Aallya
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Joined: 24 Oct 2007
Posts: 181
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 Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:37 am Post subject: Wrath of the Lich King News.... |
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Last Week there was lots of new Expansion Info, i'll attach some links and stuff and try to put as much info i can find into here for your viewing pleasure 
General
Players will unlock their flying mounts at level 77
You can use your Outland flying mount, and Blizzard will have new flying mounts for players to get as well
WotLK flying mounts will be a little bit faster, more like the speed of the Pheonix Mount or the Armored Netherdrake. One of the things we're talking about right now, it's not finalized, but we're talking about the ability for those mounts to carry a passenger, so if your friend doesn't have an epic flying mount or if they are a lower level or whatever, they'd be able to jump on your mount and off you go.
The Northrend in Wrath of the Lich King is considerably larger than Outland, the area explored by players in Burning Crusade. That means not only are there larger numbers of zones to explore, many of them are so large that they've been divided into "sub-zones," much like Terrokar Forest and the Auchindon Waste in Outland.
The new "vehicle" system will enable characters to "drive" an object around. One example Blizzard gave them: Players will fly over a human settlement being overrun with the Scourge, lowering a ladder down to pull up and rescue civilians. In one dungeon instance, players will be able to "liberate" some blue dragons that they can mount up and fly around, fighting their way up a massive tower.
Old Azeroth contents used in Northrend
There are quests and content relating to the Worgen and the sons of Arugal (from Silverpine Forest) and everyone's favorite religious fanatics, the Scarlet Crusade (called the Scarlet Onslaught in Northrend).
They're also advancing the Forsaken storyline, adding in uniquely Forsaken building architecture and giving the player more chances to help in their Wile E. Coyote-like quest to kill every living thing on Azeroth.
Factions
The Argent Dawn faction returns in Zul'Drak.
In Sholazar Basin, players will take part in a faction-reputation war between the Wolvar (sentient wolves) and Oracles ("the next evolution of the Murlocs"). A much lighter take on reputation gaming is promised here, with players actively encouraged to defect to the other side at will.
Professions
Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing may be able to put Gem slots on items that didn't have them before
Inscription
Inscribers will create glyphs that allow players to modify their spells and abilities.
The first recipe is going to requires Peacebloom, thus they'll rely on the herbalist gathering profession.
Every player will get a new spell book page to which they can add six glyphs - currently, four major and two minor.
Major glyphs will be effective in combat - adding damage over time or stun to a physical attack, for example - while minor glyphs will give convenient or cosmetic improvements, removing the need for some spell reagents.
Glyphs can be sold on the auction house.
Dungeons & Raids
Similar to World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, all 5-person dungeons will have a Heroic mode, and the loot tables for the 2 modes will be totally separate. Heroic dungeons will have their own "Tier" of armor completely unique to that level dungeon.
The regular five-man instances take around one hour or less to beat (this probably won't be the case for the heroic versions)
Zero raid bosses have been designed at this point
PvE ladders on the official armory are possible in the future
New "two-tier" raiding system
All raid dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King will have both 25-person and 10-person versions
- 25-person raiding progression is not dependent on 10-person raiding; players will not have to obtain keys or attunements in 10-person raids to participate in 25-person raids
- 10- and 25-person raids both have their own, independent progression paths
Players will receive more, higher level rewards for completing the 25-person raid dungeons over the 10-person version
Dragonblight
Players will interact with Arthas for the first time at a relatively low level, around 71-74 in Dragonblight - the final encounter with him won't be until the final patch of the Lich King cycle, some time after release.
The Chamber of Aspects in Dragonblight will offer a series of different single-encounter short raids with dragon bosses.
The Nexus
The Nexus is located in Coldara (a sub-zone of Borean Tundra) is a three-wing dungeon for 70s, 80s and a short Onyxia-style raid against Malygos himself.
The Nexus is structurally a broken tower with rotating rings surrounding a column of blue energy.
During some of the boss encounters, players will actually free drakes to fly around the ring. Using the game's new vehicle technology, players will be able to engage in free flight around the dungeon and use some of the drake's abilities to take on some of the dungeon's challenges.
Death Knights
A quick description of some of the spells:
Blade Strike - Applies disease to the target in addition to doing damage.
Blood Strike - Does an amount of damage based on how many diseases are on the target.
Death Coil -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing 600 damage to a non-Undead target, or healing 900 damage on a friendly target.
Death Grip -- This is the Death Knight's "taunt" ability. It also pulls the target to the Death Knight, forcing them to attack the Death Knight for a short amount of time. Yes, I said pulls the target; Blizzard is going to allow players to move mobs in the expansion both with Death Grip, and other knockback/pull abilities. This works on players too, so PvP balance ahoy!
Chains of Ice -- Roots the target in place. When the spell fades, it places a snare on the target that reduces in potency as the duration runs out.
Mind Freeze - This ability interrupts casting.
Raise Dead -- Raises a nearby corpse to fight for the Death Knight for 2 minutes. If used on a player corpse, the player has the option to play as the ghoul for the duration -- gaining access to the ghoul's abilities.
- The ghoul has the ability to do the following:
-- Leap to the target
-- Rend for decent damage-over-time
-- Stun target, and of course more
Death Pact -- Sacrifices the raised ghouls to heal the Death Knight.
Death and Decay -- Targeted, AoE Damage-over-time which pulses similar to the Paladin spell Consecration. Anyone affected by Death and Decay has a chance to be feared.
Blood Presence - DPS. Increases DPS and heals the DK slightly when attacked.
Frost Presence -- Increases Armor by 45% and allows the Death Knight to generate 25% more threat. Only one presence can be active at any time.
Unholy Presence -- Increases Attack Speed and Movement speed by 15%. Only one presence can be active at any time. This was described by Tom Chilton as the "PvP" presence.
Anti-magic Shield -- Reduces the damage of the next magical spell cast on the Death Knight by 75%. It also converts the damage reduced into Runic Power.
Strangulate -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing minor damage and silencing the target for up to 5 seconds.
Summon Deathcharger -- Allows the Death Knight to summon a Deathcharger mount. This mount is acquired through quests, similar to the Paladin and Warlock land mounts.
Name Unknown - it consumes all the runic power but grants the Death Knight immunity to stun effects and significantly increases their armor for 12 seconds.
A quick recap of the information they were told about the Death Knight:
Death knights will be available to all players with level 55 characters
Players can create one death knight per realm, per account
Death knights can be any of the races
Once created, death knights can undertake a series of quests to introduce the player to the new class and its associated lore
Death knights utilize a rune system as their resource mechanic
- Three different rune types are available: Unholy, Frost, and Blood
- These runes allow death knights to cast spells and abilities; spells can cost any combination of these runes
- Spent runes automatically refresh after a set period of time, similar to a rogues energy bar
- The death knight will have the ability to customize which array of six runes is currently available
As rune abilities are used, the death knight also generates another resource called Runic Power
- The death knight will have several abilities that cost all available Runic Power, with varying levels of effectiveness based on total Runic Power spent
- Runic Power decays over time if its not spent, similar to a warriors rage bar
The death knight has three different presences to use: Blood, Frost, and Unholy; each presence grants the death knight a unique buff that will allow him or her to fulfill different roles in combat
The death knight can serve either as a tank or as a melee-based damage-dealing class
Death knights are designed to be highly viable tanking, magic-using characters
Death knights will have the ability to summon undead guardians to fight by their side
Death knights will have the ability to summon a Deathcharger mount.
Class
It's quite likely that somewhere for a couple different classes we'll probably make use of the knockback mechanic in Wrath of the Lich King.
PvP
Arenas
There will be 2 new arenas for WotLK, one could be set in Dalaran and the other might be the Orgrimmar Arena which players have always asked about (we might make that available for arena combat with some modifications).
Lake Wintegrasp
The faction that dominates Lake Wintergrasp might get a buff for the entire continent of Northrend.
Items
Tier level will start off at like tier 7 quality gear, or tier 8. It depends on whether or not you consider Sunwell to be sharing another tier of gear, and then Ulduar beyond that will be another tier of gear. There are even tiers within that for the 10 and 25-person, so while the art is shared between the 10 and 25-person instances, there are color variants of it, so for example you'll be able to see the difference, but thematically it's the same. Also the sets within that tier, within that instance, work with each other. So a lot like right now the Season 1 Gladiator, Season 2, Season 3 are all part of the same armor set, you can mix and max the pieces and still get the set bonuses. That will be the case for 10 and 25 man instances, so with Naxxramas 10 and 25, if you have the leggings from the 10 man zone and the chest piece from the 25-person zone, you'll be able to wear them together and get the set bonus.
Quests
That's something we forgot to mention in our previous WotLK reports, but Jeffrey "Tigole" Kaplan and Tom "Kalgan" Chilton gave some examples of the new WotLK quests that seem pretty awesome:
There's this whole quest chain in Howling Fjord where you learn how to train falcons. You do a number of quests where you get a falcon pet and you send it out and it has to kill things and then come back to you; you learn the basic controls of the falcon. Then it has this great climax where you get to go to the edge of the cliff and actually control the falcon from his point of view and then you have to steal these eggs that are down on a cliff that are heavily protected.
There's another quest where you get to assume the form of an iron golem and there are these huge jump pad runes all over a very vertical... it's in Howling Fjord, that zone with the huge cliff walls... there are these runes all over the cliff wall and you get to control this iron golem as he's doing these giant jumps up and down the cliff walls to give you a more visceral, gamey, platformey feel to it.
The Dalaran wizards here play a major role that ties into one of the early dungeons called the Nexus. First you have to do a few chores for them, like a quest to capture an enemy magic user and drag him back to the Dalaran camp. There's then a torture sequence where you repeatedly zap the prisoner with lightning bolts from a special quest item until he cracks and divulges information necessary for the quest to continue.
Blizzard also mentioned you'll able to fly around in planes and have you pick up passengers or pick them off, as well as fly around in helicopters, pick up and deliver cargo, and parachute out.
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From a discussion in the US rogue forums about rogues mobility and Cooldowns.
"Yeah, I can sprint. Every 5 mins. A fat kid IRL can sprint more often than that. " |
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