Blog Articles by keyword: expansion
Mists of Kung-Fu
by Tachyon on Sun. 23. October 2011, 20:01
Filed under: wow, expansion, pandaren, blizzcon
Pandas, Kung Fu & Pet battles, o rly?
Next WoW Expansion announced
by Tachyon on Fri. 21. October 2011, 22:59
Filed under: wow, expansion, pandaren, blizzcon
Today, Blizzard announced the next WoW Expansion at Blizzcon 2011:
Mists of Pandaria
My interest playing WoW:MoP: Zero. Zilch. Sorry.
In the early years of WoW, I almost spent the equivalent of my in-game time outside of WoW, writing guides in the guild forum, exploring and discussing spell mechanics, starting this blog and writing countless analysis and simulation programs for myself to optimize my gameplay. That was a game of its own, and I loved it.
Over the years, I've seen many of a in-game friend getting tired of WoW, taking pauses of the game for a few months or permanently quitting altogether (*hugs* to Face, Wammer, Farbelila, Morello, Nemthros and all the rest, miss you!). But not once did I grew tired of the game (I think this is due to me playing rather moderately, the candle that burns half as fast lasts twice as long). Not once, until Cataclysm hit.
I still don't know why, but I lost more and more interest in theorycrafting and writing guides. There was nothing new to explore. Rotations, stat weights and mechanics became public domain, the just-do-what-EJ-tells type of mindset was good enough to beat the content, why bother do to more. Moreover, the mage class became a trivialized version of itself (I'm looking at you, Arcane spec!).
Here I am, stranded at a point where I don't expect anything new to come to the World of Warcraft. I won't blame the game, it was great for what it was, and trivializing it is the only reasonable approach to keep it playable. And somehow it becomes clear to me that this probably is the last WoW expansion I'd bother spending my time on.
Don't misunderstand me, I still love playing the game, but it's no longer that honeymoon feeling. Raiding still makes me want to play, and I look forward to the next patch because of Deathwing (I hope that's more than shooting at his metal scales standing on his back while he flies loops) and transmogrification. This, but nothing more.
But then there's that other game, one that I eagerly await, the one that has my soul since I started playing the series in 1996: Diablo III!
Can't wait to play monk and wizard in the world of Sanctuary!
I away thee, hordes of terror, for thou shalt face my martial and arcane arts, soon!
Blizzard announced today that Diablo III will be free for players that open up an annual subscription to WoW (which includes Yet-Another-Mount and the guaranteed opt-in for the next WoW expansions). Will this keep me subscribed? Probably not, but I couldn't say no now for sure. We'll see.
What about you? Still playing WoW, still planning to play the next expansion? Share your thoughts and enlighten me
Cataclysm Preparation
by Tachyon on Wed. 01. December 2010, 23:44
Filed under: Cataclysm, Expansion, Preparation
The Cataclysm expansion is now less than a week away, so it's about time starting the preparations to make the transition as painless as possible. Two years ago, I wrote about Preparing for the Lich King, and my preparation advise is now almost the same as back then:Preparation Step 1: Take a screenshot of your char
Before you start exchanging your ilvl-277 epics with all sorts of colorful rags and scrap, take a last screenshot of your character in all its glory of the last WotLK days!
That's me, in the gear I used to participate in the last glorious raids of WotLK. I've been wearing the same equipment now for about two months, and as we stopped our progression (still at 11/12 ICC 25 HC, Halion 25 HC still not beaten), I didn't receive any upgrades since then.
Stats (self-buffed with Arcane Brilliance and Molten Armor):
- Gear Score: 6329
- Average Item Level: 274
- Health: 33.1k
- Mana: 34.5k
- Intellect: 2059
- Spirit: 249
- Spellpower: 3591
- Hit: 448 / 17.08%
- Crit: 1135 (+24.72%) / 41.02%
- Haste: 954 / +17.08%
- Mastery: 10.68 (8.00+2.68 )
Preparation Step 2: Maximize your bag space
Get bags as big as possible, and clear them as much as you can. As soon as you enter the new regions, you want to have as much bag space available as you can afford. The next town may be miles away when levelling, so your slots will fill up quickly with all sorts of quest items, loot and vendor trash.
Throw away your PvP stuff, it's of no use as soon as you reach lvl 85. Put any offspec items on the bank, and try to keep no more than a handful of items for nostalgic purpose.
Sell anything you can, it's worth more now than in a week.
Preparation Step 3: Chose a new leveling spec
Mine will, of course, be frost: Mage 0/2/34 Frost Leveling Spec (80)
It's very efficient for short fights, the pet is awesome, the survivability priceless. Plus, it's very mana efficient. Arcane can be fine for levelling as well, now that you can snare from the very first Arcane Blast you cast.
Fire is rather inefficient for soloing, the DoTs have no use when the target dies within seconds. If you intend levelling with instances, Frost and Arcane are good choices for a complimentary group spec. The new instances are though, and fire is likely to mess with crowd control effects, so it's a no-go here as well.
Preparation Step 4: Max your professions
At least on your main, you should have your 2 primary specs and all secondary specs (First Aid, Cooking, Fishing) maxed when Cataclysm launches. Gathering professions maxed on your twinks is of course another benefit.
Preparation Step 5: Plan ahead for the new terrain
From lvl 80-85, Cataclysm offers two entrance zones (of which you should take the one that most appeals to you, for me it's Mount Hyjal) and 3 subsequent zones:
- Mount Hyjal (80 - 82)
-
Vashj'ir (80 - 82)
Subzones: Kelp'thar Forest, Shimmering Expanse, Abyssal Depths - Deepholm (82 - 83)
- Uldum (83 - 84)
- Twilight Highlands (84 - 85)
Print out zone maps of the new regions, mark points of interest (villages of your and the opposing faction, and other known quest hubs), that should help you finding your path through the content.
My intention is to focus on questing, and spend no more than a third of the time in instances with my guild mates. Questing helps discovering the new factions, and start getting reputation with them, this is an important step in gearing preparation for when you reach the end game, so better start early on.
Here's a list of the new dungeons, note that you have to have revealed the dungeon entrance before you can queue for the according dungeon in the dungeon finder tool.
The new 5-men high-level dungeons are:
- Abyssal Maw - Throne of the Tides (80-81)
- Blackrock Mountain - Blackrock Caverns (80-81)
- The Skywall - Vortex Pinnacle (82-84)
- Deepholm - Stonecore (82-84)
- Uldum - Lost City of Tol'vir (85)
- Uldum - Halls of Origination (85)
- Grim Batol - Grim Batol (85)
- Westfall - Deadmines (HC, 85)
- Silverpine Forrest - Shadowfang Keep (HC, 85)
Raid-Dungeons (10/25 Raid):
- Blackrock Mountain - Blackwing Descent
- The Skywall - Throne of the Four Winds
- Grim Batol - Bastion of Twilight
- The Firelands
- Caverns of Time - War of the Ancients
Good luck with your preparations, and wish you a splendid start in the new expansion!
Cataclysm NDA lifted
by Tachyon on Thu. 01. July 2010, 11:27
Filed under: cataclysm, expansion, mage, beta
The Cataclysm NDA (non-disclosure agreement) has been lifted today, so we can expect to see new information from the beta flooding the internet, yay!
MMO-Champion already published a compilation of the mage talents/spells for the upcoming expansion, and it looks fine!
Some goodies I've found:
- Spreading Chill spreads the chill effects to 1/2 additional targets on Frostbolt crits
- Improved Cone of Cold freezes the targets for 2/4 seconds
- Improved Polymorph delays damage taken by the target by 1.5/3 seconds
- Arcane Repulsion gives all of your armor buffs the ability to knock back and slow an attacker, once per minute
- Arcane Instability increases the damage of your next spell by 20/4/60% when one of your spells is pushed back or interrupted
- Improved Mana Gem increases your damage by 1/2/3% of your maximum mana for the next 10 seconds after using a mana gem
- Arcane Tactics is a raid-wide buff that increases damage
Links:
- MMO-Champion Cataclysm Mage Overview
- Cataclysm Talent calculator
- WoWHead Cataclysm Database
- Arcane Brilliance: Cataclysm beta highlights for mages
My thoughts on WoW:Cataclysm
by Tachyon on Wed. 02. September 2009, 12:52
Filed under: cataclysm, expansion
This year's Blizzcon focussed heavily on the announcement of the third WoW expansion, Cataclysm.
The Bloggosphere remained surprisingly quiet over the Blizzcon weekend (a few facts here and there, but not many opinions), not due to a lack of interest (au contraire!), but due to such an astonishing fresh idea behind the next expansion which nobody had forseen and had to be digested first.
Instead of adding yet another zone to the game and further following the locust swarming (exhaust the content of a zone, proceed to next, leaving dead content behind), Blizzard decided to not only advance the storyline behind WoW but also make it dead clear that more than five years have passed since we entered the world of Azeroth.
The cataclysmic changes brought by the return of Deathwing, father to Onyxia and Nefarian, tore the world asunder. From the cleft where once were the barrens, to flooded and derailed scenery everywhere, the world will never be the same again.
Classic Zones Remade
Kudos to Blizzard for this idea, it's about time the world revolves again, and reviving old continents in such a dramatic way is just ingenious.
Of course new players won't have the chance to experience the world of warcraft as it were in 2004 ever again, but hey that's the point in a living world; it's not a museum after all. The makeover of the classic zones was a longtime demand of players, also that we will be able to use our flying mounts there too.
New starting zones will be added for the new races, and new questlines and quest hubs are to be expected to replace some of the classics ones when the face of Azeroth is changed.
3d Engine Update
WoW's 3d engine was not even meeting the 2004 standards, and we're in 2009 now. The only things that were improved in those five years were the environment effects (rain, snow, dust, mist) and the shadows. With Cataclysm, WoW finally gets environment mapped water reflections, and I hope they also improve other stuff.
The cloud cover desperately needs to be reworked, and also the rigid vegetation is a stain in my eyes. Why can't we have trees and plants be affected by a wind system; this would cost no rendering resources at all, and just a few CPU cycles to move the models slightly. Every other MMO features generated vegetation (trees with L-systems for example), why is Blizzard still modelling them individually?
The water reflections are a good start, but I hope Blizzard walks the extra mile there and brushes up the aged 3d engine. All the changes I proposed here are cheap to implement (even Dark Age of Camelot had them in 2003 or so), just do it, k?
Two New Playable Races
The worgen (you're the man now dog!) will join the forces of the alliance, whereas the goblins will become a part of the horde. I'm only very mildly interested in that, also that more race/class combinations will be enabled, as I'm no twinker at all.
Level Cap Increased to 85
Only 5 levels, you say? That's enough for a gear reset without taking too many resources away for levelling content, allowing to concentrate more on the endgame content. I always appreciated the gear resets as they are an important part of mudflation, letting casual players catch up and giving the hardcore crowd new incetive.
Character progression comes in many flavours, be it levelling or getting better gear, and it's imperative for a MMORPG to never let it stop (but only slow it down the further you advance).
Cataclysm introduces a new progression path, the Path of the Titans. Using Ancient Glyphs, you will be able to further enhance your character in 10 steps, not all being available at release, but being unlocked step by step with the patches that follow.
Guild Advancement
WoW allows the players to easily reach the level cap without relying on any help from other players, let alone a guild. Even the endgame content can be done without being in a guild, there's myriads of PUGs (pickup groups) that clear the endgame content, just hop in and party on. Even players that are in a guild are unlikely to stick with it, guild hopping is common phenomenon, and new guilds spawn like mushrooms on wet moss every day.
I'm glad that Blizzard reacts on that issue and attempts to strenghen guilds that do well and have a certain persistency. Even if the bonuses you gain from your guilds' advancement are tiny, at least there is now more than a guild tag and tabbard that makes up a guild in the game. I hope that helps a little in regulating the number of guilds on a server; if you ask me, the fewer guilds, the better the playing experience for everyone.
Archaeology
Either one.
Archeology has quite some potential, from a looting perspective (uncover artifacts, salvage old stuff) to storytelling (excavate fragments that are hints towards an event in the past).
Stats reworked
The number of stats and corresponding mechanics that were introduced since the 2004 release of WoW is huge (remember - we didn't even have spellpower then, yet alone MP5, spell penetration, hit, haste, resilience etc.), and though those are all toys on us theorycrafter's playgrounds, it's a woe to most other players.
Spellpower as a stat will be removed, and Intellect will provide a spellpower equivalent instead. MP5 is also gone, and Spirit will become a healers-only stat ("no more spirit on mage/warlock gear" according to the slides at Blizzcon).
That leaves two stats I'd love to get rid of: Hit Rating (best stat until you're capped, worst stat afterwards, and you'll hate it sincerely if you're so much overcapped like me (471 hit rating atm in my best raiding gear) and can't get rid of it; and Spell Penetration, whose use now is limited to PvP, as it does nothing against the level-based resistances of bosses (and no bosses have other resistances at the moment). If any people at Blizzard happen to read this: please dump those stats too, or make them more attractive and meaningful (no caps anymore please).
The talent trees are also reworked, as Blizzard stated they want to remove most (if not all) of the passive talents (such as x% more crit) and grant such improvements based on how much points you spend in a talent tree. A new stat called 'Mastery' will be introduced which boosts certain things depending on your talent spec, so for a healing spec it improves healing, whereas for a damage spec it improves DPS.
Rated battlegrounds, gear equal to arena
This! I hate the Arena system for what it did to WoW PvP, it's about time us BG PvPers get access to the top PvP gear and are no longer penaltized for not playing the current FOTM (Flavour of the Month) class/setup in Arenas. Implementing a rating system for BGs is pretty challenging and not anybody can be satisfied, but I'll take whatever solution they come up with, even if it means that only premade group matches are rated.
Final Thoughts
When Blizzard announced Northrend and Arthas/Lich King as the content for their second expansion, I was all sceptic and considered it a bad move: when they feed us their biggest asset in the Warcraft story that early, how will they ever be able to top it?
But now I look at all the stuff and changes Cataclysm will bring, I can only say bravo, and I'm no less excited that I was with the previous two expansions.
Cataclysim = WoW 2.0? Yes!
Preparing for the Lich King
by Tachyon on Sat. 08. November 2008, 22:39
Filed under: expansion, preparation
Five more days until the new expansion Wrath of the Lich King is released, that's plenty of time to get ourselves prepared propertly.Preparation Step 1: Take a screenshot of your char
Take a last picture of yourself with all your shiny epic gear before it gets replaced by blue quest rewards and 5man loot at level 80 (when again we will look like colorblind cleaning ladies). And for later reference , also note down your current stats. I still regret that I haven't done this at level 60, I only have a vague idea of what items I wore back then and how my actual stat were.
8243 HP, 10.3k Mana, 1239 Spellpower, 24.51% Crit (302 Crit Rating), 11.02% +Hit (139 Hit Rating), 8.37% Haste (132 Haste Rating).
Preparation Step 2: Clean up your bags
Get rid of all the trade goods you longer need, throw away/sell/disenchant all the stuff you don't want to keep for sentimental reasons. Put all your off equip (PvP, resistance equip) into the bank, you need the free bag space. Consider buying larger bags, that's now probably the best investment you can do. Say 'Hello' to your new Gigantique bags if you can afford them.
Preparation Step 3: Get a new levelling build
Optimize your levelling build for maximal efficiency in stop-and-go fights, and optimize towards minimal down time. Reconsider your stats, Crit will serve you better while levelling than Haste or Hit. Killing a mob 0.5 sec faster doesn't count as much as having an additional crit and saving you from casting another spell.
I'll be levelling as deep frost, starting with this build ( http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZZAccIsfuhcdgfot), where I added all the snare and AE utility, and ignored the cooldown reducing talents as there will be enough idle time beween fights to not to justify them.
Preparation Step 4: Do the boring achievments now
Honestly, the exploration achievments were probably the most boring thing I ever did in WoW, but I knew if I wouldn't do them now I would do them never. New interesting content awaits us, you would be insane to spent your limited playing time doing boring stuff when the expansion is new.
Now's also the best time to do all the missing BC dungeon achievments, you'll never again find a group so easy to do them later on.
Preparation Step 5: Plan ahead for the new terrain
Print out Northrend maps early, and inform yourself what dungeons are offered at which level range so you won't miss anything in the new zones.
http://www.wotlkwiki.info is a good starting point for doing expansion related research.
Preparation Step 6: Organize levelling groups with your friends
Stick together as long as you can, it's way more fun to level and quest together in a group of friends. Do regular dungeon runs, and try not to rush for lvl 80, but rather enjoy the new expansion and levelling content while it lasts. The new endgame will come soon enough, don't panic. Just do yourself a favour and enjoy the trip while it lasts
WotLK release date confirmed - 13. Nov. 2008
by Tachyon on Tue. 16. September 2008, 00:49
Filed under: wotlk, expansion, release, raiding, items, qq, dps
Our guild is still stuck on Brutallus (we managed to take him down to 17% before the enrage phase), and I just heard that our raid leaders decided yesterday to no longer raid Black Temple / Mount Hyjal anymore but invest the remaining time to focus on Sunwell only.
Whilst I understand this decision, I has a backlash on me, as I'm still missing the fourth set item for my 4x T6 set bonus (which would give my Frostbolt / Fireball / AM a plain 5% damage bonus).
So if we refrain from raiding MH, my only chance to get the 4x T6 bonus would be to get the Bracers of the Tempest, whose token drops from Kalecgos, the first boss encounter in Sunwell. Of course the demand for the bracers is much higher than for the gloves, and Kalecgos is usually raided on Wednesday (the day I'm babysitting my two baby boys as my wife is attending her aerobic lessons), so my chances to get the 4x T6 bonus are not that good.
It's kind of a tragedy (or better: just sucks.), as without the bonus I'm missing 5% of the DPS I'd need for Brutallus to help contributing to the DPS we need to kill him.
This week's MH id has Azgalor and Archimonde still alive, but I hope but really doubt that we will visit MH tonight, on the last occasion, before we skip the instance completely.
Too bad for me, but it's the price you pay when you're in an achievement oriented guild as a casual raider.
Comforting hugs, cookies, or 'get up and fight!'-kicks are welcome, just drop them in the comments...
WotLK Cinematic Trailer
by Tachyon on Thu. 21. August 2008, 19:52
Filed under: WotLK, Expansion, Videos
Just as WoWInsider announced, the Cinematic Trailer for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was presented today at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany."My child.
I watched with delight
as you grew into a weapon
of righteousness"
- King Terenas Menethil, to his son Arthas
Blizzard's CG departement excelled once again, it's looking sooo awesome.
The trailer is full of bittersweet tragedy, when the past voice of King Terenas expresses his hopes for his son, and seeing what he'd become.
Compared to the classic and BC trailers this one is shorter, and doesn't follow the 'classes showcase' pattern anymore, but delivers a more immersive and cinematically clear vision of the expansion theme.
It's so sad that the WoW movie won't be done in this CG art, but I have faith in both Blizzard and Legendary Pictures (300, The Dark Knight) that they'll at least follow the spirit and graphical style of those trailers.
What I'm most looking forward to in WotLK
by Tachyon on Fri. 08. August 2008, 01:38
Filed under: wotlk, expansion
New mage talentsI'm currently 2/0/59 deep frost specced, and I love it, so the new frost talents get most of my attention, and I can hardly wait to test and use them all. I'm also waiting for more feedback from the beta testers to find out which talents are worth spending points before I try to make up a new talent build for levelling in WotLK and one for the end game. Hey, I also heard that we will be able to have two specs at once and somehow switch between them, but I don't know if this is a) in the beta yet and b) will make it into the release. That would certainly solve pve/pvp spec dilemma.
It's to assume that the new talents will be available one month before the release of the expansion (they did the same when The Burning Crusade came out, the new talents were available in Dec 2006, when Blizzard added the backward compatibility patch). That would be great, boosting PvE process for raiding guilds, and give us all a head start on some new abilities, so we have something less to ponder when the expansion comes out.
Discovering Northrend
The art style evolves with every content patch and expansion, it's amazing what the art department at Blizzard does within the limitations of the aged 3d engine.
The zone concepts were already superb in The Burning Crusade, and from what I've seen yet from the beta, the new expansion will just excel on the zone design.
Exploring is all about fighting your way through the jungle, not about taking satellite pictures from a save distance. Kudos to Blizzard for recognizing that, and disabling us from using our flying mounts before level 78, that's a good thing and disables the players from bypassing all the new content.
Levelling to 80
Levelling from 60 to 70 had a huge impact on the balance and gameplay of the classes. Though I was in the BC beta, I wasn't able to foresee how strong or weak the classes and specs get relative to each other. The same shuffling will happen from 70 to 80, and balance in regard to abilities, specs and equipment is yet unpredictable.
I like levelling very much, but only on my main, as I hate it to revisit content, thus I'm not much of a twinker (my highest twink is a lvl40 rogue).
I'm really looking forward to level my mage, gaining new abilites and seeing if and how my gameplay will change. As in BC, I try on purpose not to level too fast, as I want to enjoy it to a maximum degree before entering the endgame mill again.
Achievements
Achievements are not only there for bragging, but can also serve as a reference card when applying to a new guild (look, that's what I've done, the boss encounters I've beaten). And in annoying times, there's always one more achievement to unlock, it's a game in itself.
I'm yet wondering which achievements will be retroactive, some (like the number of quests made and the total amount of honorable kills) will be most certainly, but I also hope that I won't have to raid the lvl 60/70 instances again to unlock those achievements.
New herbs
I actually love gathering, and especially when it comes to new herbs. It's like a floral treasure hunt!
The next item wipe
I can't understand the woes of people crying over the item wipe. With the advent of Burning Crusade, I only once replaced an epic item with a green one (the lvl63 quest trinket), apart from that only blue items of a higher level replaced my purples one-by-one. I'm all into hunting for and collecting items, and I dont care to replace a beloved item with a better one.
The item wipe also has the important task of bringing players onto the same level with the new expansion, it's like a second chance for all the people that weren't into the raiding endgame before.
Doing the casual instances with my guild
The casual atmosphere of doing new 5men dungeons are the perfect occasion to socialize with my co-guildies and get to know them better, that's one thing I'm very looking forward to do
PvPing
New Battleground: Strand of the Ancients
I just *love* battlegrounds. Being thrown into a random group of people and forced to quickly and dynamically forge a battle plan to crush the enemy is endless pleasure. I personally find pre-formed groups annoying to a high degree, whether its on the own faction (boring as you have a huge advantage and no real challenge) or on the enemies' side (being steamrolled and camped if they are good, or, as in most cases, having a long battle when the preformed enemy group plays bad and they win only closely, but not because the were really better), so I tend to play with random groups, which is more of a challenge and keeps the battlegrounds fresh and interesting. Too bad they only added one new battleground, but at least it looks very promising. I hope WAR will challenge them enough to add more BGs in later content patches.
PvP Zone: Lake Wintergrasp
Open PvP can't really be balanced when there's only two factions. Back in my old DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) days, there were three factions and only open PvP, but if one side was stronger than the other two factions would pact against it to keep them from getting too strong. But even if open PvP will be unbalanced from the very beginning due to unbalanced alliance/horde population, it will only impact one zone and not the entire world.
Doing some PvP there with my guild is what I'm looking for, could be exciting, but it's hard to predict how this will come out. Might as well end up in endless Zerg fests and mexican standoffs (a.k.a wallfights in DAoC). We'll see.
If anyone from Blizzard is reading this:
Dudes, you forgot to send me a beta key! Seriously!
Frostmourne for collectors
by Tachyon on Sun. 16. March 2008, 23:05
Filed under: Frostmourne, Items, WotLK, Expansion, Lore
The replika is 1.2m (47'') long, weights 7.3 kg (16lbs) and is forged of stainless steel.
The rune typed inscription is both promise and warning:
Whosoever takes up this blade shall wield power eternal.
Just as the blade rends flesh, so must power scar the spirit.
The stats of the rune blade have been presented at the last BlizzCon in the Lore(lol?) panel, but it's yet unclear if it will even be lootable sometime in the next expansion (Wrath of the Lich King), and what this would mean for the bearer (mind the inscription!).
More pictures and infos to the Frostmourne replica can be found here:
http://www.epicweapons.com/products/frostmourne
Wrath of the Lich King
by Tachyon on Sun. 05. August 2007, 21:09
Filed under: WotLK, Blizzcon, Expansion
Inzwischen sind auch mehr Details zum Inhalt von WotLK bekannt:
- Levelcap wird von 70 auf 80 angehoben, das Skillcap dementsprechend von 375 auf 450
- 10 neue High-Level-Zonen (Level 68+) in Northrend und anderen Teilen der alten Welt
- Flugmounts in Northrend mit lvl70 noch nicht benutzbar, sondern erst in den späteren höheren Leveln, da Blizzard will, dass man die Zonen erst zu Fuss erkundet
- Die neue neutrale Hauptstadt (quasi der Nachfolger von Shattrath) in Northrend wird überraschenderweise Dalaran, das mitsamt der magischen lila Kuppel abhebt und in Richtung Norden schwebt, um sich dort niederzulassen.
- Northrend wird nicht komplett schneebedeckt sein: Howling Fjord ist eine grüne bewaldete Zone mit hohne Klippen, Borean Tundra wird einen herbstlichen Anstrich haben, und in Grizzly Hills wird man Rotholzwälder finden.
- Neue freundliche und feindliche NPC-Fraktionen: Taunka (mit den Tauren verwandt), Tuskarr, Eisenzwerge, Vrykul (Wikinger), Titanen, Nerubian (Spinnen), Akiri, Blauer Drachenschwarm, und viele mehr...
- Neuer Beruf: Inscription (Inschrift) - ermöglich es, bestehende Fertigekeiten und Zauber zu modulieren oder mit neuen Effekten auzureichern.
- PvP: neue Schlachtfelder mit mobilen Belagerungswaffen und zerstörbaren Gebäuden (yay, finally!)
- Mehr Character-Customization mittels anpassbaren Frisuren (need Epischer Lockenwickler!) und neu lernbaren Tänzen
- Wieder viele neue Dungeons, der erste wird Utgarde Keep (für 5 Spieler) im Howling Fjord sein.
- Engineering: craftbare Flugmounts (Flugmaschinen)
- Der Konflikt zwischen Allianz und Horde wird weiter ausgebaut.
Heldenklasse: Todesritter (Death Knight)
- Epische Questreihe mit lvl 80, nach der man einen Todesritter erstellen kann (als neuen Charakter, der Char mit dem man die Quest gemacht hat wird also nicht gelöscht sondern bliebt also weiterhin bestehen).
- Die Todesritter sind sehr mächtig und starten deshalb schon auf einem hohen Level (wahrscheinlich irgendwo zwischen 50 und 70).
- Fraktionsübergreifende Rasse/Klasse, steht also der Allianz wie auch der Horde zur Verfügung.
- Wird ebenfalls 3 Talentbäume (Blood, Frost, Unholy) haben und eine primäre Tank/DPS-Klasse werden.
- Trägt Plattenrüstung und kann 2H-Waffen oder 2 1H-Waffen tragen, wahrscheinlich aber keine Schilde.
- Der Todesritter wird ein neues System für den sekundären Balken haben, welches anstatt auf Mana/Wut/Energie aus Runenslots für die Blut- Frost und Unholy-Fähigkeiten besteht.
Wie bei Blizzard üblich wurde kein Erscheinungstermin veröffentlicht (it's done when it's done), ich vermute mal dass man den Release auf das erste Semester 2008 legen wird, um der mit Warhammer Online (welches für das erste Quartal 2008 angekündigt wurde) kommenden Konkurrenz gegenüberzutreten.
Wrath of the Lich King klingt jedenfalls sehr vielversprechend, vor allem durch die Heldenklasse, das Inscription-System, die zusätzlichen 10 Level (= neue Fertigkeiten und Talente für alle Klassen) und die Belagerungswaffen im PvP, so dass es Warhammer wohl schwer haben wird, schnell Fuss zu fassen. Und was man Blizzard auch hoch anrechnen muss: sie verstehen es, neue Features einzubinden ohne die Spielbalance auszuhebeln, vor allem weil sie sich an neue Klassen (der Todeskrieger ist nur die erste der kommenden Heldenklassen) sehr vorsichtig herantasten, und nicht den gleichen Fehler wie andere MMORPGs machen, die pro Expansion 2 neue überpowerte Klassen einführen.
Ich schwelge jedenfalls schon in der Vorfreude auf die nächste Expansion, und hoffe mal dass Blizzard mir wieder einen Beta-Key schickt...
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