Wrath of the Lich King: Collector's Edition: Zboard Keyset: Price: £24.99 Players: online Multiplayer: Yes System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1 Pentium 4 1.3Ghz/AMD Athlon XP 1500+ Hard disk space: 4.0Gb Memory: 512Mb (XP)/1Gb (Vista) Graphics card: 32MB ATi Radeon 7200, nVidia GeForce 2 or equivalent Graphics Card with Hardware Transform & Lighting Other: DVD-ROM drive, Broadband connection 32Mb 3D DirectX9.0c graphics card View Comments

So the time has come again Once more Blizzard unveil an expansion the their epic MMORPG, World of Warcraft. The Wrath of the Lich King takes the quest for power and glory into the land of Northrend and raises the level cap to 80. As is always the way when expansions are planned for games that have 9 million players worldwide, speculation was rife about what the new content would provide for the players. There was talk of new classes, new zones to play in, new mounts, and new pvp content. Expectation was high and rumours where abound. As an avid player of the game, I was as excited as the next fan when I finally got my hands on the game and installed it. I was relieved that the game did not take as long as i expected to install and when i finally got on the zeppelin to the Borean Tundra, I was just a little giddy as i ran round, exploring the new area and learning all my new skills. When the previous expansion was brought out, it became apparent that even the most hardcore player with all the best gear he or she could raid in the level 60 content was quickly going to replace it with green items from The Outlands. Whether or not that was a good thing is probably still open to debate. This time, the equipment curve is alot less steep. I had a full epic priest at level 70 and I was still wearing some of that gear upwards of level 75. For me, all that heroic dungeon grinding in The Burning Crusade was not without point and did help me level up through to 80... which is nice.

Now, at this point, i must confess to having sucumbed to something that in past level drives I have resisted. I installed a MOD to my game called Questhelper. It is something of a guilty secret for me because whilst it did make my level grinding alot easier, it also made my level grinding alot easier...... if you get my point. There were several quests that lead me from one area of habitation onto the next when I had exhausted the old area but dispite that and ignoring a MOD that told me exactly where to go and what to kill, I got the feeling that the Blizzard have not managed to make a seamless flow of quests from area to area to 80 and had I not had the added help I would have spent along time simply wandering around just hoping to fall upon quest hubs. There are many changes brought in for WotLK: Acheivements, new dungeon content and raids and new PVP stuff, including a whole zone dedicated to PVP action. One of my favourite changes has to be the fact that instead of having to run certain instances in order to gain reputation with factions, you first have to gain friendly status with the faction, by completing quests, before purchasing their tabard. From then on, when ever you run an instance with the tabard equipt, the reputation gains apply to that faction. So if you like the oculus or the nexus, grind it to your hearts content. Similarly, if a particular item drops in an instance, run it till you get it and you will still be able to improve your reputation. One area for concern is that at the point I am right now with my character, I have ran most of the instances that are available to me and have collected most of the badge reward gear that I am able to. If I want to progress further I HAVE to raid in 25 man raids. I have a job, a family, and other commitments to my time that prevent me from raiding regularly. I still pay my monthly fee however and should have access to high end gear with out having to be a hardcore raider. At the moment it doesnt seem that the same balance between raiding, PVP and heroic grinding has been found as it was in The Burning Crusade. There are rumours of new gear being brought out in forthcoming patches and I for one hope that it redresses the balance a little.

So what conclusion to draw from this? There is no doubt that Blizzard have continued the Warcraft saga with an absolute cracker of an expansion. The design of the different zones in Northrend, the background music, the gear options, the quest chains and dungeon design all hit the spot very nicely indeed thank you very much. If you own The Burning Crusade why would you NOT have this??? Perhaps one down side is that now the level cap is 80, fewer players will be inclinded to begin their adventures in Azeroth and whilst I am sure Blizzard are happy with the 9 Million player worldwide, one valuable addition could be the option to start a character at a higher level... yeah i know we all hate Ebay characters, but fresh blood brings fresh ideas, so if we can make it possible to get new players into the game, then i believe we should. LFG HC Nexus... And for fans of the game who want to see some more info about it, check out these two links which form an interview on BBC2's Working Lunch with the creators of the World at Warcraft game: Working Lunch interview (16th Jan 2007) - Part 1 Working Lunch interview (16th Jan 2007) - Part 2 Also, here's a feature from Breakfast at the time of the Wrath of the Lich King release: Breakfast (13th November 2008)

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT OVERALL Review copyright © Gaz Williams, 2009. blog comments powered by Disqus