Developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, Wrath of the Lich King is the latest expansion to the World of Warcraft series which enjoys more than 11 million subscribers. This addition to the world renowned MMORPG takes the game to another level, or actually 10 more levels. It's rated "T" for Teen by the ESRB for blood, violence, suggestive themes and use of alcohol.
By: Simon "Soulrift" Ludgate
Published: Dec 13, 2008
Updated: Sep 2, 2010
Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for World of Warcraft, adds the aptly named northern continent of Northrend to the game, along with the first hero class: the Death Knight. Players can now advance to level 80, acquiring some exciting new skills, spells, and talents, as they continue their epic adventures.
If you still haven’t played World of Warcraft, then dig yourself out of whatever hole you’ve been hiding in and go download the free trial. Seriously. There’s a good reason this game has over 11 million subscribers worldwide: it really is fantastic. Enough said.
So for the part of the world that matters, Wrath of the Lich King brings a lot of neat content to World of Warcraft. Ten more levels, of course, and assorted spells, skills, and talents to go along with them, are staple additions. The big exciting thing is the new hero class: the Death Knight. The Death Knight is part paladin, part warrior, and part warlock, filling the roles of damage-dealer or tank in groups. It’s a hero class, because you have to have a level 55 or higher character on the server before you can create a Death Knight, and the Death Knight starts at level 55. No more newbie grind! Once you finish the tutorial quests, you’re at level 58 and ready to jump straight into Outland.
Well, you still have to grind through Outland as a Death Knight before you qualify for Lich King’s new continent: Northrend. Unlike the rather linear Outland, with its early choke-points in Hellfire Peninsula that made the whole first week of the expansion feel like trying to push out a… well, you know where this analogy’s going. Anyhow, Northrend has a twin-zone structure that eased the masses into the game without clogging things up nearly as badly. Sure, the first week out of the gates players were lined up to kill certain quest monsters, but at least the servers weren’t continually crashing from everyone trying to load up in one town.
Returning players may, at first, be disappointed to find out that their Outland flying mounts are unavailable when they arrive in Northrend. Yes, players are again land-bound, at least for the first little while. At level 77, you can train Cold Weather Flying, allowing you to once again dart from place to place through the sky. However much of a nuisance it is to ride around, everyone I’ve spoken with agrees that this was a great design choice, because it forces players to get around and not only explore and experience all the new content, but also brought back a certain sense of survival and advancement as you gained access to previously blocked areas.
Another great new feature that fits with the sense of advancement is the new phasing technology in Wrath of the Lich King. Now, by completing certain quests, the landscape around you will actually change. You’ll ‘phase’ to a different ‘version’ of that zone. For example, at the Wrathgate, you complete a series of quests culminating in a rather epic cut-scene. When it’s over… well I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but everything is different, the quest hub has changed, and there are new NPCs to talk to.
Along the same lines, a new reputation grind quest hub called Nifflevar, where the Sons of Hodir reside, changes as you complete quests. You liberate the area, defeat a boss that actually stays dead now, and begin adding components to rebuild the Nifflevar ice fortress. It’s all very cool, and gets a huge thumbs up, except when it causes problems. There are certain instances when you might want to group up with friends but happen to be in different versions of phase space and you can’t see each other. Well, just tell your friends to stop slacking and finish the quests!
Wrath of the Lich King also brings along another step in the ‘pro-casual’ shift that was heralded along with Burning Crusade. If you’ll recall, BC cut raid sizes down from 40 to 25 in an effort to make raid content more accessible. WotLK further improves accessibility to raids by mirroring every 25-man raid with a 10-man version. This means that there won’t be any content “exclusive” to high-end raiding guilds; except, of course, the loot, since the drops are different in the two versions.
Though I was a bit hesitant at first with this announcement, I actually like this change. For the end-game guilds who are doing the 25-mans, 10-mans provide a very viable ‘proving ground’ for applicants. Even most of the fight mechanics remain the same in the 10-man versions, with the notable exceptions of Instructor Razuvious and Grand Widow Faerlina in Naxxramas, whose 25-man battles require priests using mind control. The 10-mans also meant a great opportunity to gear up more quickly as experienced BC raiding guilds transitioned into 25-man content: thanks to very smooth loot itemization in heroics and 10-mans, many guilds were able to cut right into 25-man raids without having to grind partial instances for loot for several weeks.
On the other hand, this has resulted in a major cut in the overall challenge of the game. Whereas previous expansions meant working for weeks to finally get through raid zones, now most experienced guilds have already cleared all available raid content, many on their first or second week of trying. While raiding may only appeal to a small portion of the server population and these changes may be trying to get more people into raids, it’s also left the “hard core” raiders with a bitter taste in their mouth as things have become far too easy.
PvP has also seen some significant improvements. A new world PvP zone, Wintergrasp, now exists in Northrend, featuring a complex fortress players of the Alliance and Horde must do battle to control. Vehicles have also been added to both Wintergrasp and the new battleground, Strand of the Ancients, to enhance the PvP experience.
Other changes and improvements are all over the place, including a lot of small but very interesting additions. For example, you can now buy “Bind to Account” items that you can trade to your alts but not to other players. These include a whole bunch of gear that can be bought with heroic badges (items received from level 80 dungeons). This gear scales with level, so its usable by any alt of any level, and some of the gear has special bonuses such as +10-9.993986e-03xperience earned. This is a wonderful reward for players who are working on the end-game experience but want a chance to go back and play around with a lower level alt with some added bonuses.
{slot15}There are also plenty of fun items, like a leash for your fun pets. On that note, the whole mount and pet systems have been altered so you no longer have to carry items around: instead, you “learn” the pet or mount and “cast” it from a special pet interface. Likewise, all the various currency items, such as badges and tokens, are now part of a ‘currency’ panel and no longer consume inventory space. There’s even an in-game calendar now that lets you plan events and invite various people, or place announcements that everyone can read.
It’s clear, with Wrath of the Lich King, that Blizzard continues to listen to its fans and produce an extremely high quality product. The expansion is filled with countless features and improvements, from major revamps (like eliminating “spell healing” and combining healer and caster gear into the single “spell power” stat) to minor bonuses (like tabards that let you pick which rep you want to earn while doing dungeons) to little irksome annoying things (like a train set that you can put on the ground which forces everyone nearby to do the /train emote). It’s an absolute must-buy and somehow improves the best MMORPG ever to an even better MMORPG.
Score: 10 (out of 10)
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