Wrath of the Lich King: May 2008 Archives

I was reading this thread, and I keep thinking, and wondering, if people really understand the demon hunters. Many people are saying that their idea for a Demon Hunter would be a progression from the Hunter class. This is not an uncommon thing, really. Battle Mage, Archdruid, and so on are other hero classes with clear lines of progression. However, let me point out to you a few of the Demon Hunter's we have in game now. Illidan Stormrage. Loramus Thalipedes. Altruis the Sufferer. Varedis.

To my knowledge the closest any of these names has to a pet is Altruis and his dragon, though one could argue Illidan has several pets in the form of Lady Vashj and Kael'Thas. I do not believe any of these, or any of the demon hunters in training at the Black Temple use a ranged weapon. Demon Hunters are casters, basically a sorcerer turned demon from when they accept the powers of the legion. Please, for the love of all which is holy, think of another 'progression' from the Hunter class. Thank you.

Steps from his soapbox, dismisses his pet, and flies into the sunset...

I previously asked you for your thoughts on the race and name of your own planned Death Knight and my future Death Knight on the Argent Dawn realm. While I do not have a decision on these two points, I did want to bring up one last discussion regarding the new information for the Death Knights that we have received before I begin to work in on the leaked information from the WotLK Alpha Wiki. Back story is one of the most integral aspects of playing in the biggest part of Argent Dawn, Roleplay.

I talked a bit of the back story of my characters in an earlier part in this series, but now I want to delve into back story a bit more. The big question for the Death Knight will be to extend or create fresh. If I extend one of my current characters, what happens to the character I extend? If I create new, how did he get there. Hell, the same question could be asked of an extension, because Medros, Arita, and Ameland haven't been to Northrend.

I truly feel that, in an RP sense, the Death Knight has to be a new character. Will he be one of the peon's who was helping build Arthas' base in the Warcraft 3 campaign that has him chase Malganis? Will he be the Captain who Arthas commands to protect the base when Athas and Muradin Bronzebeard went in search of the ancient blade, Frostmourne? This also begs the question of how there can be Night Elf, Draenei, Tauren, or Orcish Death Knights at the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, since to our knowledge none of those races have gone up to Northrend either!

I guess the sense I get when I close my eyes and think up a history of my Death Knight, name yet undecided(but not Darth), is that he was a soldier who, finding the ships destroyed and his leader claiming the mercenaries did it, went into a fury like no other. He helped his fellow soldier slay the mercenaries, and then proceeded to fall into a deep, cold depression. Desperate to leave, he wandered out into the wilderness, willing to take the smallest bits of wood and make a raft to try and get home to his family.

He got lost, and soon found himself to have lost more than just the path to the camp, but his resolve and his way. With the voice of the Lich King haunting him, he wandered for months. It is only for this that he was lucky enough to be spared when the Prince returned to the camp as a Death Knight of the Lich King and slaughtered all. When he finally returned to the camp, he found only the smoldering wreckage of the camp and the bodies of his countrymen, men of Lordaeron, lying scattered on the ground, frozen in the snow.

I can go on from here, but this is the idea I had for my Death Knight, and there will be more to come. I still need a name, and if I decide against this story line, I would also need a race, so feel free to let me know your thoughts on those posts. I would also love to hear your thoughts on history and back story for your own Death Knights! Next post I will talk a bit about the leaking of information, respect for the development process, and what a company earns when they snub dedicated fans who work hard for their game. 

I asked the other day about what race I should make my Death Knight on my main realm, Argent Dawn. While I am still divided, there is a great deal more to work out between now and the expansion's launch, so let's move on to the next topic: Name this Death Knight!

To me, the name is important. Perhaps not in the 'what should I name this' sense, but in a 'will I love this name at 70/80 and beyond?' When thinking of a name I naturally wonder if I should make the Death Knight a natural extension of one of my current characters. The main problem with this is that I cannot just name my Death Knight Medros, or Arita, or Ameland, or even Telaan or Traluun, not without deleting their base characters.

With all the time, effort, and thought that has gone into each of my played characters, I am honestly not sure I could just delete one. Perhaps I can make them a slight alteration of the current one. Medrode, or Arista. What do you think about making a character a near copy of one you already have? Do you prefer a little diversity in the look and feel of your toons?

The problem with making a Death Knight and extension of the RP story of your character is the temporal paradox. This is when the two exists in the same timeline. How could Arista be the evolution of Arita when Arita still exists? You must destroy one to make the other, right? I guess all of that goes into a area of science and philosophy that I am not as yet qualified to talk about.

A closer examination of my available played characters shows me there are only two I would get rid of if I had to. These are my Hunters. I guess part of the reason for this is because I find that there are a lot of hunters in the game, and the world doesn't really want or need my two. This is of course ignoring the fact that everyone and their uncle will have a Death Knight on day 1 of Wrath of the Lich King, so I would be essentially dropping one unpopular but over played class for another.

As for slots, since we know we will not be getting the Blizzcon mentioned Hero slot, I already have a slot I cleared up by transferring my nephew's rarely played Warrior to some other realm, though I can't recall which one now. Even if I hadn't, I have 2 mules I emptied out back when the Guild Bank feature came in, Alterrodd and Cuisinier, who can be deleted anytime. I was thinking of doing just that and making a Shaman, but I decided that the guild has just enough of those.

What are your thoughts on whether to progress your character into a Death Knight or if you should just make a new one? What will you do for the first Hero Class in world of Warcraft? What will you name your Death Knight? Are you even going to make one? I know a lot of people who have no desire to wear plate, and will instead wait for a caster or healer hero class. Don't forget that I still want your thoughts on what race I should make my Death Knight, be it one of my current races or a new one. 

You may have read on this fine blog about 2 weeks ago that we had a metric buttload of Wrath of the Lich King news. Death Knights. Zones. Instances. Raids. All of this and more was mention, much of which I covered here. All of this got me thinking about a few questions I just had to ask myself. The primary 3 questions will be the basis for a series of articles you can find here starting today.

The first question, when I heard that all you need is a single character who is level 55 in the game and then you can create a death knight on any realm, of any race, is what race I want. Leaked information which can be found on the Wrath of the Lich King wiki, shows all ten of the different race looks for Death Knights. The unique method of a Death Knight, starting at level 55 and only a few levels from Outlands, then Northrend, is that you can start fresh with any race you want. Never rolled a Blood Elf? Here's your chance! Want a taste of the short side? Here's your Gnomie!

I have Draenei, Night Elf, and Human characters. I refuse to roll gnome or Undead. This means that if I want to start new, I have Dwarf, Tauren, Orc, Troll, and Blood Elf which can be fresh, mid to high level content for me. But do I want to start new? I love the lore of the 3 races I have. I love Medros' back story, and even tried my hand at writing a bit of it up, though I failed miserably and have since toss it in the trash.

I love how the Night Elves sundered the world, and while I haven't written it up, I know my Druid was at the events of those times and was one of the first to take up Druidic magics under the teachings of Cenarius. My hunter is relatively new, but he paid close attention to the history of the world, and has vowed to learn from it. My Draenei are less developed, but my Paladin, Telaan, was a student of Kil'Jaeden who barely escaped the transformation to Eredar and sought the refuge of Velen's trusted few.

My Draenei hunter was born on Draenor, barely escaping in the last caravan of the planned survivors to a safe place before the siege of Shattrath City. Telaan and Traluun were bitter rivals as the Draenei tried to rebuild their civilization, their rivalry pushing them into diverse but equally as powerful skills. Telaan was ordered out of the healing ranks when, during a battle with an Orc patrol, he nearly let another Draenei, Traluun, perish. Traluun was only saved by a blessing of the leader of the party.

As you can see, my characters are very well developed, so it would be logical to take one of them into the Death Knight ranks, making them a lost soul who was taken by the Lick King before breaking free. I guess the question is, if I can only make one Death Knight, what race should it be? One I have, or one I want to be? What will your Death Knight be?

Next part: Name this Death Knight!

It all began with twitter, a micro blogging site out there on the tubes. I checked in randomly, and saw both the WoW Insider account and one of their writer's, Matticus, post that they had received a tip that Gamespy would have new info on Wrath of the Lich King at midnight PST. It was about 25 minutes away, so I opened up the many places I post to, and waited impatiently. What follows is the deluge of info released.

An interesting quote I pulled from the article has Jeff Kaplan saying "going forward, all the five-man heroic dungeons will be itemized completely separately from the lower-level experience." This is an interesting change. Matticus has also posted on Twitter under Patyomatt that he found that all WLK raid dungeons will have 10 and 25 man versions... that is really interesting! Oh, and the two versions, like the 5 man normal and heroics, will be itemized individually.

Coldara, the dungeon in Borean Tundra, is where we will face off against the blue dragons, including an encounter where we get to fly drakes around and use their abilities in the fight. Sounds like a blast! Another thing Blizzard learned is that players like 5 man dungeons that can begin and end within about an hour, which I will concur is very much a welcome change.

Another point on the Raiding and Dungeon front is that there will be no attunements in Wrath, nor will there be any requirement to do a 10 man dungeon in order to do the 25 man, meaning blizzard learned from the frustration that was heroic keys and painfully long attunement chains.

Death comes in many sizes
For the Death Knights, the news starts with the lore, and this is where the Alliance get to share in some Forsaken style stories. The Death Knights will be, much like Forsaken, former servants of Arthas who broke from his control and now battle against him. Other news is a solid standing of how to make a Death Knight, limitations on them, and some of the features.

The main article goes more into how the Death Knight will work, but the more I hear about the system for the DK, the more I think we will need to see and play it, not to mention doing the hero intro quests, in order to properly understand the class. The change from an expected Level 80 epic quest to unlock, to a simple 'have a level 55 or better' is really going to explode the number of Death Knights.

Speaking of Death Knights, the site also has an article specifically about the class, detailing what I say above, and giving a bit more info on them. First, the Death Knight will be able to summon undead, sort of like the Druid trees from the Balance side. Second, the DK will be able to ressurect a friendly or enemy fallen, though not in their form, and not in their control, instead using them as a Ghoul that they can choose to control or set wild on surrounding mobs.

For you Warriors out there, worried about losing your raid spots to some up and coming young Death Knight, we got some more information on how the DK tanking will be. First, there will be no shield for the Death Knight. "their primary forms of mitigation will come in the form of Parrying, and the inherent power of their Presences and rune abilities." writes Gerald Villoria. He adds that Blood will, contrary to early speculation, not be the DPS runes, but the primary tanking runes. Not surprising, though, Frost will be the CC type runes.

With a reported niche in magic dealing bosses, versus melee bosses, the Death Knight will definitely fill some roles that current tanks need major healing through. I will definitely agree with Mr. Villoria, there is a lot that players will be outraged about when it comes to this hero class, but like many have asked for, this new class is feeling a lot more heroic as more details emerge.

The videos
With this new deluge of info on Gamespy, we also received 5 new zone videos. I am going to give my thoughts on them here.

Borean Tundra - I love the whale under the water, but I hope we don't need to kill them. They look too cool, and I have waited too long for non monster water life to appear. The tuskarr look neat, but very cartoonish. Ok, even more cartoonish than the rest of WoW. The Alliance town by the sea actually looks like I had expected Menethil to, large, bustling, and ever growing. Oh god, not more Harvest Golems! I thought I was rid of them at level 20! Wow, Coldara looks awesome! No, it's not just the epic LOTR style of music either. Oh, nice, platforms, more places for me to fall off of!Definite goblin presence. Some very neat looking undead structures, I am guessing this is the vaunted 'first time the undead make something instead of take it over' type settlement.

Sholazar Basin - AKA Un'goro Crater: The Sequel! Looks like a jungle, with palm trees and great waterfalls. Can I bring my Canon 350D into WoW? Please? Whoa! Vehicle combat? Looks sort of cool... umm... did he just shoot some flying beasts out of the sky in his fighter plane? What about looting the bodies? This looks so cool, it makes the TBC bombing runs look almost boring! Ahh, those 'flying things' were gargoyles. Oh, look, his fighter plane even comes with a parachute that is so tattered he couldn't float if he were made of feathers. Still, it looks really neat.

Zul'Drak - Another troll dungeon or zone. Yay? Ahh, troll, abominations, and spiders. What else can they throw in a dungeon? Aww, the Lich has his own Dalaran bubble.. how cute! Hmm, that looks like a skeletal form of Hakkar... but smaller I think. Another place I could spend hours with my camera at if it were real... and not filled with stuff trying to kill me. Wait, what? Red forests reminscent of the area near Silvermoon? Huh? Ok, now I am confused, back to back shots of what looks like the same place, one has everything covered in snow, the other, looks like it could be a summer evening. Have to look into that more.

Dragonblight - Wow, that was a loud intro. Lots of channeling for some reason. Is that the boss from Magister's Terrace? The guy from the fight that is just like Curator? Nice dragon bones. Umm, why did they include a shot that looks barely rendered and not even colored or textured? Do giants in Northrend have no color or texture? More red foliage. Hmm. The Alliance under attack. Shocking. Naxx perhaps? With flying skeletal dragons partoling nearby? They look reminscent of the Wyrms from the Manga that the scourge was raising. Ok... now we are onto... Grizzly Hills - Another busy Alliance port city. Will these boats actually move? Be used? Horde deforestation... *sigh* Enough sterotypes, Blizz! Whoa! Ironforge in Northrend! Oh, wait, probably Ulduar. Looking impressive for sure.

Howling Fjord - Wait, ok, so this is where the Undead settlement is. I guess the one before was scourge or Nerubian. Did I mention that the undead scourge buildings and structures are largely Nerubian by design? Oops. We also have a Thunder Bluff type rise. Weren't there supposed to be ancestors to the Tauren out in Northrend? Requisite Dragon. Looks like a Vrykul settlement, and I do not want to know if that 'dragon hide' draped over a steel skeleton is real hide. neat, flaming ancient in a flaming forest ala Charred vale in Stonetalon. I sooo want to fly through this continent on my bird or dragon. Utgarde Keep looks cool, with some really neat fights and mechanics. I look forward to LFG UT in a few months.

That is about it for the videos. Some really amazing stuff to be seen, and I cannot wait for WLK to ship. Sadly, my predicted release range of summer keeps slipping. Maybe I thought too highly of Blizzard's ability to ship this game in less time than the last took. Look for a podcast between now and Saturday morning. 
More coming soon...