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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBlizzard announces Pre-Wrath content patch
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 25th 2008 at 9:05PM
Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen. In a sign that Wrath of the Lich King is quickly moving toward release, Eyonix officially announced today that we will see a new content patch "in the coming weeks."
This patch will introduce a good portion of the old world Wrath-related content and UI improvements, and will probably start the pre-Wrath opening event (If you don't mind spoilers, you can get some info on what that event may entail from us). Check out Eyonix's list of what is being implemented and what it may mean after the break.
- New class spells and talents
- Stormwind Harbor
- Barbershops in capital cities
- Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades
- Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles
- Guild calendar
- Hunter pet skill revamp
- New profession: Inscription
It's actually rather interesting to me that inscription was included in this list. Jewelcrafting has been solidly restricted to owners of the Burning Crusade expansion, with the only trainers for the profession in expansion-only cities. It seems that Blizzard is not taking that same tack with inscription but instead allowing all subscribers to learn it. This may be simply because it provides some long needed support to enchanting, or it may be we'll see jewelcrafting trainers show up in Stormwind and Undercity as well.
Two things that haven't shown up: Death Knights and Dance Studios.
There were rumors a while back that Blizzard would add Death Knights before Wrath to give people a chance to get familiar with the character and to hit 70 so they could level with their friends through Northrend. If that's still in the cards, Blizzard's keeping that hand close to the chest.
Dance studios, which would allow you to change your character's /dance emote, have been a promised feature of Wrath for some time. However, we're deep into the Beta process and there's not a single mention of them, nor has Blizzard indicated that they are delaying or canceling the feature. My guess is that they're holding off for a BlizzCon unveiling. By guess, I mean hope, because Saturday Night Fever just doesn't seem very Death Knightish to me, you know?
Other than that, this seems to follow the pattern of the pre-BC content patch to a tee, and it should be nice to play around with all the new class talents (and use them to farm up that last bit of gold) before the expansion hits. Stay tuned to WoW Insider, as we'll be sure to tell you everything there is to know about this patch as soon as more news drops.
Hungry for Wrath of the Lich King news? WoW insider has you covered. Check out our constantly updated Wrath of the Lich King directory page, or browse all of our articles in the Wrath of the Lich King category. You might also be interested in our new Death Knight column, Lichborne, or our previews of the new class glyphs and other inscription goodies.Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Expansions, Classes, Talents, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 6)
Liel Aug 25th 2008 11:34PM
Uh Blizzard themselves said they lost players to AOC, even though 40 percent or something returned, 60 percent did not.
Why do you think the crazy refer-a-friend program came out, quick way to get your friends in to replace the people who left for other games or got burnt out.
Palladiamors Aug 26th 2008 12:04AM
What Liel said. WoW has been around for nearly four years now, and a lot of people are getting burned or bored with it. Warhammer offers a lot of new views on the MMO genre. Honestly, it'd be short sighted and arrogant of Blizzard to think they were going to stay on top forever, and to not try to fight to keep what they have.
ScorchHellfire Aug 26th 2008 12:54AM
you know i laugh everytime people take this presumptuous stance on blizzard's attitude towards how many subscribers they have...
back in the day blizz devs said they only really expected to have about 1 million subscribers max... they were more than blown away at the number theyve ended up with over the years...
so please dont peg on blizz some sort of attitude that they should always be on top and any other mmos are a threat to be addressed... theyve said multiple times that they believe everyone deserves their niche and that their devs play other mmos in addition to wow...
putting words in their mouth makes you look stupid...
HappyFunBall Aug 26th 2008 11:53AM
Complacency could completely kill Blizzard. When it looks like they don't care anymore, maybe the players will think it.
Toliman Aug 26th 2008 12:05AM
if patch 2.5 adds achievements to the UI/tab under the character pane, i figure a lot more people will be infinitely more receptive to any other changes.
the only thing im wondering about with the wrath patch, is, whats up for horde ?
stormwind harbour makes sense, the place needs a revamp, but zeppelins?
i assume the zeppelin's will have a 'under construction' NPC or signage and/or be absolutely monstrously large ?
Ryan Aug 26th 2008 7:53AM
Won't be a 2.5 patch, it will be 3.0.
deitylink Aug 26th 2008 12:08AM
60% can be anything. it could be 1000000 or it could be 10000. AOC hasnt even made a dent in WoW
Opala Aug 26th 2008 12:15AM
Aww no mention of achievements? i was hoping the system would be put in with this patch so that we could get some now. Especially for the raiding ones.
Zurt Aug 26th 2008 12:22AM
Maybe they mean that like in BC's pre launch they added some draenei npc's (the shammy trainer in st) maybe with the patch they will add the floating citadel that the dk's start in but you cant acess it till teh xp comes out, or add some dk npcs in wpl and epl's
Erbodie Aug 26th 2008 12:47AM
Now it all makes sense: Blizz is going to release the content patch that will include DKs, just as Warhammer Online becomes available. That will create a fury of activity from BC players to level their DKs to 70 - most taking herbalism/inscription as a profession, mind you - so that the 58-70 grind does not happen after Wrath is released.
I never understood why they picked 55 and not 65 as a starting level. Getting the DK to 68 after the starting zone would allow an entry in Northrend, and there is no real reason for this 58-68 leveling. But keeping players busy.
ScorchHellfire Aug 26th 2008 12:58AM
people were already bitching their heads off at the leveling boost they already gave dks... imagine how horrid it would be if they gave them 10 more on top of that... besides it makes sense to release them into a zone thats meant for the 58-60 leveling after their starting area...
anyways... im frankly surprised they are letting bc people use inscription when jewelcrafting is not available to people without bc... kinda weird but whatever... sort of takes some of the oomph out of the expansion if you ask me...
darian Aug 26th 2008 2:37AM
The basic reason is, where would you put the Inscription Trainers?
Would you have special Inscription houses only accessible to WotLK purchasers? Would you sequester them in Dalaran, expecting everyone to just get their hearth set there anyway even at level 1? There simply isn't a place to put them.
With Jewelcrafting you had new starting areas for both factions where you could logically and easily put the trainers. That simply wasn't the case with Inscription.
Adamanthis Aug 26th 2008 11:37AM
Is it possible for a level 5 character to hop on a boat from Stormwind / zeppelin from Orgrimmar and pick up Inscription from the trainer in one of the Northrend port towns? I'm not sure whether it is set up to provide a low level character with safe access from the dock to the trainer, but if so, it would mean, even without adding any more trainers, Inscription will still be easier to learn than Jewelcrafting currently is for low levels.
Alveredus Aug 26th 2008 1:42AM
To me, this says that the expansion is behind schedule.
All the buzz has been that Activision wants a sooner release date and Blizzard wants to wait until next year.
A compromise might be to dump a lot of the new content (Inscription, talent trees, barbershops) into vanilla TBC. Have an event where the Scourge attack, between Brewfest and Hallow's End, followed by four months of "mobilizing for war in Northrend".
That means some content would be rushed to come out sooner to ease Activision's anxieties about competitors.
But that ALSO means that if WotLK hits next February, they'll need a bit more new stuff than just 10 levels and a class. Which would likely mean that WotLK would need a burst of new, easy to test content to replace the stuff being handed out in October.
My gut says that could come in the form of a few "useless" rep factions, maybe some extra customization and another new BG (maybe the BG they abandoned set in Azshara, player housing or something that they already have on the backburner that could be fast-tracked to beef up WotLK after they give away half of what HAD been planned for it).
Assuming Blizzard does effectively "give away" half the expansion to get some content out there 3-4 months ahead of WotLK, Wrath will need new content.
So I'd start trying to figure out what "almost completed" stuff Blizzard has to tack onto the expansion to beef it up after dumping a ton of new features for free.
Player housing is surprisingly far along in development. (Whereas there's never been any trace of dance studios in Beta.) Goblins are also essentially playable with mostly finished avatars (they need helmets and capes modded to fit their geometry), they could have a fairly simple set of racials and you could fairly easily release two "tribes" of Goblins to make one Alliance and one Horde.
Still, I think this content dump is to buy the expansion time... and that if the expansion is going to be separate from a lot of this stuff, there will need to be some shiny additions worked in to replace the stuff being handed out to TBC players.
darian Aug 26th 2008 2:35AM
I might be oblivious, but the crap about internal Activision/Blizzard release date conflicts, player housing, and playable Goblins seems to be just that, crap. It's simple hard to believe without citations, considering that Blizzard has made clear statements to the contrary previously.
That said, it's hard to buy time with a content dump that will take at the very, very least a month in a half to complete. More likely, we won't see it finished until well into October.
Strangewayes Aug 26th 2008 2:41AM
Wrath FAQ on the official page currently states : "There will be many aspects of the expansion that will be available to all players. However, in order to experience certain content, such as Northrend, or be able to play as a death knight, players must purchase the expansion."
Thorn Aug 26th 2008 3:29AM
Well, the problem is that nobody outside of Blizzard knows what the schedule is or was, so there's no way to know if they're ahead or behind it.
Most people had assumed that there would be a large content patch pre-Wrath, and this seems to be exactly that, and nothing more. I think you're reading more into this than intended, especially regarding the Blizzard v. Activision stuff.
Ametrine Aug 26th 2008 2:17AM
Interesting how they said Barbershops would be released as part of the pre-xpac content-chunk... since I was talking with friend in my guild today about how I wished the smaller items like haircuts would get an early run on things...
Guess they heard me.
Alzor Aug 26th 2008 2:45AM
At the very least I expect an internal achievement tracker to be part of the Blizzard UI mods before the Brewfest holiday. Many of the current achievements in the Beta are non-quest activities that would need to be recorded and reconciled (especially for Brewfest). I suspect we’ll see them rolling out the full achievement system in a pre-release patch if not sooner.
As far as the barbershops go, I have been quite disappointed with the lazy hairstyle swaps in the Beta and the lack of “new” hairstyles. If barbershops are pre-patched, I would hope that new WotLK exclusive hairstyles are added with the actual expansion.
Thorn Aug 26th 2008 3:32AM
If all that is missing from the barber shops are new styles, that could have been purposefully omitted, since testing new hairstyles could easily be done internally.
Of course, I can't imagine why they'd care about keeping new hairstyles secret, which probably blows this little theory out of the water....