Blizzcon, Day 1: Wrath of the Lich King Preview Panel
The second panel held Friday at Blizzcon was all-WoW, all the time, and was the first in-depth preview of the second World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.
“Our goal is not to have an expansion that just takes place in the snow,” Jeff “Tigole” Kaplan said, showing images of the arctic continent of Northrend, including grassy fjords, snowy forests and glacial canyons.
Since the new expansion won’t require starting zones for new races, Wrath of the Lich King will feature more high-level zones than The Burning Crusade had. And while The Burning Crusade’s final boss, Illidan Stormrage, made his presence felt periodically from the beginning of the expansion, Wrath of the Lich King will make Arthas Menethil a much more prominent part of the experience for all players.
“It’s not just an endgame raid,� Kaplan said. “Everyone will have a chance to interact with Arthas.
“He’s really bad about breaking [crowd control], so you won’t want to group with him.�
The new profession, inscriptions, will allow players to customize their spells and abilities instead of just their gear. And new haircuts will also be offered, with the option of changing haircuts on existing characters. Characters faces and skin tones, however, players are stuck with.
“Plastic surgery will probably be the next expansion,� Kaplan joked.
Designer Cory Stockton walked attendees through the first few zones in Northrend.
Unlike Outland’s single entry point of the Hellfire Peninsula, Northrend will feature two: The Borean Tundra in the west and the Howling Fjord in the southeast, both of a comparable level, allowing the player base to spread out.
The Howling Fjord is the home to the giant Viking-like warriors known as the Vrykul, whom Stockton described as “13-foot tall badasses.�
The first single-group dungeon instance, Utgarde Keep, is filled with angry Vrykul.
In the west, the Borean Tundra is the home of the gentle Tuskarr, whom Stockton described as “transient, walrus-looking fishermen.�
But the Tuskarr are not alone: The naga are melting the tundra’s snow, exposing sickly yellowish grassland in the western end of the zone.
The zone also features Easter Island-like walrus-head statues, the Horde outpost of Warsong Hold, a gnome town with airstrips and more.
West of the Howling Fjord are the Grizzly Hills, home of the furbolgs, who live in the city of Grizzlemaw. The dwarf city of Thormadan is also found in the Grizzly Hills. And much of the zone is covered with a forest of redwood trees.
“We’ve never done anything that looks exactly like this,� Stockton said.
In the southern central portion of the continent is the frozen zone of Dragonblight, where dragons go to die and home of the Wyrmrest Temple, where the various dragonflights meet. The zone, one of the largest in Northrend, is also the entrance to the ancient city of Azul-Nerub, home of the villainous spider-folk. The zone features a massive ice canyon riddled with ice caverns in each wall. The subtle blues and whites of the canyon and caves are created using new shading software.
North of Dragonblight is the expansion’s capital city, which is a familiar one: The Kirin-Tor wizards have flown the wizarding city of Dalaran to Northrend, to take the fight against the blue dragonflight to them on their own territory. The city hovers over the continent.
Designer Tom Chilton outlined another new zone, Lake Wintergrasp, which will be an outdoor PvP-only zone, even on PvE servers. The outdoor zone will feature siege weaponry and destructible buildings, as will a new instanced battleground that will feature 15-on-15 play.
The death knight hero class will be a DPS/tanking class, similar to the warrior. Unlike the warrior, he’ll do it with a two-handed weapon or a weapon in each hand, not a shield. (But they will still wear plate.)
Knights may carry runeblades, but others could carry runeaxes. The runes are significant: Instead of using mana or focus or rage, death knights will carve up to six runes on their blade while out of combat, and their abilities in combat will work based on what mix of blood, frost and unholy runes are carved there.
Although the class will use spells, they’ll feel less like warrior abilities or paladin spells, and more like a traditional spellcaster, other than the method in which they’re cast.
The game’s first– but definitely not the last – hero class will also not be starting at level 1. The starting level has not been set yet, but Chilton said the developers are considering level 55, 60 or 70 as a starting point.
“We felt it would be silly to be running around Elwynn Forest as a level 1 death knight,� Chilton said.
Players will need to get a character to level 80 and complete a quest chain comparable to the warlock epic mount quest to gain the ability to make a new death knight character. Any race can be a death knight.
But even without starting the death knight at a higher level, creating alternate characters will be less painful in the future: Even prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, Chilton said leveling from 1-60 (and perhaps higher) will be made faster.
There will also be another Caverns of Time instance before Wrath comes out, more daily quests in the next patch (including a dungeon, a battleground and a cooking quest).
Old raid content is unlikely to get revised any time soon.
“It had its time,� Chilton said, “We’re OK with moving on.�
Likewise, the development team doesn’t want to spend the time necessary to revise the old world so that flying mounts will work there.
As for a release date … well, it’s Blizzard.
“It’ll come out when it’s ready,� Chilton said.
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