Onwards to Northrend!July 21st, 2008 by Gloria
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The internet is all a-twitter with excitement over Blizzard’s recent release of the Wrath of the Lich King beta. People are bouncing between extreme anticipation and extreme disgust. Some are whining about beta keys and others can’t wait to get their hair cut. Seemingly forgetting the fact that in a couple of months (this is me making a wild estimation) the expansion pack will be readily available for everyone. But I digress.
With a shaky hand I double clicked on my beta shortcut (after the long download, of course) and the sight of the new title screen coupled with the befittingly chilling new music only served to further my tingly anticipation. I would not have said this about The Burning Crusade but this time Blizzard has done it. They have managed to re-capture all the excitement and epic qualities of World of Warcraft into an expansion that will blow both old and new players away.
A ton of new features have been added to the game. Achievements, for one, finally give players something new besides armor or honor to hunt for. You will willingly fling yourself off cliffs in the hopes of that little golden window popping up to tell you: “Congrats, you’re insane but you’ve unlocked a new achievement.” I’m not exaggerating at all, either. From simple tasks like reaching level 10, to feats only a few can accomplish. The current word is that achievements will not be retroactive, so for people like me who have been aching to see old content again - even just once more - this is a blessing. Hi, Onyxia? I didn’t destroy my drakefire amulet so I’m coming back for you!
Gathering professions net you a new added bonus. For skinners, their skill with their hands allows them to be masters of anatomy, adding +15 to their critical strike rating. Miners get +20 stam for their toughness after all that time sifting through heavy ore. Nothing so far for herbalism or any of the crafting professions, but we’ll have to see what Blizzard has in store.
Death Knights. Oh Death Knights. The first hero class is everything you would expect it to be; and more. The very first NPC you meet after your character’s ‘revival’ is none other than the Lich King himself. The starting tutorials have your novice knight learning from well-known characters like Instructor Razuvious and Highlord Mograine. But I’ll elaborate on this further in next week’s continuation of this article. For now, I’d like to discuss one of the most impressive parts of the expansion:
Northrend.
Aside from being absolutely visually stunning, Northrend is enormous. Unlike Outland’s depressing landscape, Northrend is full of icy tundras, glaciers, and lush jungles. Taking a step above the scenery in vanilla WoW, the backdrops and plants in Northrend don’t look like they’re made out of cardboard. It adds a well-needed sense of realism that is hard to achieve in most MMORPGs. That wall of ice will loom over you, and you will feel almost insignificant. Which is good, because in this expansion, you are. At least when you first arrive.
Heading to Theramore or the Stormwind docks to catch a boat for alliance, or to Orgrimmar/Undercity’s zep towers gets you to Northrend quickly and easily. In a stroke of genius, Blizzard has ensured that there are two starting zones for players to choose from. Hopefully this cuts down on the torturous clutter that we all experienced in Hellfire.
The quests aren’t anything revolutionary. After years of playing any MMORPG, you are going to recognize all of them in some form or another. The storylines behind the quests, however, are what really engrosses you in playing. From killing scourge, to uncovering a death cult. It pulls you in and does not let you go. Everything you do has a purpose. Gone are the days of mindlessly slaughtering hellboars to gather hellboar ribs for some hungry goblin.
Dragons play a major role in this expansion. Upon starting in the Borean Tundra, you encounter the blue dragon flight’s mage hunters relatively early in your questing. Get used to it. The blue dragon flight is everywhere. It seems their goals have shifted from simply wiping out mortal magic users to completely conquering all mortals and the other dragonflights that got in their way. There’s something so wrong with smashing dragon eggs, but considering what the blue flight is doing… Well… Necessity calls for action.
Grizzly hills is amazing. It has its own PVP port town version of halaa as well. It’s nice to see an attempted integration of world PVP for the people who missed it. The grizzly rapids are just…wow. Taking a large screenshot of them would make a really good desktop background.
Sholazar basin is a lush jungle filled with exotic plants and animals. And where there are exotic animals there is - you guessed it - Hemet Nessingwary. He’s baaack! Despite the intimidating fauna in this zone, it’s a feast for the eyes. Predatory cats hunt wandering giraffes for their supper and the random dwarf hanging by his parachute from a tree really adds to the ambiance. Two factions, one of bizarre fishlizard men and the other a group of hyena/gnolls seem to be fighting it out as well.
Dragonblight is by far my favorite zone at the moment. All the draconic interaction comes to a head in this snowy wasteland. Not only are there shrines to all the different flights (with the red flight’s under siege by the scourge, and the black flight’s taken over entirely) but the aspects are there as well. The first one I visited was the bronze flight’s and I noted the lack of anything besides bones. Trekking on to the green flight’s shrine, I almost fell out of my seat when I noticed the one and only aspect Ysera napping in the center. While I was in awe, a deadly plant nearly killed me, but that’s besides the point.
I checked out all the shrines, but the most impressive part of the map is the wyrmrest temple where emissaries from every flight, including the black flight but excluding the traitorous blues, hold counsel with none other than Alexstrasza herself. While you explore and talk to the various dragons (Chromie makes another appearance here!) the blue dragons siege the outside of the temple, killing the drake guards. Does it sound epic? Yeah. It pretty much is. Along with all this, Naxxramas looms in the distance as well. A reminder that no matter where you go in Northrend, you are never out of the lich king’s icy grasp.
Dalaran also hovers precariously above Northrend. It’s accessible through a teleportation crystal in crystalsong forest. The city is nice and clean, with an appreciated lack of gaudy vanity NPCs. The city is split into alliance and horde areas, also presumably to cut down on the amount of lag. Players have access to portals once again, as well as PVP zones. At level 71, mages acquire the self teleport to Dalaran, and gain access to the portal spell at level 74.
It’s hard to properly describe how utterly pleasing the feel of Northrend is. Even if you’re just running through to get the flightpoints, you will find yourself turning your camera at every angle to see as much of it as you can. I’d like to beg everyone going into the expansion with the goal of powerleveling as fast as they can to just take an hour or so and explore before you do. The landscapes are gorgeous and deserve to be appreciated for being so. Blizzard even put in a ton of details. The big arctic bears have various sized cubs following them around. It’s even cuter than it sounds.
And the music? Stunning. It reminded me a lot of the haunting music from the Ecco the Dolphin series (and that is a huge complement). Though it’s also somewhat subtle so that it doesn’t bore you after a while. Chilling melodies set the tone for Northrend’s atmosphere. This is the kind of music you could sit idle and listen to for hours. I can’t believe how impressed I am with it.
So in the end, new talents and class balance aside, I am really loving this new expansion so far. The only way someone would not enjoy this is if they went into it purposely trying to find things they don’t like about it. You have to look at it for what it is. This expansion isn’t about your character only getting new talents, skills, and levels. It’s about an entire new and amazing area to explore.
And remember. You never have a problem as long as you have that all-seeing eye.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:22 am
Thank you for this wonderful review! Its nice to read about someone who has taken the time to stop and look around.
I didn’t know how I felt about WotLK but now I’m excited. I’m glad they’re adding in more of the dragon aspects, and the lore that goes with them.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:30 am
I still have a few zones to explore, too. I can’t wait to get to them. I also have various screenshots of the other dragon shrines. (I had to perch myself rather precariously on some rocks to get a good shot of the black flight’s shrine) Hopefully I can post them new week.
And yeah, initially I was like, “Another year, another expansion, bleh.” But then when I got in…it’s just. It’s hard to describe. I figured I’d have to get to 72 or 73 before I’d start experiencing the blue dragon’s offensive push, but they’re right there to pull you in. Then once you get into dragonblight…man. My inner dragon fan squealed with utter delight. dfsdgd. so good
July 21st, 2008 at 11:58 am
Everything looks so gorgeous. I’m going to have to bookmark this site to keep an eye out for more. =)
July 21st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
So, we’re finally getting the continuation of Arthas’s tale? I haven’t played the MMORG, just WarCraft III, and this has been bugging me since watching him put the helm on.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Indeed. I won’t spoil anything story-related but he crops up a lot in Northrend and he’s a major player in the DK starter quests.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:28 pm
How does the Death Knight look when you start out? I heard a rumor that the DK’s starting gear was…kinda lame-looking, more so than you’d expect for a hero class.
And I think you should put a spoiler warning and then tell us all about that stuff wit the starter quests and stuff.
I doubt I’ll ever pick up WoW again, but this stuff might get me to take another look, hehe.
Jacob
July 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I’ll show in the next update.
The DK starting gear is interesting, but by the time you get to the end of their questline the gear is upgraded and very cool looking.
If you all want me to go more in detail I will
July 21st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I cannot wait! They still haven’t unlocked the alpha characters on EU servers and character copy is disabled for some reason so I could only play the Death Knight, though I must say getting from 55 to 57 were some of the best hours spent on this game. The storyline behind that was amazing! I will probably level a DK in retail as well just to go through the starting bit again.
Can’t… Wait… To get to explore…
July 21st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Actually all the achievements will be retroactively applied (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/gameplay/achievements.xml) but I do have one burning question, what RACES can be deathknights?
July 21st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Actually all the achievements will be retroactive(http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/gameplay/achievements.xml) but what I want to know is what races can be the death knight?
July 21st, 2008 at 6:19 pm
All of them.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
And also, at the moment according to the threads on the beta forums, none of the achievements are retroactive. They are planning to try and make them both retroactive and accountwide. Key word is try, though.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I know, I know, I’m being a number cruncher, but as someone who plays wow as an elemental shaman in raids, I’m excited about the addition of spells and abilities designed to push my DPS role into a little bit more than just “lawlz spam lightning bolt”.
I didn’t do any raiding, really, before the expansion, but it seems they’re getting smarter about it all the time.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I think the prettiest part of Northrend so far is Azjol-Nerub… which makes it all the more a shame that they apparently downgraded it from a full underground zone to a set of instances, it’s like Ghostlands + Zangarmarsh in a cave. Overall Northrend is shaping up pretty well, but seeing content being cut is also sad (only 12 5-man dungeons as opposed to TBC’s 15, no *new* full raid instances at release.) I think Blizzard is focusing on getting a feasible amount of work done rather than pushing stuff into the content cycle (ZA, BT, flying mount content) or releasing poorly-tuned content (T5 content and Hyjal) like they did with TBC, so I think a November release date is a feasible goal.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I was reading through the info on achievements, and it looked like the only ones that are retroactive are the “Feats of Strength,” basically for veterans who’ve been playing the game for a long time, you’ll unlock achievements that are no longer possible to get, like participating in old world events and having old PVP ranks and stuff.
I loved this article. I’m so pumped. I can’t wait to hear more
July 21st, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Looks flippin’ gorgeous. I’m still hoping I can get into the beta to test out some stuff. Bookmarked. Could I posibly add your website to my crappy undeveloped blog?
July 21st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
so… Warhamster Online has *really* put the the fear of god into them then…
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 am
Monzie - Email Monique about that, she handles that stuff.
Peter- After having been in Azjol tonight, I have to say it was pretty amazing. Short though, due to most of it being blocked off. Haha.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 am
Yeah, the Feats of Strength are retroactive, but it looks like the Dungeon & Raid achievements have to be attained after WotLK. Which kind of makes them useless in my humble opinion… I mean, sure, achievements in general are useless, but I would have wanted to get the credit for all those old world boss kills now instead of having to go back there at 80 and like 2-man DPS the place down.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:05 am
I agree with Selphie. Not much point having a ‘Ony-slayer’ title, when the old gal is even now a shadow of her former self.
It’s possible to 4-man her at the moment (maybe even 3?), so at level 80 you probably only have to breathe on her, and she will collapse in a heap. Poor thing.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:34 am
Haha, well, you get achievements for clearing all the dungeons anyway. Including dead mines.
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:26 am
Thanks for the great preview. Some of the references (echo the dolphin) etc were a bit girly but it’s not really your fault (im a male) lol. Nice look into things from a perspective that most may not take. I share your feelings about exploring at least a little bit. I am a bit of a power leveler but i do like to enjoy the scenery along the way. Looking forward to more insight from you especially regarding shaman
Thanks again,
Sorfury
(70 Tauren Shaman of Malfurion)
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:45 am
Ecco the dolphin is girly??
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
You made me LUST for wrath of the Lich King. Your review just makes these months pass so hard…i just hope WotLK come before winter, so i can buy it and play in the school break
( i made a promise to myself that i’l try to study as much for school and play less wow…but in the break, i can do w./e i want :D)
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:13 pm
At the rate beta is going, I would bet on a Novemberish release
July 26th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Gloria. This is probably the most insightful and intelligent review i have read as of yet about WotLK, I just started on the beta and made a DK, the staring zone is absolutely breathtaking, its so full of detail and lore i almost didnt want to leave! ((Except for that one bloody quest.. *grumbles* You’ll know what im talking about as i dont want to ruin it for evryone. =P)) The new shading and graphics are just.. Wow. The moment you step into the expansion you will literaly be blown off your feet. everyone, its breathtaking. Even places such as the stormwind harbor. ((Yay! No more NE Death run!)) Im not very good at this but again, Nicely done Gloria! 5 Thumbs up (( If i had 3 more anyway…..Maybe i do!))
July 26th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Thank you Josh.
And yeah I squealed with delight when Tigole announced the death run was gone. Sometimes the little things make me overly happy, haha.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Gah, I can’t wait!
Thanks so much for this article. Northrend looks breathtaking. I’m going to have to get my new little mage to 70 before WotLK comes out. *goes off to play WoW*
July 31st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Northrend looks stunning. As someone who loves the exploration factor or MMOs the most, it looks like I won’t be disappointed. Great screenshot opportunities! =)