Hey y'all,
I know this is the reviews section, but I thought I'd share some thoughts on the forthcoming exspansion to World of Warcraft, the Wrath of the Lich King.
So, Whats New?
New to this exspansion are several interesting new things.
First of all, the first new class is arriving. Death Knights are servants of the Lich King, and are the first new class since the start of the WoW. Whats more they are a hero class, which as best as I can tell means they start at level 55. You need a level 55 character on your account to make a Death Knight though, though it won't remove another character to make a Death Knight. They have 3 talent tree's (these are like research trees which you put points in that allow you to customize your character, non-WoW fans) which are Blood, Frost and Unholy. Blood is largely about beating monsters and players to death with your weapon/s, Frost is the tanking tree and Unholy concentrates on your ability to cause disease and control the undead. At the moment they all look like good fun, and since everyone is going to make a Death Knight practically straight away there will be a lot more tanks around, which is always a good thing. Death Knights start in an instanced zone near the Eastern Plaguelands. The zone is split up into 5 seperate instances, meaning theres going to be plenty of room for everyone to make a Death Knight without having to wait for monsters to spawn and so on.
There is also the new continet of Northrend. Northrend isn't a new planet, like Outland and its not just appeared or anything (it was where the events of just before the start of WoW took place, in the Warcraft 3 exspansion, the Frozen Throne). However, no one has been teribly interested in going there over the past 3 or so years, so someone decided its about time to rectify this. Heading to Northrend you'll find a wide variety of new factions, both new native factions (like the Tuskarr, a race of walrus people, yes, walrus people) or old favourites (such as the Explorers League, Hemet Nessingwary and the Venture Co.). There are also some new factions who travelled up from the rest of Azeroth, such as DEHTA (Druids for the Etichal and Humane Treatment of Animals) who are hell bent on stopping Hemet Nessingwary having any fun hunting, as well as many others. Flying isn't allowed in Northrend, at least not until level 77 when you can learn the Cold Weather Flying skill necessary to take wing in the frozen north. Northrend also has its fair share of instances and raids too, some places already famous in the Warcraft Lore (such as Drak'Tharon Keep where Arthas found the curse sword Frostmourne, which pinched his soul and turned him into the happy chap he is today) as well as some new places (for example the Nexus, where the leader of Blue Dragonflight Malygos lives). all in all, it should be all sorts of fun, for those of us who have been 70 for ages and those who have only just made level 68.
The new profession of Inscription will be available too. Inscription allows the production of scrolls that give buffs, as well as the ability to write enchantments on them and send these to one of your alt characters or post them on the auction house, a move greatly applauded by all enchanters who hate standing around in captal cities yelling about what they want to sell. Scribes (as the people who learn inscription will be called) can also make things called Glyphs. All characters will have access to Glyph slots in which these Glyphs can be placed. They do various things, from giving stuns and snares to various moves to just changing the graphics or reducing the mana cost a little bit. Glyphs look to help differentiate between members of classes even more. One of the favourite ones I've read of so far is the Glyph of Improved Scorch for Mages (well, fire specced mages). Improved Scorch means that every time you use scorch on an enemy, they take 3% more damage from fire spells from then on. It will stack up to 5 times for a total of +15% damage, but that means you have to vast it 5 times before you can cast anything else. The glyph means that every time you cast scorch it applies the full 5 stacks straight away, meaning you no longer have to spend the first 10-15 seconds of a fight spamming scorch at an enemy. These are available for most moves and all classes and should revolutionize both the PvE and PvP games.
There will also be barber shops for characters who fancy a change of hair or facial hair. Personally, the sooner my Tauren Death Knight can get a big old affro the better.
There are coutless talent point changes and new skills for all the other classes, though I'd never even begin to attempt to write all these down and to be honest, quite a few of them are still being changed about a bit.
All in all, I find myself looking forward to Wrath of the Lich King. I have a couple of issues in the current game, though they're mainly due to the player base being messed around by a small minority of immature morons. But this isn't too big a deal. Especially in light of the last change I will mention.
People who play will know that one of the toughest things in the game is finding enough people to raid. It used to be that all raids were 20-40 man affairs, meaning only the biggest and most organised guilds were ever capable of getting into the true end game. With the release of The Burning Crusade (the last exspansion) 10 man and 25 man raids became the norm, and many more people managed to get into the fun, though 25 man raids still involved an awful lot of organisation. With the release of WotLK, all raids will have 10 and 25 man versions. So, its quite possible to be able to complete the entire end game with just a small guild of 10 members. This particularly appeals to me, I've never been a big fan of massive guilds and huge raids, so getting together 10 people who you know and enjoy playing with won't be too much of a hassle. Thats the main thing I'm looking forward too.
So if your an old hand in the WoW game, then I hope you've learned some interesting new stuff to think about. If you've never played then now may well be a good time to start. Get some friends together, jump on a server and start a guild, you never know where it'll take you. At the moment Blizzard are also doing a Refer-a-friend scheme that gets you a free mount and 300% experience while playing together. With that kind of buff, levelling up will be a breeze and if you play a fair bit you may even have enough time to make level 70 before WotLK hits.
Oh, and one last hint. When the next patch (version 3.0.1 if I remember correctly) Inscription will be introduced. Inscription largely uses herbs, so if you are gonna start soon, make sure to collect as many herbs as you possibly can. They'll be worth a mint in a month or two
Thanks for reading, all feedback greatly appreciated. Incidentally, if you don't like WoW feel free not to tell me, as I don't much care.
I know this is the reviews section, but I thought I'd share some thoughts on the forthcoming exspansion to World of Warcraft, the Wrath of the Lich King.
So, Whats New?
New to this exspansion are several interesting new things.
First of all, the first new class is arriving. Death Knights are servants of the Lich King, and are the first new class since the start of the WoW. Whats more they are a hero class, which as best as I can tell means they start at level 55. You need a level 55 character on your account to make a Death Knight though, though it won't remove another character to make a Death Knight. They have 3 talent tree's (these are like research trees which you put points in that allow you to customize your character, non-WoW fans) which are Blood, Frost and Unholy. Blood is largely about beating monsters and players to death with your weapon/s, Frost is the tanking tree and Unholy concentrates on your ability to cause disease and control the undead. At the moment they all look like good fun, and since everyone is going to make a Death Knight practically straight away there will be a lot more tanks around, which is always a good thing. Death Knights start in an instanced zone near the Eastern Plaguelands. The zone is split up into 5 seperate instances, meaning theres going to be plenty of room for everyone to make a Death Knight without having to wait for monsters to spawn and so on.
There is also the new continet of Northrend. Northrend isn't a new planet, like Outland and its not just appeared or anything (it was where the events of just before the start of WoW took place, in the Warcraft 3 exspansion, the Frozen Throne). However, no one has been teribly interested in going there over the past 3 or so years, so someone decided its about time to rectify this. Heading to Northrend you'll find a wide variety of new factions, both new native factions (like the Tuskarr, a race of walrus people, yes, walrus people) or old favourites (such as the Explorers League, Hemet Nessingwary and the Venture Co.). There are also some new factions who travelled up from the rest of Azeroth, such as DEHTA (Druids for the Etichal and Humane Treatment of Animals) who are hell bent on stopping Hemet Nessingwary having any fun hunting, as well as many others. Flying isn't allowed in Northrend, at least not until level 77 when you can learn the Cold Weather Flying skill necessary to take wing in the frozen north. Northrend also has its fair share of instances and raids too, some places already famous in the Warcraft Lore (such as Drak'Tharon Keep where Arthas found the curse sword Frostmourne, which pinched his soul and turned him into the happy chap he is today) as well as some new places (for example the Nexus, where the leader of Blue Dragonflight Malygos lives). all in all, it should be all sorts of fun, for those of us who have been 70 for ages and those who have only just made level 68.
The new profession of Inscription will be available too. Inscription allows the production of scrolls that give buffs, as well as the ability to write enchantments on them and send these to one of your alt characters or post them on the auction house, a move greatly applauded by all enchanters who hate standing around in captal cities yelling about what they want to sell. Scribes (as the people who learn inscription will be called) can also make things called Glyphs. All characters will have access to Glyph slots in which these Glyphs can be placed. They do various things, from giving stuns and snares to various moves to just changing the graphics or reducing the mana cost a little bit. Glyphs look to help differentiate between members of classes even more. One of the favourite ones I've read of so far is the Glyph of Improved Scorch for Mages (well, fire specced mages). Improved Scorch means that every time you use scorch on an enemy, they take 3% more damage from fire spells from then on. It will stack up to 5 times for a total of +15% damage, but that means you have to vast it 5 times before you can cast anything else. The glyph means that every time you cast scorch it applies the full 5 stacks straight away, meaning you no longer have to spend the first 10-15 seconds of a fight spamming scorch at an enemy. These are available for most moves and all classes and should revolutionize both the PvE and PvP games.
There will also be barber shops for characters who fancy a change of hair or facial hair. Personally, the sooner my Tauren Death Knight can get a big old affro the better.
There are coutless talent point changes and new skills for all the other classes, though I'd never even begin to attempt to write all these down and to be honest, quite a few of them are still being changed about a bit.
All in all, I find myself looking forward to Wrath of the Lich King. I have a couple of issues in the current game, though they're mainly due to the player base being messed around by a small minority of immature morons. But this isn't too big a deal. Especially in light of the last change I will mention.
People who play will know that one of the toughest things in the game is finding enough people to raid. It used to be that all raids were 20-40 man affairs, meaning only the biggest and most organised guilds were ever capable of getting into the true end game. With the release of The Burning Crusade (the last exspansion) 10 man and 25 man raids became the norm, and many more people managed to get into the fun, though 25 man raids still involved an awful lot of organisation. With the release of WotLK, all raids will have 10 and 25 man versions. So, its quite possible to be able to complete the entire end game with just a small guild of 10 members. This particularly appeals to me, I've never been a big fan of massive guilds and huge raids, so getting together 10 people who you know and enjoy playing with won't be too much of a hassle. Thats the main thing I'm looking forward too.
So if your an old hand in the WoW game, then I hope you've learned some interesting new stuff to think about. If you've never played then now may well be a good time to start. Get some friends together, jump on a server and start a guild, you never know where it'll take you. At the moment Blizzard are also doing a Refer-a-friend scheme that gets you a free mount and 300% experience while playing together. With that kind of buff, levelling up will be a breeze and if you play a fair bit you may even have enough time to make level 70 before WotLK hits.
Oh, and one last hint. When the next patch (version 3.0.1 if I remember correctly) Inscription will be introduced. Inscription largely uses herbs, so if you are gonna start soon, make sure to collect as many herbs as you possibly can. They'll be worth a mint in a month or two
Thanks for reading, all feedback greatly appreciated. Incidentally, if you don't like WoW feel free not to tell me, as I don't much care.
