08.03.07
Baby it’s cold outside…
So they did it… Blizzard announced at Blizzcon that the next expansion will be “Wrath of the Lich King“.
- Northrend area opened. Two starter areas to cut down on the congestion (learning from their mistakes with BC)
- Level Cap raised to 80
- Skill cap raised to 450
- Addition of “Death Knight” Hero Class
- Addition of “Inscription” skill
- Configurable hairstyles and dances
- Etc.
Concerns:
- It sounds like Northrend has a large population of undead… what with the Scourge living there and all. Woo Hoo. Pally Power. Kickin’ butt and takin’ names.
- Raising the level cap to 80 has the potential to make ghost towns of Karazan etc. in much the way Molten Core is now abandoned. Also makes me wonder if I really want to run Underbog 200 times for the girdle when I will probably get better stuff from starter Northrend quests.
- Death Knight is pitched as the “Tank/DPS” Hybrid. I’m reading this as the “Tank/DPS/Caster/Pet summoning” Hybrid. I’m pretty sure that this means that Pally DPS will never see the buff bat. *sigh*
- It’s been a major PITA going from 300-350 skill. Going from 350-450 isn’t exactly sounding like a happy experience. There better be some damned impressive things waiting for me at 450.
- Inscription has the potential to be interesting. Will wait for more info.
- OOO hair styles yeah!. Ok.. I’m a grrl. Whatever.
Outlook: Guarded optimism tempered by rampant pessimism.
[Edited to add:]
Northrend Capital city is to be Dalaran. You know.. big city in a purple bubble… Wonder how they’re going to work that… I mean it’s -not- in Northrend.. if they move it to Northrend what’s going to be left behind? It’s alliance friendly.. what are all the poor Hordies going to do? HMMM.
Gamermommy said,
08.05.07 at 12:14 pm
Hehe, I’m excited about the hairstyles too. Seeing how I am at 355 in jewelcrafting and having a heck of a time making it to 375, I am not sure going to 450 sounds like a whole lot of fun.
Kaziel said,
08.06.07 at 1:52 pm
One thing to realize is that when they release the expansion, a lot of the current recipes that are BoP or BoE world drops, which are selling for 100+g a pop will suddenly be available for training from the Grandmaster (or whatever they call it) which translates to much easier skilling up. That’s what happened when tBC came out. A lot of the old previously drop-only recipes became trainable, because their value changed from “good for wearing long term” to “good for skilling up on and maybe wearing one”.