Impressions from our early experiences in the newest World of Warcraft expansion.
It has been nearly two days since the release of Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard's second expansion to its popular MMO World of Warcraft, and if the login queues are any indication, there are quite a few players coming back into the fold. We were online at 9 PM Pacific, 12 waiting for the boat to Menethil Harbor to get us to the new continent of North Rendsburg, and it was quiet then. Fast forward 24 hours, how many would have picked up their copies and we're waiting for an hour-long queue of around a thousand others can simply log into the game.The launch itself seemed pretty smooth. We have installed the expansion of the new content to go live after our Saturday Draenei Paladin on Menethil's docks and a few minutes after nine, a boat swung around to bring us to the howling Fjord, one of two starter zones. Then dumped us in a nearby swamp. So we restarted the game, let it sit a few minutes, logged back in and within moments we were sailing the middle of towering cliffs of the fjord to start the leveling process to the new cap at 80, bumped up from 70
Engaging in new quests and content in North Rendsburg was not the only choice when deciding what to do first. The other big draw of Wrath is a new hero class, the first new class implemented in the game since the original release back in November 2004. The first expansion, The Burning Crusade, which was released in 2007 added new races, the Draenei for the Alliance and blood elves for the Horde and the Alliance players the ability to scroll the Shaman class and the Horde to roll Paladins. The Death Knight, therefore, is a pretty big deal in World of Warcraft because it is the first opportunity for a four-year player base to test a really new skill sets.
Instead of having to start over from level 1, Blizzard made it so they will start at level 55 in a special Death Knight given zone. Provided that you have a sufficiently high level character you can dive in, create one of these focused mêlée fighters and plow through the first areas until it is time to jump through the Dark Portal and into Outland, where you have to chew through content from The Burning Crusade again before they reach North Rend.
Regarding the new continent yesterday, it is shaped as a triangle. At two corners are launching zones howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, and the top is the high-level content. The way it is designed splits incoming players between the two areas, presumably to prevent overcrowding and offer a few alternatives afterwards. It is definitely a different feel from the opening section of Outland for Burning Crusade, a huge area known as Hell Fire Peninsula, where all players let loose at once. Beyond 71, the players can continue grinding through quests in the starting zones or move to Dragonblight, a large central zone or the green forests of the Grizzly Hills, which are intended for players up to around level 75 Mid to upper 70s are intended to be used in two zones, Sholazar Basin, and Zul'Drak until the players finally wind up in Icecrown and Storm Peaks to tangle with the highest content.
As with any launch of a major on-line product that overpopulation is a problem. In some cases the density of the search target, be it creatures to kill or ground spawn items to pick up, was too thin to accommodate the flood of players, but it is something that will balance out when the first wave moves through and more people spread across the continent. We're playing in a PVP server, which means Horde and Alliance players are free to smash each other in the face. And because of this and the overabundance of players in a small room which has been quite a bit of conflict. You get the more honest situations where Horde and Alliance teams will see each other across an expanded grass, then charge each other to determine a victor, but you also get everything else that comes along with open PVP. Like for example, enemy groups patrol days spawning areas or just roaming the countryside trying to make it as difficult as possible for others to try to achieve their search goals. As annoying as it sometimes is the idea of the free movement of conflict in these types of server is something that we still enjoy.
Ultimately, however, question how Wrath of the Lich King's release affects PVP in World of Warcraft is something we still need to test in-dedicated PVP zone, Lake Wintergrasp, which sits between the Borean Tundra and Dragonblight. After all, we've just turned 71 and has not had many opportunities to explore all that much of the new world and what we've seen so far should be familiar to those who were around in The Burning Crusade.
By that we mean the iterative upgrades for all game systems, from new types of clams meat when you loot dropped murlocs to the profession. Now enchant would be to break down items found in North Rendsburg in new components, infinite cosmic dust and essences instead of the arcane dust and planar format essences from Outland, and use them for all kinds of new recipes. Skill-intensive point cap for all business has been bumped up to 450, which will ultimately allow for a wide range of extravagant armor, weapons, enchant, and more to be pumped out of the player base. Added in a pre-launch patch was a new profession, inscription, which, among other things, allows players to power up their class skills, and this is something the player base will certainly appreciate it when they finally encounter the game's toughest challenges waiting for them in the highest level zones.
But more important to many than leveling their professions are leveling their character, something Blizzard has done fairly easy to do through a wide range of tasks, some that feel old and some new. In the howling Fjord area are a few bombing run quests, something the players should recognize from The Burning Crusade, where the goal is to fly around on mounts or Zeppelin to drill targets far below the area of impact explosive projectiles. New types of tasks related to vehicles that are both, which should provide a nice momentary break from the standard kill, capture and collection quests that make up the majority of the content. With a vehicle search in howling fjord, where we had to jump into a flying machine and move around some issues with a struggling corner. Unfortunately, the quest was not in operating condition at the time, so we were not able to complete it.
As in previous quest content, Blizzard managed to pack in quite a bit amusing text in dialog boxes. Although many rockets through cities filled with NPCs snatching up available quests like gold in a valley of the thieves, it's really worth it to read and enjoy the quirky types of stories built in to help strengthen the overall fiction of the world. In some cases, lead to unique quests, such as one in which our character had a protective buff and accused of running through an underground chamber filled with hundreds of shambling Undead. The buff worked to blast away all attackers in gouttes steam and dust, until we were able to retrieve a sword at the back of the room. This search type, like the vehicles serve as a nice break for a person wants to do more than simply gather experience as quickly as possible.
Activating an element to enter a ghost realm was the hook for a second line of quests where we listened to the conversations of spirits to fill bits of narrative. While wandering around in this alternate ghost world, we at some point came across a spectral version of the Lich King himself, standing on a stairwell just outside the city, starting in the fjord. After spewing some pretty therein Remnants languages the way he crushed our Paladin in Midair, forcing us to respawn.
In an alternative to the bombing run quest type, we also encountered some content, where we had to use a harpoon gun to rain shot down on a village. With each shot that hit the intended target group draw would attack our position, and the task of blasting them out of the sky was then our task to perform. Upon completion of the task that we drove a flaming harpoon down from the bluff where the weapons were anchored to the town below so we can show in our quest for experience and cash.
Quest rewards can be a problem points to the hardcore gamers as if they are too strong some might be unhappy to give up a piece of coffin they spent hours and hours to snag the former contents of something more powerful manufactured in only a few minutes in the expansion. Our character does not have particularly strong tools, so we were swapping of items fairly soon after entering the area and was glad to see some new armor and weapons designs feature a little more detail than older items. Compare the appearance of the quest rewards from the original version of World of Warcraft (which Blizzard took the initiative to label 'classic') or even higher level quest rewards from zones like Shadow Moon Valley and Netherstorm, and the difference is striking. Of course, if anyone has any pieces of tiered armor sets, like so many do, they're going to look prettier than everyone else, but it is still refreshing to see a more realistic style chipped and gritty defense cuts than the more fantastical design some of the basic quest rewards in Outland.
As before, complete quests earn you reputation with various factions and the Wrath of the Lich King there are a few new ones, including the walrus-like Kalu'ak and Alliance Vanguard. The latter is interesting because it is an umbrella faction's position, which comprises several sub-fractions below instead of holding all items separately. With high enough reputation gains, it is possible to purchase special items through the arms suppliers. For example, a reputation of exalted rank is required before you can buy a fishing rod from a high Kalu'ak seller that bumps up your fishing with 30 and allows underwater breathing noise.
For anyone looking for points in a little better quality than what is offered for standard quests, each of the starting zones also with its own dungeon. In the howling Fjord is Utgarde Keep, located right near where the boat is making it easy to access. It houses some impressive graphical features, including furnaces blasting out a fire that fits into the overall attractive visual style Wrath of the Lich King. While ribbon skies of Outland's Nagrand was certainly very pretty, the Aurora Borealis effects howling Fjord combined with impressive mountains, rough terrain, and ice floes off against its sea borders make for some striking and probably more natural-looking scenes. It is not something that is going to blow you away or cause you to horse-collar tackle a nearby friend, but for those who have been in play for a while, it is a step up, and we look forward to more.
Proposed top of all this is the new performance system that, like the inscription was carried out in pre-expansion patch. These functions as those on Xbox Live or steam, where the performance of certain acts, such as finding all the sections in a zone that rewards you with a point total that feeds into an overall score. Sometimes tasks are straightforward, just killing time dungeon governors, and sometimes a little more curious, which falls 65 meters without dying, but all add another layer of filling on top of never ending quest for better loot, better statistics and better looking equipment.
If you have not yet taken the plunge into the North Fuck you probably ask whether it's worth it. Since we have not studied a lot about what Blizzard's available we can not really say, although the prospect of playing a whole new class is tempting. Wrath certainly seems to work well as a major content addition, the stacking test on all the features the player base, Blizzard fans in general have come to expect this time, it is difficult to argue against its level of polish. We have encountered some problems with questing here and there, but it is still a remarkably slick experience considering all the cogs and gears whirring beneath the surface. There is definitely an appeal, even if you make the same kinds of quests overlaid with a new tale skin from different enemy types in more attractive environments, to see new content and discovering new types of skills, equipment and possibilities for tweaking styles of play are available to your class at a higher level.
Included in this preview are some screenshots and videos from our experience around the howling Fjord. Come back next week for more on our experiences from North Rend, and a review at any time afterwards.
Oh, and just in case you're curious, you have 1523800 experience points to get from 70 to 71 and you get about 20k per quest turn significant in and around 900 per kill the enemies around your level. On level 72 you need 1,539,600. Although it may seem like a lot, it is not enough to stop those who feel urge to merge the new CAP as soon as possible, as a quick review of our server showed a pair of 76s running around the time of writing. So much to enjoy the content.
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