World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King Officially Announced 314
An anonymous reader writes "Wrath of the Lich King is official! BlizzCon is in full swing, and celebrants there are already enjoying the Northrend-themed imagery. For a look at what's going on, Joystiq has a liveblog of the opening ceremony up. Games For Windows magazine, meanwhile, will feature WLK its next cover. The post on the 1up site has a number of details on the next expansion, including the introduction of the Death Knight, the first new class since WOW's launch 'World of WarCraft's first Hero Class is a plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid that works a little something like this: When players hit level 80, they'll be able to embark on a quest (similar in difficulty to the Warlock's epic mount quest, back before the level cap was raised to 70) that unlocks the ability to create a Death Knight character. The Death Knight starts at a high level (somewhere around 60 or 70, though Blizzard isn't certain yet), so you won't have to grind your way back up all over again. It's intended as an alternative, advanced class for end-game use only.'."
Re:So more grind... (Score:5, Informative)
If anything WoW is better than any other MMO I've played (EQ blaaah) for the sheer fact that they update content/balance/etc the game so much. And they do a bunch of it for "free" as well (read: you don't have to buy another expansion), they've released some monster patches.
Welcome, from those of us at eve-online.
All our expansions and patches are free. No stringing people along waiting for the expansion. Also, I think I might have paid $20 for the game, which included the first month fee (usually $15).
Re:Casual gamers? (Score:4, Informative)
And for someone like you, that enjoys leveling toons, this sounds like a great addition.
Get to level 80 with your toon, and you unlock the ability to level another toon from 60 to 80, allowing you to see in new content you might have missed in the XPAC with your first toon.
Re:Casual gamers? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, yeah, I guess some people complain about the leveling "grind", but really WoW has one of the nicest leveling phases, replete with quests and things to do to fit a variety of playstyles.
"The grind" that everyone complains about is the one you do after reaching the level cap. The endless, endless rep grinding for faction rewards, heroic instance keys, etc etc. And actually despite there being more reps to grind, they aren't as bad as pre-expansion when the lvl 60 rep grinds were horrible time sinks of repetitive killing. Grinding Cenarian Hold or Argent Dawn rep was as arduous as the 1-60 leveling process, but much, much more boring. Or remember when you got to go farm for cloth so that other people could get to run a raid instance? That's what people complain about.
The leveling "grind" is great for casuals. It's the top-level content that at best tolerates casuals by giving them mindless repetitive tasks to perform.
Re:Level 80? Any Comments on us Casual Folks? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Level 80? Any Comments on us Casual Folks? (Score:2, Informative)
Obviously with less time into the game you won't be able to see the large/hard dungeons but you will be able to explore a bunch of the smaller dungeons, which take 1-3hrs to complete. It is easy to jump into pvp queues and pvp for 30 minutes a day and get decent gear.
Re:Official Site (Score:1, Informative)
Idiot.
Re:So more grind... (Score:2, Informative)
Rigghhttttttttt.
This weekend is AV weekend. You could come back with nothing on and this weekend play hardcore for 2 days, work your butt off, and have a TON of epic gear from it. Prolly like 5 pieces worth if you played all day saturday and sunday. That isn't even counting friday and monday which are still double honor. Av weekend comes around regularly.
Not to mention quests you can do in netherstorm to get blues and greens that are PLENTY good enough, along with some cheap greens from the auction house, to let you run 5 mans in outlands and even raid Karazhan.
I could have a naked lvl70 character up to an acceptable lvl of gear in a week or less. I don't think that is "busting your butt". Hell, you can pick up good armor in the AH for almost nothing. Not to mention rep rewards that fill in missing pieces.
Gear is easy to get in Burning Crusade. I'm in a small friendly guild. We pick up group karazhan sometimes at night. We've killed most of the bosses. Will probably kill the prince this weekend (if we get time). If not shrug, no one cares. Couple hours here and there. I hardly think that is difficult or catering to the hard-core. So what if we don't get to see black temple.
Oh, and to get arena points you only need to play 10 games a week. Ten. That takes like an hour per week. Sure, it'll take you some time if you have a bad rating, but "working your butt off" ? No. Oh, and before you claim "but you need that uber raiding gear to be competitive in PVP!!" No. You don't.
My 2 on 2 team is ranked 2nd on our server. I have NO raiding gear on that character. NONE.
End game in WoW since BC isn't just about raiding. (Score:3, Informative)
Heroic content, get this, can actually be quite hard. The concept at first seems flawed. "Oh boy monsters that can one shot people and are higher level, woopity." But the reality is that it forces each member of a 5 man group to be competent and for many of the more difficult encounters actually skilled. Because of the difficulty a 5 man player, non-raider, who only plays a few hours a week can actually attain gear on par with people who do raid days a week. Is this fair? In my opinion it is, the challenge of most raid content is learning the encounter and the logistics involved. The challenge in heroic 5 man content is each player making very few mistakes over the course of an entire run and playing their class and talent spec extremely well.
Heroics aren't all perfect but as a first go they show a real understanding on Blizzard's part that players can be rewarded for skill and not just grinding/time invested. One of the biggest flaws is the rep requirements for running them, while normal questing will get you close on a few of them, some do require you to go out of your way to achieve. In addition it is possible to "wipe" your way through content if your group sucks, it takes forever and costs a fortune in repairs, but it is possible.
I've raided in WoW and found it to be lacking, learning an encounter is fun and the first few kills are thrilling, but the time investment is quite insane. The same thrill comes to me from a really good heroic run, say one where everyone is top notch and you blow through a place with no deaths at a blistering pace.
WoW isn't perfect, but it is a hell of a lot better since BC. If the same level of improvement comes with the next expansion it will be very hard for anything other than "tiredness of the story/world/lore" to unseat them as #1 in America.
Re:So more grind... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sounds like (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Casual gamers? (Score:4, Informative)
*throws continuity out the window*
Having said that, I expect that to change.
Notes from BlizzCon 2007 Northrend Panel (Score:2, Informative)
- In-game voice chat.
- A new raid zone.
- New daily quests: dungeon, battleground, and cooking.
Announced expansion features:- Level cap increased to 80.
- The new continent of Northrend.
- Capital city will be Dalaran.
- Two points of entry, allowing for two different leveling experiences.
- WoW's first Hero Class: the Death Knight
- Plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid.
- Can tank with two-handed weapon or dual-wielding. No shield required.
- Uses a mix of spells and abilities.
- Will use a new Rune-based resource system. Your weapon can be imbued with 6 runes in any combination of Blood, Frost, and Unholy. These runes are used for casting spells and will recharge over time.
- Unlocked via a quest chain available at level 80.
- Death Knights will start at a fairly high level, at least 55-60.
- Possibility of additional Hero Classes added in the future.
- New PvP content:
- Siege weapons and destructible buildings.
- A new 15v15 battleground that includes the siege weapons.
- A new arena map.
- A new arena season.
- An outdoor world PvP zone for all servers. PvE servers will now have a contested territory.
- Zul'Aman will be an upgrade to Karazhan.
- A new profession: Inscriptions, which will allow players to modify/augment their existing spells and abilities. Example given: adding a Knockback effect to a Mage's Fireball.
- Talent trees extended to include 51-point talents.
- Faster leveling from 1-60.
- New Caverns of Time instance.
- New flying mount options, with current mounts usable in Northrend.
- More daily quests.
Someone posted a 6-part video series covering the panel on YouTube, which is where I got this information: