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The Nexus added to the official Wrath page
A little earlier today, Blizzard has made a new addition to the official Wrath of the Lich King site. They've added The Nexus to the dungeons listing! The Nexus seems to be made up of three wings. The Nexus and The Oculus will be 5 man dungeons, and there will also be a 10 and 25 man raid zone that seems to be currently unnamed. It, most likely, houses Malygos himself.The description of the zone gives a little more insight into the situation between Malygos and the Kirin Tor, and tells us of something called the Arcanomicon. It is a map of Azeroth's ley lines, which the Blue Dragonflight is using to redirect magic away from those he believes are abusing it. The Nexus will be found in the Borean Tundra, one of the first zones in Wrath of the Lich King. I expect one of the five mans will accompany one of Utgarde Keep's wings as the 'first' dungeons of Wrath.
Get your bear mount before Wrath
You know that awesome Amani War Bear? The one that has been sold for 20,000 gold? Well, you'd better work on getting it as soon as possible if you want one, because when Wrath of the Lich King comes out, it will no longer be attainable. Currently you get it as a reward for a time-based challenge in the ten-man raid Zul'Aman: free all four prisoners in time, get bear. Tigole just posted in the official forums that upon Wrath's release, the bear will be replaced with "a very good, epic item," basically to preserve the prestige of having gotten the bear at its intended difficult level. He says they plan on doing a similar thing with the "Hand of A'dal" and "Champion of the Naaru" titles as well. I can understand this move -- it would probably be trivial to get the bear with a raid full of level 80s. And there is still a fair amount of time before Wrath comes out.However, it makes me sad to see something become impossible to get. I think it would be a better solution if they made it so the bear could only be attained by a raid containing no members above level 70, personally. As Zach pointed out to me, the change that they're proposing now means that no Death Knight will ever be on a bear mount, and that's just sad. Unless, that is, they introduce a polar bear mount in Northrend -- did somebody say panserbjørne?If this is one of your goals before Wrath, don't forget to check out WoW Insider's complete guide on how to get your own Amani War Bear.Update: Chances look good for a bear in Northrend. Tigole said: "Polar Bear sound cool?"
Blizzard announces BlizzCon 2008!
Ah, BlizzCon 2007! So many fond memories! We had the Wrath of the Lich King announcement, developers answering all of our questions, the latest on the World of Warcraft movie, and (of course) L70ETC! While there doesn't seem to be anything yet on Blizzard's website announcing a BlizzCon 2008, Buisiness Wire has a press release announcing BlizzCon 2008 taking place on October 10th and 11th in good old Anaheim California. We've contacted Blizzard to confirm, but in the meantime we're clearing out calendar and making travel arrangements. We hope to see all of you at BlizzCon!EDIT: Official announcement released.%Gallery-5496%%Gallery-5527%
Friendly faces in the frozen north
As was pointed out yesterday, quite a few old faces are returning in Wrath of the Lich King. The Scarlet Crusade, The Venture Company, Arugal, etc. Most of them make sense in the context of the events in Northrend, but on the other hand, a couple of them might be inspired by pure fan service. That's totally okay, don't get me wrong. I loves me some fan service. If simple worgen love is what brought back Arugal, I most certainly will not complain.Let's pretend for a moment that we could bring back any lore character for Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard just walks up to you and says, "Hey, who do you want to see in Wrath?" They can be dead or alive, a major character or a minor NPC, whatever you want. If you could do that, who would it be?My choice would be Justinius the Harbinger. Bring him to Northrend to kick in the Wrath Gate guarding Icecrown with his tauren friend Melgromm Highmountain. If you don't know who Justinius is, he's the super-awesome Draenei Paladin fighting the Burning Legion at the Stairs of Destiny, just beyond the Dark Portal. He looks quite awesome in his Judgement Armor, plus he's an all around cool guy. Just go watch him in action for a few minutes. He doesn't take crap from any demon.
Overview of the Dragonblight
I've examined the Dragonblight before when Blizzard first gave us the preview of the zone, but some other news about the region has come into the spotlight in the last few days. I'm sure you've noticed, the Wrath news is everywhere, especially here on WoW Insider. Below I have a little breakdown of what we know so far. The Dragonblight is both the beginning and the end of the dragon life cycle. The Titans granted the Dragonflights their powers here, and this is also where dragons go to die. This zone contains a shrine for each of the Flights which surround Wyrmrest Temple. These shrines are under siege by the Scourge. Alexstrasza herself is lending a hand in recruiting for the war effort in the Dragonblight. The Scourge has been twisting the remains of fallen dragons into Frost Wyrms and potentially other monstrosities. The Scarlet Crusade returns in this zone, renamed the Scarlet Onslaught.
I welcome our 10 and 25 man raid instance overlords
First, go read Alex's post, because he makes some good points about recruiting for 25 man raids in Wrath of the Lich King. We now know that in the expansion, all raids will come with a 10 man and 25 man setting, effectively a 'normal' and 'heroic' mode for raiding. While I personally believe this to be awesome, I can understand the idea that this will adversely affect (not effect, I'm reminded) recruitment for 25 mans if people can see the exact same content by just running a 10 man. Sure, the gear won't be as good, but if the starter 10 man gear allows you to run the next stage 10 man, and so on until you finally reach a 10 man version of Arthas, guilds that run 25 man raid content might have a harder time recruiting people to run what is essentially the 'same' content with 24 other folks instead of 9 other folks.The reason I don't think it will be a real issue (I do think it's worth considering, though, and I do believe it will have some effect on 25 man recruitment) is threefold. Unrelated to those reasons (which are coming up after the jump) I have to admit that this may vary by server: on Norgannon, if anything I'm seeing more new 25 man guilds recruiting and starting up the crawl through Gruul's and Magtheridon, so I may just be working from a glass half full through rose colored glasses state of ludicrous (and heavily over-metaphoric) optimism here.
Questioning the fate of 25 mans in Wrath
With the barrage of Wrath of the Lich King news we've received recently, one little tidbit stuck out in the bad way. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about quite a bit of it, this one thing in particular just struck me as odd. The mention of there being both 10 and 25 man versions of every raid zone is interesting, but makes me worry from a logistical point of view. I like the fact that it means more casual players can see the content, I like the fact that it means the content actually exists for the casual players.I wonder, though, what it will do to 25 man raiding. I can't speak for all servers, but on my server(or more specifically my raid group) the gear that comes out of boss fights is just a way of progressing to the next boss. It is largely unimportant to us until we come across something like Brutallus, in which the gear is absolutely necessary to have to progress. Seeing the characters, bosses and the encounters is far and away the most important part of raiding.
Curse's interview with Tigole and Kalgan
Like many other sites, Curse.com got a chance to visit Blizzard and take home some information on everything Wrath. They have an interview with lead designers Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan and Tom "Kalgan" Chilton, and a general writeup. A lot of it has already been covered in our previous reports, but here's what looked new to me: Karazhan showed Blizzard that 10-man raids could work, and were good for more casual players; on the other hand, more hardcore raiding guilds were upset about having to break into 10-man groups. Thus Wrath's split 10-man/25-man raid system. Naxx is going to have to be tuned way down, since it's now an entry-level raid instead of a top-level raid. Class balance as we know it is going to change drastically with the new talents for every class (at least in their current, secret, developmental state). WoW was always planned out with item inflation in mind, so don't worry about it too much. There will be a Northrend kick-off event. Kaplan would rather we did dailies for gold instead of farming primals, since it's less repetitive; on that note, he wants to make more of a varied experience, like the cooking daily or the daily dungeon with randomization built in. More after the break.
Dungeons and Raids in Wrath of the Lich King
There's more news coming in for Wrath of the Lich King regarding how dungeons and raids will work. First the 5-mans: All 5-man dungeons will have a Heroic mode Heroic dungeons will have a separate loot table than non-Heroics A new token system will be used, similar to the Badge of Justice one used now The 5-man instances are designed to not take more than an hour The 5-man news really was expected, but the raid info is much more exciting: All raid dungeons will have both 10-man and 25-man versions The 10 and 25-man progressions will not depend on each other There will be no attunements or keys necessary for any raid The 25-man loot will be a tier higher than the 10-man loot The 10 and 25-man versions of the same raid will be on different timers so that each can be attempted on the same day by the same people It seems that Blizzard is trying to make both the hardcore and casual raiders happy with these changes. Those guilds who can only see the 10 man content will be able to see all of the endgame content, but those who can organize 25 person raids will reap the benefits of the most challenging content and best gear in the game. And group instances that only take an hour will be great for those of us with limited playtime.[via Gamespy and World of War]
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.
WotLK: The rain is coming
While we've gotten tid bits of information here and there from Blizzard posts over the past few months, the news has been relatively dry with regards to any official announcements about Wrath of the Lich King. We know that it's in alpha testing, and we've had a bit of fun with some screenshots. But that's about it.Nethaera tells us that the development is coming along really well, which we've all heard before. However in her typical witty fashion she also gives us this gem of a line, in response to people calling WotLK vapor-ware:"The great thing about vapor is that at some point it condenses and becomes rain. The rain then falls and nourishes that which it falls on. It takes time for it to happen, but it does happen. Signs point to clouds forming in the sky, but you never can tell when they will let loose the rain..."Take that for what you will, but I read it pretty squarely as "Some major WotLK news is on its way." And that is news in and of itself.
The future of trinkets
A little earlier, Eliah mentioned the world first M'uru kill by SK-Gaming. What caught my eye was a particular item that dropped off of the poor Naaru: The Shifting Naaru Sliver. This item doesn't yet appear on Wowhead or Wowdb quite yet, but the spell effect that accompanies it is.It caught my attention because it made me think a little about future itemization. Most of the trinkets in Magisters' Terrace and the Sunwell Plateau have little effects that basically do the same things as other items, but they're done in slightly more interesting ways. There are a few that are almost entirely unique of course, but overall, they're just new ways to do old things. Personally, I adore it and can't wait to see Wrath trinkets and rings.The Shifting Naaru Sliver in particular caught my attention, because the way it's phrased is so different from other On Use trinkets. It implies that only the caster of the buff gets that buff, so overall, it's the same as something like the Icon of the Silver Crescent. The spell is pretty unique though, so it might be an indication of more widespread applications of this sort of thing later. Being able to flesh out your spell/buff repertoire via a necklace or a ring would be pretty interesting! I suppose Leatherworking Drums do something similar, but this excites me a little more for some reason. Perhaps in Wrath raiding, we'll see people gearing up to complement their party's damage as well as their own moreso than we see currently, thanks to item buffs like these. We'll just have to wait and see.
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.
Dungeon depth in the past, present and future
The other day, Kromzul of Burning Blade posted a thread in the official Wrath of the Lich King forum about dungeon design. He asks if instances will be deeper than those in the Burning Crusade, and I agree with most of what he says. Essentially, the epic, sprawling dungeon crawls of old have gone extinct with BC.Bornakk chimes in to say that The Burning Crusade dungeon design was heavily influenced by player feedback, wishing for more Scarlet Monastery-esque dungeons. I can see that, and to an extent, I agree with that, too. Scarlet Monastery, while shorter and more linear, was also pretty cool.Personally, I don't think that it really comes down to one or the other. Take Dire Maul, for instance. Each wing could be tackled in a straightforward, linear fashion. However, each of them also had alternative routes, and some of them even had alternative ways of defeating them. For example, Tribute Runs in Dire Maul: North. Plus, they were even connected via the library. If you really want to, you could go from one wing to the other without any loading screen.
Bornakk hints that Tier 3 might be removed from the game
With solid confirmation that Naxx will be "floating" off to Northrend (and not exist in two places at once) also comes a strong hint by Bornakk that they will be removing the ability to get Tier-3 armor pieces along with the rest of the current Naxx loot. Bornakk says that "For players who want the look and the stats of tier 3 armor at level 80, hopefully they are already farming the dungeon for them." This is a very strong indication that post WotLK, the current Tier 3 gear will be no longer available.Before today it has been pure speculation that this removal of loot would or would not happen. The only time that the WoW Insider staff can think of this happening before (save for the holiday and special events) is with a few old mount models getting changed. And that is nothing compared to entire loot tables being removed from the game. Note that the changes in patch 2.3 to old world loot were just that – changes, not removal.In many ways this removal does make since, given that the armor models will be reused in Wrath of the Lich King's version of Naxx. While there is similar looking and colored gear floating around WoW, none of it is really twenty levels apart and powerful each in their own right.However with that said, the removal of items from the game like this stirs a mixed reaction in me.
Blizzard interviews itself on Sunwell, Wrath
In a piece called "Fury of the Sunwell and Beyond: an Insider Interview" (were they thinking of us when they named that?), Blizzard Europe sat down with J. Allen Brack, WoW lead producer, as well as art director Chris Robinson. They talked about the recent patch 2.4, as well as a bit about my favorite topic, the upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich King. As usual in these interviews, there isn't a ton of solid, new information, but it's still a good read.Here are the parts I found the most interesting: Sunwell Plateau is the evolution of what Naxxramas was for the original game. They learned some lessons from Naxx; for instance, Naxx was just too big for many guilds to be able to get through it before The Burning Crusade hit. Northrend will have "a very Nordic, gothic fantasy feel" -- sounds cool! To set the scene, players will be rewarded with "Northrendy" items early in Wrath: "for example, say, a two-handed axe that's made of a dragon jaw, covered with spikes, leather, and other traditional materials. We want players to see the new gear and think, 'Yeah, that guy's been to Northrend.'" I want my dragon jaw axe now please. Er...you can make that with +heal, right? And give priests axe skill? As the player treks through the zones of Northrend, the landscape gets bleaker and players get more spread out, escaping the hyper-population of the starting zones. Blizzard wants to invoke a "growing sense of isolation and dread" as players get closer to Arthas. The two starting zones are at opposite tips of crescent-shaped Northrend. They wanted to give us an easy way to travel between them, so we get boats. But not just any boats -- turtle boats! Brack talks about "a giant turtle with a deck mounted on top of its shell." Best form of transportation since Captain Placeholder, if you ask me.
The9 and Soft-World to carry Wrath in Asia
Blizzard announced today that the forthcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion will be published by The9 in mainland China, and Soft-World in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The9 and Soft-World have brought both the original WoW and Burning Crusade to their respective regions, so it's not surprising that they'll be handling Wrath as well. Release dates, of course, are still TBA, there as here. However, if there's one thing I like to do, it's speculating based on insufficient data. The agreement with Soft-World to carry BC appears to have been made just a month before BC's January 2007 launch in North America and Europe. So if Wrath follows this pattern, it will be out next month. On the other hand, the agreement with The9 to carry BC in mainland China was made in February 2007, a month after BC came out here, so if this holds true for Wrath as well, we should have been hitting Northrend a month ago. Either one of these is pretty unlikely; maybe there's not much information to be gleaned from this announcement after all (aside from that WoW is still doing well in Asia).
What we know about Death Knights
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/What_we_know_about_WoW_s_Death_Knights'; Winter is coming: reports have it that WoW's next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is in alpha. Wrath will feature a raise in the level cap from 70 to 80, access to the continent of Northrend with ten zones, the new profession of Inscription and, perhaps most exciting of all, WoW's first new class: the Death Knight.This early on, details are still scarce, and Blizzard has been reluctant to release any information about Wrath since Blizzcon 2007. More information will probably leak as the alpha progresses. However, I've put everything we have been able to find out about Death Knights in the gallery below, so come on in to learn what we know.%Gallery-20386%
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!?
