Posts with tag wrath-of-the-lich-king

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Last week, we talked about the evolution of NPCs from classic WoW to The Burning Crusade. It was a quiet beginning to the evolution, starting with just a few NPCs in classic WoW that spawned world-altering events like The Great Masquerade. But in The Burning Crusade, we not only saw major movements from major-name players like Thrall, who actually got off the throne in Orgrimmar and traveled all the way to Nagrand to visit his long-lost relatives, but also minor players. These seemingly minor players gradually won the hearts of the playerbase through storylines that progressed with each patch in the expansion.

Characters like Cro, Jadaar, Asric and even the shifty Griftah weren't just NPCs. They were subtle reminders that those characters we barely interacted with had lives of their own, and it breathed a new energy into the game. Suddenly, the world wasn't just about you and whatever quest you happened to be on. It was also about Griftah's "unfair" persecution, or Cro's struggle to get that blasted fruit cart out of the way -- mundane, ordinary, everyday events, the sort of events we witness on a daily basis in the real world. Bringing the mundane to the game made Outland feel just a little more real, too.

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

They are about the only thing you're happy to see when you're dead. Beings of ghostly blue, these winged saviors of Azeroth's adventuring masses have been there since the very beginning of WoW, and are the closest thing Azeroth has to angels. They possess the power to bring the dead back to life, when said adventuring masses have had their adventuring cut abruptly short by accidentally pulling one or two more murlocs than they could handle. Gracious and kind, it seems that these beings only exist to help Azeroth's lost find their way back to the world of the living.

You only see the true scope of their power when you're dead, and it's safe to say if you're coherent at the time, you're probably not prepared or happy for what comes next. From quietly resting beneath the earth to a shambling mass of undead material, these ghostly creatures exist to pull the dead back to life -- at a cost. Where once was a whole and complete adventurer, now there is only forsaken; a living corpse with free will, although it's questionable as to how much of that will is actually free.

One brings players back to life; the other curses them with a life of undeath. Is there a connection between the benevolent spirit healers of Azeroth, and their dark doppelgangers, the Val'kyr? It's a question that's been posed to me on more than one occasion, and since we've slogged our way through the order of the Warcraft cosmos, it's one we can take a look at now.

An undocumented change that probably occurred in patch 4.1 is that the Icy Prism, a source for rare and epic Wrath of the Lich King-era gems, no longer has a cooldown. The highest stat gems that can be inserted into gear with an ilevel lower than 300 (which means all pre-Cataclysm gear) are Wrath gems, and this is likely now the cheapest way to get them.

The main way currently to get Wrath gems is to prospect Wrath ores, usually Saronite. Prospecting a stack will yield an average of about one blue-quality gem, and while other ores may look more attractive, I've had trouble finding them in volume. Now that the cooldown has been removed, any jewelcrafter can make an Icy Prism with nothing more than a Frozen Orb and a couple of cheap Wrath green gems. Each prism will yield a couple of blue-quality gems, rarely a Dragon's Eye, and even more rarely, an epic gem.

The Dragon's Eyes don't look like they'll be usable for much, but considering the price of Frozen Orbs, the blue and epic gems certainly look like they're worth making the prisms for. One thing to note: The prisms are unique, so you need to open one before you can make another. If, like me, you had stockpiled almost a thousand Frozen Orbs in Wrath just in case they ever became worth anything, this means a lot of clicking.

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WoW Patch 4.1 is live, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from guides of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.

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The Wrath of the Lich King art gallery has been updated with six awesome shots of clean artwork that features familiar locales and loading screens. Art from the Pit of Saron, Eye of Eternity, Forge of Souls, Wintergrasp, and Trial of the Crusader are available for ocular enjoyment.

The art for Wrath of the Lich King has always been some of my favorite concept art because of how easily the look and feel of the pieces convey what the entire expansion and Northrend itself was supposed to be. Success, indeed. Check out the gallery here.

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WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.

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Hey, you! Yes, you -- dude sitting on the stained couch watching Family Feud and eating Cheetos. Need a little bit of high culture in your life? (And no, rewatching Once More, With Feeling doesn't count.)

WoW Insider may not be able to send you to the Louvre, and I'm not sure our legal department is okay with us reprinting the works of Maya Angelou. What we can do, however, is forward you along to some great new art just released at the Blizzard website. Specifically, there are three new pieces from the Wrath of the Lich King expansion: the Wrath box art, a piece called "Boneyard," and a piece called "Winter Tauren." They all show off the incredible level of talent of Blizzard's art department.

While you're there, be sure to page through the gallery and enjoy all the pieces of older concept art, too. They provide some great insight into how ideas transition from mere thoughts in an artist's head to a miserable, frustrating 5-man instance like The Oculus.

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Blizzard has just announced that the leveling experience from 71 to 80 has just gotten a bit quicker -- 20 percent quicker, to be exact. As with The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm will reduce the amount of experience needed to progress through the previous expansion's content by 20 percent. Good news for all of you who were dreading the slog through Northrend one more time on your new patch 4.0.3a race/class combos!

4.0.3a: What is in it, what is not.

Good thread, Sammew. Aside from content, also included in the upcoming patch are several class balance changes and bug fixes. Due to several talent revisions for select classes, druids, paladins, priests, and shaman will have their talent trees reset.

Experience required to gain levels 71 through 80 is being reduced by 20%.

You'll also get the Cataclysm introductory cinematic and new login screen.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, spotlighting the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

Welcome to another exciting episode of Reader UI of the Week, your repository of all things community user interfaces. I'm still working on my upgrades to my UI for Cataclysm, so you fine people don't get to see my deal yet. Soon. Soon. In the meantime, why don't we check out a submission from the ol' email box?

Speaking of, I would love to get another big backlog of reader UI submissions that are Cataclysm-themed or designed specifically for the new expansion. If you've got something you've been working on for expansion day, show me! I would love to spotlight some Cataclysm user interfaces that are going to happily see the light of day when the world comes to the brink of death.

As Wrath of the Lich King comes to a close with elemental invasions, Thrall babysitting lots of tiny elemental babies, and cultists totally wrecking our cities, I wanted to feature Tian's user interface. Why feature a user interface with so much Wrath artwork and motif? I think I want to say goodbye to Wrath of the Lich King in the best way I can -- talking about the art and the user interface that showcases it.

A new build of the Cataclysm beta just dropped, and with the update came a makeover for the loading screens for all four continents. They now feature the faction leaders for Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, Maiev and Akama for Outland, and the most recent Lich King in Northrend.

Check out the gallery below.

It's been a long, hard, ridiculous road for Blizzard to get the Chinese government's approval to make Wrath of the Lich King content available to their citizens. So ridiculous, in fact, that it's difficult to nail down just which related stories are the most important. We could tell you about:

• How it was reportedly ready to go in early 2009, but Blizzard's Chinese then-distributor The9 was released from its duties after poor management;
• How WoW China's new distributor, NetEase, had to get the entire game re-approved, and upon its relaunch, it faced heavy censorship not requested under its previous owners;
• How the entire re-approval process may have been politically motivated due to US-China trade relations;
• How Wrath's content review by the government was halted due to collecting subscription fees being "illegal" and creation of new accounts was suspended pending investigation;
• And how Burning Crusade was only just approved a few months ago.

And there's a ton more to it. But we might finally be nearing the end of this sordid story, according to the Wall Street Journal. Wrath of the Lich King is set to launch in China next week, barring any more instances of draconian politics, censorship, or mismanagement. Let's just hope that nobody in China wants to play as a death knight.

Trial of the Crusader was, for all intents and purposes, an experiment. The world part of raiding, from suppressor rooms to the Twin Emperors and beyond, has always been the stifling mechanic of trash. "The real meat of the dungeon's content should be the boss fights," the masses cried! And for the most part, they are right. Trash serves many purposes, from creating artificial time sinks and flavor, to teaching players mechanics that they would then need to hone, skill wise, against a boss. Trial of the Crusader paved a very different path, succeeding in many areas, but ultimately failing in many others. ToC was uneven at best, soul-destroying at worst.

Let's look back!

Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader (collectively "ToC") were the middle children of the Wrath raiding family. And like many middle children, they both turned out wildly different from the children before and after them. Ulduar and ToC could not have been farther apart in design, structure, implementation, and style. I would love to share with you my experiences in both raids as a business-casual raider and my own thoughts looking back on these two distinct experiences.

With the final content patch of this expansion on our doorstep and Cataclysm following close behind, we'll be taking the next several weeks to look back on Wrath of the Lich King and everything that made it what it is, for better or for worse, in Wrath Retrospective.

Ulduar was released with patch 3.1 in April of 2009. Until the release of patch 3.2 in August 2009, Ulduar was the highest level 10- and 25-man raid content in World of Warcraft. It's fair to say that Ulduar was at best tangential to the overarching story of Wrath of the Lich King that concluded in Icecrown Citadel, but I also think it's fair to say that Ulduar took everything that had gone before it in Naxxramas, the Eye of Eternity and Obsidian Sanctum and distilled down to a refined, satisfying raid experience.

Ulduar took the vehicle fight mechanic of EoE and managed to make it fun, interesting and variable, incorporating the hard mode mechanic first developed in Obsidian Sanctum and then expanding on it in several different ways. It allowed for optional bosses that could be killed if a raid was gearing up or skipped once you were ready to move on to the end of the instance. It took the various teleport mechanics first seen in Karazhan and Black Temple in BC and made them part of the instance. It even had a "hard mode only" fight with a limited duration that could only be attempted for one hour every raid week from the first time it was started.

It's no secret that Ulduar is one of many people's favorite raids for this expansion (it's personally #2 for me, as I'm a much bigger fan of ICC than most), and there are quite a few reasons for that popularity.

With the final content patch of this expansion on our doorstep and Cataclysm following close behind, we'll be taking the next several weeks to look back on Wrath of the Lich King and everything that made it what it is, for better or for worse, in WotLK Retrospective.

Wrath of the Lich King wasn't just an expansion -- it was an experiment in progressive storytelling featuring story lines and lore that we haven't seen since Warcraft III. While Burning Crusade tackled new issues and races, it did little to further any of the Azeroth stories we'd seen in the earlier Warcraft games; Wrath took a step backwards to move the prior stories forward. Along with this change in direction, we saw the introduction of a few things that hadn't been seen in Warcraft before that made a large change to the way we view stories and quests in World of Warcraft, and a re-introduction of many of the heroes and prominent figures that we'd only caught glimpses of in vanilla. Today, we're going to look at Wrath lore: what worked, what knocked it out of the park and what failed to impress.

Phasing

Quite possibly the biggest technical advancement in storytelling was the introduction of the phasing mechanic. This allowed players to play through quests, and as the stories progressed, so did the world around the players, giving a new and unique feel to story line progression. Suddenly, instead of playing through a zone with no indication that you'd made any changes to the status quo, the world changed around you -- the chain of events in Conquest Hold in Grizzly Hills and Frosthold in the Storm Peaks both actually ended with NPCs being replaced as a direct result of player interaction. In the quest chain of The Battle for the Undercity, both Alliance and Horde players are teleported into a phased version of Orgrimmar, designed as a vehicle to further the story line -- and as a way for Alliance players to interact with Thrall without being attacked.

Everyone seems to be pretty excited about Cataclysm -- whether it's playing one of the two new races, exploring all the new zones or just being able to finally fly around in Azeroth. But one of the things I'm most looking forward to is getting to see what Blizzard has put together for the Cataclysm cinematic. I have to admit that while I enjoyed the Wrath cinematic and thought it was wholly appropriate for an expansion surrounding the Lich King, I found myself missing the flavor of the first two cinematics.

You know what I'm talking about -- the orc and night elf duking it out, the warlock with the gigantic infernal, the dwarf hunter and his bear; the characters that were simply unnamed players like us. The first cinematic gave us a small introduction to these guys; the Burning Crusade cinematic fleshed them out even further, but they disappeared entirely with the Wrath cinematic. Don't get me wrong, there was nothing bad about Blizzard's choice with the cinematic for the second expansion, I just found myself wistfully wondering what happened to the tauren after the mage sheeped it. Where did the draenei go after smashing in the heads of his enemies? And most importantly -- we got the teeniest glimpse of a troll in the Burning Crusade cinematic; how about we see more of him? Or how about a gnome or two for a change?

What would you guys like to see in the Cataclysm cinematic? Deathwing bursting out of the ground and setting Azeroth ablaze? Sweeping landscapes? Goblins and worgen, of course, but what other races or classes would you like to see?