If you spend any time in the MMO community, you’ll know there’s a tremendous amount of bitterness and cynicism to be found among players. Part of this is undoubtedly just down to the usual Internet crankiness, but a lot of the negativity springs from the fact that people are seemingly waiting for a “one true MMO.”

Call it a WoW killer or whatever you want, but people are constantly waiting for that perfect game that will be all things to all people and dominate the genre. And of course, such a game never comes, leading to an unending cycle of disappointment.

In my latest article for WhatMMO, I speculate on the origins of this desire for the perfect game, and the toxic effect it has on both players and developers alike.

Warlords of Draenor cinematic, release date, and Lords of War animated series:

Blizzard has just wrapped up their Warlords of Draenor livestream.

It was really a lot longer than it needed to be, featuring a lot of recaps and interviews on things we already knew about the expansion, as if they were announcing it all over again. It seemed like an attempt to reclaim some of the momentum they lost after last year’s BlizzCon.

But eventually, they did get to the good stuff.

They began with the first installment of a new animated series in the style of the Burdens of Shaohao. This one, Lords of War, spotlights some of the more prominent warlords of Draenor.

It’s pretty good, I have to say. Framing it with Varian and his flashbacks to the horrors he witnessed as a child was a good idea, and the whole thing is very badass and Warcrafty.

Then there’s the cinematic itself.

Despite my ambivalence (to put it kindly) towards Warlords of Draenor, I have to admit this is pretty cool. Definitely a step-up from the extremely disappointing Mists of Pandaria intro. Seeing Grom confront Mannoroth again, albeit in a totally different time and setting, and all of the throwbacks to Warcraft III were definitely nerdgasm moments.

My one complaint is that they don’t appear to have brought back the Warcraft III voice actor for Grom Hellscream, and I’m not sure I like the new guy right now. Doesn’t seem to have quite the same gravitas as his predecessor.

On the other hand, Gul’dan sounds amazing. Captured his character so perfectly.

The cinematic concluded with the release date: November 13, 2014.

Oh, that’s bad.

We were all expecting a mid-October release, and even that would have been shockingly late by anyone’s standards. Now we’re looking at an utterly unprecedented fourteen month content drought.

That’s insane. That would be unforgivable in any game. For it to happen in a subscription game, and one as successful as World of Warcraft, with an expansion as small as Warlords of Draenor… it’s madness.

We’ll likely never know what, but something clearly went badly wrong during the development of this expansion. This is a disaster.

I may not be terribly enthused with WoD, but even I’m ready for it to come out by now. The game needs new content — any new content. If nothing else, I want to get to level 100 so I can start soloing Cataclysm raids.

And I must admit, I’m warming to the idea of WoD a little. I still don’t like it, and there’s a long list of things I’d rather have for an expansion, but it seems like it’s meant to be more of a Mirror Universe-style tangent than a total rewriting of WoW lore, so that’s a bit more palatable. And some of the new zones look pretty cool.

That release date will also give people only a handful of days to reach max level in time for the ten year anniversary event. Not good.

Well, the upside of my extremely low interest level in WoD is that it doesn’t bother me overmuch if it’s absurdly late. And this means I’ll get to do Hallows End this year.

What say you, dear reader? Are the cinematic and Lords of War to your taste? Does the release date have you angered? Share your thoughts.