After I managed to install the Wrath of the Lich King beta client, one of the first things I did was of course check out the starting area of the expansion's new hero class, the death knight. They have an instanced zone just for them, as the setting is in the past, somewhere during the original Scourge invasion. You, a former Alliance or Horde hero, was taken and "converted" by the Scourge and are now a fearsome death knight, in the service of the Lich King, ready to wreak havoc on the helpless, and sometimes not so helpless, population of Azeroth.
You start at level 55, without any talent points, on a floating necropolis, somewhat like Naxxramas, that's hovering above the town of New Avalon, in the area that is now the Eastern Plaguelands. The idea is that you progress through this starting area by doing the quests the, sometimes familiar, NPCs give you. As a reward you get money, talent points and sometimes a piece of rare, blue, equipment. You also get a quest chain which rewards you with a summoned epic riding mount, the deathcharger, which works exactly like the warlock's summoned mount, the dreadsteed.
I personally completed the starting area quests in a couple of hours. At the end of the ride, you're level 57, in full blue equipment, got all your talent points appropriate for that level and with an epic ground mount. Not too shabby at all. The quests themselves are mostly the trusted old kill this many mobs of type A and collect that many items of type B. There are a couple of somewhat unique quests though that bring some variety to the old concept, although I wouldn't exactly call them revolutionary. A couple of them even got a bit tedious after a while, because of the sheer number of objectives you have to complete. But all in all an enjoyable experience, mostly because of the story and how it unfolds. A special note should go to the big finale of the whole chain, which is really well-done and I would guess of particular interest to lore fanatics.
I guess the whole area is probably best compaired to the Tortage destiny quest line of Age of Conan, and apparently I'm not the only one who got that idea. Although you don't have a private instance, you share it with the other players that have also just started a death knight.
I would say that it's definitely worth it to at least play through the death knight starting zone, even if you're not interested in leveling one up all the way to level 80, because of the well-crafted starting zone and, if you're interested in the Warcraft universe, the interesting story line.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Wrath of the Lich King beta invite
Just a little notice to say that it was recently announced that the beta key that was given out at the Worldwide Invitational in Paris was for the Wrath of the Lich King beta test. There was a code waiting for me when I opened my mailbox this morning, so right now I'm downloading the beta and I hope to be playing soon.
Monday, 14 July 2008
Illidan down! Now what?
Last Tuesday my guild finally managed to bring down the last boss in Black Temple: Illidan Stormrage, the Betrayer. We since killed him once more, on Thursday, and the fight felt really repeatable as well so I'm pretty sure it wasn't a fluke. With one more raid evening left this reset, on Tuesday, I guess it's time for us to start the last raid instance in the game, Sunwell Plateau. Though I have to admit, I'm not excited as I was when we first started Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.
Probably this is because I've always considered Illidan to be the last boss of The Burning Crusade expansion. He was the guy that was featured on the intro movie, he was the main baddy all through the content while leveling up. I guess for me the expansion pretty much ended, at least in my mind, with Illidan. I think Blizzard pretty much added Sunwell as extra content because development of Wrath of the Lich King was taking longer than expected. A little something extra to keep the subscribers happy, if you will. It does feel somewhat detached from the main storyline of The Burning Crusade, in my opinion.
Probably this is because I've always considered Illidan to be the last boss of The Burning Crusade expansion. He was the guy that was featured on the intro movie, he was the main baddy all through the content while leveling up. I guess for me the expansion pretty much ended, at least in my mind, with Illidan. I think Blizzard pretty much added Sunwell as extra content because development of Wrath of the Lich King was taking longer than expected. A little something extra to keep the subscribers happy, if you will. It does feel somewhat detached from the main storyline of The Burning Crusade, in my opinion.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Weekend battleground PvP
On my WoW account, I have an old level 70 warrior who I haven't played in ages. He used to be protection specced, but ever since I discovered the wonders of paladin tanking, he has been pretty much demoted to mining and blacksmithing slave.
So over the weekend, I decided to dust him off and spec him for PvP. I got him a more PvP-friendly arms/fury spec, and crafted him a Stormherald from materials I had gathered on Saturday afternoon and from turning in some badges for Primal Nethers and Nether Vortexes.
And while PvPing on my warlock is an often frustrating experience of being shot into oblivion within seconds, mostly because of being PvE-specced, having a dedicated PvP character does bring its fun moments. And of course the obvious advantage is that you're collecting honour, which can be turned in for armour and other equipment right away. You can plan ahead and know exactly when you'll get your next upgrade, as opposed to most loot that comes from raiding, which still has some luck of the drop involved and of course also the competition from people in the raid. Collecting gear in PvP suffers from none of these drawbacks.
Of course collecting gear isn't everything. Doing the same 4 battlegrounds all the time gets really repetitive after a while, although you could argue that doing the same instance clears to get to a new boss each week is also repetitive and boring. Also, unless you manage to make a full premade group, you're kind of stuck with a collection of random people, so you miss the fun of playing with your friends and of course the cooperation isn't always as great as it should be. And finally, although battleground PvP can get quite exciting especially in close games, you don't really experience the real adrenaline rushes you get from a first boss kill. Or maybe I haven't played the right games yet.
I guess I'll have to play some arenas later on.
So over the weekend, I decided to dust him off and spec him for PvP. I got him a more PvP-friendly arms/fury spec, and crafted him a Stormherald from materials I had gathered on Saturday afternoon and from turning in some badges for Primal Nethers and Nether Vortexes.
And while PvPing on my warlock is an often frustrating experience of being shot into oblivion within seconds, mostly because of being PvE-specced, having a dedicated PvP character does bring its fun moments. And of course the obvious advantage is that you're collecting honour, which can be turned in for armour and other equipment right away. You can plan ahead and know exactly when you'll get your next upgrade, as opposed to most loot that comes from raiding, which still has some luck of the drop involved and of course also the competition from people in the raid. Collecting gear in PvP suffers from none of these drawbacks.
Of course collecting gear isn't everything. Doing the same 4 battlegrounds all the time gets really repetitive after a while, although you could argue that doing the same instance clears to get to a new boss each week is also repetitive and boring. Also, unless you manage to make a full premade group, you're kind of stuck with a collection of random people, so you miss the fun of playing with your friends and of course the cooperation isn't always as great as it should be. And finally, although battleground PvP can get quite exciting especially in close games, you don't really experience the real adrenaline rushes you get from a first boss kill. Or maybe I haven't played the right games yet.
I guess I'll have to play some arenas later on.
Friday, 4 July 2008
A new secondary market
Last week, Blizzard revealed their Blizzard Authenticator, a new hardware device which can be tied to your World of Warcraft account as an extra security measure. The principle is simple: when you use the Authenticator, it generates a unique number that's different each time and you need to input this number along with your user name and password when you log in to your account. Some users of online banking application may recognize this system, as it is similar to what some of these tools use to authenticate their users.
The idea behind this is that while it's relatively "easy" to get someone's user name and password when you have some sort of keylogger on their computer, it's virtually impossible to get access to this unique number, since you need physical access to the Authenticator device.
Anyway, the little gadget seems to be a success, even though it's completely optional. As you can see when you click the link, the Blizzard online store already ran out of them. The device was also for sale at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, but after only a couple of hours on Saturday, they were sold out. It seems Blizzard was just testing to water and they were not prepared for the demand. If nothing else, it proves there's a secondary market for anything that has to do with account security and it wouldn't surprise me if other MMOG publishers or even third party manufacturers are going to announce their own version of the Authenticator soon. And they'll be a success.
The idea behind this is that while it's relatively "easy" to get someone's user name and password when you have some sort of keylogger on their computer, it's virtually impossible to get access to this unique number, since you need physical access to the Authenticator device.
Anyway, the little gadget seems to be a success, even though it's completely optional. As you can see when you click the link, the Blizzard online store already ran out of them. The device was also for sale at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, but after only a couple of hours on Saturday, they were sold out. It seems Blizzard was just testing to water and they were not prepared for the demand. If nothing else, it proves there's a secondary market for anything that has to do with account security and it wouldn't surprise me if other MMOG publishers or even third party manufacturers are going to announce their own version of the Authenticator soon. And they'll be a success.
Thursday, 3 July 2008
The price of in-game fluff
The goody bag we got at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris contained a special unique code for an exclusive in-game pet in World of Warcraft. Obviously this being an exclusive pet and all, there's a secondary market for it and some people have decided to put their code on eBay rather than using them on their own character.
One such seller managed to score an amazing $800 for their pet. Other stuff like for example the Spectral Tiger mount or a rocket flying mount that are only obtainable through special so-called loot cards in the World of Warcraft card game are selling for $1000 and more.
Am I the only one who thinks these prices are totally crazy? Well, obviously the laws of economics and supply and demand play here, but $1000 dollars for fluff which don't really have a noticeable impact on your characters seems like a lot! Somehow I can understand someone buying an account with a maxed out character in full endgame gear for that amount, but the same amount for a pretty visual which essentially does nothing for you… Nuts.
One such seller managed to score an amazing $800 for their pet. Other stuff like for example the Spectral Tiger mount or a rocket flying mount that are only obtainable through special so-called loot cards in the World of Warcraft card game are selling for $1000 and more.
Am I the only one who thinks these prices are totally crazy? Well, obviously the laws of economics and supply and demand play here, but $1000 dollars for fluff which don't really have a noticeable impact on your characters seems like a lot! Somehow I can understand someone buying an account with a maxed out character in full endgame gear for that amount, but the same amount for a pretty visual which essentially does nothing for you… Nuts.
Blizzard Worldwide Invitational Summary
I have been back from the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational for a few days now, and had a chance to digest all the information that was presented there.
First of all, and the most important part for most people, was the announcement that Blizzard is working on Diablo 3 and we were also presented with some in-game footage of the game. I was never a huge fan of the Diablo franchise, although I did buy and enjoy the second game in the series. And the demo of this third incarnation impressed me. The characters in the game are intentionally overpowered, they showed a barbarian fighting hordes of enemies at the same time, all the while jumping in the middle of the fight, knocking back his enemies and even smashing down walls, burying the mobs under them. Looks like Blizzard will get more of my money when that game is released.
Of course the most important part for me was the different panels containing information about Wrath of the Lich King. There was a presentation about the classes and the new abilities and talents they will have, including the new Death Knight class, one about dungeons and raids and one about PvP. Finally there was a generic Q&A session where anyone could ask any question they wanted about the game.
There were some interesting changes to the classes, I'm sure most of you have already seen 'em on the different WoW fansites. Highlights for me including talent trees for hunter pets, combined Frostfire Bolt for mages, Hex for shamans, Titan's Grip (dual wielding 2H weapons) for warriors and of course the totally awesome demon form for warlocks. Especially the story behind Titan's Grip is interesting, because that talent was originally included by a fan in fake patch notes for the previous expansion, The Burning Crusade. Apparently Blizzard liked it so much, that they included in Wrath of the Lich King.
Blizzard also presented 3 new dungeons in the expansion. One max-level dungeon called The Oculus looked pretty impressive. It'll have mounted combat, on dragons, with each dragon fulfulling a particular role in a team. So you'll have tank dragons, healer dragons and damage dealing dragons. It's perfectly possible for the healer to pick the tank dragon or vice versa, so they'll be able to experience the game from another viewpoint.
The second dungeon was called The Halls of Stone, which is a level 77-79 dungeon, the first one of the Ulduar set of dungeons. This one is more conventional, but lore fans more particularly fans of Ulduman will be excited to learn that the story about the stone discs is continued here.
The last dungeon they presented was another Caverns of Time instance, namely The Culling of Stratholme. Fans of Warcraft 3 will recognize this as the scene where Arthas kills all the citizens of Stratholme after they've eaten poisoned grain, infected with the Scourge disease. The player will get to fight alongside Arthas as things go wrong in the doomed city. I've always been a fan of Caverns of Time instances, so I'm pretty excited to see how this one pans out.
Blizzard also revealed some of their more high-level plans for the expansion, such as dungeon implementation strategy and priorities for the future. A few keywords include more non-linear content, you'll be able to go to the third boss before the second one etc., tighter level ranges for the different dungeons, such as for example the Halls of Stone instance which is aimed at levels 77-79, so they can create their content more specifically aimed at certain levels which should improve the experience. They also want to aim content updates more specifically at what the players want. As an example, they said that in retrospect, they would have preferred to release Zul'Aman before Mount Hyjal/Black Temple as it is content that is accessible to more players. How the hardcore guilds are going to react to that, is a different matter of course.
Furthermore they confirmed that they thought heroic versions of the dungeons were a success and they are going to keep the concept for the expansion, with the one difference that you won't need a certain reputation level, heroics will be available right away for everyone. They wanted to make rep grinds less hard though, so they're introducing a "championing" system through tabards. So for example by wearing a Cenarion Expedition tabard, you get a small amount of CE rep from killing mobs in a dungeon, even if it's a Sha'tar dungeon.
I personally got to play an alpha version of the expansion, and so far it looks like it's more of the same. Which of course isn't as bad as it sounds. WoW is a great game and it will appeal to a lot of people who just want some new content to explore. I played around a bit with the warlock demon form, which looks just like demon form Illidan, and it was really fun, even though it seemed like it was a little overpowered. We'll see if Blizzard introduces some fixes to balance them out more. Though I have to say, I played with an enhancement shaman for a bit as well, and she was taking down mobs in a couple of hits too, so… I did get a sneak peak at a potential new fan favourite mob of Northrend, the Gorlocs, which seem like a distant cousin of the Murlocs except they have big heads, no neck, and they hop around like frogs instead of running.
I also very briefly played StarCraft 2. Not so excited about this game yet, it looks like it plays just like the original game, except with updated graphics. But I guess that's probably just what the fans want.
Of special interest is of course the goody bag, which contained among other things a very nice Diablo 3 hardcover notebook, a WoW Card Game Starter Kit and of course a card which contains a beta key for an upcoming new Blizzard title (we don't know which one yet) and a key for an in-game pet. The pet has been revealed as a miniature version of the Archangel Tyrael from Diablo 3. The bag itself was also pretty impressive, a stylish black canvas shoulder bag.
All in all a very fun event, and certainly worthy of another visit should they decide to have the WWI in Europe again.
First of all, and the most important part for most people, was the announcement that Blizzard is working on Diablo 3 and we were also presented with some in-game footage of the game. I was never a huge fan of the Diablo franchise, although I did buy and enjoy the second game in the series. And the demo of this third incarnation impressed me. The characters in the game are intentionally overpowered, they showed a barbarian fighting hordes of enemies at the same time, all the while jumping in the middle of the fight, knocking back his enemies and even smashing down walls, burying the mobs under them. Looks like Blizzard will get more of my money when that game is released.
Of course the most important part for me was the different panels containing information about Wrath of the Lich King. There was a presentation about the classes and the new abilities and talents they will have, including the new Death Knight class, one about dungeons and raids and one about PvP. Finally there was a generic Q&A session where anyone could ask any question they wanted about the game.
There were some interesting changes to the classes, I'm sure most of you have already seen 'em on the different WoW fansites. Highlights for me including talent trees for hunter pets, combined Frostfire Bolt for mages, Hex for shamans, Titan's Grip (dual wielding 2H weapons) for warriors and of course the totally awesome demon form for warlocks. Especially the story behind Titan's Grip is interesting, because that talent was originally included by a fan in fake patch notes for the previous expansion, The Burning Crusade. Apparently Blizzard liked it so much, that they included in Wrath of the Lich King.
Blizzard also presented 3 new dungeons in the expansion. One max-level dungeon called The Oculus looked pretty impressive. It'll have mounted combat, on dragons, with each dragon fulfulling a particular role in a team. So you'll have tank dragons, healer dragons and damage dealing dragons. It's perfectly possible for the healer to pick the tank dragon or vice versa, so they'll be able to experience the game from another viewpoint.
The second dungeon was called The Halls of Stone, which is a level 77-79 dungeon, the first one of the Ulduar set of dungeons. This one is more conventional, but lore fans more particularly fans of Ulduman will be excited to learn that the story about the stone discs is continued here.
The last dungeon they presented was another Caverns of Time instance, namely The Culling of Stratholme. Fans of Warcraft 3 will recognize this as the scene where Arthas kills all the citizens of Stratholme after they've eaten poisoned grain, infected with the Scourge disease. The player will get to fight alongside Arthas as things go wrong in the doomed city. I've always been a fan of Caverns of Time instances, so I'm pretty excited to see how this one pans out.
Blizzard also revealed some of their more high-level plans for the expansion, such as dungeon implementation strategy and priorities for the future. A few keywords include more non-linear content, you'll be able to go to the third boss before the second one etc., tighter level ranges for the different dungeons, such as for example the Halls of Stone instance which is aimed at levels 77-79, so they can create their content more specifically aimed at certain levels which should improve the experience. They also want to aim content updates more specifically at what the players want. As an example, they said that in retrospect, they would have preferred to release Zul'Aman before Mount Hyjal/Black Temple as it is content that is accessible to more players. How the hardcore guilds are going to react to that, is a different matter of course.
Furthermore they confirmed that they thought heroic versions of the dungeons were a success and they are going to keep the concept for the expansion, with the one difference that you won't need a certain reputation level, heroics will be available right away for everyone. They wanted to make rep grinds less hard though, so they're introducing a "championing" system through tabards. So for example by wearing a Cenarion Expedition tabard, you get a small amount of CE rep from killing mobs in a dungeon, even if it's a Sha'tar dungeon.
I personally got to play an alpha version of the expansion, and so far it looks like it's more of the same. Which of course isn't as bad as it sounds. WoW is a great game and it will appeal to a lot of people who just want some new content to explore. I played around a bit with the warlock demon form, which looks just like demon form Illidan, and it was really fun, even though it seemed like it was a little overpowered. We'll see if Blizzard introduces some fixes to balance them out more. Though I have to say, I played with an enhancement shaman for a bit as well, and she was taking down mobs in a couple of hits too, so… I did get a sneak peak at a potential new fan favourite mob of Northrend, the Gorlocs, which seem like a distant cousin of the Murlocs except they have big heads, no neck, and they hop around like frogs instead of running.
I also very briefly played StarCraft 2. Not so excited about this game yet, it looks like it plays just like the original game, except with updated graphics. But I guess that's probably just what the fans want.
Of special interest is of course the goody bag, which contained among other things a very nice Diablo 3 hardcover notebook, a WoW Card Game Starter Kit and of course a card which contains a beta key for an upcoming new Blizzard title (we don't know which one yet) and a key for an in-game pet. The pet has been revealed as a miniature version of the Archangel Tyrael from Diablo 3. The bag itself was also pretty impressive, a stylish black canvas shoulder bag.
All in all a very fun event, and certainly worthy of another visit should they decide to have the WWI in Europe again.
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