Blizzard Unravels More WoW Death Knight Details; Arthas Final Encounter in Last Lich King Patch
Players who choose to start a Death Knight character will begin their journey at level 55, the same level required to create one. Death Knights can be any race, but users will only be able to create one per server, according to Curse. Once created, they will begin the game with a series of specialized quests, designed to introduce the player to their new abilities.
As detailed before, Death Knights will have a two-tiered resource system. Runes slotted into their "blade" act as a basic requisite for certain spells. There will be three different types of runes, and some abilities will require a specific number of one type to be slotted before they can be used. Another resource, Runic Power, is then gained by using runic abilities during combat. The Runic Power can in turn be spent for finisher-type moves.
Death Knight abilities run the gamut from the classic Death Coil--a spell that deals 600 damage to an enemy target, or heals a friendly target for 900--to a summon ability that transforms a dead enemy into a pet ghoul, which then fights for two minutes in service of the player.
Various aura-like abilities called "Presences" will bestow the Knight with increases to armor or attack and movement speed, while a Death Grip ability will act as a powerful taunt, physically pulling enemies closer. Death Knights will also have the ability to summon a Deathcharger mount.
Speaking of mounts, the new continent of Northrend has now been approved for flight, allowing players to use their old flying mounts in the zones. Among other interesting details, the raid dungeons found on Northrend will all have 10 and 25-person versions. Higher-tiered drops will be in store for those who tackle the tougher 25-man raids.
Finally, Eurogamer reports that Arthas, the Lich King himself, will finally be open to attack with the last patch of the Lich King cycle. Players will first encounter him in the Chamber of Aspects, a dragon-populated raid zone hidden away in Northrend's Dragonblight zone. The final battle will take place in the Icecrown Citadel.
If you're looking for a comprehensive breakdown, MMO Champion is keeping track of the new details in a point-by-point list.
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Trips
replyThey're gonna let people start as level 55 now? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of an MMORPG and leveling up?
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as I read it you need a level 55 character to make a death knight.
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They probably didn't feel like creating a new 1-20 starting zone, which is completely fine by me, as I'd rather they spend time on the 70-80 zones.
Moreover, it fits much better with the "theme" of the death knight to not be rolling around the Barrens or Ashenvale at low levels. They start in WPL/EPL, which makes perfect sense. -
I see why, because casual gamers don't want to level a new character from 1 to 55 again, so you need to pull them in so they buy the 50$ expansion and pay for a couple months of game time.
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Casual gamers? Fuck dude, you don't have to be casual to not want to play 1-55 again.
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lol, certainly true.
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Only for Death Knights and only after you've leveled your main character to 80. Who can complain about that? Oh wait, you just did.
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casual gamers usually have jobs and friends, also they use up less bandwidth and complain less, so they're a really good market compared to "elite guilds"
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Skipping tedium has nothing to do with easiness. It's about an enjoyable play experience.
Leveling up a new character from 1 is a pain in the ass. It's just a lot of time spent repeating the same thing you'd already done 20 times that is mostly spent running around all over the place. The game has been out long enough where I'm willing to bet a very large number of players in the game have probably at least leveled a dozen characters past level 20 and plenty of people have leveled a large collection of chars to max level.
It's tedious and boring to go through the early levels. Being able to skip something that only detracts from the fun of the game is absolutely necessary at this point. IMO, they should allow any character you make to skip past a good 30 levels or more if they already have a couple max level characters. Most of the fun in the game for a lot of people comes at max-level once you've already gone through the experience of getting there a couple times. -
Eh ?
I pay $15 a month just like you... I'm sorry that I'm married with a kid and can't play as much as you, but I still want to experience the end game....
I'm not sure how this is "fucking" up the game? You need to have 1 level 55+ character to even be able to make a death knight. I don't see anything easy about it?
You'll start at level 55, and have to level 55-80 ... that's 25 levels you still have to do. Even if you have a current level 70 and want to make a DK, you start out at 55.
Blizzard is smart ... they are catering to both the casual and elite crowds. The whole idea with 10 man / 25 man versions of the same raid dungeons etc is very smart.
Besides, look at this way. If a casual gamer makes a DK, you'll just have to see him less, since he won't be on as much, and you can still do whatever you want.
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HAHA! If you want to talk about casual vs hardcode gamers, you should play a real PVP mmo or something - skill is not nonexistant in WoW, but it is not very deep at all', so the easy button comparinson is nonsense. Yeah, encourage blizzard to spread their content even thinner, great idea.
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Creation and initial play:
* Death Knights will start in a floating citadel similar to Naxxramas at level 55, and go through a series of quests that will establish their story and background in the Eastern Plaguelands.
* All Indications are that Blizzard still plans to allow all races to be Death Knights, as Worldofwar.net's reporter saw Tauren, Dwarf, Gnome, and Orc Death Knights.
* You must have an existing character of level 55 or higher to create a Death Knight.
* You can create one Death Knight per realm per account.
* You will not need to do any unlocking quests or sacrifice a character before you can create a Death Knight.
* The Death Knight will start with a wide range of abilities, as it is assumed that someone with a level 55 character has the experience to handle them right off the bat.
* They will start with a 60% speed summoned Death Charger as a land mount, which be upgradable via quest much like Warlock and Paladin mounts.
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/05/09/death-knight-info/
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Warcraft 3 was one of my favorite games. Any hopes of a Warcraft 4 have been pretty much ruined by WoW. WoW has ruined the continuity of the storyline so even if WC4 came out, most of the characters were killed off by WoW in stupid ways. How are they going to explain the deaths of Illidan or Arthas? Oh a bunch of dudes farmed them over and over... oh yeah that sounds cool. The sweet cutscenes were replaced by one single intro scene that had no bearing on the storyline.
I don't "care" that much, but it just irks me because it is so stupid.
I though Blizzard did a great job of making an MMO that can appeal to the masses. It was easy to pick up and get into. I also thought the art direction and game world were great. For me the game was fun leveling up and experiencing the game world they created. Once you have seen it all though, the fun stopped. Running instantaces over and over or farming gear in PVP is not fun. An MMO should have PVP that affects the game world, as in taking over cities or territories. World events should be permanent changes to the game world that advance the WC storyline, even if that means they can only be experienced once by only certain people. Rare or unique items should actually be rare and unique, as in not everyone has the exact same gear.
EVE is an example of what MMO's should be. I have no time to play it though.-
It depends upon how you are looking at it. Most people assume the MMO format "ruined" Warcraft. To that I say, try to use a little imagination. Maybe instead of looking at farming instances as something that breaks the storyline, try to be a little less uptight about it.
If I were Blizzard and I was working on Warcraft 4, I would play off WoW as another campaign that happened. The player base serves as the peons/grunts/warriors/whathaveyou that assist the Hero character in slaying Vashj, Kael, Illidan, etc. Use some retcon and "pretend" that Illidan didn't get farmed every week by 15-50 year old gamers, but "repeated assaults upon Black Temple were made." Hell, we're dealing with orcs and elfs here, I think its okay to pretend a little bit.
As for your second points, that certain events should only be experienced once by certain people, rare and unique items should be unique. . . the game has to be fun too. This game would be retarded if gear only dropped once. A select few of the most hardcore would have gear, the rest would be wearing crap. You mention pvp. . . how fun would pvp be if the number one guild on the server had all of the purple gear that could ever exist on the server? Your ideas about outdoor, world changing pvp would be moot, because the hardcore would dominate.
The casuals would stop playing. Bam, blizzard looses a huge player base. Once those people dissappear, the hardcore have noone to compete with. They lose interest. Dead mmo. Its not going to happen.-
I understand how WoW's system allows everyone to get great gear, if only the best can get good gear then most people will feel left out and quit, but I think WoW takes it too far to the point I see no motivation in playing.
I realize the hardcore would dominate to a point, but do you really think every single "hardcore" player would join the same guild on the same side? I think there would be competition between several "hardcore" guilds. If there is only 1 super mega weapon in the game, then it should drop when the guy carrying it dies. I don't link "bound" weapons for the most part. I am also not saying that all purples should be limited necessarily. But some should be. I think the idea that you could conceivable steal these items or a city from the hardcore guild would inspire players to band together and try it.
Plus the admins could always throw in some huge worldspawn the thin the ranks if it really got out of hand :)-
are you kidding me? there is a whole other thread on some other message board right now where people are saying that it is too easy for casual people to get great gear because raiding is easy, heroic badges buy great gear, arenas don't take time to do well in, and even bad arena players and PvP honor grinders get great epics for standing around and losing.
And on the other side we have you saying it is to difficult to get good gear so what is the point?
How do you please everyone?
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I would like that. In ye olde Dark age of Camelot, the faction with the least players on a specific server was able to do a /level command when they already had one max level character on their account, allowing them to skip a bunch of the lower levels.
It would of course have been lame if you could do it without already having played those levels with your main.-
One max level character on the server in question I meant to say.
Hurrah for no post editing!
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No you still have to level and there are other parts to the game like the end game where most people spend most of their time in an MMO. In cat leveling is probably the worse part of any MMO game design because you may or may not be near the level of your friends so you pool of people to play with is much much smaller.
Items you collect don't matter because you will replace them quickly, and you can participate in meaningful PvP
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