Holy Spec Offhand (Complete)
● Finish Legendary Cloak Quest line (Chapter 2 of 5)

● Proving Grounds: Proving Yourself: Silver Healer

 

Old Raid Stuff to do:

● Finish Shadowmourn Quest line
● Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 player) (5/17)
● Glory of the Cataclysm Raider (6/24)

● Get all Classic Raid Pet Drops (7/12)

● Get all Burning Crusade Raid Pet Drops (2/10)

● Get all Raid Reps (0/3) (Hydraxian Waterlords; Avengers of Hyjal; Shado-Pan Assault)

Misc Stuff to do:

● Get all Pristine Archaeology (10/28)

● Do [The Longest Day] Achievement
● Get all Darkmoon Mounts (1/2) (56/180 Tickets) - Swift Forrest Strider

● Get all Argent Tournament Mounts (7/15) (900 Tokens)
● Nat Pagle Friendship to Best Friends (6/64 hand-ins done)

Jewelcrafting Recipe Collection:

● 11 Burning Crusade Recipes - 1 Aldor, 6 Sunwell, 3 World Drop, 1 Dungeon Drop

● 4 Wrath of the Lich King - 4 Vendor (16 Wrath Tokens)

● 65 Cataclysm - 2 World Drop; 58 Vendor (170 Cata Tokens)

-23 Rares = 69 Tokens; 11 Epics = 44 Tokens; 3 Meta = 12 Tokens; 9 Rings/Necks = 45 Tokens;
● 2 Mists of Pandaria Recipes - (from Serpent's Heart or Ancient Guo-Lai Cache).