Modern Gaming Hobbyist

Lots of new information regarding Blizzard upcoming expansion to its popular MMO franchise, World of Warcraft, was revealed today. In particular, specifics regarding the new Death Knight class have been released. Here are some of the more interesting pieces of information released about Death Knights.

• At level 55, you gain access to a Death Knight character. One per realm, per account.
• DK’s don’t use mana or energy. They use runes which replenish over time like a rogue’s energy. The amount of runes left is displayed under your health bar.
• Your blade has six slots. You are free to choose however many of each type of runes to fill that blade up. The three types of runes are unholy, frost, and blood.
• DK’s also have a secondary resource of power called runic power which is generated by using your rune abilities. It has the same mechanics as rage and depreciates if not used.
• DK’s have a equivalent of aura, called “presence” that have powerful self-buffs.
• DK’s use diseases to deal a lot of their magic damages, with their spells doing more or less damage depending on how many diseases are already on the target.
• DK’s can revive enemies or allies as a ghoul and use them as a pet to do disease based attacks and stuns.
• Players revived as ghouls can choose to control themselves as ghouls.

Blizzard also have completed redone some of the raiding aspects of WoW. Including attunements and 10-man vs. 25-man.

• All raid dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King will have both 10-person and 25-person versions. So at level 80, every major encounter and every big boss fight can be experienced with a group of 10.
• There will be no attunements or keys to obtain, and you won’t be locked out of a 25-person instance if you decide to attempt the 10-person version, and vice-versa.
• 25-person raids will earn more, higher-level rewards, in what should be the equivalent of one “tier” of loot quality.
• A new instance focused on the different dragonflights “The Chamber of Aspects” might be added to the game, but this isn’t confirmed yet.
• Zero raid bosses have been designed at this point.

However, most interesting of all is the information Blizzard revealed about the siege weapons and mounts in Lake Wintergrasp (the Northrend PvP-only zone).

• The new vehicle technology, which introduces physics and handling characteristics – including inertia, turning circle, grip and suspension bounce – to land and airborne vehicles and special mounts.
• It also allows for up to eight passengers per vehicle, and brings up bespoke action bars and skills for vehicle and turret operators.
• It was intended to be used solely for PVP siege weapons – Dwarven steam tanks, Forsaken plague spreaders and Orc demolishers.

Of course, the expansion is not even in beta yet, but it is interesting to see all the new ideas being put into the game at this point. The new physics put into the PvP seige weapons and the fact that you can subsist on solely 10-mans to experience all of the major content put out is pretty awesome. It also brings up a lot of questions. Will the system requirements go up? More casual players mean more noobs? DK’s are overpowered? I’m pretty sure the physics sound more complicated than it really is and 10-mans all around means that you have the option to have fun with content first as a 10-man and be hardcore with a 25-man second. Also with the DK’s getting all these new and seemly overpowered abilities, many keep forgetting that we will be able to go to level 80 in this game and that means a whole crapload of new abilities for existing classes and brand new talents to spend hours making templates for our characters. Many think that Blizzard is going to kill World of Warcraft with this expansion, but I think they will only grow stronger and attract more and more people to its delightfully addicting MMO.

Most of the popular WoW sites have lots of interesting tidbits of info, interviews, screenies, and videos. Check em out.

Wrath of the Lich King Preview on Curse.com

Tigole and Kalgan Interview on Curse.com

Wrath of the Lich King Preview on Gamespy.com

Wrath of the Lich King Hands-On on Eurogamer.net

Judgehype.com for screens and vids.