World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Impressions from our early experiences in the newest World of Warcraft expansion.

By: Charles Onyett

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.

© 2008-11-14, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

Kill, loot, and repeat in Ascaron Entertainment's action-RPG sequel.

By: Charles Onyett

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is a loot grind, no doubt about it. In that sense, this is not a game, going to offer anything compelling in terms of narrative structure or quest. Its purpose is to offer a gigantic world for you to run around, whack stuff with weapons and explains grab the loot it drops, and repeat. Developer Ascaron Entertainment's successor certainly delivers on those elements, and offers up six interesting character classes to build and customize however you like. So if you're looking for a good old-fashioned loot grinding to play for yourself, or better yet, with others online, this will satisfy, although you can expect a number of technical problems both small and large.

If you have played Blizzard's Diablo, Iron History's Titan Quest, or Ascaron's Sacred 2004 original, for that matter, the setup here should not be surprising. You click the mouse buttons to attack enemies, hack away at their power bars, quaff drink as a crazy against hard-hitting boss characters, and greedily SCOOP up all the cash and loot the fallen spill on the battlefield. Sacred 2 is unable to distinguish himself in a few ways from other types of high-fantasy, hack-and-slash action RPG out there, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

First you have played world Ancaria, which is impressively massive. Even the places you drive through the wooded areas to Elven jungles, desert plains, and the dragon caves laced with rivers of magma, is not particularly novel, the world is nicely detailed. But mixed into this seemingly standard high-fantasy universe filled with orcs, kobolds, lizardmen, evil wizards and monstrous, fiery demon bosses, you get this strange magic drug, called T-Energy, which gives rise to some of the more interesting bits on fiction. You must go across a field of swaying trees and green grass and suddenly see a pipe jutting from the ground carrying the glowing blue energy, which is the source of conflicts in Ancaria.

In some cases affects only appearances, so instead of fighting a battle you fight Beetle Beetle with a giant glowing blue limbs, but also account for the dog-headed Cyborg Temple Guardian character class. This guy, perhaps modeled on a combination of the Egyptian god Anubis, and Donald Sutherland from Viruses, Ancaria runs around with a laser blast. Honestly, it seems a little strange, because all others are tossing around magic or smacking each other with medieval weapons, but here is the Temple Guardian with his laser gun, which for some reason, still feels the need to carry around old-tech bladed weapons.

His personality differs from the rest of the field as well. The main quest missions, he would call out sarcastically replies with a Moon Intendance from Aqua Teen Hunger Force vocal pace of quests given to him by NPCs, and he will randomly break out absurd phrases to work to break the fourth wall. For example, do not be surprised to hear him say things like, "Look, a number over your head," refers to the genre standard damage totals that appear as you whack at enemies, or "one step closer to planned up "after killing an enemy, ridicule or hum a song for himself, if you leave him idle for too long. It is certainly a refreshing change to play something that feels more traditional, like DRYADES or Seraphim.

Temple Guardian's quirky personality aside hectares each class will have some interesting ways to level up and customize how they work. There is the standard statistical strength level, where more strength bumps up the damage you do, and more dexterity affects damage and defense spokesman ratings. While you will be managing hit points, you do not have to deal with mana or spell points of any kind. Instead, you make decisions about adjusting settings to reduce the cool down timers of your abilities, known as combat arts. As you move through the world can you find Runes to learn new combat arts, and can power up individual combat arts and spend skill points needed to add other special effects. You can also sell combinations of Runes to vendors and buy different. Moreover, combat arts can be combined into combo template chaining attacks together, which proves to be useful as the game only allows you to slot a certain number of active control of the arts at a time.

So clearly there are many ways to diversify how your specific character performs in battle and the game offers a number of useful and diverse skills from the Shadow Warrior's ability to summon spectral soldiers Temple Guardian's devastating Archimedes jet. And on top of everything you have to choose God's powers, when first creating your character, which can have extremely powerful effect, but has much longer cool downs than any of your combat arts. All in all, it is an interesting system to keep people busy and to create an incentive to level the six classes in different ways to enjoy the different play styles.

When you take these classes in the large, open world, you find there are very few load times, but will also find little that is surprising about the overall structure. The main quest can be aptly described as rambling and unfocused. Although NPC text boxes along the main quest line is complete expression, they are not a particularly good one. Before long you'll be whipping through the city and the collection side quests with little regard to what is written in text logs, because a large number of them are "X went missing, please download Y Z types of things from enemies!" or a derivation thereof. That said, a few of the quests are more interesting, like the one to retrieve the lost instruments game licensed bands, the German metal group Blind Guardian, so they can play a show in Ancaria. You can also find strange underground chess boards, a mission to test chemicals at a pumpkin to win to have a cause to explode with Gore, and other types of Easter eggs that will reward the more adventurous gamers or those who are willing to to read the quest descriptions.

The narrative ennui you undoubtedly experience with the game does the absolute best played online, something Ascaron gives you plenty of opportunity to do through their own servers, over LAN, the player versus player or player versus environment-type servers, and with up to 16 players running around in the game world. When playing with others is not your thing and you're not someone who becomes obsessed with gathering more and better equipment, you probably will lose interest long before you see all the game has to offer in its light and dark variants of the main quest. It is certainly a game best played with friends so you can fight, trade and level up together, since without the social element of the game feels more like a complex slot machine than anything else. Of course that could describe all hack-and-slash, but some, like Diablo II, do a better job of covering their roots.

However, there is a wealth of subjects of different quality and different bonuses and the game models, and there are plenty of normal and elite enemies to kill. Finally you will also find class-specific mounts appropriately named "Isle of mounts, which allows each class to the dramatic effect up. Temple Guardian, for example, get a Mobiculum, a giant wheel machine that lets him attack like normal and maintain buffs, but also benefit from increased movement speed and health. It is a strong incentive to pull you along through the game, and when you get the mount, serving as one of the moments when you really feel like you've significantly powered up your character.

Then there is the game's interface, which sometimes works well and serves to make the game more enjoyable, but can also cause frustration. For positive, there is a nice auto-swap function, which at the touch of a button retrieves all around you and you can set parameters as to what kind of loot get snagged. You can actively chain wire gates and check points around the game world in order to allow for quick, easy trip, and in multiplayer you can chain to the party members' locations, so you do not waste too much time to meet. All the quest objectives are displayed on your main map, which you can activate by clicking on the moment at which an arrow will direct you to appropriate places and a handy Loss-activated mini-map will help you navigate the sometimes labyrinthine terrain .

Despite this level of convenience, you'll still run into problems. Some quests attach an NPC follower to your party, and there seems to be no way to dismiss them, unless you complete the appropriate quest. Of course you can always completely quests, but it would have been welcome to include a soluble opportunity. NPC AI is another issue which NPCs or subpoena tagging along, if this is the type to attack, driving all over the place and trigger any number of enemies to attack. And there is virtually nothing you can do about it. If you are in an area around your character's level you should be fine, but trying to solve a higher-level content with the kind of issues can be problematic. Call mounts also seem finicky. They will sometimes appear as soon as you press the corresponding button, but other times they will get stuck in the doorway and force you to save and exit out of your game then reload in order to solve the problem.

Bugs also have a clear presence in the game world. Overheads maps will occasionally become unreadable, forcing us to restart our game. Targeting enemies can be frustratingly vague, especially when bits of the environment, and friendly NPCs stand in your way. Companion AI members, for some reason, float several feet above the game world, sometimes they would disappear, sound effects would play with no corresponding action, and there was the biggest problem in the game down. While playing on two different platforms, we have experienced random crashes and from checking the official forums it seems we are not the only ones. It is nothing that ruins the game, but it is a disadvantage that could potentially affect you. Ascaron has been releasing patches so far, so it is probably these types of issues can be resolved quickly, but for now the game in a pretty buggy state.

The game also has some performance issues, which means it's just not all that optimized. On one machine, we used to play Far Cry 2 on a smooth clip on high graphic settings, Sacred 2 was chugging on medium settings, which is not exactly a good sign. Provided you have a fairly powerful rig, but you will be able to run it okay, and be treated to shimmering, moving water effects, nicely detailed character armor and enemy models, some interesting architecture, decent spell effects and animations Nice . World terrain is also very varied, with cliffs and ravines throughout. Although it makes for a more natural-looking world, but also creates navigation problems. Even with your mini-map, it's still possible to lose your way when tying to track distant targets, and wind up in situations that require extensive withdrawal.

Sound design is pretty solid overall. Otherworldly summer and crackles accompanying magic spells, weapons clink and go down when they make contact, and whistle when they miss. You get a nice array of ambient sounds like animal calls, the rippling water and wind through the grass, and music appropriate for each section of Ancaria. The comments submitted by enemies in battle, and the temple guardian sarcasm, helping to keep things entertaining. The quality of the voice acting can be quite poor at times.

Concluding remarks
As far as Diablo-style hack-and-slash action-RPG go Ascaron Entertainment's Sacred 2 is the best genre entry since Titan Quest. It makes a huge world to explore, tons of loot, lots of monster types, and plenty of opportunities to bring its six character classes. Although it has a quirky personality, it offers little in terms of its narrative, it is convincing, and the game suffers from many bugs and technical issues, including poor friendly AI, the game crashes and performance problems, hopefully something that will work over the coming months through patch updates. Nor is it a game to try something really novel, just a lot of tried-and-true quest, kill, loot and repeat mechanics. In other online, it is a much more pleasant experience, but as of right now the U.S. servers are more or less empty, something that will hopefully change in the days and months after release.

© 2008-11-12, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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