Kotaku

FIRST!

Harness the power of disease... Anyone else getting a plague flashback? I hope so. That would be awesome.

Death Knight sounds kind of fun.

lol fahey, fuckin mod-GET :)

Eurogamer has a nice Hands-on up aswell (about LichKing).

@Mike Fahey:
Well played, Clerks...er, I mean, Fahey.

First time I've ever seen someone get "first" on their own post.

Interesting stuff, this is, but I find it so hard to care about Death Knights. Bring on the Archmages or the Assassins or the Demon Hunters. Something cool.

Yeah me and my friends are psyched about the 10 man/25 man thing. our guild is on the verge of falling apart in 25 man because we have to many "fillers" that can't hold their own.

10 mans we can make stuff happen out of the wierd class combinations (no ae tank etc) cause people pay attention =/

i got 3 pms today "omgz did you see that" still not psyched enough for my blizzcon beta key if its wotlk, i'd prefer to play sc2 beta.

@Mike Fahey: BANNED

out of haiku: The stuff they were showing off at blizzcon was just the starting area. I'm actually really happy to get a scenery change in this game. The Fjord was a welcome sight.

As cool as the Death Knights sound it sounds really overpowered and I really wish blizz would have released more then one hero class per expansion its just asking for the world to be overpopulated with death knights

Aw man, Death Knights sound so kickass. They sound really different from the current game mechanics...

Although, for the first month or so, I'm expecting to see nothing but deathknights everywhere =/

Oh, and:
Anyone who has ever played with a recently eBayed character can tell you this is a complete falsehood, but it'll be amusing to watch at least.

Don't forget that the people who can make deathknights already leveled a character to 55+, so they know more than most ebayers who jump into the game completely on a level 70, with no prior experience.

Just thought I'd point that out!

I planned on coming back to WoW when the expansion came out, this just seals the deal. Who needs friends when you can have zombie minions?

I want to play WoW but I feel like it's too late to start.

:/

Oh sweet Jesus how I loathe World of Warcraft and any other game that you have to pay for monthly.

Aye, there will be alot of worthless DeathKnights around at first, but to be fair, I couldnt play my class properly at 55 either. Took me a few BRD @ 60 go get the hang of things.

@karasu is my homeboy: You have plenty of time.

It took me about a month to get my first level 70 (12 days played).

Sounds awesome. I'm still on my way to 70 though, highest character is a level 52 Paladin who I really should play on, but I haven't played the game that much recently. Been addicted to TF2.

@karasu is my homeboy:
Its not too late at all. The release of a new expansion is the perfect time to get into things, as everyone will be levling atleast 10 levels. If your fairly quick youll be well into 60+ before your friends(?) reach 80.

@Puck: lol, congrats on that age old pile of shit, mate.
Even thou Wow consumes your life, youll be saving money. And lots of it. Less bought games, less nights out drinking etc.
There are a good few reasons to bash MMORPGS. The montly fee aint one of em.

@Coquiton: If my math is sound...that means you played 9.6 hours a day for 30 days in a row to get that level 70 character.

Some of us just don't have that sort of time.

Level 55 death knight from the get go??!?!?!?! Awesome... I just quit again to focus on life, but WoW still owns my soul once this comes out

@Mike Fahey: I do hope Witzbold wacks you.

I loved WoW, but not the majority of people playing in it. As my life stand right now, there is no chance of me ever getting back to a MMORPG.

Growing up sucks!

@Unknown-User:
Not to get to 70 in a month perhaps, but there is plenty of time to get 70 before WotLK hits (around the holidays).

@karasu is my homeboy: It's never too late to destroy your social life in record time. Seriously though, if you ever start, hit me up on Gorgonnash.

I raced a Belf to 70 when TBC was released and managed to hit 70 in less than 3 weeks.
I had about 7 days played and worked full time 9h/day at the same time (didnt do much else than playing/working thou! ;p).

It should be much faster now thou, as theyve made the 1-60 areas much more level-friendly (more exp awarded?) ive heard.

A word of advice thou; if you cant spare ~2h / day for Wow, you might not enjoy it as much. Atleast for me, a big part of the game was the community (and addiction).

Its just the same grind over and over people. You will burn through the content and then start complaining that there isn't enough to do. Blizzard will then release some type of GRIND fest area where you will do the same thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

FUN!!

Oh man, I hear the life-sucking sound of more WoW a mile away. "We wants it, we deserves it!!"

"No, shoosh!! We will not fall into the evil grasp of WoW again."

"But we needssss it!!!!"

"NO NOO NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

[*Hears sound of life getting sucked away*]

"Must Resist the temptation . . . must not play WoW again!!!!"

The new raid instance design sounds pretty cool and honestly should have been like that from the start. I have no idea why anyone thinks its a good idea to exclude the majority of the players from content just because they don't have hours and a large guild on standby to run raids and so. Well, only elitist players would consider that fair anyway. This way 25 man raids get the harder fight but get a lot better loot most likely the only way to obtain tier sets but casual's who can only manage to get a 10 man raid (small guild) going will still be able to experience the fight. Really, good job Bliz finally something i can compliment you on.

The deathknight class will forever be pigeon holed into a tank class however since its "dps" is lower than the other dps classes. Obviously theres going to be a lot of DK's running around but honestly, smart people will stick with the characters they've already made and save DK for an alt. DK will probably be over populated, just like the rogue.

"The Death Knight's particular niche will be in tanking magic-damage-dealing bosses. They will have an ability much like a banshee's anti-magic shell, greatly diminishing the amount of incoming magic damage they'll receive in combat (Gamespy.com)"

So I'm going to be pigeonholed eventually into a role again, just like EVERY class I've tried to play? No. Fucking. Thanks. I'm off this game for good, I don't care how much they pretty it up, no more time or money will be spent on this (excepting the former spent on typing this response).

@DugDawg:

I'm right there with you man! I wasted 2 years on that game. Was some of it fun? Yes....was some of it boring? YES!

Considering I bought the last expansion and have yet to play really any of Outland due to time constraints and boredom with particular characters/classes/servers I doubt I'll be getting WotLK.

I got X-fire my last 6 months playing WoW, and the end it turned out to be almost 1800 hours. Thats 300 hours a month, 75 hours a week, or almost 11 bloody hours per bloody day spent on that game. AND thats not encluding raid times, as I shut off everything to get my latency down and my FPS up.
I gained 40lbs during it and shut out my entire family, I missed my grandmothers, brothers and aunts birthday, and my great-uncles funeral.
I don't know why I got addicted to it, hell I didn't get addicted to smoking, drinking, or even meth when I tried them as a teen, but God Damn You Blizzard. Been clean 8 months now.

ready and willing to encompass my entire work Friday to dreaming about going home and knocking out some WoW time.

Can we atleast get a hint at how many Hero classes there will be?

hopefully there's more then two new races and one hero class.

@Unknown-User:

Hardly. 2 hours a day tops. It doesn't take much time to get to 70, what with the xp patch and all.

Sure, you can take my comment about taking a month, and use it literally, or, you could use it loosely. I did the latter. =/

i think it sucks you create a new hero character, it would be much cooler, for example to have my paladin "fall" and become a death night at a higher level than start a new character, it just feels cheap being given a level 50 for nothing yknow?

personally i think existing player characters should be able to upgrade to a hero class, since its a fantasy game it would make sense that, after all the trails to get to say lvl60 that your character goes form your standard adventurer to a hero.

@Mike Fahey: THATS SETTING A BAD EXAMPLE!! BAD MIKE!

I don't think WoW is that much of a lifestealer. Then again, I was weaned on the MMOs of yesteryear that had "unemployment" listed as a system requirement.

As someone who just saved enough to buy their first flying mount, that news couldn't be better. There'd be nothing like working that hard only to have everyone else move onto the next zone where it's rendered obsolete.

@karasu is my homeboy:

It's never really too late to start. A lot of the experience required for leveling has been dropped in 2.1 (or 2.2, I can't remember). I leveled a 70 in 7 weeks playing maybe a couple hours a day and some on weekends.

I'v been waiting on the hero classes since the original beta and introduction of a Death Knight is not cutting it for me. I want to continue my toons not build another one. Give me a wait to progress my character that doesn't involve grinding for gear. I can't imagine I will be resubbing when this comes out.

Wait what, no epic quest for the deathknight? The rest seems... okay, if nothing that sounds like it will prevent the new endgame from becoming boring quickly once again. Oh well, I'm sure it will be fun for a month or two.

@Final: There won't be any new races as far as I know, but they might change their minds about that. Not that I care.

@Final: One hero class for WotLK, they said it back at Blizzcon.

Yawn. This expansion offers me nothing.

I've been a casual in WoW since the beta (between 10-20 hrs a week), but I think I'll drop the game for good once the expansion launches.

I'm just tired of the framework. Though that is hardly an indictment as WoW is the only game I've consistently played for 3 years!

Aww, I want this! I'm on a break right now, lvl 60, took me a month. Planning on hitting 70... sometime soon. Maybe.

I'm surprised the requirement is only level 55. I really thought that you would have to reach the new level cap before making a DK.

Undead and Blood Elf Priests can also cast a disease spell... But it's just shadow damage.

I bet the trees to the left hate the trees to the right.

The WoW... it calls me...

This is a lot of information to digest... and amusing in that those who have spent so much time perfecting their topics to whine about in Burning Crusade just got handed a hint of a VERY different set of things to whine about in Lich King.

@Wizzard: i hear it too..

@Wizzard:

What is thy bidding my master?

I'm sorry, but to start a deathknight at 55 is openly admitting what is ultimately broken about the game.

The content from levels 1 to 50 are tired and boring, but Blizzard doesn't want to do anything with it to improve the experience at lower levels.

Of course, I've been struggling trying to get my old pre-expansion hunter from fully geared 60 to 70. The more I play WoW, the more it feels like work rather than fun.

And the screenshots I've seen of the new expansion have the same cookie cutter buildings that exist in most of the game already, and more of the same spiders we've been killing since level 1.

To quote BB King... The thrill is gone.

I've had a blast during my run. I ebayed my rogue for 900 dollars about two years ago. That was before AQ and all this pvp/grind nonsense.

So, 11 million expected Dark Knights running around.

@underground_slacker: Get your Paladin to 55, delete it, and make a Death Knight with the same name.

If you want to give up characters as some sort of sacrificial offering to play something new, knock yourself out. I, on the other hand, will not be permanently offing a character to try something I might not like.

@chiablo: They've actually added quite a bit to the old content, the new starting zones, some new and re-tuned gear for old instances, they redid a bunch of areas to be more solo friendly, and they added a new quest-hub to Dustwallow Marsh with lots of new quests, giving players a new 40-ish leveling zone.

They also haven't shown any spiders in any of the new videos or screenshots for Wrath (except for the Nerubian spider-people that live in Northrend), and the buildings all have new architecture (orcs have a new style of dark iron, spikey buildings in black and red, much more brutal looking, the Forsaken have an entirely new gothic architecture they're building, as opposed to the Nerubian and Human style architecture they had previously captured, humans have norse-inspired buildings, gnomes have new steampunk stuff).

The reason Death Knights are starting at 55 is because it wouldn't make a single bit of sense for them to start at level 1. How is an unholy elite warrior of the Scourge gonna not even be able to kill level 15 coyotes in Westfall? They're a hero class, man.

Oh, and the disease effects thing, aren't a new type of spell damage. They're just new types of DoTs, and the DKs get abilities that deal extra damage on diseased targets, etc.

One of the more interesting things, I found, was the new mount features coming from the implementation of seige weapons and vehicles, namely passengers and mounted combat. There's a summary of a new quest where you ride on the back of an NPC's horse and fight off pursuers as you try to escape from an enemy stronghold.

After a long investment in the game I had pretty much written-off every returning to the World of Warcraft, even though the release of a new expansion might bring me back for a bit. However after reading a few previews from various sources, I can honestly say I'm more excited than I have ever been since the core game launched back in November of 2004. Quite a few things they've spoken about are what I thought TBC needed to include.

In short, count me in.