Wrath of the Lich King Panel Overview

INTRODUCTION

The Wrath of the Lich King panel had Drysc in the audience fielding questions, and was chiefly headed by Tom Chilton, Cory Stockton and Tigole.

Tigole started out talking about what they've done recently, he mentioned that they had added the daily quests in order to put the chinese gold farmers out of business, and that it had been working.

He also mentioned that Zul'Aman wil be out very soon, but he's not supposed to say when.

Northrend is largely snowy, but not the entire expansion takes play in the snow, as that would be overly simplistic. By not adding in new races, and starting areas it allows them to focus more on the upper level content. Players of all levels will be interacting with Arthas from the get-go. "But he's really bad about breaking CC, so dont hang out with him."

Their core feature of the expansion is the level cap increase to 80, and introduction of WoW's first hero class. Tigole was showing the information to a 12yo family member, and his first comment was 'Is he going to be overpowered like the warlock?"

Inscription will allow people to fine tune their spells, for example with the mage fireball spell you can add knockback, increase dot damage, or increased damage. "And Tom (Chilton) assures me that this will all be perfectly balanced."

They'll also (of course) have tons of cool new monsters and weapons.

More customizable hairstyles, "epic barber shops!", but no facial customization, "plastic surgery will be the next expansion".

NORTHREND OVERVIEW

The panel was then turned over to Cory Stockton to cover the new zones of Northrend. He mentioned that they had learned from their mistakes with the congestion in Hellfire Penninsula, and were creating not one, but two starting areas in Northrend, the Boreal Tundra, and Howling Fjord. Both have different quests and dungeons, and offer very different experiences.

Howling Fjord
The howling fjord is chiefly home of the Vrikul, a race of 13ft tall viking badasses, who inhabit Utgarde Keep. They are a very evil race, who are starting to heed the call of the lich king Arthas. The zone has a huge fjord down the middle of it (towards Daggerfall bay), with grassy cliffs above the steep sides of the fjord. The cinematic section also showed what looked like large longhouses with ornate dragonheads carved on the entrance. There was also a dwarven city in the cliffs of the fjord, we saw a massive stone dwarf statue.

Boreal Tundra
The Boreal Tundra is the home of the Tuskar race, described as basically transient walrus fisherman. It features a horde city of 'Warsong Hold' and a gnomish town which looked really impressive from the quick flyover that was shown of it. There was also a Tuskar town, with large fishing net platforms out over the water which looked really cool. The zone is split down the middle, where the naga have been thawing out the artic ice, and the reason why will be revealed through questing in the zone.

Grizzly Hills
The Grizzly Hills is north of Howling Fjord, and home to Thor Modan, an ancient dwarven city, as well as being host to lots of Furbolgs. It is a 'thick lush forest, warmer and more inviting than the previous zones. It looked like a massive forest in the same vein of the trees of loch modan, and a bit of silverpine, without the 'evilness'. Overall, it looked like a pretty remote and majestic forested mountain. It was described as a valley zone with the eastern side being a cliff edge.

Dragonblight
Home to Wyrmrest Temple, Dragonblight 'really has a story that you will feel connected to. Its a glacial looking area. They mentioned that of course the ice caves would be explorable, and they had a new ice cave shader system in place for this. The zone is where dragons come when they are ready to die of old age, (similar to the Kodo graveyard in Desolace.) It's one of the largest zones in the expansion, most of them being similar to outlands in dimension, with plenty of thought into graveyard runs, quest turn-ins and city locations.

Dalaran
Dalaran, of course is the home city for the Northrend expansion, and it's been on the move for a bit. It now floats centrally over Northrend, and will be accessible both from the ground and by your existing flying mounts. If I remember correctly on the reason for this, it's because the Kirin-Tor (who are big proponants of magic) were seeking to do battle with the Blue Dragonflight, (Malygos?) who seek to stop magic.

Lake Wintergrasp
'So of course now that we're adding gnome death-knights, you now need a way to stomp these gnome death-knights.' They are adding new PvP features, namely siege weapons, usable in both the outdoor world and in battlegrounds.

There will be driveable siege weapons, and you're going to use them to blow up enemy buildings. To support this, there is a new outdoor world PvP zone (full alliance versus horde pvp, even on pve servers). Control of this zone will impact all of Northrend in some unspecified manner.

They'll also be introducing a new 15 vs 15 (siege engine) battleground, which will take about 30-40minutes and give a quick play experience.

DEATH KNIGHTS

Lead designer, Tom Chilton delivered this section of more details on the new class they're adding in the expansion. The Deathknight will be a tanking an dDPS hybrid, who can tank using a two-handed sword or dual-wielding. "Prince Arthas threw his shield out. He slaps you in the face if you wield one." They focus on runeblades, axes or swords, and wear plate armor, and showed some of the concept art for the new class, which was pretty much your standard spikey evil-looking platemail. They have a mixture of spells and abilities, but no ragebar, and are a bit more caster oriented than warriors.

"Army of the Dead. Write that down.", said Chilton. (Without explaining what it was, exactly.)

The DK is the first hero class, meaning that it starts out at an advanced level that you have to unlock the ability to play. It will be a level 80 quest chain, similar in length to the warlock epic mount quest that largely explains your interaction with Prince Arthas. They aren't entirely settled where the Death Knight will be starting level-wise, but it will be somewhere in the 55-60-70 range, and will have some impressive starting spells, gear and abilities.

"Essentially, hero classes are your favorite warcraft heroes... playable."

The Death Knight mechanic is a new system of rune resources: blood runes, frost runes and unholy runes. Runes are carved into your Death Knight's weapon, and you have six runes on your bar. (Where the mana bar would be on your character farme. Spells and abilities use them, deactivate them and re-activate them. Essentially it's like a combination of a cooldown-based resource system, mixed with individual player choice (like jewelcrafting). Certain spell mechanics will allow you to even convert rune types on the fly. Rune cooldowns will also be modified by talents and abilities. Certain spells activate runes, and certain spells consume more than one rune in a row.

QUESTION & ANSWER SEGMENT

What is blizzard doing to improve leveling for 1-60?
Tom responded that yes, the leveling process for 1-60 is too slow, and they plan to speed it up, but leave it the same for 60-70.

What is the ETA of the new expansion.
"When it's ready. Not today." and "We'll see."

51 point talents?
Yes, there will be 51 point talents.

I missed something here, because I got a phonecall from a guildmate that I thought was a different guildmate. =D

New content in the old world?
Something about there's going to be a new caverns of time instance. They're interested in Grim Batol, but as a fallback, there's always the auction house for your old-world content.

?
The Death Knight is a new unlocked character class, and does not replace or destroy your old character that unlocked it.

Will there be the same kind of gear level jump in Northrend?
Yes, they're happy with how it worked out in Outlands. Most people will see upgrades quickly in Northrend. (85%?)

Do we have to buy new flying mounts?
"No, but you may have to figure out how to de-ice the wings of your current mount."

Rogues... wtf?
(Applause from the audience here.) Tom mentioned that the last time this was asked in 2005, it was because they were overpowered. They are aware of the poor surviability, and are not entirely satisified with how they perform in 5v5 arena, but are happy with their performance in 3v3 and 2v2. "Rogues are not getting replaced by Death Knights."

Will the level up time be the same as it was in the Burning Crusades?
You shouldn't ever have to grind, and leveling up will be pretty similar to level 60-70. The exterior zones focus on solo questing gameplay, and the dungeons on 5man quests. Daily quests are something for everyone. There will be more dailies in the next patch: a dungeon daily, a battleground daily and one for cooking.

Death Knight - who can play them, and what minions do they get?
The death knight will be playable by both the alliance and horde, but NPCs will have some additional scripting added to show how much they detest your presence. They are not a heavy pet or minion class, the summoned minions are mainly just for accent.

Will they do all hero classes, and will there be new character slots?
They are not currently planning to add more character slots. At this there was a lot of booing from the audience. Tom Chilton looked a little surprised at this massive response from the audience, and said, "noted". As for the other hero classes, no expansions past the current one are 'done yet'?

Will there be any upgrade to legacy content?
There are no plans for upgrades to old zones, they will be focusing on new content instead.

Class balance with the new tanking class?
They intend to do more work on paladin tanking.

Death knight races?
All of the races will be available to play death knight.

Flying mounts in Azeroth?
Nope.