Some more information on
Wrath has bubbled to the surface. This is like Christmas every day for me! I'm very excited. New bits in today's installment of
Facts of the Lich King:
- Some Wrath mounts will be able to take passengers (!), and ground passenger mounts will work in the old world as well! This sounds awesome -- although it might be boring to be the one who's not driving, it could also let you take a break. And being able to cart around lower-level characters in the old world will really speed up those instance runs.
- Trainers and AH will stay in the old world. Not surprising, but incredibly irritating. At best, it's a minor inconvenience and burns your Hearthstone timer. At worst, you're stuck in Stormwind for an hour when you could be doing much more interesting things, all because you wanted to respec or buy some mats. Not to mention the leveling-up process -- going back to the old world every level to train was obnoxious in BC, and it'll almost certainly be obnoxious in Wrath.
- Dalaran will be in one of the final Northrend zones. I'm not sure where I stand on this. Shattrath being in one of the earlier BC zones meant that players raced to it to be able to get back and forth between Outland, and possibly skipped content. On the other hand, if you have to go back to the old world just as much in Wrath as you did in BC, it'll be a giant pain not to have easy access to portals while you're leveling. We'll see.
- Blacksmiths may be able to add sockets to items that don't have them. Obviously this will have to be balanced with caution, since it could easily become overpowered; there are some nice gems out there.
- They want all professions to have some unique draw, similar to the epic BoP blacksmithing weapons. I approve.
- One new metal will be Cobalt. The new cloth is Frostweave, but we knew that already.
- Lake Wintergrasp (the outdoor PvP area) will have daily quests, a continent-wide buff, and probably something like today's Spirit Shards. I plan to stay well clear of it, but hopefully the world PvP fans will have something to keep themselves entertained.
- Chamber of Aspects will initially be a short Onyxia-like raid, and they may use that area to expand with other aspects later if they want to.
- Another raid, in the Nexus, will allow players to ride on the back of drakes and use their abilities during the fight. This sounds quite chaotic and also pretty cool.
- The devs think they didn't reward PvE enough in BC, and will try to reward it more in Wrath. I tentatively agree; PvP seems to be an easier way to epics for many players.
- We may see PvE ladders on the Armory, so we don't have to resort to WowJutsu. Honestly I like Jutsu, so we'll have to see what the Armory brings to the table.
- They want changing runes, for DKs, to be somewhere in between as difficult as respeccing and easy enough to do it between fights. Reset at inns, perhaps? Or anywhere, but with a 60 second cast time?
- DKs can use maces, as well as swords and axes. For some reason I thought maces weren't going to be allowed, but I guess swords and axes would be pretty limiting, and would also restrict Blizz's itemization potential.
- Blizz plans on introducing some more money sinks prior to Wrath, so we don't all go into the expansion with several thousand gold. Good luck making them attractive, guys -- I didn't fall for your silly "of the Shattered Hand," so you'll have to do better than that.
For full details and sources, head over to
MMO-Champion. What do you think of this latest batch of
Wrath info?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
5-12-2008 @ 4:06PM
gundamxzero said...
Anyone who doesnt know how to ghetto hearth(esp from SW) should not be writing for wow insider :P
Reply
5-12-2008 @ 4:31PM
Nick said...
I've never heard of ghetto hearthing, but maybe I'm doing it and just calling it something else. Could you explain it?
5-12-2008 @ 4:14PM
Stormscape said...
Step one: Invite someone to a group.
Step two: enter the stockades.
Step three: leave group.
Step four :profit
5-12-2008 @ 4:16PM
Xin said...
go in some instance with a group then leave group. then you will be force hearthed
5-12-2008 @ 4:16PM
gundamxzero said...
so your hearth is set to shat. You need to goto AH or w/e well as alli always pick SW or horde always pick Org(UC works but is less convienient) so when you are done and you hearth is up because you used it 10 minutes ago to get to shat, you just get in a group with a guildie or rando person run into stockades(or RFC/SM) and leave group, you will auto get ported back to shat in 60 seconds and your hearth just resets. You can do this over and over and over.
5-12-2008 @ 4:26PM
Shelby said...
I love my mage.
5-12-2008 @ 4:49PM
FireStar said...
I also like to queue for a BG in shatt before going to train. Just get into 3 queues and there's a good chance one'll pop after you finish and you don't have to use your hearth (i.e. ghetto hearth also resets the cooldown on your hearthstone again so if you only had 15 mins left you'd have 60 mins left again). Normally, since i love to pvp, i'll fight out the bg. but you could just leave and take the 15 min bg scaredy cat.
5-12-2008 @ 5:45PM
Heilig said...
Yeah, this works great if your hearth isn't up. If it is, though, it still blows the cooldown.
5-12-2008 @ 5:46PM
schwonga said...
"I love my mage." QFT
5-12-2008 @ 9:09PM
Baluki said...
I love my shaman.
5-13-2008 @ 3:57AM
Yaimano said...
Ditto about the BG queue trick, it's much easier for me since it doesn't need another person. And if you forgot to do it and you're in Org or something, you can just get a friend to group and queue you in Shat and you'll be warped there afterwards.
5-12-2008 @ 4:08PM
way2trivial said...
Boring for the passenger? MY GOD you missed the relevent facotor..
MMORPG bring another real life element to gaming, BACK SEAT DRIVERS?
can you just imagine showing the game to a SO or playing with a SO- "why to the left-- it's quicker if you go to the right and run thru the river"
Reply
5-12-2008 @ 5:13PM
Kyrra said...
I plan on jumping off cliffs with someone as a passenger. Death to people that trust me. :-D
Also, having a naked macro (ItemRack type thing) is really nice for doing stuff like this.
5-12-2008 @ 5:24PM
h8rain said...
At Kyrra:
What would be even better is being a druid, jump the cliff, then shift to flight form!
5-12-2008 @ 6:01PM
Suzaku said...
That's nice, but I'm pretty sure there'll be a dismount button for your passenger. In the gameplay demo Blizzard showed, they also talked about there being abilities you or passengers might be able to use from mounts.
It's not going to be as "big of a pain" in Wrath to train because Azeroth is connected to the old world via zeppelins/boats, rather than a dark portal. You can just fly to Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra and go your location of choice. Maybe a bit more difficult for Alliance, as their boats don't seem to leave from their main capitals, but still, not as bad as having to hearth because it would take forever to run back through the Dark Portal.
5-13-2008 @ 8:58AM
jrb said...
there's also a quest line that involves on-mount combat, albeit context-sensative abilities. i.e. telling your mount to charge, or stomp, instead of being able to use your class' abilities.
5-12-2008 @ 4:11PM
Elmo said...
Roll a Shaman and enjoy 2 hearthstones of which one has 15 min Cooldown :D
Reply
5-13-2008 @ 3:43PM
Zand said...
Or roll a mage and enjoy portals and teleports to any major city.
5-12-2008 @ 7:10PM
mrobin604 said...
Or you could beat Illidan, and get an extra hearth to BT steps on a 15 minute cooldown.
5-13-2008 @ 11:58AM
Roxton said...
Or roll mage, and get unlimited hearthstones with no cooldown to a city of your choice. You can even take your friends with you!