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Insider Trader: Wrath alpha edition
As Wrath information is leaking from the alpha testing, we are seeing more and more glimpses into the expansion than ever before. This week, Insider Trader will be analyzing some of the changes and new abilities on the horizon for craftsmen. Because some people would really rather not know this information, I'm placing all of it beyond the break. It should be noted that none of these details are set in stone, and in fact, many will never make the actual expansion, or change significantly before it. Still, it is interesting to look into Blizzard's process, as they expand and evolve the professions, and create a new one. A few of the changes indicate that they are indeed listening to some of the ideas craftsmen have put forth for what they'd like to see, and I think we should be excited about some of the developments on the horizon.
Why all race Death Knights make sense from a lore standpoint
It seems like one of the biggest problems a lot of people have with Death Knights is the fact that they can be all races. Me, I say: Why not? The lore really isn't as bad as you might think. Sure, some of the retcons can get a little annoying, but despite the fact that non-Paladin races will get to be Death Knights, I don't think you really consider it a retcon, but rather an evolution in an ever-evolving story that opens up a lot of great story ideas and RP opportunities, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Breakfast Topic: Goals before Wrath
Last week on the podcast (which will be posted later today, and is pretty good, if I say so myself), Turpster informed us that he's gotten up to level 61 on his Shadow Priest that he started a while ago. His goal is to make it all the way to 70 by Wrath of the Lich King, which means he and I are in an informal race at this point -- my Hunter is currently 64 and I'm aiming to hit 70 by the expansion as well.Unfortunately, we have no idea when the expansion will drop. If you're the optimistic type, yesterday's BlizzCon announcement might have hinted to you that the expansion will come out before the big event in Anaheim, which means we'll be in Northrend before October. I'm not so optimistic -- I'm still thinking we won't see Wrath until right before the holidays, and Blizzard being Blizzard, probably delayed until January again.But either way, you've got at least a few months, so what are your major goals before the expansion hits? Going to level a character, get a certain Arena rating, or do every Heroic? Aiming to get your mount, still, or have a goal with your guild to finish Sunwell before all the new content shows up? What are you aiming to do before going to see Arthas?
Know Your Lore: Azjol-Nerub
With Wrath of the Lich King and the return of the Scourge to the spotlight, an old friend comes back along with them. The Nerubians! We haven't seen much of them in the World of Warcraft yet beyond being undead lackies, they have a long, quite interesting backstory. We saw a little more in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, but their story goes even deeper. In the big picture of Warcraft, their ancestors predate all but the Trolls, and maybe even them.In the beginning there were the Silithid. Insectoid horrors that crawled forth from the Well of Eternity just happened to grab the interest of the Old Gods. The most notable of them so far being C'Thun. C'Thun crafted avatars of war from the Silithid, twisting them into humanoid soldiers. These avatars became known as the Aqir. The Aqir are best described as 'evil' though that is always in the eye of the beholder.The Aqir were one of three super powers in the world at the time, roughly 16,000 years prior to the Orcish invasion of Azeroth. The other two came in the form of the Troll Empires of the Gurubashi and the Amani. The three clashed repeatedly, and the Trolls only managed survival by forging a loose alliance between their empires. The Aqir civilization of Azj'Aqir held up quite well, their war lasting thousands of years, and no ultimate outcome ever came to fruition.
No beta for me, thanks
Reader Ian C. wrote in with an interesting thought. He says that if he was offered a spot in the Wrath of the Lich King beta tomorrow, he'd probably decline. With the news that the expansion is in alpha and that an open beta is probably not too far off, it seems like everyone and their brother wants in early to Northrend. But not Ian -- he says that he'd rather experience the content on the live realms.And I mostly agree. I never played in the BC beta, and generally I like to stay away from the PTR if possible -- any progress that you make on test or beta realms is completely lost when the beta closes, and while yes, there are some fun reasons to jump onto the PTR or a beta realm, I'd rather experience the content as its meant to be played when it comes out.Everyone else might be excited to see the beta, and of course we'll have lots of information as it comes out about Wrath (which means if I'm invited to the beta, I'll probably load it up just to see what's there and try out the Death Knight mechanics), but playing on a beta realm isn't the real thing. Any progress you make there is more or less a waste of time -- I'd rather see Northrend in a finished form, through my character on the live realms.
Gear transition between BC and WoTLK should be smoother, says Bornakk
We've known for a while that we've been getting a gear reset in WoTLK, and just this morning, we've discussed and speculated on how it will affect people as they transition into the 70-80 game, especially alt-o-holics. Here's some news that should strike a lot of people as good: Bornakk confirmed in a thread yesterday that we really won't be seeing quite as large a gear gap in the jump from Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King as we did in the past: No more doubling of stamina values this time, guys. This should be good news for raiders who feel like their epics don't mean that much anymore (although to be honest, I was using a few of my BWL and AQ40 drops well into my late 60s, so I don't think the gear reset was that bad after all). If the gear jump isn't that bad, your shiny new epics should still work pretty well. Heck, same goes for badge runners. I've suspected for a while that the new Badge of Justice gear was meant to be a partial preliminary gear rest ahead of time, and I'd bet this more or less confirms it: If there's not going to be as much as a jump, these Tameless Breeches might last my druid longer than one might think. I think it's definitely a good middle road to take. We'll get a gear reset so alt-o-holics and casuals can jump right into the Howling Fjord, but the gap won't be quite as great, meaning that raiders and badge gear savers won't need to feel like they're watching months of work go down the drain when that first level 71 green drops.
Breaking: Wrath of the Lich King is in alpha
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Confirmed_Wrath_of_the_Lich_King_is_in_closed_alpha'; We had some hints that this would happen soon and now WoW Insider has confirmed through anonymous sources that the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is in closed alpha status, and that various players are being invited to check it out, under a strict NDA.Alpha is part of the software release life cycle -- a software product in development goes from alpha status to beta status (sometimes including a "closed beta," where a limited few are invited to preview and test the software, and an "open beta,", where anyone can download and try out the beta), to "release candidates" and then "gold" (the final version, used to print the media to be available for sale). This doesn't tell us anything about the timing of the expansion's release (especially since Blizzard historically takes their time going through this cycle), but it does tell us that Wrath's content is in a playable and mostly completed form -- quests, game mechanics, and items are in, even if specific flavor text, names, and even textures are not.We'll keep an eye, as usual, on any other news we see coming out of Blizzard, through official or unofficial channels. Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion of World of Warcraft, is in alpha testing. The journey to Northrend has begun. Update: A word to the wise: this is not an open beta, and any email or site that tells you to sign up for one is still scamming you. When open beta comes down, we'll hear about it on Blizzard's official site. This is just news that the next expansion has moved up a notch in its development, and that we're one step closer to an official open beta.%Gallery-20386%%Gallery-5525% Check out more information on WoW's upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, including a look at the new Death Knight class and the new creatures that infest Northrend.
Grounded in Northrend
The subject of flying mounts and their use in Northrend comes up fairly often on the official Wrath of the Lich King forums, as a result of Blizzard mentioning we may not be able to use them right away in Northrend.Why can't we use them in Northrend? Well, the reasoning seems understandable. They want the progression through the Northrend content to feel natural, they want you to experience the setting they've put there. You have to admit, Outland became far less dangerous to you the moment you gained the ability to fly over every single threat there is in the world.The most common theory on the forums is that you'll need to purchase wing defrosters or wing mittens at level 80 to regain your ability to use a flying mount. A silly, cynical concept, and I don't think that's their only option. Yesterday we discussed weather, so perhaps a blizzard in the Howling Fjord could force you to the ground, or a thunderstorm in the Borean Tundra. Alternatively, a swarm of gargoyles(and frost wyrms?) could be conveniently placed to throw you off of your mount and to your doom should you fly too high in these starting zones.There are many different things that could be done, and I'm very interested to see which route Blizzard will go with it. You know, as long as I don't need to put mittens on my Nether Ray. Where would I even put them!?
No chests in MrT, and that's just fine with Blizz
Here's something that didn't really hit me on the first few times through Magisters' Terrace: there are no loot chests in the instance. Eleste of Frostwolf asks why, but Drysc only answers "why not" -- apparently Blizzard isn't too bothered that the only loot to be found in the instance is on dead mobs.Which isn't exactly new -- not only are chests open to many exploits, but Blizzard has slowly been taking steps away from putting random caches of loot out there for anyone to grab. In the last patch, they even made it so that chest loot gets rolled on, so it's probably a fair guess to say that most loot chests are on their way out of the game.They weren't in there for no reason -- Blizzard wanted to make it so that after toppling a group of mobs, you could be lucky enough to spot an extra stash of loot to grab all for yourself (not to mention that they give Rogues something else to do in instances). But apparently the problems of loot chests outweigh the positives, and it's probably true that MrT is a preview of Wrath -- loot chests are going to be rarer than ever.
New Hero Class revealed: Bard! Also, new Molten Core for the console
I did not think anything could break me away from the Death Knight class. The minute I got my hands on the Wrath of the Lich King beta, I was going to go to the character selection screen, pick Death Knight, and never look back. Sorry Druid, Sorry Hunter. Sorry Warlock. Maybe I'll come back to you when my uber awesome Death Knight is level 80 and I have Frostmourne in my hot little hands. Blizzard has once again raised the bar. No longer shall I be a Death Knight. Instead, I shall be a Bard. That's right, Blizzard's just announced a new Hero Class, and it's not the Archdruid that was previously rumored.
WotLK Bestiary Update: Taunka
Blizzard has updated the Wrath of the Lich King Bestiary this afternoon with the Tauren looking Taunka. These are large animals that have adapted to the cold of Northrend. Instead of being in harmony with nature like Taurens are, they are in contention to it.We can't be exactly sure what the Taunka's role will be. The last paragraph in the update says that we'll soon recognize their "colossal hearts and unshakeable resolve." To me, this sounds like a possible faction we'll be grinding rep for. Perhaps something like the Orgri'la faction, where at first the Orges are hostile, and then they are friendly.An interesting comment on WoWWiki suggest that Chieftain Ashtotem, known from a screenshot of the Howling Fjord in Northrend, might be a Taunka. What do you think? Personally, I think it's possible. The yellow name also lends credence to the theory that this might be a reputation faction.We'll keep you updated on all the future Wrath of the Lich King news.
Breakfast Topic: What's the next bit of WoTLK news you want to see?
Wrath of the Lich King is still some time away, it's true. Many gaming stores and websites seem to be anticipating an October or November release, but Blizzard's keeping mum on the exact date so far. Luckily, they aren't leaving us completely high and dry, since we still get small trickles of information in the form of bestiary updates, pages on zones, and blue posts that offer tantalizing hints as to the new content. Still, It never seems like enough. I'm sure we all have specific things we're hoping to find out about. I'm a Death Knight fan, so I want to know more about what the new class will be able to do, so I can plan how best to spread grim death unto my enemies when I roll mine. I also wouldn't mind a bit more information on what the Nerubians are up to these days, and whether we'll find them to be friend or foe when we come to Azjol-Nerub. What WotLK news are you dying for? Do you want to see new talent trees for your main's class? Is there a dungeon that you're dying to see? Is there some little piece of old lore you're hoping to see pop back up in Northrend?
A petition for penguins in WotLK
As you may have heard, there is a serious issue awaiting us in the next expansion. Blizzard has kept us in the dark for a while, but after careful consideration, we at WoW Insider believe it's time to throw our considerable weight (we are, after all, one of the top 50 most influential blogs in the world, with all of the benefits and perks contained therein) behind what the players have asked for, time and time and time again.Yes, we're making our stance official: there definitely need to, in some way, shape or form, be penguins in Northrend. Not only would it obviously win us the Linux vote, but consider the facts: penguins are birds, they don't fly, and penguins lay eggs. Of course, there is one problem: Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae) are only found in Antarctic regions, which means there aren't any in the Northern parts of the world (which, in Azeroth, is right where the aptly named Northrend is). But then again, this is a world where dragons can turn into women and people can shoot fire out of their fingertips -- surely, Blizzard can stretch the science just so we can have some cute little formally-dressed birds up there.So while petitions are banned on the forums, we here at WoW Insider know the power that you, our readers, carry, and we want you to add your voice to ours. Sign the comments section below if you agree: when the Alliance and the Horde hit the shores of Northrend, we of course want to see Arthas, and we'd like to have Death Knights, and we want a floating Dalaran and Tuskarr (yes, with a bukkit quest) and Forsaken architecture. But everyone who leaves a comment on this post, Blizzard, wants, almost more than all of that other stuff, just one thing in Northrend: penguins.We want penguins. /signed.
Patch 2.4 has better ways to go
Blizzard has started to realize that travel (as in real life) can be boring in the game. On the Public Test Realm (PTR), they have put a few new ideas to good use when forcing players to travel long distances to get to new content.I copied my character to the PVE test server (once it started working again), and began a flight to Quel'Danas from Ironforge. First off, I already had the flight path, which was refreshing to start with. The odd thing is that upon reaching the gates of Ironforge, the bird rocketed straight up vertically which panicked me a little until I realized that it was on purpose. All the sudden, welcome to a loading screen appeared. I was dropped on the far side of the Ghostlands gate and continued my flight all the way north to the new content at Quel'Danas. This shaved off several minutes flying time and provided an easy way to bridge an old flight path to a new one easily. A flight path spanning from the original content to the content now in the expansion (technically a patch is both and neither) is the type of crossover innovation I knew Blizzard was capable of doing.Another new idea is to provide a quest reward to transport you to Shattrath, Darnarian's Scroll of Teleportation from the new quest Know Your Ley Lines. This is as opposed to the hearthstone you get. This item only has a 20 second cool down, so at least the outbound trip from Quel'Danas to Shat will be quick and painless. Blizzard is adding some creative ideas to help travel become a bit easier especially for those who have run around the world and picked up every last flight path during the course of their rise to 70, and now are tired of flying everywhere. Now what I wonder is how travel to and from the floating city of Dalaran will work, not to mention other destinations, once it has blasted off from Hillsbrad and begun to hover over Northrend. Perhaps travel will be done in much the same way. This isn't all that new, since boats already use a very similar mechanism from Darkshore to Azuremyst Isle. I imagine things will get even trickier to manage with 2 expansions up and running, from a technical perspective for Blizz, so it is nice to know that they are thinking ahead on how we will get there, get back, and generally move about the world we love. Nice to know indeed.
Breakfast Topic: The Zul'Aman speed bump
Zul'Aman. Heard of it? Noticed a lot of folks trading in their Kara gear for some rickety pieces of wood held together with twine? ZA has been live for some time now and most of us have had the chance to check out Blizzard's latest 10-man offerings. So here's the question: Is Zul'Aman worth the trouble? Sure, it's fun. The bosses are nifty and whatnot. But is it progression? A number of guilds have graduated from Karazhan in the last month or so, but instead of moving into 25-man content, the majority are turning to our new favorite troll town. Of course some of them are dabbling in Gruul's Lair but I dare say Lady Vashj isn't getting as much company as she used to. There is definitely something to be said about the fact that ZA is 10-man content. If you have a great Kara guild but not enough numbers to move up, ZA is a blessing to say the least. But is that a good thing? Ultimately, if you want to see Black Temple, you're running out of time, and postponing 25-man content is not helping your cause. The expansion will arrive sooner or later and when it does, people will not be interested in killing Illidan anymore. They'll want to see Northrend. If you've tried to put together a Naxx run lately, you know what I'm talking about. So what do you think? Is ZA helping people get the gear they need to succeed? Or is it keeping them away from the prize?
The rest of the Wrath bestiary
Matthew posted the other day that Blizzard has posted a bestiary for Wrath of the Lich King, and noted that they've posted news about two new beasts we'll find in Northrend: The Nerubian Vizer, part of the spider people that follow an "unseen emperor," and a Plague Eruptor, the "most destructive" part of the Scourge's army. But what Matthew didn't mention was that there were eight other creatures mentioned in the bestiary. What, you might wonder, are these guys all about? We don't know (well, at least one of them we do). But we can guess. Get out the speculation salsa and chips! Shovel Tusk: "Tusk" brings us to the Tuskarr, a race of Walrus-men in the Borean Tundra. And Shovel hints that this is a beast of burden or utility for the Tuskarr-- something like the Clefthooves in Nagrand. Darkfallen: Your guess is as good as ours on this one. Sounds like something to do with the Scourge-- maybe someone that has fallen into ghostlike or demon form. Ice Troll: No big surprise here-- we already knew there were trolls in Northrend. But it'll be interesting to see what trolls look like in the ice and snow-- surely they can't walk around with just those loincloths, right? More, including the one member of the bestiary we at WoW Insider have already seen, after the jump.
Back in the Day: The week after the TBC launch
What was going on in World of Warcraft this time last year? Back in the Day looks into the past of WoW Insider and brings back posts notable, controversial and sometimes humorous reflecting the state of the game one year ago this week.For the week of January 20 - 26, 2007:The Burning Crusade had gone live just the week before and the race to have the first level 60 Draenei and Blood Elf was on. In less than four days posts were flying across message boards to claim the title of being the first. This feat is either impressive or pathetic depending on your point of view. Either way, the thrill is gone since the pre-60 increased leveling rate introduced in Patch 2.3 made it easier than ever to level up a new toon in no time at all.Debates raged over two new issues brought on by the expansion: should the Draenei heal-over-time racial ability be usable by Draenei Priests in Shadowform and should Blizzard increase the spawn rate of quest mobs in Hellfire Peninsula to deal with the influx of half the player base after the same target? For the first, Draenei Priests felt it was unfair to be cut off from Gift of the Naaru due to their spec choice while priests of other races didn't think it was right for blueberries to get a heal in Shadowform when no one else did. Blizzard didn't back down on this and kept the ability disabled for Draenei Priests shifting into the dark side.
Gearchecking the expansion
After reading yesterday that Bornakk confirmed a "gear reset" (which is not actually a reset-- more on that in a sec), reader John had an interesting thought about using current high-level instances (Hyjal and BT) to attune players for future high level instances, so that neither the gear or the content would go unused. Which is kind of happening already-- it's all but confirmed that Naxx will be repurposed in the next expansion. But that just suggested something else to me: what if, rather than worrying about a "gear reset." Blizzard actually made the current endgame mandatory for entry into Northrend? What if you couldn't move on without doing all the current content?That would ensure that you got the use you needed out of the gear you had now, and it would also make sure that everyone coming through saw everything-- your guild would have to down Archimonde to enter into the next 10 levels.Now, it's pretty clear that won't happen, because Blizzard is much, much more inclined to make things more open rather than put more requirements on their new content. But you have to admit that it would solve the problem-- either run and experience the content, or don't move on.Finally, other readers did note one more thing about the "gear reset" and that's that it's not actually a reset at all-- much of the highest level gear won't be replaced for quite a while (I was still wearing my Tier 2 helm when I hit 69, and people wearing full T6 right now likely will keep their gear even through the starting quests in WotLK). But that still doesn't change the fact that Blizzard is basically running two gear paths here-- either fight in the raids for the high-level armor now, or just pick it up later when you enter Northrend.
Jeff Kaplan reveals how to get to Northrend
MMO Champion's got the rest of the details on that PC Zone interview we heard about yesterday-- Jeff Kaplan sat down with the French magazine and gave out some new hints about what we'll see up in Northrend in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. As we heard at BlizzCon, Northrend isn't all a snow-covered wasteland-- there are forests (including one full of Furbolgs) and other terrain types to find up there. We've also heard this before, but it's worth repeating again: Arthas will play a much bigger part in the day-to-day Northrend than Illidan did-- lots of people, both raiders and casuals, will have a chance to "interact" with him. Here's something new-- there will be two entry points, and previously we'd assumed that one would be for Horde and another would be for Alliance. But that's not the case-- instead, each of the zones (the Borean Tundra and the Howling Fjord) will have an entry point for each faction. So there will actually be four ways into the expansion. Alliance get to choose a battle in the Howling Fjord or a massive stronghold (complete with a brand new faction leader) and a giant steamship And Horde either go into the Forsaken's new lands (with new architecture-- we saw it at BlizzCon), or into Garrosh Hellscream's (son of Grom) Warsong Fortress. Very exciting. Hearing about four entry points instead of two definitely makes me think that we will be able to avoid the whole Hellfire Peninsula lag problem that plagued BC's release. Keep the WotLK info coming, Blizzard!
Riding around Northrend
Bornakk plays it super safe on a question of whether there will be new mounts in Northrend (sometimes I think Bornakk is just a script that is programmed to post "There are no plans to do that at this time" periodically on the forums), but I can tell you for sure: there will, no doubt, be new mounts found in Northrend.The question, however, is what they'll be. We've also heard that Blizzard won't be allowing flying mounts at least in the early parts of Northrend-- they claim that flying allows players to skip content, and they don't want anyone skipping content. But we will be able to use them eventually, and considering the steps that Blizzard has taken (in changing the riding/mount prices), it is almost assured that we'll see a few different mount options come out of Northwind. We've already seen dragons there, and the Blue Dragonflight will be there as well, so that points toward another type of dragon (other than Netherdrakes).Of course, there's another type of vehicle we'll be riding around on in Northrend-- those siege weapons. It may be that, as Bornakk says, we don't get another riding skill rank to train, but there may be training purchases involved in letting players drive and use siege weapons as well.
