World of Warcraft Expansion Details Leaked

JavaLord writes "The new expansion to World of Warcraft titled "Wrath of the Lich King" recently went into friends and family alpha testing. Some of the first screenshots, along with notes on new spells have been leaked on the world of warcraft forums and other websites only to be pulled down. As usual, the internet routes around censorship, and the low down on Wrath of the Lich King can be found here."

Take all this info with a grain of salt...

[Necroman]

Almost all this info is coming from MMOwned Forum [mmowned.com] from what I've seen. Almost all of it is from data mining the data files, so it is no real indication of what is really active in the game. Many times, spells and items are in the data files that are never really included, this is even more true for WotLK.

The screenshots and models are probably near final versions, but spells and the like are questionable.

More new numbers that compute to the same answer

[JeremyGNJ]

Great. Another expansion that adds "more of the same" to an already tired genre.

The nature of MMOs is that an expansion can't REALLY add anything that's very different than everything else in the game. This is because of that magical word "Balance"

Power gamers play these games and figure out what is the "best" of everything, and exploit that knowledge to be the "best" in the game. This means that everything new added to the game cannot deviate to far from the existing paradigms, such as damage-over-time, healing-per-mana-point, etc etc

When people buy these expansions they are really just paying for additional artwork of the new monsters.

Re:More new numbers that compute to the same answe

[dc29A]

Great. Another expansion that adds "more of the same" to an already tired genre.

10 million subscribers are a tired genre? Sure.

The nature of MMOs is that an expansion can't REALLY add anything that's very different than everything else in the game. This is because of that magical word "Balance"

You obviously haven't played pre Burning Crusade WoW. Plenty of changes were introduced from vanilla WoW to TBC that weren't just more of the same, for example, gear progression was made way more diverse instead of the old raid or STFU paradigm.

TBC introduced:
- Gear progression for solo play (crafting, PvP). You can finally craft powerful items.
- Competitive PvP that doesn't require you to stop living and play 28h a day and it's based mostly on skill (I am perfectly aware that is not perfect). Arena system.
- Heroic dungeons with their own gear progression.
- Completely eliminated the trinity of warrior + priest + mage. It's not perfect but all classes have various abilities that are wanted in the game, it's no more let's wait for the protection warrior to log on so we can do something.
- Socket system.

Stuff TBC will introduce:
- Death Knight class, with its own unique game mechanics: not mana, not rage, not energy. Something unique.
- The 25 man raids will have a 10 man version. So you won't have to run the same Karhazan instance until your eyes bleed. Variety. Options. Something they started with TBC, to allow everyone to experience every facet and story of the game.
- Brand new crafting profession. Again, different than the flock we have now.
- Some other stuff we are unaware of.

Power gamers play these games and figure out what is the "best" of everything, and exploit that knowledge to be the "best" in the game. This means that everything new added to the game cannot deviate to far from the existing paradigms, such as damage-over-time, healing-per-mana-point, etc etc

I wonder why the FIFA doesn't sanction head butts a la Zidane since that would add 'diversity' and 'deviate' from current football rules. Oh wait ... maybe because football is about kicking a ball and not head butting your opponent in the chest? Same way WoW is about casting spells and using offensive melee abilities. If you want to play a sci-fi MMOG go play Eve Online. If you want to play an FPS go play Quake. WoW is a medieval fantasy setting game, you can't really deviate from its core rules. You can't add a B-52 bomber to the game because it would make no sense.

When people buy these expansions they are really just paying for additional artwork of the new monsters.

And when you buy the new music CD from your favorite band you are just buying 'additional' notes and artwork right? How about books? Just additional words?

Re:damn you world of warcraft

[kalirion]

If you truly cared about your fiancee, you'd join her guild.