New rumors are coming in about the next World of Warcraft expansion, and yet again they involve the continent of Northrend. It's very important to keep in mind that these are just rumors right now, but there has been a feature list found(in German - presumably for the Games Convention in Leipzig) as well as a FAQ. The FAQ is in English, and I've pasted some of the more pertinent pieces below. You'll want to check out wowszene.de for the full FAQ.
Features
- The continent of Northrend added to the world of Azeroth. Northrend is about the size of Outland.
- Content for players level 68 and up.
- Level cap increased from 70 to 80.
- Brand new abilities and talents introduced.
- New "Hero" class added - the Death Knight; this class will need to be unlocked through certain criteria before it becomes available.
- New Profession: Inscriptions - allowing you to permanently enhance spells and abilities.
- Siege Weapons and Destructable Buildings added to the PvP landscape, as well as a new Battleground.
- A plethora of new Dungeons, including 25-player Raid Dungeons and Heroic variants.
- An abundance of new quests, monsters, items, and recipes.
FAQ for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
What are the features of the new expansion?
Wrath of the Lich King builds on the rich foundation established in World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade, providing a wealth of new content for players to explore. The harsh, forbidding continent of Northrend, home of the Lich King and his undead minions, will be uncovered on the world map, and to contend with the new challenges found there, players will be able to advance to level 80, acquiring potent new abilities and talents along the way.
In addition, Wrath of the Lich King will introduce the death knight hero class to World of Warcraft. Once certain criteria are met, players will be able to create a new death knight character, which will start at a high level. Furthermore, player-vs.-player battles will reach a new level of intensity with the addition of siege weapons and destructible buildings, not to mention a new battleground. There will also be an abundance of new quests, dungeons, monsters, items, and recipes -- as well as a new profession, inscription -- for players to try out. The expansion will include some additional character-customization options for players as well. We'll be going into more detail on all of these features in the months ahead.
How will the death knight class fit into the game?
The death knight combines martial prowess with dark, necromantic energies. Players might be familiar with the death knight from previously released Warcraft games -- most recently, in the campaigns for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the Frozen Throne expansion, the former paladin Arthas became a death knight and wreaked havoc across Azeroth and Northrend before fusing with the spirit of Ner'zhul to become the Lich King. The death knight is the first hero class in World of Warcraft; once certain criteria are met, players will unlock the ability to create a new death knight character, which will begin play at a high experience level. We're currently exploring various options for how the death knight will play and the types of abilities at its disposal, and we'll be revealing more information about this new class as we get further along in development.
What role will the death knight play in groups and raids?
In general terms, the death knight can be considered a type of class that combines damage dealing and tanking, but naturally it will have an array of unique abilities as well.
What races will be allowed to play death knights?
We haven't yet made a final determination about which races can be death knights. However, the class will be available to both the Alliance and the Horde.
What is the story background of the expansion?
Players last visited Northrend in the Warcraft III expansion, when Arthas Menethil fused with the spirit of Ner'zhul to become the Lich King, one of the most powerful entities in the Warcraft universe. He now broods atop the Frozen Throne, deep in Icecrown Citadel, clutching the rune blade Frostmourne and marshaling the undead armies of the Scourge. In Wrath of the Lich King, the greatest champions of the Alliance and the Horde will do battle with the Scourge amid Northrend's howling winds and fields of jagged ice, and ultimately face the Lich King himself.
Will players actually get to encounter Arthas himself?
Players will be skirmishing with the minions of Arthas from the moment they set foot on Northrend. He will be a constant presence as players progress through the expansion content -- which will culminate in a showdown with the dread Lich King himself.
What can you reveal about Northrend?
The first area of Northrend we're showcasing is the Howling Fjord, a region of grasslands overlooking massive cliffs at the southeastern edge of the continent. This, along with the Borean Tundra, is the front line of the war against Arthas, and players will come face to face with his minions as soon as they set foot on Northrend. Eventually, as players progress further, they will explore the Grizzly Hills, Dragonblight, and more. We'll be showing off some of these new areas in the months ahead.
Comments
As far as I am concerned, look at the planet. We are only seeing one side of it. Don't you think there will be more land mass on the other side? With that said, it is also safe to assume that the areas not yet accessed will have harder monsters, and better gear will be needed. This means that you must sharpen your skillz even more. You guys seem to think that time stops. It doesnt, and just like the RL, time changes and things progress.
So you cant see yourself lvling to 80? Boo hoo, get over it. With anything that goes on in a game, there has to be variety. When this is all finished and the whole planet has been discovered, guess what, starcraft gets introduced to wow content. Space age time. Two different gaming aspects but one huge content. Can this be done? Hmmm, why not? Business is business, if they can make it as a attractive as possible, so be it,
The only problem I forsee is that the customer service will need to be revamped. Instead of hiring people to come into the office, why dont you just hire people from the game and pay them by giving them free months and special items. Will this be done? Meh i suspect that there is a smart person working in blizzard and might consider these ideas as innovative and implement them.
This is a game first and foremost. Not REAL LIFE, so trust me if you do not have the time to devote to an innovative game, then go play another game, where it doesnt require too much skill.
Have a nice day :)
Ok....Iv been playin Wow since its launch.. On and off of course like most. Since i have seen great changes. and of course thers its few bad changes as well.. But for people to complain about Level cap being raised and all.. People... what MMO doesnt ass new content and raises ther Level Cap.. Eve Online comes out with new ships you have to spend time and money to get.. Ever Quest 2 the GOD of xpacs lol... adds new content damn near daily it seems.. City of Heroes, Lineage 2, Starwars Galaxy.. All of them add something new over time.. Even Guildwars adds new levels. And that MMO is FREE!! So for those that are complaing about leaving for Warhammer or some other MMO.. Please.. Go right ahead and leave.. And youll eventually find yourself doing the same thing you were in wow.. Getting High Level and pimped out gear.. then a year later.. SMACK!! xpac will come out and your doin it all over again.. Nothing wrong with that of course.. But please.. dont crit the game that youve been playin for 2 or more years jsut because ther tryin to give you more to do in the game besides dueing outside of Iron Forge.
the problem with tbc is that it makes too many things redundant, about the time tbc was coming out we were just starting to get to grips with bwl and i was hoping to get to see naxx, tbc comes out and no one cares anymore, guilds are downsized and some of the best content is completed wasted. I can only see this expansion making things even worse. Blizz need to start making the game more fulfilling for the masses and not just those who play 60 hours a week. If you keep moving the goalposts eventually people just get sick of running and try something else
Tbh the Expansion is a great idea but as many of my rl friends and in-game friends have been talking about if they add 10 more lvl's then they could at least make the Experience Requirements lower or the Quests to give a much higher amount of Xp but since that will never happen the 10 new levels will make lvl'ing a Hell to do and as for many other players just to get to 70 have made alot of ppl Buying power leveling no1 wanna spend that long to lvl up...as for megtheridon and the guild Nihilum i think they love the new Expansion but dunno about the leveling i remember seeing the first few level 70's after 4 days of The Burning Crusade release so 10 more lvls wont make it hard for those allrdy lvl 70 but those making new classes will take a shit load of time i remember lvl'ing to 60 takes alot of time and if u got a Life besides wow then get to lvl 80 will be kinda impossible i remember that this game is something to enjoy and have fun with but u cant enjoy a game when the level cap is raising like this...i love this game allrdy but when The Burning Crusade was released i remember the servers crashing and alot of Bugs and now a new expansion whee... more bugs and errors to fix Good Job Blizz i'm thinking of quiting wow and start playing Warhammer online when released...but i will ofc first give this new expansion a try... we'll see
I hope Hyjal and Onyxia's dad get released....
I have played world of warcraft for about 2 years now, off and on and I have barely raided anything being Australian before oceanic servers I found it difficult to get guilds active same time as myself. I only managed to get one level 60 character before Burning Crusade and when I finally started to gear up I found everyone starting to level to 70 so i missed a lot of content, I tried to level up but found it was too overwhelming how much I had to play to get to 70 so I quit. After a few months to go over things I, transferred my character to an Oceanic server in hope of raiding one day, started playing again and eventually made it to 70 (1 week ago) found a guild that raids and got enough gear getting through my attunements and such. Until I heard of another expansion and seeing the level cap going up again figured that I will never get to try any of content in the game I had worked towards once again.
As for the Deathknight that sounds like an interesting idea, would be nice if blizzard put a second class for people who don't want a class like a shaman in plate but more focused on buffing itself than the group. As for starting at a high level that'd be nice not having to spend months getting back to 70 again, or even worse getting to level 80.
The new proffesion sounds like a cross between a runecrafter in Warhammer Online and enchanter in WoW.
As for the update in graphics, I shudder because my computer has trouble with WoW as it is, it is such a problem i can't even go inside exodar without my computer crashing and me being unable to log back onto that character. Yes I could get a new computer but I don't have that much money available to buy one.
I haven't even finished exploring outlands yet and the idea of a new continent would be nice, I hope they bring a new way to travel out in the new area.
Battlegrounds and seige weapons I don't think blizzard would make it engineering only but then again they probably would have some kind of requirement.
I was saying it was my personal opinion of what they are doing, and just like when BC came out I didn't like it, and there are still some parts I don't like. There's always something for someone to not like about something, so please stop thinking that you can be brilliant and make a point in a few short sentences.
Also just having the gear isn't beating the game, I would vouch to say that near 85% of the US WoW playing population has gone anywhere in Black Temple or Mount Hyjal, and since this is only speculation of what is said so far for the new expansion, I think it is highly unfair to just poke fun at what other people have said and making assumptions about what they have wrote. If you hadn't noticed I put quite a few "My opinion" and "I think"s in my previous statement, so please do us all a big favor and shove off, jump off a bridge or something, please, there's already enough hate in the game please don't bring it here.
Ok you all need to look at every perspective, for those of you whining about that you have geared up and now you have to do it again, did you just want to sit in Shattrath in your shiney new gear?
Then if you are saying, "We can get better gear from raiding, and now we cant because the level cap is raising." you need to think about all the players who are sitting bored because they are done with the game.
And as "johnnycashew" was just complaining about the new improvements to the game. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE GAME DON'T PLAY IT.
I personally believe that raising the cap to 80 would ruin the entire point of the game, however I do also believe that it would be a good idea to have a kind of class-change when you reach the cap, like do a quest line to unlock extras in a certain talent tree. Example: Have a Rogue able to do a quest line to become a class such as "Ninja", with an extended Subtlety talent tree, with similar quest lines for Assasination spec (Assasin), and Combat (Bandit), and each other class, kind of like the way Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Alchemy works.
As for the "Death Knight" hero class idea, I can't say that I am a fan, especially since it starts at a higher level and this 'criteria' being mentioned probably means a huge quest chain from 6 different factions that you need to do 12 instances for, have maxed out skills, have 3 different characters with 6 different professions, spend a ton of gold, and have certain items from raid instances.
Although I must say I was not into the idea of Jewelcrafting and Socketed items at first, I do find them useful now, so I am suspecting the same with Inscriptions, the idea of empowering certain spells from a professions does seem a little farfetched.
As for the destructable PvP objectives, I would also suspect Blizzard's sneakiness and them making it so that only Engineers can use the weaponry that does that. I also suspect they are stealing this idea from Warhammer Online, with it's line-based PvP system. Ever since Blizzard introduced the Arena and new honor system, many people, even people not good at pvp at all, have been able to easily get gear from just smashing their face on their keyboards with popular specs.
I have played WoW ever since the alpha testing of the origional, I have seen the cap raised numersous times, seen plenty of faults of what they did with it, and believe that raising the cap again will only make the bad things about the game even worse, Since it is a nightmare to go from level 1-70 already, making that go to 1-80 will just turn people off of the game. However referring back to my class-level idea, I do believe that it would give the game at least a slight bit of an edge compared to the way that this is describing it.
As for you blokes yanking about the graphics, the game was designed to be cartoonish, giving things more detail will take that away from the game.
Raids, I think that they should be raised back to 40 people, because the likely reason why Blizzard made the cap to 25 is because of people crying and whining about not being able to find large enough guilds with people motivated enough to get 40 people together. With the 10 man raid and 25 man raids it allows extremely small guilds and a large amount of the population that play to get extremely good gear. Between pre-BC and BC guild progression threads the number of guilds has doubled or even some servers trippled.
Lastly about the customizable features, people have whined about this ever since Alpha, and I still believe that it is the most absurd thing in the world to do to the game. Doing this will attract more players that will quit when they've made every character that they can just looking at them and not actually playing.
Give us 2 years to waste mony into the game so we can get good gear that will be replaces at 71..........lol
you guys are dumb or what ? check the offical blizz site to read about the expansion ¬¬
yes, lvl cap'll be raised to 80; yes, a new hero class'll be avaliable; yes, you'll can chance your hairstyle and dances; yes, there'll be a entire new continet; yes, there'll be a new profession;
just check on the site ¬¬
I very much suspect that this is a hoax someone put together. It will be interesting to see what gets announced related to expansions, if anything.
Personally, I think it would be a very bad idea for Blizz to up the level cap more often than once per 2 years. As people have mentioned, that would prevent the majority of the population from ever seeing more than the beginning of end-game.
Also, It would be cool to get some sort of a hero-class type change, but I wouldn't count on it.
Whoever wrote this is dumb, Blizz wouldn't leak info a day before Blizzcon. They never have and they never will.
The Emerald Dream :/
Titans