WoW: Wrath of the Lich King goodies

Today, GameSpy, Curse and WorldofWar.net dropped a couple trucks (lorries to you Brits) worth of information regarding the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.   They along other WoW fan sites got to pay a visit to Blizzard HQ.   Needless to say there are some nice things coming. The following is a sample of what was revealed:

Death Knights:

• Starts at L55 inside a floating Necropolis (similar to Naxx) somewhere over EPL.   I would think the Necropolis in question will the one that replaces Naxx when Naxx is moved to Northrend.
• No word on whether or not Horde and Alliance DKs will start in the same area.    If they do start in the same area, things could be interesting on a PvP server.
• Players need to have a character at or above L55 to roll a DK
• DKs will NOT replace any existing character
• You will not need to “unlock” the ability to roll a DK.
• DKs will start with their own 60% speed mount (Death Charger) which will be upgraded via a quest line, similar to the Warlock and Paladin mounts
• All races can be DKs, this means we will see NE, Gnome, Tauren DKs among others.
• DKs will be Tank/DPS hybrids using 2h or Duel Wiedling.
• DKs will use a Rune system, Blood, Frost and Unholy. Runes will be expended when abilities are used and will regen (like a Rogue’s Energy). DKs will also have a secondary bar called Runic Power which will build up as you expend Runes and decay over time (similar to a Warrior’s Rage). RP is used for several spells and abilities that will expend all of the DKs available RP. The more RP you have the more pain that spell will dish out.
• DKs will come with a complete set of spells and ablities. One of these will allow a DK to raise a corpse as a Ghoul. This includes a Player’s corpse. If a DK raises a teamate’s corpse as a Ghoul, the player whose corpse was raised can control the resulting Ghoul. This presents some interesting challenges in Arenas. Ghouls will have a set of spells including Slowing and Disease effects
• You get one DK per realm.  You must have a L55 or higher character on that realm.
• DKs will start with a mix of Green and Blue quality items.    Their first few quests will gain them better quality gear that will be exclusive to the DK class.

Vehicle combat and Mounts

• In one video, players are shown be controlling an Gnomish Flying Machine (like the ones in IF by the Battlemasters) and engaging in aerial combat with Gargoyles. GameSpy has mention other vehicle combat scenarios that they were shown and got to play with
• In one instance (according to Curse), you fight a mob called an Interrogator who has captured various drakes from the different Dragon Aspects. Once the drakes are freed, you can fly on them for the remainder of the instance and gain special ablities while mounted.
• The new vehicle combat system could include Siege Weapons, something was discussed at BlizzCon.
• The mounts available to buy in Wrath will probably be able to take passengers. These mounts will also work in the old world (Provided they are land mounts), so players can give low-level characters a ride! The new mounts will also be slightly faster, around the speed of the Armored Netherdrakes
• Flying mounts will be grounded until you get to L77, after that you will need to do quest or visit a trainer (not decide which its going to be) to be able to fly again.   Flying mounts will only work in Northrend (and Outland as previous).    Due to nature of the old world (numerous graphic shortcuts and such that were never ment to be seen by the players), flying mounts will not likely ever work on Azeroth/Kalimdor

Bigger Zones

• Apparently Northrend is bigger than Outland and the various zones are much bigger than Outland or old world zones.
• Zones have a larger variety of landscapes, towns (friendly and hostile)
• There are usable items such as Lifts, an aerial tram (like what you see in the Alps), and more.
• There will be transport between the two “starting” zones (Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra), its reported to be a giant turtle which will travel between Tuskaar towns on the coast of each zone.

Instances

• All 5 man instances will have a Heroic mode
• Heroics will have a different loot table than normal
• The Badge system will continue, a different token will be used.
• All raid instances will come in two flavors, 10 and 25 instances
• 25 man versions will have better loot (higher Tier) than 10 man.
• 10 and 25 man instances will be on separate timers
• No attunement to raid instances

Some other info

• The Scarlett Crusade is back, now called the Scarlett Onslaught.
• Also making a return are the Worgen along with the Sons of Arugal (the elite Worgen that gank lowbie Hordies questing in Silverpine Forest) .
• Numerous story lines from both WoW and Warcraft 3 are continued. One quest is based on one of the missions from Warcraft 3.
• Players will be able to change their hairstyles as often as they want, the cost of doing so will scale with their level.
• PvE ladders on the official armory are possible in the future
• There will be no event to open the route to Northrend like AQ; the day of the expansion release, players can go straight into Northrend. However, a month or 2 in advance there will possibly be a large patch, similar to pre TBC. Players will get hints of why they will have to go to Northrend in this period, and this patch will possibly feature new talent trees and class changes.
• There will be a lot of new exciting things for all classes on the way to level 80 in terms of talents and abilites, and player will likely find there is a different balance between the classes at level 80.
• It is likely some new spells and abilities for the classes will be shown at the WWI next month
• There may be an instance inside Dalaran, the new central hub city in Northrend.
• Better graphics are a possibility for the future, but it’s not something that Blizz are working on right now.
• Blizzard are planning to bring out cool new items for players to spend all their money on, BEFORE Wrath comes out.
• Lots of UI improvement planned, Blizzard will be integrating some popular addons to the standard UI.  These could include Threat meters, this was discussed at BlizzCon.
• There is a possibilty that old instances will be brought back later on in the game, in a similar way that Naxxramas is being revived in Wrath.  Naxx will get a 10 and 25 man version.

There is a lot more to read about. Check out both GameSpy and World of War.net for more.

GameSpy’s WoLK coverage: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/872185p1.html

Videos showing several of the Northrend zones: http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/954/954150/vids_1.html

World of War’s WoLK coverage: http://www.worldofwar.net/n/413356
/breaking-news-blizzards-wrath-of-the-lich-king-presentation

Curse’s WoLK coverage: http://wow.curse.com/articles/details/9634/

MMO-Champion has further details and an excellent break-down of what was presented at the event.   Also the videos that GameSpy are also present ready to be viewed.   Those videos are pieces of a longer 9 minute video.   A French site, JudgeHype.com has the complete video of which I have embedded below.

MMO-Champion coverage:  http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=7288.0

The promised video:

I am personally getting excited with the new expansion. It will be adding alot of new elements to an already impressive game. This information is only the tip of the iceberg as beta testing as not been started yet, nor we do not anything about new spells or new talents. Many new factions will be added, Dalaran is getting moved to became the Shattrath of the north. The old location of Dalaran in Alterac will be become a big hole, however Blizzard does have plans for it. We will likely hear more when Blizzard’s World Wide Invitational occurs in June plus get some screenshots of the game. Stay tuned.