We are smack in the era of fantastic MMORPGs. There are a lot of classics like Guild Wars, CoX, Ultima Online, etc. There are also a lot of upcoming games that show a lot of promise. Age of Conan, Warhammer– the list goes on. Promise isn’t everything, of course; a lot of hyped games fall flat on their faces. Aion, for one, is ticking me and others off due to the lack of progress with setting a retail date. Seriously, this is somewhere around the third or fourth beta, and there’s no news. Totally poor management. A general release estimate or something would tide me over, but no, nothing yet. Just more betas. Bad signs don’t bode well in such a competitive business–and MMORPGs are as competitive as they get now.

World of Warcraft, however, putters on without any hint of stopping as its competition races to dethrone it.

The next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is already in friends and family alpha. Blizzard, in terms of WoW, has always been relatively good about sticking to release deadlines. For the most part. According to new information from Vivendi, Blizzard intends to push WoTLK for a second half of ‘08 release. And you know what? I believe them. They can make it happen. They’ve been constant with the patches after Burning Crusade came out, and Sunwell was intended to tide players over until that inevitable little background downloader icon appears in our taskbar.

I will admit that The Burning Crusade was shiny at first, but lost me after about a month. I made the mistake of power leveling my shaman through to 70 in about a week. It was my last week of break and I wanted to enjoy the content before I went back to school. The announcement that raids were being dropped to 10-25 people also had me kind of miffed. Add to that the way that the lore was being spun into circles to accommodate two new races and you had a slightly peeved Gloria. Though, to give them credit, I will say that the new areas were gorgeous. So I leveled my shaman to 70, and leveled a Draenei shaman to 70 as well, before I quit. I had a Blood Elf, too, but I left her somewhere at level 45 because her emotes were really getting on my nerves.

In the end though, TBC did some good things for the game along with the bad. I can’t imagine playing without daily quests anymore. They also finally sped up 1-60 leveling, which desperately needed to be done–after the fifth time in Stranglethorn Vale, you start to get a little jungle fever. I enjoyed a lot of the content for a good while, but like I said, I got bored and quit. Then came back. Then quit again. Then came back again. You know, I’m not entirely sure what it is about WoW that keeps me playing, but it does.

Blizzard has been releasing tantalizing details about WoTLK for months now. It’s almost as if they’re lining the road with bread crumbs, waiting for both returning players and new ones to finally reach that house made of sweet, sweet candy. Wrath diverts back onto the path of traditional lore. Initially I was a little shaky when I heard both Malygos and Arthas would be raid bosses, but it’s no different than Illidan or other key characters. Every lore character changes and dies sometime. World of Warcraft is supposed to be part of the Warcraft storyline, and Blizzard can do what it wants with its own characters even if we don’t always approve.

For Horde, they’re bringing back Garosh Hellscream. Hopefully, he won’t be such an emo kid in this one. For Alliance, they’re bringing back Tirion Fordring. I love both these characters, but Tirion more-so because, well, he’s Tirion Fordring. He has the Ashbringer. As my best paladin friend said, “I can’t wait to go through the quests and hear, ‘ASHBRINGER ASHBRINGER ASHBRINGER SILVER HAND ASHBRINGER.’” And you know what? I can’t wait either. Times like this I’m glad I leveled both factions.

They’ve changed the raiding dynamic again, as well, but nothing like they did for TBC. All raids will have 10 and 25 man versions which is debatable and promises drama. Admittedly, I have hung my raiding cap up for good like many of us. Still, I greatly appreciate this attempt to let us haggard veterans who are tired of trying to keep guilds together have a chance to raid with nine of our closest in game friends. Seriously Blizzard. Thank you for this.

Mounts in Wrath will apparently be faster and be able to hold passengers during PvP missions. All I can think of is a huge clefthoof shaped like the Totoro cat bus. Oh man, now I hope that’s in there. Tigole also said they’re getting rid of the Amani Warbears once Wrath comes out. However, he also said there may be polar bears. POLAR BEARS!! Your bear cavalry can still be completed.

I was originally wary about Death Knights due to their class balance and the way they start at level 55. I’m over it now. At this point, I have a bunch of characters over level 40, a few over 60, and a couple 70’s. I am so beyond caring about people starting at level one, because I really, really, really don’t want to start another character at level one again. If you have a level 55 character, I’m pretty sure you know what it feels like to level to that point. Being awarded a cool class for that hard work is okay with me. Plus, you still have to get to 80 and level trade skills without the benefit of starting them from level 1. It’s not entirely a free ride.

I do intend to roll a DK, somewhere in between leveling all my 70s to 80. (oh go). I’m going to spam raise dead on every corpse I run by and watch the fun ensue. I wonder if they’ll input anything involving the forsaken and Death Knights hearing the Lich King’s voice constantly while they’re in Northrend. That’d be kind of neat.

People are already upset that DKs seem so, well, heroic, compared to regular classes. (Working as intended.) But only the Blizzard employees and alpha players know what the new talents and moves for current classes are. I rub my hands together in glee and anticipation. I should put in the obligatory warlock or rogue joke here, but I’m feeling lazy.

Northrend itself is enormous. Visually, it’s a step up from the rest of the game. An added benefit to this expansion is that it’s forcing the developers to look into designing an engine and graphics upgrade for the game, effectively keeping WoW basking in that new game scent–scaring the competition to no end, I imagine.

Anyway, I am psyched for this expansion, I really am. As I’ve stated here, I’m a huge fan of dragons and dragon lore, and Wrath is just dripping with it. There’s a new encounter that involves freeing and riding on drakes. With an upgraded dynamic flight system as well, I mean, how could I not want it?

Blizzard is effectively righting all their wrongs with this expansion. They’re improving the flight system, which desperately needed to be done. They’re adding a siege weapon PVP zone with aerial combat, and aerial combat was something that drew me to Aion, but now there’s no point since WoW will have it too. There’s nowhere near as much “lorelol” this time. Raiding is being changed back into what it should be, and should have been since day one, and they’ve stated that while TBC was more casual friendly, they’re going to try and balance the casual aspect of the game with the challenging aspect to keep everyone happy. The list goes on. How can I say no? The chances I’ll get bored like I did with TBC are there, sure, but I really think I’m going to get my money’s worth with this one.

If you’re interested in straight from the source updates, I’d recommend checking out World of Raids. I find myself going there and salivating while Irefresh, waiting for any news from the blues. Oh Blizzard, stop keeping me at arm’s length; I just want to get a little closer.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 2:49 pm and is filed under MMORPGs, New Releases, World of Warcraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.