Fort Kick-Ass - The First Dev Watercooler on Garrisons

Part one of Blizzard's major write-up on Garrisons is up.

While this first article is fairly rough, it's meant as an introduction to what I assume is a more comprehensive series.

Garrisons appear to be the major feature for Warlords of Draenor, apart from just more content. The feature looks like it could be transformative, really giving WoW a new type of gameplay, and it's exciting that we could have a feature that will really affect the world around us.

When Warlords was first announced, Blizzard had talked about allowing us to set up or move our base to any of the various zones, but this was eventually walked back. Instead, Alliance and Horde will have their Garrisons in their starting zones - Shadowmoon Valley and Frostfire Ridge, respectively.

This is perhaps a little disappointing, but the way they are compensating for this is actually really exciting.

Instead, as you level up and move from zone to zone, you'll make choices about other, smaller outposts and fortresses, and they will take on different forms depending on choices you make about your Garrison.

In effect, rather than having your base jump from zone to zone, they're giving you one big base and a whole bunch of mini-bases.

What I love about this harkens back to one of my first moments in Wrath of the Lich King. Through Vanilla (and the Cataclysm revamp of the 1-58 experience,) people tend to treat you like a nobody, except perhaps a few particular NPCs. In Outland, they're still kind of treating you like a grunt, if perhaps an elite grunt.

Yet when I first arrived in Valiance Keep, I saw a big line of NPCs at the recruiting station. But the man at the desk called out to me, telling me that a hero such as I did not need to wait in line. It was the first time that the game acknowledged that yes, I was a badass, and not just some run-of-the-mill hero.

And now, in Draenor, we're essentially 4-Star Generals. We're the ones that everyone salutes as we walk by. It's about damn time, right?

Anyway, the satellite base idea is, to me, actually more exciting than moving my Garrison (granted, considering how cool Shadowmoon Valley looks, I'd probably just keep mine there anyway.) I really hope that Blizzard makes the customization of the smaller towns very robust, though I recognize that they've got to use Molten Front-style "phasing for what you see," so that you can interact with other players.

But there's clearly going to be an impact. For instance, the article suggests that if you choose between, say, a Sparring Arena and a Lumber Mill, you'll get different zone-specific cool downs in the base where you made the choice. The Sparring Arena might give you a summonable Ogre ally, while the Lumber Mill might give you a Shredder Vehicle that you can slash your foes with.

And in case you're worried (and in case you didn't, for some reason, read the Blizzard article,) you'll be able to change all of these options if you aren't happy with what you originally went with. Likewise, schematics for Garrison buildings will be available from vendors in case you prefer leveling through PvP or Dungeons.

Check out the article, though. I, for one, am getting pretty excited about this feature.