14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard Entertainment has released another developer diary regarding the upcoming expansions Warlords of Draenor, headed to the company's massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft on November 13, this time around the focus being on the revamped user interface.
The upcoming expansion will introduce a lot of changes into the consecrated formula. After many people were dismayed by the last expansion, featuring Pandaren as a playable race, and believed that Blizzard was straying from the core of the game and lore in order to provide fan service and some Chinese-themed content, the developer intends to shine a spotlight on some of the fundamental events of the universe's past.
The Warlords of Draenor expansion will go back in time and revisit the orc clans of old, this time around trying to conquer Draenor through their own means, foregoing the unholy deal with the Burning Legion, that led to their enslavement and demise in the original timeline.
Of course, among the many revisions that Blizzard is making to gameplay, and improvements and new content to be added, there are also a number of quality of life changes, such as the user interface getting a global facelift.
Improvements all across the board
The changes are designed largely to eliminate clutter and make things more easily accessible, the company bringing together the Map and Quest Log, offering players everything they need in order to manage their adventures in one handy place.
When you browse by zone in the Map & Quest Log menu, you'll be able to find all the associated quests that you're on, as well as your progress and all relevant cartography for the area.
Furthermore, the new window offers much more information on your objectives directly on the map, while also enabling panning and zooming, and now there is also the option to have it as a transparent overlay, just like in Diablo 3.
Toy Box screen
Everything that you collect during your adventures that belongs in the fun category will be available in the Toy Box menu. Just like the company did in the case of mounts and pets, right-clicking eligible items will send them to the menu, where they will be subsequently accessible to all characters on the account.
In addition to this, collectors will also be able to see which toys, mounts and pets they have not yet collected, along with information on how everything can be obtained in-game.
In addition to this, the team also introduced a Summon Random Favorite Mount button, which will make a random selection from the list of mounts that you have marked as favorites, choosing from the mounts that are suitable for your current zone and situation.
More bags!
In order to further streamline the experience of managing your inventory, bags will be able to gain certain designations, such as Equipment, Consumables and Trade Good, and belongings will be sorted into bags based on these designations with the press of a button, with overflow going into the backpack.
Items now have borders indicating quality, and recently looted items glow for a period of time, in order to make locating them easier. Additionally, junk items now have a gold coin icon when you have a vendor tab open.
The bank has been updated with additional storage space, the 6.0.2 patch introducing a brand-new 98-slot Reagent Bank tab, offering extra slots for profession materials, with a handy button that deposits every reagent you're currently carrying.
The maximum stack size for many of the materials and reagents has also been increased, making crafting anything much more convenient, especially because you can also use materials that are stored in the bank from anywhere.