It's been ages since I last played World Of Warcraft, but I never stop listening to the Elwynn Forest theme whenever I need some stress relief. From what I understand, WoW's latest expansion pack, The War Within, adds even more new elements to a game that's almost unrecognizable from its vanilla days. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. With TWW only just being released, I find myself thinking “Hmm, what will it be like when I return?” This is the way it always is. I'd love to see new continents, new class features, and expanded skyriding.
First up is Khaz Algal, a new continent located off the western coast of Pandaria (this DLC is fun), which fits the subterranean, or internal, war theme perfectly. It's home to the surface-level city of Dornogar, which acts as the urban center of sorts, while the other three zones are all underground: The Ringing Deeps, Hallowfall, and Azji Kahhet. The maximum level has been raised to 80, so each zone, starting with Dorne, will gradually level up with the help of new dungeons.
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The new instances, called Delves, can be tackled with up to four companions and NPC companion Bran Bronzebeard (customizable through a skill tree). These act like bite-sized dungeons, taking around 10-15 minutes on average, and offering puzzles, platforming challenges, boss fights, and rewards that will help you in future Delves. Completing them will earn you “end-game rewards” similar to those offered in dungeons, raids, PVP, etc.
Elsewhere, hero talents are unlocked for players at level 71, allowing them to further specialise their class. Essentially, there are talent trees to choose from depending on your class and specialisation, and you pick one talent tree to activate and put points into it each time you level up, which in technical terms makes you a lot stronger. This is explained in more detail in this Blizzard article:
There are now more mounts available for skyriding, and you can now switch between dynamic flight (the nimble, flippy type introduced in the last expansion) and steady flight (the normal type of flight introduced in The Burning Crusade).
Of course, it would take an enormous amount of time to explain it here, but Blizzard's War Within page explains it well.
By the way, if you want to know what it was like to start playing WoW as a beginner not so long ago, check out the Inventory Space video. It's a relic of a bygone era when Edders and Liam (RPS in peacetime) used to make fun videos together. It brings back so many memories.
