Our very own Mark "Turpster" Turpin and Jennie Lees were invited to sit down with Xfire users and chat about their thoughts from the Worldwide Invitational. You can read the entire transcript, but we've encapsulated most of the goodies for you in this post.Mounts and battlegrounds
Answering a question about water mounts, Jennie said that they don't seem to be in the works. Still, you can get your H2O kicks with the non-player-controllable boats in Lake Wintergrasp. Another questioner asked whether the flying combat mounts will take damage. Some of these combat mounts will have shielding to protect the player from damage, but the mount will take damage instead.
Killing Arthas
Consensus in the chat was that there is a lot of excitement around the idea of being able to kill Arthas, the Lich King, even if it takes up the same progression as Kil'Jaeden currently does in TBC. The hope is that Frostmourne will drop, but the consequences of getting the sword are not yet known. Will it corrupt the player and take away stats? Will players become the new Lich King if they pick it up? We'll have to wait and see.
That's just one of the questions awaiting an answer for us in the post-Wrath world. Another came from a chat question about whether there would be any future for the Warcraft franchise after Arthas is dead. From what our bloggers have heard, there's no standing still for the franchise. Turpster says, "I think a favourite King of mine might be making a return to a Stormy City!"
LootBlizzard has said that players in Tier 6 and Sunwell loot won't be replacing them with Northrend greens. However, as with TBC, the new expansion is a leveling of the playing field as far as gear is concerned so some of the new items will indeed seem pretty overpowered compared to what was available pre-expansion. For example, we've seen mid-range dungeon rewards that are almost equivalent to Cursed Vision of Sargeras!
Death Knight
A chat participant was concerned that playing the Death Knight class would be complicated because of the rune system. Turpster's theory is that the complexity of the class is the reason for the level 55 requirement.
Other observations
- Turpster's on record predicting that Wrath will break Burning Crusade's opening sales record.
- Even Samwise Didier and Cory Stockton from Blizzard didn't know the point of the evil penguin in the CSS code of the splash screens.
- Jennie's banking on a Wrath collector's edition, much like TBC had, but none has been hinted at yet.
- Best question of the chat: Will Gnomes still be sexy in WotLK? Turpster says, "They are Gnomes, they have a Racial Passive to Sexy, plus 5 to lookin' hot!"
- Turpster's favorite thing about WotLK so far is the Orcish city of Garrosh. He hints at something forboding: "My favourite Orc is there with disturbing news about what is in store for the Orc's capital when Lich King hits the shops!"
Subscribe
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-01-2008 @ 6:05PM
Seedcake said...
Eh, personally, I hate the whole idea of killing Arthas. He's just too cool of a character (but I admit having a thing for great villains)! Hopefully Blizzard will approach this in an respectful, appropriate manner instead of making our favorite corrupted prince into just another poopsocker's punching bag.
I'd rather not see Frostmourne in the hands of any player, honestly. If it really MUST drop, I hope it's limited to one per server. Better yet, it'd be much more acceptable if the weapon itself didn't drop, but instead would break into something such as a BoP "shard" of Frostmourne, to be the final material in, say, a quest to create a legendary weapon, "Son of Frostmourne" or somesuch.
Save Arthas! ;_;
Reply
7-01-2008 @ 6:21PM
Oblivion said...
I agree. I don't want to see Arthas killed. Though, I didn't want to see Illidian and Kael killed either. I really enjoy all the characters from Warcraft III, and I give props to Blizzard for letting us kill off a bunch of their major lore characters, but part of me wishes some of them would stick around. I liked how Kael came back in the Magister's Terrace, for example.
I also strongly agree about Frostmourne. I don't ever want to see a player wielding it. I really like your Frostmourne Shard/Son of Frostmourne idea though. That's good thinking there.
7-01-2008 @ 6:57PM
Charlie said...
The way Illidan and Kael were killed were very well done however. They were just put there for us to kill, Maiv came in and finished the job which seemed incredibly satifying for some who played and love Warcraft III. And Kael's whole story is really the true story of BC. The betrayl of his kind, and the attempt to summon the big K-J. SWP really brought everything together. To bad I wont get to see it =(
And you thought I couldn't make a anti-raiding elite remark =D. But seriously, praise blizzard for coinciding 10mans and 25mans!
7-01-2008 @ 6:48PM
CasterTheGhost said...
I think that Frostmourne should drop every single time, but instead of being a legendary that you get to keep, it possesses whoever picks it up with the power of the Lich King and you lose control of your character and the raid group has to take you down. In them killing you, Frostmourne drops out of your hand and the disembodied Lich King moves on because you are not powerful enough for his liking. If the raid group fails to take down your character than a surge of power through Frostmourne kills you and the Lich King moves on anyway. The last thing I want is to see some idiot running around with Frostmourne, so this is my idea.
Reply
7-01-2008 @ 7:00PM
Charlie said...
That would be badass.
Imagine this. World first Arthas kill right? Everyone gathers up for the screeny. Screenshot taken. Now the loot...
Holyshit! Frostmourne!. They hand out all the loot first, someone gives all their DKP to get frostmourne. They loot it...
Duh Duh Duh, They become Posesed! The Battle isn't over! The player loses control of his character, and instead gets to use a freed-from-the-lk's-control-Arthas to beat down the LK. Once he dies, the Frostmourne breaks into a thousand peices, the LK is nomore and Arthas lives! Sweet! You win WoW!
7-01-2008 @ 7:02PM
Eternalpayn said...
Blizzard said an interesting thing this weekend. They said legendary drops are for when they don't have time to design a quest. My guess? They've got a quest for Frostmourne. It will probably be a paladin quest where they get to cleanse it then wear the "Cleansed Frostmourne" with Paladin stats. Then, Death Knights will have a quest where they end up using a necromancy-esque skill to bring Frostmourne "back to life" kinda, and have it drain it's possession powers. Then you can wield it without it controlling you.
Just my guess.
Reply
7-01-2008 @ 7:02PM
Charlie said...
King of SW returning? Uh. Yes.
Reply
7-01-2008 @ 7:17PM
Brandon said...
Frostmourne should drop, one per server, and immediately permanantly flag the player PVP and defeating that player will allow you to steal the sword, provided you have completed a line of quests that allow you "sword bearer" ability or something. Would be freakin cool.
Reply
7-01-2008 @ 9:29PM
Procris said...
Sigh, as if killing off Illidan one of the coolest Warcraft vilians wasn't bad enough, Blizzard seem dead set on killing off the Lich King along with Arthas. I don't want to be negative but whos next after they kill off Arthas? Heh, there is no one as iconic as the Lich King.
Frostmourne dropping is a real problem in the lore department because it steals the bearers sole. I'd imagen anyone picking it up would become an enemy to their own faction because you are no longer in "control" of yourself.
Reply
7-01-2008 @ 10:11PM
slimj091 said...
you do realize that Ragnaros, Nef, Ony, and C'thun did not appear in any of the previous rts games right? (well nef and ony's dad did...). stop acting like with the death of the lich king that blizzard will have ran out of villains for us to kill.
for instance we have still to take on deathwing, queen azshara, who ever is pulling the strings behind the infinite dragonflight (yes.. i know that could very well be deathwing also), the other old gods that are still imprisoned beneath azeroth, sargeras and, hell the titan's themselves could come back and decide that we all need to be exterminated because we don't fit their definition of "order".
besides that list of those baddies. blizzard can still invent "new" villains for us. not every end-game boss has to be from warcraft 3.
7-01-2008 @ 11:02PM
Edboy said...
I don't think Frostmourne stole Arthas' sole, he didn't look like he had trouble walking. Nor did it look like it stole his ~soul~ because he was still walking around and killing stuff. Sure, he got meaner after getting the sword but he wasn't a total zombie to the lich king.
Don't get me started on the whole two guys becoming one thing, it still freaks me out after all these years.
7-02-2008 @ 4:52PM
ScorchHellfire said...
um edboy it did steal his soul... read the damn lore... it even says it in the game rightafter he takes it up...
anyways blizzard said in the last blizzcon that they don't plan to have frostmourne drop and the lich king himself wont be dead even tho arthas will be...
oh and you should also go to deathknight.info because theres a lovely gallery of screen shots from the wotlk alpha showing a new bit of info about frostmourne... namely when arthas took it up and we thought muradin bronzebeard was killed when its ice crystal containment thing exploded... well he wasnt... he woke up sometime later with amnesia... weeeee
and as far as having villains after wotlk... well dont forget azshara is till sitting at the bottom of the ocean underneath the maelstrom in the naga capital... and theres also the remaining old gods... and dont forget the emerald nightmare either... and of course sargeras himself is still out there...
7-03-2008 @ 1:05PM
slimj091 said...
"anyways blizzard said in the last blizzcon that they don't plan to have frostmourne drop and the lich king himself wont be dead even tho arthas will be..."
blizzard said at the last blizzcon that the stats for frostmourne will not the be same stats that they showed there as a joke. i believe their words were "we are still working out the details" which to me doesnt mean they said "you won't be able to get the frostmourne!"
7-01-2008 @ 11:20PM
vlad said...
Frostmourne should be like scarab mount. 1 per server and no more. legendary item with a massive questline. and like the AQ gates blizz picks the person they want.
Reply
7-02-2008 @ 9:34AM
Haderic said...
The AQ gates were a massively long quest, Blizzard did not just pick some random guy to open the gates.
7-02-2008 @ 3:22PM
vlad said...
sure they did. if you look at the "The Scepter of the Shifting Sands" quest chain you can see its big, on my old server the guild leader from our highets rated guild was given a link ingame assistance from gm's the entire time. one of the big complaints was that no onther top rading guilds were getting the same assistance even though they were also attempting the questline. hence blizz chose who they wanted.
7-02-2008 @ 4:38PM
Badger said...
'on my old server the guild leader from our highets rated guild was given a link ingame assistance from gm's the entire time. one of the big complaints was that no onther top rading guilds were getting the same assistance even though they were also attempting the questline'
This would be a massive, job-ending violation of both CM *and* GM policy, regardless of whatever tier of management may or may not have authorized it. I don't buy a word of it unless you can cite some sort of evidence. Sorry.
7-02-2008 @ 11:27PM
vlad said...
read the warsong server forums about the player "avatar" he bragged about it openly. it was talked about openly.
7-02-2008 @ 6:43AM
grofer said...
Ideally Frostmourne would shatter and the shards be an ingredient for a Thunderfury like quest to forge a new weapon, with there being a selection of possible reforged weapons to not have it limited to one class.
Reply
7-02-2008 @ 2:39PM
Nick=har said...
i like this idea best. 1 per server? what about people who arent 70 yet? i am going to be but its gunna take a while and i dont think its fair to only let the people who were there first get it because not everybody has a high lvl main.