WrathOfTheLichKing
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BlizzCon 2007 Opening Ceremony Liveblog!
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/BlizzCon_opening_keynote_live_coverage'; We're set up in the front here at the Opening Ceremony of BlizzCon, enjoying some precious free outlet space in the convention center. Soon we will be officially hearing more about what seems like old news already, the new The Wrath of the Lich King expansion.Join us for up-to-the-minute liveblogging of the Opening Ceremony after the break.
First look inside the BlizzCon Exhibition Hall
The hall opened up not an hour ago, and BlizzCon is on! Here's your first look at what's inside the Exhibition Hall, including booths from all the exhibitors and vendors, lots of game playing (Starcraft II and the Arena tourneys are underway), and what we've most been waiting for: Wrath of the Lich King art. Pretty! Sorry, Arthas fanboys and girls, but the post above says we're going to meet the LK himself.Browse through the hall (as I just did), and enjoy. The opening ceremony kicks off in a little over half an hour, and we should be liveblogging live from there as well. It's BlizzCon, baby!%Gallery-5496%
Breaking News: Wrath of the Lich King confirmed
The WoW Insider staff were standing in the lobby of the Anaheim Convention Center, and saw Paul Della Bitta, Senior CM walking up to the Press Badge pickup booths: On his very back is the confirmation we've all been waiting for, and two hours before the official announcement! Yes indeed, in the very near future we will be heading to Northrend, playing what they term in the schedule of events as "World of Warcraft Expansion II," also known as Wrath of the Lich King. You heard it here first-- our hunches were right. Now keep an eye out for our continuing coverage. We are hoping to have up to the minute blogging of the Opening Ceremony, but it looks as if the juicy stuff is coming even before 11 am. The revised schedule of events I was handed has a concept sketch Tuskarr hunter in the lower right hand corner. Does this mean new playable races? We will let you know as soon as we have more info to bring you!
Gamers on the Street: BlizzCon & Wrath of the Auctioned Murloc
In Gamers on the Street, Krystalle Voecks will be creating characters and joining different US servers in an attempt to find out what the everyday Gamer thinks about different things going on in and around the World of Warcraft. With research in hand, she'll report back here on Thursdays, to share the word from the front lines.With BlizzCon starting tomorrow, you'd have to be living under a rock to have missed the buzz and rumours flying about things like Wrath of the Lich King. I've seen fairly credible concepts (Northrend is coming!) to some really crazy things (The new area is the Maelstrom, the level cap is 85, flying mounts are coming to ALL of Azeroth, and Bob's your uncle.) I couldn't resist hitting the virtual bricks this week and checking to see whether BlizzCon fever has hit everywhere, or if the only notable thing to most people is that L70ETC is rockin' Terrorkar Forest to its foundation every hour on the hour.
WotLK trademarked by Blizzard
And it looks like the final nail has been hammered in to support the "Wrath of the Lich King" speculation-- as MMO Champion points out, Blizzard Entertainment has registered "Wrath of the Lich King" as a trademark (you've got to do a search for it on the USPTO's website, as they don't allow links to searches), all but confirming that the next expansion will take us to Arthas' domain in Northrend.Now, just to play devil's advocate, there is still a chance that Blizzard did this as a smokescreen, and that the expansion has nothing to do with the Lich King. But the trademark was filed on July 28th, which by my estimation puts it a few days ahead of the speculation-- that's a pretty strong indication that while Blizzard waited until the last minute to do it (knowing BlizzCon was only a week or so away), they didn't wait long enough to keep us from leaking it out.The other note is that the patent trademark (note to self: don't piss off the lawyers!) covers not only computer games, but also "comic books," "trading cards," "coloring books," and "greeting cards," among a number of other types of items. I don't know if I ever saw any Burning Crusade greeting cards, but maybe Blizzard expects their little WoW empire to get even bigger in the future.So: Friday. BlizzCon. Wrath of the Lich King. Be there!Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Anonymous source says: Next expansion = "Into the Maelstrom"
You know we have one anonymous source, who told us that there'll be "Northrend" music played at Blizzcon, and then there's Boubouille at MMO-Champion who says that the next expansion will be called "Wrath of the Lich King" in which we'll go to Northrend and raid Arthas' little snow castle. Apparently IGN has an anonymous source of their own, though, and his info is quite different.According to their contact, named "Blizz guy," we're going to have an "Into the Maelstrom" expansion, in which we go... into... the Maelstrom! and the Light only knows who we're going to fight there. Also, in lieu of new talents, Blizz guy says we're finally going to get our long-awaited Hero Classes that we can level up in, all the way to 80.Now personally, I see all the hints pointing to Northrend, and absolutely nothing pointing to the Maelstrom, so I'm a lot more inclined to trust our own sources -- but we'll put this out there for all you who just love rumors and speculation! MMO-Champion and IGN can't both be right on this one, though I suppose they could both be wrong.Which one do you think seems more likely? Or do you have an anonymous source of your own?
Next expansion "Wrath of the Lich King?"
It's four days to Blizzcon, and Boubouille, long-time source of quality information, thinks he knows what the next expansion is going to be called: Wrath of the Lich King. Obviously this supports previous information pointing to a Northrend-themed expansion, as Northrend is home to Arthas, the Lich King himself. The original post on the MMO-Champion forums claiming this to be the expansion name also asserts that there will be a new class: Death Knight! This seems to be less substantiated, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be true. Rumors aside, we'll almost certainly know for sure in just a few days. Are you excited? I am.As far as the Death Knight rumor goes, the WoWWiki page lends a bit of support: apparently, Death Knight (as well as Necromancer) were originally planned to be classes in WoW, but didn't make it to release. Furthermore, there exists a green called Triumphant Shield of Shadow Wrath, which is confusing as no shield-using classes (Warrior, Paladin, Shaman) can use Shadow magic. This could just be an oversight in the random-enchant-generating code, but it could also be a hint at a Shadow-wielding, shield-using class...Update: Over at MMO-Champion, they suggest that this is accurate because the link www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/ leads to a "forbidden" error, whereas accessing any other non-existent page on the site will give you a "not found" error. Continue to enjoy your rumormongering, everyone!Update 2: Again from MMO-Champion, the title World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King was found on the web site of Usk.de, which is apparently the German equivalent of our ESRB (i.e. the agency that assigns content ratings to games). It seems to have a "12" rating; although I don't speak German, I assume that means "suitable for 12 and up."Update 3: It's official now -- check out all of the news on Wrath of the Lich King.
