Patch 6.2 looms ahead for World of Warcraft and one of the features set to introduced is the addition of the shipyard to your personal garrison. As well as adding shipyard quests it will grant you access to the new area of Tanaan Jungle. When 6.2 is live a new quest will pop allowing you to begin the relatively short quest line to build your shipyard, very similar to the events that took place when you first landed at the location of your garrison itself. Once completed the next step will be to build your first ship using items found on the shores of Tanaan Jungle, this will give you access to your ships and naval missions.
The way it works is very similar to the follower missions aspect of the garrison. You can contract new ones, send them on missions, upgrade them and teach them new abilities and traits however unlike your followers, ships can be destroyed on missions. Building ships will cost garrison resources and will be a quick process, only taking a minute to build a ship and initially a level 1 shipyard will allow you to have 5 ships. The a different types of ship to choose from including Troop Transports, Carriers, Dreadnoughts, Submarines and Destroyers.
Players can choose to add different equipment to their ships to add to effectiveness on missions like followers. Ships come with three variations, Types, Crew and Equipment. Whilst Type and Crew are permanent, Equipment can be exchanged to implement the changes required. Potential abilities and traits for your ships include threat counters like Ice Cutters and Trained Shark Tank, mission time modifiers like Nitro Fuel Tanks, increase reward modifiers like Tuskarr Fishing Net and Wreckage Recovery Module and increased success modifiers like Food Storage Bay and Unsinkable. All these modifiers and many many more are designed to counter the various threats involved with all the naval missions you will be sending your ships on.
So what are your thoughts on the shipyard feature? Many think that the garrison in general is more like a Facebook game for single player use rather than the friendly social hub that it was intended to be, do you feel the same or have you been throwing guild parties at your garrison? Do you enjoy the feature as it is and you looking forward to setting sail on the open seas? Let me know in the comments below!