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At some stage, the overwhelming popularity of a game begins to speak louder than any review ever could, and that's definitely the case with World of Warcraft, which has just seen it's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK). This is an expansion aimed at players with characters at level 70. The new continent, Northrend, consists entirely of high-level content that allows advancement to the increased level cap of 80. It makes an impression from the minute you step off the boat or zepplin the first time, and just gets better from there.
Welcome to Northrend
Made up of 9 zones, Northrend has some of the most spectacular environments to be seen in the game yet, which is saying a lot considering how well-designed the rest of the world is. If you weren't overly fond of the sometimes cosmic appearance of Outland (which is supposed to be another dimension, after all), you'll appreciate the more earthy atmosphere and outstanding music of Northrend. Along with the stellar art direction, improvements have been made to the game engine that allow users to turn up some of the video settings. It will slow down your framerate a little, but given that the game's system requirements are still quite low, that's not a problem for most users.
Taking Quests to the Next Level
Questing has always been central to WoW, and despite plenty of collect and deliver type assignments, they've consistently managed to mix it up with things like escorting NPCs and bombing runs. Wrath of the Lich King has expanded on this dramatically and pushed quests in all sorts of imaginative directions. You may find yourself luring an enemy into an ambush, taking control of a flying dragon or a land vehicle to crush your foe, or even fighting side by side with heroes of lore to defend one of Azeroth's classic cities.
In fact, the clever use of instancing and phasing has allowed them to introduce quest mechanics and story advancement reminiscient of a single-player game. Parts of the world actually change depending on which quests you've completed. It's been done in games before, notably Guild Wars, but Blizzard has implemented these devices so fluidly that it's hard not to be engaged. This technique is used not only to further the story in Northrend and spice up some of the dungeons, but also in the introduction of the new Death Knight class.
You're rarely given any real choices during these story-driven events, but they still manage to take the game in a new direction.
Dungeons and Raids
As with The Burning Crusade (BC), WotLK introduces a bevy of new Dungeons and Raids for players to explore and conquer. Despite the incredible amount of variety in earlier boss fights, it's clear that Blizzard hasn't yet run out of original ideas for them. In one Dungeon you're actually temporarily pitted against duplicates of your own party, and as they are overcome you're brought back into the confrontation with the boss. Dungeons are all available in 2 difficulty levels with different loot: normal and heroic.
On average they're quite a bit shorter than earlier instanced content, which sometimes took several hours to get through. Most of the Dungeons in WotLK can be completed in well under an hour. BC's requirement of completing a dungeon on normal difficulty before being able to run it on heroic has also been forgone, so now you simply need to be level 80.
In many ways, WotLK caters even more to the casual player than BC did. The infamous 40-man Raids of the old world were supplanted with 25-man Raids in BC. Like Dungeons, Raids in WotLK each come in 2 flavors: 10-man and 25-man. I've already heard a few lamentations from hardcore players about the game getting "easier," although in fairness, some of the Raid bosses still require a great deal of cooperation. Making it possible for a 10-man group to tackle the Raid content will ensure that lot more of the player base actually gets to see it. Only a fraction of the millions of people playing the game now have seen all of the earlier Raid content. This may be one reason that the old 40-man Naxxramas Raid, abandoned by players after the launch of BC, has been updated and given new life in WotLK as a 10/25-man Raid.
It's hard to keep everyone in a game like WoW happy, but Blizzard has been good about adding large amounts of content to the game inbetween expansions, and they show no signs of slowing down.
Vehicles
While your flying mount gets grounded until level 77 in Northrend, a variety of combat vehicles are available for use in quests, the new Battleground, and the Wintergrasp PvP zone. When you board one of these contraptions or creatures your usual shortcut bar is swapped out with abilities that are specific to that vehicle. They are intuitive enough to operate, but they do feel a little oversimplified at times. There is a nice variety of them and a remarkable number of quests and instances make use of them.
Death Knights
BC brought 2 new races to Azeroth, but Death Knights are the game's first new class, and the game's first heroic class. Unlike the other classes, you can't start a DK until you have another character that is level 55 or higher. Death Knights begin in their own zone, where they are under the service of the Lich King. They are tasked with an assortment of evil deeds as he commands them to terrorize a town and commit other atrocities. At the end of opening quest chain, Death Knights gain freedom from the Lich King and join the masses fighting against him.
Because DK's miss out of 55 levels of gear and talent points, the early quests get them up to speed quickly. By the time they break free of the Lich King, they have good equipment for their level, a mount, a bunch of talent points earned through quests, and some familiarity with the DK ability system.
There are bound to be balance issues when a new class is introduced, especially when it starts at level 55. DKs are better equipped at around level 60 than the average character of a different class, and they seem a little overpowered until they approach the level cap where everyone has better gear. No doubt there will be further tweaks and adjustments to the class as Blizzard rolls out patches.
Strand of the Ancients
This expansion adds the fifth instanced Battleground (BG) to the game, Strand of the Ancients, open to characters that are level 71 or higher. The new BG is a 15-on-15 attack/defense scenario played out in 2 stages where the teams switch roles. Attackers sail in on two ships, and they have a limited amount of time to reach the relic in the fortress. Once on the ground they use siege weapons and explosive charges to breach the gates, while the defenders man turrets on the walls and try to slow them down. The vehicles make Strand of the Ancients feel very different from earlier BGs, and more variety on this front is always welcome.
The Wintergrasp PvP Zone
Like everything else in the game, WoW's PvP elements have evolved over the years, and the emphasis on instanced Battlegrounds has not been to everyone's liking. Some people even seem to long for a return to the Hillsbrad push and pull that raged on prior to BGs (although there is actually nothing stopping groups of players from doing that if they want to). PvP objectives placed in persistent zones in the Outland did revive that aspect of PvP for a while, at least on PvP servers, but the better rewards have always been in BGs and arenas, and so have most of players.
In their ongoing effort to offer some sort of structured, persistent-world PvP, WotLK introduces the game's first zone dedicated entirely to PvP, nestled between Dragonblight and Scholazar basin. Like Strand of the Ancients, Wintergrasp has an attacking side and a defending side, in this case vying over control of a large fortress. Attackers use siege weapons earned through kills to smash through the keep walls and ultimately capture the relic. If the attackers fail to do this within 40 minutes, the defenders win. The winning faction holds the zone for two hours, after which another battle begins.
There are numerous rewards for fighting in Wintergrasp, one of which is that the controlling faction gains access to the Vault of Archavon raid, where the boss drops PvP gear.
Unlike BGs, the teams in Wintergrasp are not automatically balanced in numbers, and the portals to the zone close while the battle is underway. The side with the numerical disadvantage is given a buff called "tenacity" to even things out a bit. This buff can stack on a player many times if one side is badly outnumbered, resulting in characters so powerful that you they simply can't be killed in a 1-on-1 situation. Subsequently, for players on the larger team, coordinated attacks are often the only effective strategy.
One issue with Wintergrasp is that some servers have significant imbalances in faction populations which will spill over into this contested zone. I can't imagine that the cross-server solution which largely resolved this problem for BGs would work here.
The mechanics of Wintergrasp are fairly complicated compared to other PvP features in WoW, and some tweaks to the system seem inevitable. It's not perfect, but growing numbers of players are jumping in as they reach the level cap, and having a good turnout on both sides means more action for everyone.
Inscription
The new profession added with WotLK is inscription. It allows players to make glyphs that enhance spells and abilities much like enchanting and jewelcrafting enhance items. Glyphs sometimes involve a trade-off, such as making a spell less powerful in exchange for a reduction in cast time. The game now has 11 primary professions, all of which have been revisited to make them less tedious and more rewarding. Recipes are easier to obtain, bonuses come earlier, and progress has been streamlined.
The Bottom Line
It's clear by now that World of Warcraft's remarkable success has put Blizzard in the enviable position of having a development budget that other companies can only dream of. The result is an ever-widening gap between WoW and the competition. WotLK is a shining example of this, with a stunning continent to explore, quests that show real effort and imagination, more accessible raid content, a growing range of PvP options, and greater group flexibility. Of course, they haven't strayed far from the fundamentals that brought them this success, and they continue to make the game appealing to the majority of players, who don't spend every spare minute of time life playing. The Burning Crusade was a good expansion, but WotLK proves that Blizzard isn't just sitting back and watching the cash roll in, they're as devoted to the project as ever. There's so much goodness in this expansion people at the level cap are being drawn back into the game like never before, and that's a sure sign that Wrath of the Lich King is delivering on fun.