The folks at World of Raids linked to this fascinating and disturbing interview with the folks at Blizzard about the upcoming expansion. Disturbing in a good way, to my mind, in that they talk about making the journey from 70 to 80 one of tough moral choices and twisted encounters with the Lich King himself, and fascinating because it talks about what the design team for the expansion learned from The Burning Crusade.
Blizzard vice president of creative development Chris Metzen seems to be apologizing for it. "It had a lot of high-concept ideas, high-concept environments," he says, calling to mind the psychedelic mushrooms of Zangarmarsh, the tragic majesty of Tempest Keep, "but other than some really nice moments, there was nothing really personal about it."
There's a lot more substance in the interview, although some of it is stuff we've seen before - Lake Wintergrasp PvP, flying mounts not working right away, Death Knights - but the insight into what they've learned and how they're approaching the mood and feel of the new expansion is, I think, worth a read in of itself. The way they intend to weave Arthas' journey into each player's experience, if it works, will be one of the most interesting things any MMO has ever done.
Late this afternoon, Blizzard created an official forum for their next expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King. Both the U.S. Wrath forum and the European Wrath forum are just now filling up with the usual questions, and some are already getting blue responses.
CM Vaneras has moved the all things announced about Northrend post to this forum and confirmed today that Ulduar is a dwarven instance that will be accessible by both Horde and Alliance
Monde Persistants, a French Warcraft site, has released their full interview with Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan and Art Director Chris Robinson from last week's Leipzig Games Convention. Some of this information we already know, but there's quite a bit that was new to us. You can read the entire interview (in English!) and see the video at MP. Here's the summary of the new items:
Part of the lore behind the Wrath of the Lich King expansion has Arthas trying to seduce players to the dark side, both Alliance and Horde.
Part of the Death Knight lore will have them "break away" from the Lich King influence to be free agents, the way the Forsaken have broken away from being mindless undead.
Death Knights will "probably" be able to inscribe any weapon with their Runes that give them power.
Ulduar is going to be a new raid instance. It's controlled by storm giants and is a fortress of the Titans like Uldaman and Maruadon according to WoW lore.
The Nerubians (spider guys) will host a few instances at the underground Azjol'Nerub.
The Nexus will have a L70 5-man instance.
The main boss in the CoT: Stratholme instance will be Mal'ganis.
Possibly new daily quests introduced with the Sunwell Plateau patch (2.4?)
Previous information gathered from Leipzig can be found here.
"Oh my frikkin dog, everybody and their second cousin is gonna wanna be Death Knights!" was the cry heard throughout Outland when the new Hero Class was announced. WoW players everywhere had visions of dungeons and raids filled with only Death Knights; as well as Alliance and Horde cities alike all filled wall-to-wall with thousands of players who abandoned their original class to become Death Knights, only to discover (along with rogues and hunters) that it ain't so easy being uber-cool and powerful when everyone else is uber-cool and powerful too -- because everyone else is taking your raid spot.
Well Drysc has a ray of light to shed on this despair... or, in the case of Death Knights, perhaps that should be a big tank of unholy frozen blood to spill on it (assuming that would help):
I expect just about everyone is going to want to try one, but is everyone going to want to drop their long-time proffered class for one? I seriously doubt it. Also there's some amount of self regulation that will really be required to keep group composition equalized.
Not only will the other 9 classes still be needed to succeed in any group effort, but the tactics involved in playing a Death Knight might be too hard for the average Stanley Noobsauce to master. In response to one player who felt that the rune system Death Knights will be using seemed "clunky and not fun," Drysc responded:
Yesterday, new Wrath of the Lich King information began trickling out of the Leipzig Game Convention in Germany. Journalists are lining up to talk to Blizzard and two of the interviews with Warcraft Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan can be viewed as video.
First, we reported on German game site Buffed's interview with Jeff Kaplan that revealed more details of the new COT: Stratholme instance and an explanation of the Death Knight rune system. If you go to their page, scroll down past all that German and you'll find a video of the interview (in English!)
Later in the day, we covered Curse Gaming's own interview with Kaplan that announced Utgarde Pinnacle, gave more detail on the new Inscription profession, revealed the plan behind the increased pre-60 leveling curve and explored the dev's thoughts about giving the Hunter class some PvP love. Now Curse has put up a video of the interview.
Leipzig isn't over yet. Hopefully we'll have more revelations before the weekend is over.
ActionTrip cornered WoW Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan and Art Director Chris Robinson today at the Leipzig Game Convention in Germany (E3 for Europe.) And boy, did they get a lot out of those two about Blizzard's plans for the future. Here are the highlights:
The art for the expansion will look more like classic Warcraft (gothic fantasy), and less like Outlands art (high fantasy)
Sunwell Plateau will be coming in a patch before the WotLK launch. It will include both a 25-main raid and a 5-main instance with both normal and heroic mode.
WotLK will have "just as much" 5-man instances as TBC and more 10-main instances due to the popularity of Karazhan
A new PvP area called Lake Wintergrass will combine world PvP (non-instanced) with the new siege weapons and destructible buildings. The faction that controls this zone may receive an effect that not only applies to the zone, but to the whole continent
When asked about class balance, they said they had no plans for any major changes to classes
The Death Knight unlocking quest will start at level 55-60
If I'm not mistaken, the Sunwell Plateau is north east of Silvermoon city, the Blood Elf capital. I hope Blizzard is planning some kind of Alliance friendly transportation into the area with the introduction of the Zul'Aman raid zone in Patch 2.3. If not, they are definitely going to need it for these new zones.
EDIT: In regards to #14's comment: Stratholme is the new CoT instance according to this interview with Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan aka "Tigole." It is a 5-man, Level 80 instance. You will travel to the past before Arthas was corrupted and help him rid the city of demons and burn it down. As far as we can tell, the Sunwell Plateau will only be accessible by traveling there physically.
That same article also mentioned that future Hero Classes could be Demon Hunter, Archmage or Blademaster.
He also talked about the Death Knight rune system. What runes the Death Knight carves into his blade will determine what role he plays in the group (i.e tank, dps, a mix of the two, etc.)
In this separate interview, Kaplan revealed another new WotLK instance, Nexus, located in the Borean Tundra zone. It will be split into several wings, one of them for a 25-man raid that must defeat Malygyos, the blue dragon.
Snuffles of Whisperwind server has used a web-based talent tree generator to speculate on WotLK druid talents. He proposes all sorts of class balance breaking goodness. A druid using these talents could probably solo Illidan. While AFK.
I'm pretty sure we've all heard about the Death Knight by now and know that it is going to be the game's first "hero" class -- unlocked by a level 80 quest and starting at a higher level than a non-hero character. But I'm not really wondering about Death Knights right now, but instead about other hero classes that might be in our future. It struck me as an odd move to release an expansion with a single hero class purely for practical reasons -- as soon as people start hitting level 80 with their mains, we're going to see a swarm of new baby Death Knight alts. (That Death Knight Spree isn't just a joke!) The best counter to this, in my opinion, would be more than one hero class in the expansion. Of course we'd still wind up with a lot of new hero class players, but at least there would be a variety of them. And on the forums Nethaera gives a bit of hope for future hero classes, though not in this expansion:
We are thinking at current that any future hero class additions will be made in expansions further along the line so that we can control just how many classes the game has and continue to work on attaining balance as we add them.
I'm still hoping they'll come around to the idea of more hero classes sooner, rather than later.
As we look forward to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, I've been thinking on the new resource system they are introducing with the Death Knight. The runes carved into the Death Knight's blade are not necessarily unique amongst MMOs, but they are certainly new to WoW. I wonder though, as more hero classes are added to the game, will they use the new runic system? And how exactly would that work?
I can see many classes as defined by their weapons, the Blade Master and his sword, the Archmage and his staff, so it's not too far off to expect that when we have access to new hero classes they might use this system, but they might not. Adding new novel ways that we play the game we love is one of the reasons I do love WoW so much. I admit more than a little curiosity as to how this might play out. What sort of resource system do you see being used by, say, the Demon Hunter? Would they use mana, energy, rage, runes, or something completely different? Are there any advantages to the runic system over the others?
If you've enjoyed Nyhm's previous music videos ("Just So OP" and "Can't PuG KZ"), then you'll enjoy his latest effort in which he addresses the impending flood of Death Knights upon the World of Warcraft. And if you haven't heard of Nyhm before, you should give this one a try -- trust me, he's gotten much better at the machinima-making game since posting his first movie in July!
So we've heard all about the new hero class, the Death Knight. They're going to be plate-wearing tanks (but without shields) wielding heavy weaponry to dish out the melee DPS while throwing around shadow & frost damage and summoning their own army of the dead. What's not to love about this class?! While we still don't have specifics on how the Death Knight will function in the game, today I'm asking how many of you are already planning on rolling one. (By which, of course, I mean rolling one as soon as the expansion is released, you level to 80, and complete an epic quest line.) Planning on being the first Death Knight on your realm? The first Death Knight in the world? Let us know!
With all the hubbub about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Know Your Lore is going to cover some of the lore behind our frozen neighbor to the north. (No, not Canada. They have no history. Also, I fully expect to get gkicked for that statement.) We already took care of Arthas and Sylvanas, but we still have Ner'zhul, Anub'arak, and others to cover.
But for starters, let's check out the lore behind one of the new additions to World of Warcraft: the Death Knight class! There's already been quite a stir about them on the forums, with people complaining that they should only be humans and undead, should only come out of sacrificing your previous character, and shouldn't be in the Alliance because it would conflict with the wonderful art of roleplaying a talking paladin cat. But I've always believed that people should know what they're complaining about, so here's a guide to the current basis of the Death Knight hero class, as we know it.
Name: Death Knights.
Race: Undead orcs, humans, other things.
History: The Death Knights actually have two separate histories: one from the Second War, and one from the Third. We'll start with the former, because doing things in chronological order is awesome.
Once upon a time, a very bad demon named Kil'jaeden corrupted the native orcs of Draenor and convinced them to forsake their shamanistic culture for the power of black magic. The orcs invaded the world of Azeroth, led by Gul'dan and the warlocks of the demon-influenced Shadow Council. But when Gul'dan overstepped his power and fell into a coma, the orc Orgrim Doomhammer took advantage of the situation, launching a palace coup and killing as many warlocks as he could find. Doomhammer hated warlocks and intended to kill Gul'dan as well. When Gul'dan awoke, he begged for Doomhammer to spare his life, and promised him that he could use shadow magic to create a caste of powerful warriors loyal to the Horde. Doomhammer was suspicious, but agreed to hear Gul'dan out.
Imagine it [the runes] being three different energy pools which you can change the size of before you get into combat.
These runes, we know, will be etched on to the Death Knight's weapons and can be changed at any time out of combat. But it sounds like the details on weapons etching are still up in the air: There's no final decision or announcement on how multiple weapons would be etched, or how weapon switching may affect the etched runes. What has been discussed to some degree is that the main-hand weapon would be etched and that's it, but it's too early to say what would be allowed in the final game.
What level the Death Knight will start at is still unknown but what races may play them is up in the air. Though during our liveblog of the WotLK demo, we were told that Blizzard's plan was to have the class available for all races (to cheers of "Gnome Death Knights ftw!" from the crowd), Vaneras expresses less certainty... more quotes and info after the jump!
Now that Wrath of the Lich King and its first hero class is in the works, I've been thinking on the shifts the paladin has made in Warcraft of late. I'm not so much talking about how the class plays, but more what the class is about, its roots and changing story. Originally paladins are the holy warriors of Azeroth, wielding the power of the light of some divine entity, able to heal and to harm with its touch.
When The Burning Crusade was released, the paladin class was added to the Horde faction, and we learned that this type of Paladin was a very different breed. The Blood Elf pally was a warrior who drew on the light as well, but funneled from a holy being. This parasitic nature of the paladin was definitely a dark twist on what was considered a decidedly good-goody class. Now the paladin was sucking the power they used from a captive Naaru.
The folks at World of Raids linked to this fascinating and disturbing interview with the folks at Blizzard about the upcoming expansion. Disturbing in a good way, to my mind, in that they talk about making the journey from 70 to 80 one of tough moral choices and twisted encounters with the Lich King himself, and fascinating because it talks about what the design team for the expansion learned from The Burning Crusade.
"Oh my frikkin dog, everybody and their second cousin is gonna wanna be 
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