BlizzCon Hoax

Evidently attendees of BlizzCon have begun receiving emails claiming that Wrath of the Lich King Beta will begin in only three weeks. According to Bornakk, these emails are a hoax, and the original statement provided regarding such a beta still holds. There is currently no WotLK beta, and should one be in the works, there would be an announcement on the official site.

As always, please remember to be especially cautious when asked to provide any account information. Do a search to find out if anyone else has received the same requests, and under what circumstances. If you are concerned about keylogging programs, refer to our guide on protecting your system.

More Wrath screenshots

Two new screenshots have appeared in the Wrath of the Lich King gallery over at WoW Europe. The above looks like another shot from Westguard Keep.
This is another shot from New Agamand, a Forsaken town in the Howling Fjord. While neither shot is offering anything we haven't seen before, they are definitely serving to tease us pretty badly.

Another Blizzard interview: Patch 2.4 and WotLK

Flopper of WoWszene team is currently in Taipei (Taiwan) for the 2 years anniversary of WoW taiwan, he managed to get afew words with J. Allen Brack, Lead Producer of Wrath of the Lich King, here is a quick translation/summary (by Flopper & Ellyn):

Q: What can you tell us about Sunwell?
A: There will be 2 instances, both of them for lvl 70 players. 1 raid instance (25 mans) and one 5 mans instance. You will be fighting against Kael'thas bloodelfs, also Sunwells architecture looks like Silvermoon City.

Q: What is the approx release date of Patch 2.4?
A: No release date yet.

Q:When will patch 2.4 be availible on the Public Test Realm (PTR)?
A: For the moment, we are fixing some bugs (patches 2.3.1 and 2.3.2) but we plan to have patch 2.4 this year on the ptr.

Q: Lets switch to Woltk and to the PvP. Can you tell something about the length of a match in the new Battleground?
A: PvP related stuff will be worked on at the end of the game produce, so we can't say anything about that now.

Q: What about the siege weapons? when we can see them in action? screenshots or videos?
A: They are working on the moving technology for the siege weapons and the destructing animation for the buildings.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Interview

WarCry: Burning Crusade released with a significantly larger number of 25-player dungeons than vanilla World of Warcraft did, and players have plowed through the available content at a much quicker pace than before. Was this intended and/or will the pacing of content be changed with Wrath of the Lich King?

Jeffrey Kaplan: Burning Crusade definitely shipped with more raid content than the original World of Warcraft. This is largely due to the maturity of the game and the sheer numbers of players engaging in end-game content in some shape or form. We're actually pretty happy with the pace at which people are making progress; if anything, we'd like to see more people experiencing the end-game PvE content.

For Wrath of the Lich King, we're discussing ways to foster a healthy sense of competition among guilds on the forefront of raid progression while still allowing this content to become more accessible to others over time. I think we have a lot of innovative ideas and we'll keep trying to improve the system.

WarCry: The death knight is being billed as a tank/dps (damage per second) hybrid. How do you see them fitting into raids alongside protection warriors, feral druids, and protection paladins?

Jeffrey Kaplan: We made some really good strides in The Burning Crusade to improve the feral druid as a hybrid tank/dps class. That will be the general direction we'll be looking to go with the death knight. Obviously, the protection warrior is in a good place in terms of dungeon and raid tanking. And the protection paladin is hands-down the best multi-target tank. Of course, there's always room for improvement, but you can see the general direction the tanking classes are headed. While all of these classes are capable of fulfilling similar roles, they offer very different abilities and playstyles.

WarCry: In late vanilla World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade there has been a heavy emphasis on reputation grinding and rewards, which has proven to be a great incentive for more casual players. Is this trend going to continue with Wrath of the Lich King? Any lessons you've learned about such a system from Burning Crusade?

Jeffrey Kaplan: Reputation is a great progression system for all types of players ranging from casual to hardcore. We're not necessarily looking to make reputation a grind; our goal is to identify who the target audience is for each reputation and then tune things accordingly. One thing we'll be doing more of in Wrath of the Lich King (and even before that) is incorporating daily quests into reputations. We feel that if a reputation has significant daily quests with enough variety and perhaps some random elements, it will help keep the process of accumulating reputation fresh and interesting.

WarCry: Any plans for introductory events leading up to Wrath of the Lich King similar to what happened in Blasted Lands prior to Burning Crusade's release?

Jeffrey Kaplan: We have some really cool ideas but it's too early to comment right now.

WarCry: Much of the Horde experience in Outland revolved around the history of the orcs and the Mag'har tribe. What races can we expect to find tied to the lands of Northrend?

Jeffrey Kaplan: Northrend has some great story development in it. Humans, dwarves, tauren, and trolls will all have their storylines developed further. Of course, all of the other races will share the spotlight as well, but those four have an especially strong presence throughout the icy continent.

Tigole interviewed by Warcry

Warcry posted an interview with Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan (WoW's lead designer) last Friday, and while he doesn't reveal anything super new, he does confirm a few directions Blizzard is headed in with the game-- away from grinds, opening up more endgame content for players, and incorporating daily quests into more facets of player advancement.

Kaplan does say that Blizzard thought the progression rate for Burning Crusade was done well, and that they are looking at getting even more players involved in endgame, which, with the coming of Zul'Aman and the lowering of the Heroic reputations, is something we've observed before. He says also that Blizzard is planning to involve reputation more with daily quests, while at the same time making sure it's not a grind (hopefully this will mean gaining reputation from daily quests like the new ones-- attaching instance runs or battleground fights to daily quests, with reputation as a reward). And finally, Kaplan hints at lore in Wrath of the Lich King, specifically saying that "Humans, Dwarves, Tauren, and Trolls will all have their storylines developed further" in Northrend.

Sounds fun. He doesn't give any indication of where they are in the development process for the expansion (he does work for Blizzard, after all), but it definitely does sound like Blizzard is hard at work hammering WotLK together.

Armory updated

Earlier today, Blizzard updated their Armory database to support many of the new features that were added to the game in patch 2.3. I've listed a quick summary of the changes below, but the most important one is the addition of guild bank support. Players will now be able to view the contents of their guild bank via the website. You'll have to log into the Armory with your WoW user name and password, so no worries about unguilded people snooping on your hoard. Additionally, a complete bank log will be maintained on the site, which is handy since the in-game log doesn't hold many entries.

Check out my summary of the rest of the changes below.

Armory changes:

Guild bank support, including a transaction log and a list of the contents.

Guild tabard designs now appear on the guild pages.

Guild messages of the day and guild information now appear on the guild bank pages

Player titles, such as "Gladiator" or "Champion of the Naaru" now appear on their character profile.

Expertise has been added to the character profiles.

New Badge of Justice and Zul'Aman items added to the database.

These are just a few highlights, so be sure to check out the official site for a more complete listing.

Cinematic for Wrath still to come, in case you were worried

Just in case you were worried, even for just a second, that the paltry ingame Death Knight video we got at BlizzCon was supposed to be the official trailer for the next expansion, worry not-- Nethaera has confirmed, just to be sure, that the best is yet to come. You may think it's silly, but I have to admit, after that ingame vid at Blizzcon, the Lament of the Highborn video, and the recent Zul'Aman video, I was just a little bit worried, way in the back of my mind, that Blizzard might be done making CGI for WoW.

I'm glad I was wrong-- I can't wait to see Arthas back in classic cinematic form. We probably won't see it until a lot later than sooner (there is still the Sunwell to release to the PTR and then the live realms), but it's good to know that we still get to see a badass CGI. Truck commercials are all fine and good, but we still haven't heard a "you are not prepared" for Wrath yet.

Updating the graphics of WoW

The times they are a changin'. If you've ogled the latest WotLK screenshots as much as I have, then you'll notice that the art department at Blizzard has been pushing the envelope style-wise of late. It seems that since TBC the graphics in WoW have gotten not just better, but measurably more detailed and stylistic. Each new instance, area, race -- heck, even the new weapons added to the game -- they all just get more interesting and creative as time goes on. I am continually amazed at what these artists do with 1000 polygons.

Some players are asking about updating the older models in the game to reflect the updated style evidenced in the newer content. Anyone who's run Old Hillsbrad can see exactly how far we've come from the WoW original models, and some would like to be able to have new choices as we progress into WotLK. Drysc reminds us, though, that some people are very attached to their character's physical appearance. Some players have been with those characters since 2004. To change their faces would be like giving a friend plastic surgery. Or what about body types? Would you feel that you were playing the same character if there was suddenly a major change to their physique?

Personally, I am eager for the hairstyle changes coming in the expansion. I don't feel like my character needs a new face perse, but the difference between a Blood Elf or Draenei hairstyle and a human one is pretty drastic. I actually considered rerolling my main character because the new races just look a whole lot cooler than she does. Faces though, I'm not sure. How would you react if Blizz changed the models, or gave you more choices?

A new class, why not a new race?

The DK is coming in WotLK, adding another class to the mix along with the concept of Hero Classes. In a forum post yesterday players voiced their desire to play new races in addition to having access to the Death Knight class. Looking at it logically, it only makes sense that since the first expansion brought us two new races we would see new classes in the next one. It's like a new-content see-saw. But some of us don't look at things logically, and I can totally understand this too. I mean, yes I want to play nymphs and Pandaren and Worgen. I would also like to have a viable MageTank set that gives me enough armor to stand up against Illidan. Oh, oh and infinite mana. And a pony. It simply isn't going to happen.

My concern is not that we aren't getting new races. I am worried that adding only one class will toss things out of whack. When TBC was announced, they let us know that the Horde would be able to play paladins, and so for balance they added shaman to the Alliance side. Balance is the key word here. When we have Death Knights added to the game, there will be only one Hero Class, albeit available to both factions. I get the feeling that this will throw off the balance more than they realize. Not so much because there will be another tanking class, but more because Blizzard cannot anticipate how players will actually play the character. Sure it's a tanking class, but if players start using it as a DPS class despite the best intentions of the devs, things could go badly.

Considering the magic-centric storylines in Northrend, I would feel more comfortable if they added the Archmage along with the Death Knight. Adding the Archmage would allow players to play a mage of any race, opening up a whole new world of role play possibilities. Or how about the Demon Hunter? With so much going on in Outland, couldn't we use an anti-Illidan to clean house, so-to-speak? What do you think? Is Blizzard making a mistake by adding only one class into the game?

WOW - 2 Brand new WOW WOTLK Screen Shots

Badges of Justice may not be in WotLK

I sure thought that Badges of Justice were here to stay (especially since Blizzard has been ramping up where they're used and what they buy), but maybe that's not the case. When a player asks if they'll still be around in Northrend, Neth says it's not a sure thing, and that's a lot less certain than I thought I was.

I really don't think Blizzard will abandon the turn-in system entirely-- although Badges are a little different than they've ever done it before (and yes, they probably do need a little tweaking in how they're given out), the system works. It gives people a reason to run instances, and it lets you choose what you want to run, and then choose the loot that you want from that run. Token-based loot, in general, is so far a great alternative to the drop or the quest system.

However, I can definitely see Blizzard moving on to some new tokens. Maybe as WotLK comes out, they'll just spread these Badges around more and more, making the Heroic loot more and more easy to get, and then when we reach Northrend, the next iteration of token loot will go back to being much more rare.

Hidden Wrath site discovered in Blizzard newsletter

World of Raids found a hidden link in Blizzard's latest newsletter. That link has led them to a special page on the official Wrath of the Lich King site that you can't find on the expansion's main page.

On this special page is an extensive exploration of how the Warcraft team designed the Northrend 5-man instance, Utgarde Keep in the Howling Fjord zone. First they delve into the story elements that ramp up to your introduction to the "impenetrable fortress in the side of a mountain." Upon arriving by boat to Daggercap Bay, you will see the damage wrought by the enormous, native Viking race and their proto-dragon mounts.

Overland quests from there will tell the story of how these Vrykul have used Utgarde Keep as a staging area to wage a battle against what they see as an invading force of Alliance and Horde.

The page goes on to explain other design decisions that will play out in Utgarde: as a "starter" dungeon, it's designed to be finished quickly; it will be more mission based due to the popularity of Old Hillsbrad and Black Morass in Burning Crusade; and you will get glimpses of the end boss before finally encountering him.

The developers also talk about other lessons learned from Burning Crusade that they are applying to Wrath. The Hellfire Peninsula experience has taught them to give players a choice of two starter areas, while the Heroic dungeon experiment has led them to incorporate new bosses and new playable areas to the Heroic versions of Wrath instances.

The article is fascinating combination of a behind-the-scenes look at game design and a sneak peek at what lies ahead in one of Northrend's first instances. Plus, new artwork!

If all this talk of Utgarde Keep has you drooling for more ,check out our previous coverage of the instance with our articles on our first impressions based on Blizzcon demo play, our analysis of the 5-man map and bosses and a video of gameplay also from Blizzcon.

A hidden Wrath of the Lich King page

In the latest Blizzard newsletter there was a hidden link to a Wrath of the Lich King page that isn’t linked to anywhere on the main WotLK website. On this page there is a bunch of new art and screenshots as well as an in depth interview with the designers about what went into creating the first dungeon Utgarde Keep.

We expect most players to battle through this dungeon at a brisk pace. You will find that you will probably be able to play through Utgarde Keep much more quickly than its high-level counterparts, similar to Burning Crusade equivalents such as Hellfire Ramparts and Blood Furnace. Accessibility is a high priority, especially with the early dungeons, both in terms of location — the entrance portal is extremely close to the outskirts of the town — and in terms of how much time players need to invest in the dungeon. Along these lines, the overall difficulty of the dungeon is comparable to a first attempt at Ramparts in
Outland.

A bit on what they learned from The burning Crusade:

We learned some important lessons from The Burning Crusade’s starting area and dungeons, in terms of both what worked and what didn’t, and these lessons are reflected in Northrend. For example, there are two starting areas, each with its own dungeon, as opposed to The Burning Crusade’s single Hellfire Peninsula / Hellfire Citadel combo. The reasoning behind this is to provide a choice to the player — the area you decide to start in is where you will spend your early levels in Northrend. You can also decide to travel to the other starting area at any time, thanks to a free travel system between the zones of Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, but most players will likely gravitate toward one area in order to complete the various quests there. Having two starting areas also adds to Wrath of the Lich King’s replayability — when it’s time to pick a starting area for an alt, you can pick the one that you didn’t play through the first time around.

It’s a very interesting preview of the dungeon and some of the new art looks amazing.

Learning a third profession at level 80

Nerrisa brings up an interesting idea on the forums that I hadn't considered before-- what if we all got to choose a third profession when we reach level 80? For some, handling two professions is more than enough, but there are also plenty of people who could definitely benefit from a third. And although the professions are paired off pretty well (Alchemy and Herbalism, Leatherworking and Skinning), there are definitely some trios that would work well also-- Enchanting goes great with anything, and Mining, Blacksmithing and Engineering would be a great combo, too, for power players who've reached 80 and are looking for lots more to do.

Of course, Bornakk says no to the idea (actually, as Incgamers points out, he really says there are "no unannounced plans" for it to happen, which is quite a few qualifiers for him), so it's unlikely that we'll have an extra profession slot to face Arthas with. But don't forget that we will have a new profession, Inscription, and if Blizzard adds many more professions, maybe we will need a third slot to keep them all straight. I'd love for my characters to learn more, I'm just not sure if I'd have the diligence to get them all to 375-- I'm having enough trouble with two as it is.

No new battleground until WotLK

Nethaera has confirmed that there will be no new battlegrounds revealed prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, much to the chagrin of PvP'ers everywhere. Although players have previously expressed interest in having more choice, Blizzard has voiced concern about the effects that a fifth choice might have on queues. Hopefully they have some tricks up their sleeves for combating this when the highly anticipated new battleground arrives via the expansion.


Although this is a bit disappointing, it is hardly unexpected, and there are so many upcoming positive changes that it's hard to be a sad panda for long. Currently, the devs are focused on improving Alterac Valley for patch 2.3 and creating new content for WotLK, which will include an outdoor PvP zone, Lake Wintergrasp. Following in the wake of Halaa's undeniable success, this zone will boast siege warfare, and many other innovations in world PvP.

As for what the new battleground will be like? I'd still love to see an Aldor vs. Scryers battleground; and as much as we all love to see new content drop, we can at least try to satiate ourselves knowing that what we will be getting will continue to advance PvP as we know it. Now; a little less sad panda face please!