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Role Playing (Games)

Next WoW Expansion Title Leaked? 121

Gamespot reports that the German software ratings board may have accidentally tipped Blizzard's hand on the title of the next World of Warcraft expansion. "Spotted by German community site Gamona, a listing for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King appeared on USK yesterday, accompanied by the tag 'GC-demo,' implying Blizzard will be showing Wrath of the Lich King at this year's Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. Responding to a request for comment, a Blizzard representative stated, 'We have not yet announced any details with regard to future expansions of World of Warcraft.'" No surprise that Northrend would be the setting for the newest expansion. A bit disappointing, really.
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Next WoW Expansion Title Leaked?

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  • by pthor1231 ( 885423 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:06PM (#20073553)
    if you go to http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath [worldofwarcraft.com] you get a 403, versus an actual webpage for http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade [worldofwarcraft.com] .... Who knows, maybe it is an asshole web admin at blizzard
  • by MarcoG42 ( 1087205 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:07PM (#20073571) Homepage
    World of Warcraft: Wrath of my Girlfriend! There, two birds...one stone.
  • by Tyrsenus ( 858934 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:08PM (#20073603)
    There's some speculation [mmo-champion.com] that the Emerald Dream will make it in this expansion as well.

    There's a ton of other good info at that site too.
    • by juuri ( 7678 )
      I'd be surprised, just a couple months ago during an interview they claimed they had a version of the emerald dream done, but it was done before changes in direction from BC and that everything, including most of the art, was going to be scrapped.

  • Wow (Score:3, Funny)

    by Thumper_SVX ( 239525 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:17PM (#20073745) Homepage
    That title sounds like an Elvish porno... or at least the sequel...
    • by g-san ( 93038 )
      Reminds me of a time when an old buddy and I were watching Lord of the Rings I, where the future king and Steve Tyler's daughter were making lovey dovey.

      My mate asks, "So an elf and a human, would that even work?"

      I replied, "Dude, where do you think half elves come from?"
    • You're thinking of:

      Whorecraft [whorecraft.net] - Swords, Sorcery and Sex
  • Misheard (Score:5, Funny)

    by halcyon1234 ( 834388 ) <halcyon1234@hotmail.com> on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:18PM (#20073779) Journal
    Strange, based on the story five minutes ago, I thought the expansion was going to be something like WoW: Terrorist Training Grounds [slashdot.org]
  • disappointing my ass (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Juanvaldes ( 544895 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:19PM (#20073799)
    >No surprise that Northrend would be the setting for the newest expansion. A bit disappointing, really.
    Lots of folks were pissed off last year when it was revealed that the expansion would not be Northrend but instead Outland. I think this will make quite a few WoW addicts happy.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tbannist ( 230135 )
      If they're still playing the game...

      But definitely Northrend would have seemed to be a better release to come before Outland. I mean after getting an alien world to explore, a frozen continent seems like a lacklustre follow up.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        It fits with the story, really.

        Arthas is nearly a god in the Warcraft mythos at this point, considering he wields Frostmourne, which has all the power of the Lich King in it.

        God, I'm a huge nerd.
        • actually, Archimonde should probably be more powerful than Arthas, even as the new Lich King. Archimonde was supposed to be almost on par with Kil'Jaeden as a fellow leader of the Eredar, and Kil'Jaeden is the one responsible for turning Ner'zhul into the Lich King, who is in turn responsible for corrupting Arthas and merging with him. with Archimonde being that powerful, it's pretty disappointing that he gets killed on Mount Hyjal.

          granted, that involved a lot of people. and when the Lich King merged with A
      • by megamerican ( 1073936 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:48PM (#20074339)
        They'll change the title to WOW: An Inconvenient Truth, where global warming threatens Northrend. The cause will be from the declining numbers of pirates.
  • New title will be World of Grindcraft: Grinder's Paradise! New reskinned mobs and bosses with pathetically simple AI! New reskinned race! More of the same no skill point and click koreanstyle grindfest!
    • I don't think WoW counts as a grindfest. Everquest was a grindfest. AC was grind. WoW's best played by just doing quests.

      well, at least till the high end. Then it's all about farming. Loot seems to flow like water in BC though, so it's not much a concern.
      • by zippthorne ( 748122 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:51PM (#20074415) Journal
        Quests whose object is... grinding.
        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Gravatron ( 716477 )
          Not really. Most are fetch quests or kill quests. Even if you do "grind" usualys its only for a few minutes to collect X number of items. Compair that to say, Everquest, where you spent 95% of the time sitting at a camp pulling mobs for hours on end for only a minor advancement in level.
          • When I last played EQ (7 months ago), it took maybe 4-6 hours for each level in the 50-60 range. It went up about an hour or two every 5 levels after that, until 70 where it took a more significant amount of time. Leveling in EQ really doesn't take that long anymore. Odds are you'll spend more time getting groups together than it takes to actually level.

            And maybe I'm doing it wrong, but last time I played WoW (yesterday), I spent ~2 hours non-stop killing orange mobs, and I got roughly 35% of a level. W
            • Don't kid yourself that WoW isn't a grind...it's usually much more efficient to grab a quest, go out and 'grind' the items, and then stay at that spot and continue to grind for the rest of the session.

              I'm now entering my third month of play, and I haven't felt like that at all. I'm now level 56 and have had no trouble finding zones in which I can get multiple quests with relatively close "turn-in spots," making a bucket of XP in the process. While I'm not going to level every couple hours (nor should you

            • Wait, so that's 6 hours of rested grinding to gain one level at level 34? I'm somewhat baffled by how wrong that sounds, although it is somewhat offset by the fact that you are approaching the game in almost exactly the wrong fashion if you're concerned about efficiency and dislike grinding.

              Grinding on oranges is a bad idea as you lose a significant chunk of dps when you go to "orange", so the loss in throughput is nowhere near offset by the increase in xp yield. Similarly, you want to be almost always qu

            • Killing orange mobs is your problem.

              It's counter-intuitive, but you actually level faster killing green mobs for several reasons.

              1) They are lower level than you, which means:
              -a) You are harder to hit and damage.
              -b) They are easier to hit and damage.
              -c) They do less damage as a rule.
              -d) They have less health.

              2) Orange mobs are higher level than you, which indicates the exact opposite of the above and also adds the additional possibility of sustaining Crushing Blows. Going after orange mobs is especially dif
            • by Sangui ( 1128165 )
              That's your problem. You don't kill orange mobs. You kill things within 1 level of yourself.
          • I guess I just have a different definition of grind than you. For me, whether I have to kill 100 goretusk in order to get materials for some silly soup (which incidentally gives some bonus XP), or I have to kill 100 goretusk to get enough exp to move on to the next thing, I'm still killing some boring mob 100x.

            Sometimes, it's worse if they're hard to kill, forcing you into whatever fixed killing sequence happens to work for that particular beast. But after the four or five of 'em it takes to figure out th
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Hubbell ( 850646 )
        I really wish I didn't post on this topic so I could mod you down.
        Asheron's Call was not a grind except in the loosest interpretation of the word. That's like saying russians are asians, when you know damn well what the person means by asian.
        • Asherons Call 1 was still one of the best MMORPGs ever. I didn't really like the direction AC2 took, other than the quest system and the Crafting system was pretty good too.
          I've done grinds in AC, but the combat was fantastic.. I never really got bored fighting, as it's a very exciting game to play, combat wise.
          And the story was pretty bitchin', yo.
          • by Hubbell ( 850646 )
            Fluid and dynamic combat via the ability to slide while performing actions. 3 playerskill being the most important factor in PVP/PVE fighting. Used to run into the middle of caulcano while Admins/Envoys watched and they would claim I was gearing as I fought for 20minutes straight not getting hit by shit.
      • by tepples ( 727027 )

        AC was grind.
        Asheron's Call or Animal Crossing?
  • Yet more pixel crack for me to collect! Woohoo!
  • World of Warcraft: Wrath of Leeroy Jenkins
  • Watch it be the Nintendo DS version.
  • by spocksbrain ( 1097145 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:39PM (#20074161)
    World of Warcraft: The Quest for More Money
  • "leaked"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:50PM (#20074395)
    Sounds more like "hyped".

    Or does anything think Blizzard minds the free publicity and getting WoW-fans all over the world into a "wannahave" frenzy?
    • by Aereus ( 1042228 )
      What exactly do you think an MMO is about? Nearly all of them are about exactly that -- leveling your character and improving their equipment. Of course you could always be disillusioned and quit. I'm sure you could start another MMO, leveling your character up and getting them new equipment...
      • Actually that BC expansion did that for a few friends of mine. They were the proverbial WoW addicts. You didn't see them anymore, one lost his job over it (the other one didn't have one to start). Then BC. Then...

        "What? The ultrahypermegaubersword I got after 3 months of grinding is worthless with the first green drop in the new instance?"

        And they were cured.
  • by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:57PM (#20074521) Homepage Journal
    and quit like hell.
    • Pardon me, but if levelling and item grinding will make you quit, why the fuck are you still playing?
      • because i already grinded my way to top, and this is the first grind i made seriously in a mmo game. and i wont do it again.
  • ...of warcraft? WarCraft: Sword of One Thousand Truths.

  • I'd appreciate it if this expansion included easier leveling up to 70/80. The amount of time and effort it takes to level and properly gear an alt is increasingly prohibitive.
    • WHAT? Leveling to 70 was pretty much a joke, although fairly enjoyable. Gearing up at 70, with epic craftables is not very hard either.

      Instance running is a problem these days. A lot of people have quit, a lot of people don't want to run the instances anymore, and all your hear all day in Shattrath is "LF1M tank".
      • Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MeanderingMind ( 884641 ) * on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @03:52PM (#20076403) Homepage Journal
        Don't be so surprised.

        I work a standard 40 hour work week, and also enjoy such things as eating and sleeping. Assuming I get a decent 8 hours of sleep a night, spend 1.5 hours on food and hygene and 1 hour commuting; 5 out of 7 days of the week I have a total of 5.5 hours of free time.

        Assuming 15 days /played, that's more than 60 weekdays worth (or 12 weeks) of devoting every hour of free time to WoW to go from 1-70. However, that doesn't cover running the instances to get the required gear/rep to begin raiding, nor does it cover that if the character in question being leveled is an alt it is entirely possible that one will be continually interrupted by guildies needing another person to tank/dps some instance.

        Conversely, the typical console game completion time is 40 hours, or 80 hours if it's an unlockfest. In the time it takes to level (not gear) an alt, one could potentially complete 4-7 console games.

        The problem will only become worse as the level cap increases. There are a large number of group quests in Outland that will be difficult to complete for alts due to the lack of contemporaries, most having moved on to newer pastures save for the occaisional raid. If Blizzard intends on further increasing the level cap it will become prohibitive for new players or alts to successfully catch up to other players.

        I'm not asking for the option to instantly spawn characters at high levels. Leveling is an excellent way to allow players to understand and master a class. However, the amount of time required to do so is too much.

        I personally recommend increasing the exp received from quests by a substancial amount. This can be lessened in earlier areas where the quests are already enough to carry a player from zone to zone, but should begin to take significant effect by level 25. Multi-zoning shouldn't be a necessary measure in order to level.
        • mod parent up. i honestly think the time to level to 70 should be negligible, to encourage people to develop more alts. more characters allow for more flexibility. as it stands now, i'm considering quitting because of the huge time investments WoW is requiring now.


          compare /played times with whoever says that it doesn't require a huge time investment. every time i do, it ends up dwarfing me by 2-3 times, and i used to be a "hardcore raider" in the Naxx days.

        • I always thought WoW did a good job of providing instance content for almost all level ranges. In my experience, most people who want to speed to 70 seem to want to do so because of the instance content, but really, there is plenty to see at all level ranges. Either that, or they want to get rich quickly, but I've not yet seen a game design where one's material wealth is based on some form of either time or skill, so we can't really fault WoW in that regard.

          Of course, there are plenty of free permanent
          • I'd like to rush to 70 just because earlier content is generally solo, as wow punishes group play with harsh xp splitting, long chain quests that you cant just jump in on, and the fact that unless your friends are lvling alts, the lvl difference alone will make it impossible to play with each other.

            Note that I'm talking purely about getting alts to 70, as I have a 70 warlock main. I think the solution would be allowing you to buy alts with gold from your main, or some kind of 70 questline to get you a free
        • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          I'm confused. You make it sound like level 70 is the end of the game (comparing the time to 70 with other games), while at the same time speaking as if the game doesn't begin until level 70. If you don't enjoy playing levels 20-50, then it isn't a game I'd suggest you play. Perhaps you can pay one of the services to level your characters for you, then take them back over at level 70. I'm not sure what you are looking for out of the game, but you seem to be down on it for having so much playtime. Yet, t
        • by brkello ( 642429 )
          These posts always amuse me just because I have played other MMORPGs. The amount of time to level in WoW is tiny compared to other games. That is why it is popular with casuals. I have done raiding in end game guilds and while some of it is fun and interesting, it is mostly a pain in the rear. Honestly, I have the most fun leveling my characters. So much that once I hit the max level I generally cancel my subscription after doing a little raiding. Basically, what you want is a game that caters to you.
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by gasaraki ( 262206 )
            Levelling is fun when you're doing quests and instances, but way too much pre-60 levelling isn't do either but running from point to point all over the world map. Quests in Shimmering Flats tell you to go to Booty Bay then to Grom'gol then back to Shimmering Flats. I won't even go into the 'epic' levelling quests like Shaman totem quests, Warlock pet quests, etc. In those days the designers though, the more of the world you cover, the harder or more rewarding the quest, In actuality it's just running around
        • by tknd ( 979052 )

          I'm not asking for the option to instantly spawn characters at high levels. Leveling is an excellent way to allow players to understand and master a class. However, the amount of time required to do so is too much.

          I don't think so. Any game that contains character "levels" is broken unless it is a console single player genre where it doesn't really matter. Levels are a weak excuse to give a player a goal: the highest level can be level 60 or 70, therefore you feel as though it is necessary to attain tha

          • a "skill" based approach where a player learns each skill independently of the avatar's level. In fact, the avatar may have no level associated with it

            Funny, you just described how Eve Online [eve-online.com] works.

            See you in low sec!
          • I was talking purely within WoW itself (Chance of Blizzard removing levels: None) but I'd agree that MMORPGs could use a breath of fresh air.

            It'll be interesting when we finally see a fantasy MMORPG that doesn't use some derivative of the d20 system.

        • Assuming 15 days /played, that's more than 60 weekdays worth (or 12 weeks) of devoting every hour of free time to WoW to go from 1-70. However, that doesn't cover running the instances to get the required gear/rep to begin raiding, nor does it cover that if the character in question being leveled is an alt it is entirely possible that one will be continually interrupted by guildies needing another person to tank/dps some instance.

          Conversely, the typical console game completion time is 40 hours, or 80 hours
          • You know, some people would be thankful that they're actually getting value for money - that one game lasted them for longer than a month. Sure there is a subscription, but it's less than the price of a console game every month :)

            It depends on what one counts as value, and how money constrained one is. As I'm working a salaried job that more than pays my bills by a fair amount (including paying more than the minimum on loans and leases), I can well afford the difference if I believe it provides more value t

      • by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )

        Instance running is a problem these days. A lot of people have quit, a lot of people don't want to run the instances anymore, and all your hear all day in Shattrath is "LF1M tank".

        That's pretty much how I felt not long after hitting 70, which was an 'on-par' leveling schedule when the expansion was released. That's also how I felt when I hit level 60 and tried to get set pieced from places like Strat. or Scholo.

        As it was, even in a good large guild (50 or so people) very little guild members wanted to do

  • Lord Xykon as the new world boss, who was quoted as saying, "I think I just had an evilgasm! [giantitp.com]"
  • Just like people thought CAPS-LOCK was cruise control for cool, many people now think it makes you look cool to bash WoW.

    Sorry folks but, their subscriber base is still increasing. While it may have burned you or your friends out, it's still an extremely well made, polished, and entertaining piece of software. The only ones who think WoW isn't cool anymore are those who think it's cool to be doing "the hot new thing" versus "the old popular thing".

    I call BS on Northrend and the the title though. My money
    • by Toridas ( 742267 )
      Even more evidence that the expansion is going to be Northrend: In one of the more recent patches, there was a folder (accessible via an MPQ viewer) called "Expansion02" and a subfolder called "HowlingFjord," which is a region of Northrend. The folder only contained some models of a few plants, but it's still interesting that they would leave it there for people to find.
      • The folder only contained some models of a few plants, but it's still interesting that they would leave it there to throw people off.

        FIFY
  • Honestly wouldn't be surprised if this is the "other project" that was rumored to be shown at BlizzCon this year. Considering how the last BlizzCon unveiled the 1st WoW expansion, AND they're giving away BETA keys for something (they've already suggested that it's not going to be SC2 Beta) this year, this makes a lot of sense.
  • World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
    Khaaan! [khaaan.com]
    • by richdun ( 672214 )

      So what damn pointy eared Night Elf are we going to have to search for in the third expansion?

      "The needs of the many have better rep than the needs of the few." - Blizzard

  • by borkus ( 179118 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @03:24PM (#20075953) Homepage
    ...has been to add free new content (remember the War Effort Event) then a paid expansion. Given that many guilds are still making their way through the long string of instances, I don't think there will be any significant new content until late this year.

    In addition to Northrend, there are still several locked areas -

    *The various entrances to the Emerald dream.
    *Grim Batol
    *Uldum
    *Gilneas
    *Timbermaw Hold (the big gates in Azshara)
    *Something that looks like two PvP entrances in Azhara.

    I just hope they bring back Captain Placeholder.
    • by Rayonic ( 462789 )
      Plus:

      * Hyjal
      * Kul Tiras (island nation to the west of Menethil somewhere)
      * Undermine
      * The various buried old gods.

      Not to mention all the unfinished terrain that prevents us from using flying mounts in Azeroth.
      • by paitre ( 32242 )
        Hyjal's already open, you just have to be in an elite raiding guild to be there.

        wah.
        • That's Hyjal Past, the Caverns of Time raid. He's talking about Mount Hyjal itself, accessed through the (locked) gateway in the demon section of Winterspring.
          • by Phorum ( 1135465 )
            There's also still Stormrage Barrow Dens up in Moonglade, which have been promised for a long time to be high-end raiding. And Quel'Thalas still exists; physically it sits below Ghostlands and is accessable from both Hinterlands and Tirisfal along the coast.
      • Also whatever's south of Silverpine Forest (beyond the wall). Plus various spots that don't seem properly filled in--east of Burning Steppes, west of Un'goro, etc.
        • That's Gilneas behind the Greymane Wall. The storyline for that place would make a nice instance or even better, another rep-based faction.

          Blizzard have probably thought of this though and as a brand new storyline would need to be invented to open it up (giving a reason for the King to open the gates) they're probably saving this for when they really run out of ideas. My guess is we'll see the other side of those gates in the same expansion that we see the bubble removed from Dalaran (not far to the Eas
  • Northrend is Azeroth. Flying mounts only work in Outland. This sucks, right?
  • If you go to mapwow.com [mapwow.com], you'll notice that there's a new zone north of Eastern Plaguelands, and an island has popped up west of Darkshore.

    Perhaps the real title is World of Warcraft: Our Continents have Cancerous Growths.

    • by paitre ( 32242 )
      Incredibly old news, since those were added in TBC.

      But then, you knew that, and all I'm doing is replying to a troll.

      DOH!
  • Wow, killing most powerful being in Azeroth in only two expansions? Where are they going to go, lorewise, after this? Kil'Jaden is only one 'tier' up from Arthas, and after that there's only Sarganes, who seems to be the ultimate evil in the entire universe, not to mention that there's almost no locational lore associated with either of those two. Warcraft 1 was Azeroth, Warcraft 2 was Azeroth and Lorderan, Warcraft 3 was Lorderan, Northend, Kalimdor and Outland, and having already visted all of those pl
  • Expansion issues (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) * on Thursday August 02, 2007 @04:40AM (#20082931) Journal
    I'm not a particularly hardcore WoW player. I played it on and off for a month or two after launch, but back then, Final Fantasy XI was my game of choice. Since getting bored of FFXI at the start of this year, I've gone back to playing WoW at a much more casual level than I used to play FFXI, taking about 4 months to get my Draenei Paladin to 70 and only doing the occasional Karazhan raid since getting there. However, even I can see that the first expansion created a number of issues for the player base and I'm curious whether Blizzard has given any thought to addressing these.

    The first is the idea that Penny-Arcade identified as "green is the new purple". When Burning Crusade hit, almost all of the level 60 epics, which in many cases people had been grinding for over months (or even years) were suddenly obsolete compared to random "green" items that dropped from normal mobs in the new areas. I'd never been part of the pre-expansion end-game, but by the time I was level 62, I was actually better geared than many people who had. It seems almost inevitable that the new expansion will raise the level cap again. At the moment, I'm dipping my toe in the Burning Crusade end-game... once the date for the new expansion is confirmed, any motivation I have for doing so will evaporate, if it seems at all likely that any gear I obtain will be made irrelevant after 10 minutes in Northrend. If Blizzard intend to keep up a stream of expansions, as most MMO developers seem to, then unless they find a solution to this, most of their hardcore players will just leave, as any sense of purpose to the end-game evaporates.

    Next... new races or classes. Burning Crusade added two new races, but no new classes. Frankly, new races don't really give you very much, apart from a new way to level from 1-20. The addition of new classes (WoW has always been rather short on these) would be quite helpful in terms of adding a bit of variety and dispelling the slightly stagnant feel that now hovers over the game. However, this in turn brings a few issues with it. Have Blizzard now made the combined PvP and PvE balancing issues so complicated that adding new classes would be all but impossible? Part of me suspects that they have. Moreover, the lack of a flexible job system, such as FFXI's, makes it even more irritating to level up a new class from scratch.

    Burning Crusade seems to have created a whole range of rather nasty economic issues as well. As soon as it appeared, people more or less stopped running the old level 60 instances. This means that crafting recipies and ingredients that dropped only in this dungeons have become increasingly rare (just look how long you have to wait and how much you have to pay to get Enchant Weapon - Crusader on a "new" server). This is particularly problematic for people trying to level up crafts through the levels where these ingredients are key. If, following the new expansion, the availability of... for instance... the primals were to plummet, the chances for new crafters to make it to the top of their professions would be slashed dramatically. Some form of incentive for people to continue running the old instances would be very helpful.
    • I find the number of alts on a mature server tends to keep the economy alive for lower level items. Yes, they're priced higher than they were before the expansion, but not crazily so. If one is absolutely new to the game it's best they don't join a mature server unless they know people.

      As for the rep & level grind, at first I was rather disappointed, being decked out in BWL Tier 2 gear (God knows how the Naxx folk felt), but found a few things as I leveled:
      - T1 gear from Molten Core was easily repla

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