Tell me about WotLK and Wintergrasp

Northrend

I have a confession to make:  I’ve been looking at WotLK a lot lately.  Why?  Because a lot of the people I usually play with or have come to know and enjoy playing with have gone back to WoW to inhale the glorious aroma of that new car smell.  They’ve had nothing but good things to say so far.   I’ve read a few Wintergrasp articles back from September/October that talk about peoples’ experiences during the beta and most of them are informative to the facts of what “will be in” or “what we can expect” but I’m having trouble finding any that say “this is how it is”.

I haven’t read or heard many personal accounts of the content in WotLK or of the Wintergrasp PvP content specifically.  I would really like for anyone out there who has had any personal experiences or knows of anyone who has published a writeup about their experiences to share them with me.  I’ve watched a few videos and I have to say that it looks extremely fun.  The WotLK zones look like the ‘next level’ of Blizzard art direction and the actual gameplay in Wintergrasp looks astonishingly polished.  I saw this one video where someone was flying in a gyroplane thing while dogfighting someone on a wyvern.  I saw someone actually driving a siege weapon around and shooting stuff.  Then there’s the enormousness of Wintergrasp and the “keeps” which are breathtaking from an aerial view. I’ve also heard that everything is destructible – true?

Beyond the art direction (as I am a sucker for that if it doesn’t show) there’s this raid boss in Wintergrasp that I’m hearing about. From what I know, he spawns after one side takes control of the zone and is a single boss encounter.  Apparently he drops amazing loot – to the point of angering the hardcore’s – like it was Christmas morning for all to enjoy.   From what I have read, the gear is equivalent of Arena and Honor points – something called “Hateful or Deadly Gladiator”, which I admittedly know absolutely nothing about other than it’s decent stuff.  It sounds like gearing up in Wintergrasp’s open-world PvP won’t be difficult but rather the opposite; it may actually encourage raiders to PvP.

I want to know more about WoW now that WotLK is out.  The devil is in the details as you all know.   Here are a few of my more pressing questions:

  1. I haven’t played since the beginning of Burning Crusade… can I jump in with a level 60 (or 55 Death Knight) and play without being behind?  Can I level from 55-80 and participate in the 10-man stuff like everyone else or am I forever going to play catch-up and be behind everyone.
  2. I probably have no money on my account.  How necessary is money in the game now?  Am I kidding myself by going in to a level 55+ with nothing but Oldschool stuff?
  3. Has the game recovered from being nothing but a “raid this to get gear to raid this to get gear to raid this to get gear to raid this to get gear” treadmill?  Is the carrot in a realistic position that it can be obtained and then enjoyed or will I always feel like I have to log in not to miss the chance to snag it?
  4. What’s this Wintergrasp stuff REALLY like?  It looks great on paper and in movies but what is the REAL story here?  I know there are timers and lockouts – what impact are those having?  Are people actually doing the pvp?
  5. Is the leveling experience from 60-80 enjoyable and well fleshed out or will I feel like it’s a quest-grind of nauseating proportions?
  6. Is the Death Knight fun?  I hear he can be played several ways.  Are they so overplayed that they are a joke?  This class is the one that interests me.


I have more questions but that’s a good place to start.  I’m honestly looking for the reasons why I should not give it a shot at this point.  It LOOKS like Blizzard did a great job but I want to details.  You all know me well enough by now to know that the reasons why I do not like WoW are the end-game and what it turned out to be all about.  I’ve always thought very, very highly of the leveling process and the journey up until the point where the e-sport and raiding treadmills begin.  Did they fix all of that or is it more of the same?  I want your honest opinions but try and be a tad objective here as I am trying to be on the subject without the emotions and “omg WoW sucks u traitor!” stuff.

Thanks guys!

  • Oh Em Eff Gee.

    Dude… DUDE! What are you thinking man? You know the 70-80 will be awesome, but then what? Raid treadmills? The first dungeon in this treadmill might be easy, but what about all the future patches?

    I realize you have friends playing this game and you gotta go where your heart pulls you, but if you seriously rethink this for a moment, you’ll realize that your brain is completely against this game. That or you’ve been kidding yourself since I started reading this blog. 😛

    I think the only reason you’re even entertaining this thought is that WAR has been a total failure. Well, read my blog in an hour and you’ll see what I’m doing about it. I’m certainly never going back to WoW though!

  • 70-80 IS awesome. I think that if you like the levelling game it’s worth the price of entry for that alone. There’s no real problem with catching up on a Death Knight, especially if you know the Outland quests. It’s been made much faster to get from 60-70 now, and we’ve had people hitting 80 on the new class well before the masses (most people still 72-74ish I think).

    DKs are heavily played but they won’t all be taken up to 80, a lot are being abandoned so that people can go back to other characters. They’re really good but also deceptively complex and that’s not what everyone wants.

    We dont’ really know what the raiding game is like except that they’ve made it very easy to gear up for the introductory raid and ultra hardcore raiders have decided that it is easy which probably means it’s decently tuned for new raiders.

  • Hehe, I’ve been tempted too! Honestly though, I would wait a few more weeks. After playing a bit on a friend’s account, I found that there are long queue times with most servers and the BC zones are overrun with DKs at the moment (which could be good if you have a healer that you want to level up – or any other class, really).

    Have you played Left 4 Dead yet though? So much fun! That’s probably going to keep me occupied long enough for the big flood of players in WoW to die down a bit.

  • I can speak to leveling a DK from 55-60. Its fantastic, and I’ve done it all solo. The DK starting area is extremely well done, from quests to overall experience. Hellfire Penninsula is currently full of low 60’s DK’s with a rare player of another class on during prime time. I think that to get a DK to 80 it will be mostly full of solo play and quest grinding though. If I can make it, my goal would be to get a DK into Wintergrasp.

    The DK is complex as the poster above said. The mechanic is not as easy (and I still haven’t fully soaked in the rune mechanic) as others to manage. However, they are REALLY strong. They are going to bring a curveball into PVP like WoW has not yet seen, so it will be interesting to see how that shakes out. You don’t have mana, (no mana draining) you wear plate armor (you can take a melee beating) and you have self heals and a slew of other tricks too long to list here.

    I’ll be putting up some videos on A Wall of Text in the next few weeks, but probably nothing you haven’t already seen.

  • I want to write you up a big thing on this all Keen, but right now I’m just finishing up writing a blog post I want to get up immediately and then I’ll get right on my response to this.

    One little thing in regard to Wintergrasp: There isn’t a lot of information out right now on it’s full potential because it is only 77-80 and majority of the masses still arn’t up that high. In a month when everyone is 80 you’ll hear more.

    When I played on beta, Wintergrasp was a blast but due to so few people on beta it was never more than 20v20. I can see fights getting up to 200v200 or more but the zone is large so it’ll be spread out I’d imagine. It’s pure chaos and the main keep you siege is fully destructable.

  • I’m back in there leveling up my 61 hunter. Haven’t played much since before TBC, but I did take a Rogue up to 70 before quitting last time.

    I don’t think you’ll be hurting for money. There are some people who horded lots of money, but money in TBC is much easier to get than in Azeroth, and from what I’ve been reading money in WoTLK is even easier.

    I’m having a good time, playing the game for what it is. May not do anything but unsubscribe once I hit 80, but as we all know, WoW does leveling.

  • Well…. I had NO plans to go back to WoW. But… i’m now rank 35 on my SH and between them pushing the careers patch back and seeing how unfulfilling T4 RvR is atm… Wotlk was catching my eye.

    Prior to WAR i’d stashed a lot of supplies in anticipation of playing a death knight. Gold, Cloth, etc… so all that was waiting for me. On my lunch hour last Friday i purchased wotlk… my Death Knight is now level 67… my SH is still 35. 55-58 truely hooks you into the class and aside from Hellfire Penn, i hate that zone… i’ve been having a blast again. I’m HOPING/PRAYING… they’ve changed stuff around enough to keep me playing. But only time will tell.

    When 1.0.6 comes out I’m sure i’ll give some more time to my SH as well… but soon i’ll have to pick one or the other.

  • Ahh, Wintergrasp is only 77-80. That’s somewhat disheartening. It’s good to hear that the entire keep is destructible though – that sounds fantastic. I just heard a rumor that you have to have a flying mount to get to Wintergrasp which I hope is untrue because I hear those things are expensive (and I have no $$, obviously).

    Does the Death Knight have to be unlocked somehow or if I have a level 60 already can I just create one on any server? I heard that I can make one wherever.

    Also, I have no intentions of quitting WAR right now. It’s not an “either or” type thing for me. I’m simply interested in giving WotLK a try if it really is as good as it sounds. I’m extremely cautious though as my questions indicate. I want to avoid getting it and finding out that it’s completely the same game with a new coat of paint – I want it to have changed.

  • You need to have a lvl 55 on the server you make your Death Knight.

    As for flying mount, I think you will have to unfreeze it for 1000g at lvl 77 but since you don’t have one, I am not sure. Money is a lot easier to get now than pre-BC, by the time you are lvl 77 you should have the gold you need.

    I think if you like the leveling and the PVE you will like Wrath. Also the instances aren’t that hard (meaning going in with greens isn’t a problem) but I really have enjoyed them so far. This expansion is more classic WoW, which I like.

    As for the endgame it will probably be the same but it’s hard to tell. Hardcore guilds are complaining it’s too easy and they have made the 10/25 man split in raids, so it may be more easy to do PUG raids this time.

    I enjoy the leveling part, it’s what WoW does best. Even if I don’t play the far into the endgame this time I feel that it’s money will spent.

  • I just leveled a Unholy DK from 55 to 66. Its a very fun class and truly powerfull once mastered.

    With the latest patch they lowered the exp required per level between 60 and 70 so it wont take that long to catch up. After 20 hours played on my DK i was already 64.

    Good thing is from 55 to 58 you are in the DK starting area and without giving any spoilers, ill just say you will get out of it well geared and ready to face Outlands.

    I didnt event go to Nortrend with my 70s yet. I think im just gonna wait till my DK is ready. soon soon 😛

    Higgr,
    Undermine

  • Doh, I can only play the DK on the server with my 60’s? *cringe* That could be the end of my interest right there. Are there server transfers where I could take a character to a server where I have friends? If so, how much does that cost?

  • There are server transfers. Btw you alwyas ask such good questions in your articles Keen. I wants to know too!

    (not that I’m going back any time soon, or later, I just want to know)

  • Money is no problem.

    I haven’t played a death knight much so far (only the starting area in beta), but everyone who is leveling is having a blast. The requirement for a death knight is a level 55+ character. I believe you can only create the death knight on the realm the character is on, but I’m not 100% on that.

    As for your mounts, currently the system works like this:

    At level 70 you can buy regular flying (900g) and epic flying (5000g). Regular flying is 60% speed and epic is 280%. They didn’t want people flying all over Northrend until day one so you have to buy Cold Weather Flying at level 77 for 1000g. You DO NOT need your epic flying to buy cold weather flying. You can have cold weather flying on just a normal flying mount. That may seem like a lot of money but it really isn’t. Just from leveling a death knight from 55-70, you should gain about 1500g. From 70-77 is about another 1500-2000g. So really money is no worry. The mount may be a little slow for you but you can’t use flying mounts in Wintergrasp anyway.

  • $25 for a transfer and of course if you transfer to a pvp server you can’t make an alliance DK if your lvl 55 is horde.

    It wasn’t that way before, it killed my interest in trying to have a DK on a friend’s server.

    WoW really needs a /lvl command. I have done 1-55 enough arleady, don’t make me do it again just so I can try a DK on another server.

  • Oh man, that does seem like a daunting amount of coin. Back in the days that I played we struggled to get our epic land mounts! They were like… 900g if I remember correctly.

    No wonder the goldsales industry is booming. 😛

  • Levels/Gear: Keen, I think you’re actually in a good position because WotLK is geared for both non-raiding 70th lvl players and 55th DKs more so than hard core raiders like myself who have been very well geared (i’m about 500 OnPar and my friends are 800 OnPar). For example, there are quests in Grizzly Hills (min 73rd, attack 74th level mobs) that are a piece of cake to do but I can’t do them until I reached the min level for the quest. Or when we first did Utgard Keep, my healing friends were telling me “Dude, I’m not even healing you, you’re not taking any dmg!”

    Visuals: The scenery is unfrickenbelievable in the game as I mentioned in another post. Blizzard’s art designers are gods. They know now to make a world seem EPIC.

    Quests: I’ve been finding some quite interesting actually, such as the starting zone one where you fly to a ship to help fend off the enemy or attack the beach castle and commanders. Of course there are some that are a total bore (i.e. kill six beasts) but for the most part, I’m finding them more than bearable.

    Professions: This is going to sound weird but I actually miss the crafting in WoW vs WAR. I used to complain about collecting herbs and stuff to make potions but I actually enjoy it now. Not sure if it’s the ability to see the sights and maybe per chance come across someone to help but overall I’m liking it a lot (particularly a lot of the new recipes).

    Inscription Glyphs: The new glyphs you can apply to any character, made by Inscription Profressions are very cool. My Prot Warrior has two that make his Heroic Strike almost free now, so I’m find he has way more rage to unload in battle.

    Dungeons/Raiding: Not sure on the details of 10 man dungeons. Utgard is only a 5 man. But you know what, grouping for dungeons and raids for me was actually one of the best experiences of the game. Not because it has anything to do with getting gear (which it does) but more the teamwork and experiences had doing them. I mean for the most part the “challenges” of them, working with as a team, is what I really enjoyed. I mean the game allows you to utilize a variety of roles and tactics to overcome these objectives. In comparison, WAR is very flat with little or no tactics for taking over a keep (i.e. brute force of numbers).

    So to sum up, I’m actually enjoying it quite a bit again (and will probably even more once I get into Wintergrasp). Anyways, if you ever decide to give it a go, my guild (Crit Happens) is on the Rexxar server if you ever want a home. Swell bunch of people who are very friendly and helpful, doesn’t matter if you’re into raiding or not. My undead warriors name is Malavar.

  • @Keen: I am only half way through level 70… but Quests give ~5g as a reward. The quest rewards are worth 5+ gold. Many enemies drop 20 silver. So it adds up quick.

  • Responses to the specific questions:
    1. You will have to level to get to the group content, but the exp curve is such that you can do this pretty quickly, especially starting from 55+.

    2. There’s a full gear reset in effect in the level 58+ zones of TBC, so gear is not a worry. (The Death Knight’s starting gear is good enough that you won’t get huge upgrades until the second gear reset happens whe you reach Northrend around 68-70.) Cash is not a huge issue if you’re not going to be a crafter. Your DK will start with the epic ground mount (which is cheaper now than it once was in any case), and will earn enough for the non-epic flying mount and its cold weather flying skill by the time you get to level 77 (you will have left Outland before you can fly, and you can’t fly in Northrend until 77), provided you’re not burning money on stuff at the AH. The super-fast epic flying mount will cost you more than you have by 77, meaning that you will actually be using your ground mount unless there’s something you need to fly over, but riding around on the ground can be more fun anyway.

    3. I haven’t raided in nearly two years, but it looks like Wrath has a much more gradual raiding progress (to the chagrim of players who were on the top end of the curve, who don’t have anything that challenges them). This means that there will always be some gear that’s a step above where you are now – how much you let that bother you is your call.

    4. No idea on Wintergrasp, as I didn’t try it in beta, and my live character isn’t high enough yet. The other world PVP is pretty much a PVE fail-fest in which the incentives are for showing up to grind mobs when there are as few enemy players around as possible. Wintergrasp may be more competitive simply because the matches are at a pre-determined time, and the rewards are decent (including bind-to-account gear you can send to your alts).

    5. I find the quest experience from 60-80 very enjoyable, but I gather from your more recent post on the topic that you will be less fond of it. There is much more variety in quests, storyline, and gimmicks (vehicles, disguises, etc) in both expansions (especially Wrath), but it’s all soloable, the majority are still routine kill-and-loot jobs, and there’s no need to set foot in a group for a minute unless you’re waiting in line for a respawn.

    6. My thoughts on DK’s are here. They’re very self-sufficient, even by WoW standards. You’ve got a choice between good self-healing (blood tree), AoE burst damage (frost tree, better for AE tanking than soloing), and pets (unholy tree).

    Also, they are supposedly going to make the DK unlock account-wide when they do accout-wide achievements, so that may be an option if you’re willing to wait a few months. Then again, this is Blizzard, so that could become 2012.

  • Keen,

    Wintergrasp is not restricted to 77-80 like someone claimed above. You can start playing there as soon as you step foot into Northrend. There is a portal to Wintergrasp in Dalaran (the “capital” city in Northrend, you can set your heartstone here and has flightpaths to other areas). You can access Dalaran at level 74, or earlier if you have a friend summon you in or have a mage make a portal, OR have someone queue you for a battleground and when it finishes you’ll be in Dalaran.

    I quit WoW a while ago to play WAR during beta and release, but recently got sucked back in by my wife of all people. I transferred a 70 to another server ($25) and started my death-knight. It’s hands down one of the best classes I’ve played in any MMO. Extremely engaging, polished and has a lot of depth in the mechanics.

    A death knight starts at level 55 with no money. My death knight is now level 72 and I’ve got around 2100g from quest rewards and vendoring items. Money is pretty easy to get these days. There are a lot of death knights in the early 60s, but once you hit Northrend (at 68) there aren’t as many. The DK starter area and quests are some of the best ever, imo, and the quests in Northrend are a big step above what Blizzard has done in the past. The quest chains in Northrend are deeper with much more involvement with Warcraft lore than anything they’ve ever done.

    If you level your old 55 characters, you’ll be fine once you hit Outlands at 58. It’s a total gear reset and you’ll replace most of your old gear with new quest rewards very quickly.

    As for the actual gameplay in Wintergrasp, I haven’t experienced it yet. I’ve been playing catch-up with my DK, trying to get through the 60s and into Northrend. All my friends (who knew I quit WoW for WAR and real PVP, some of whom played WAR with me) keep telling me that I’m going to love Wintergrasp when I hit it. It’s a PVP zone, but the battles are on a 2.5 hour timer. So people are still in the zone farming materials for crafting most of the time, but the “real” action with vehicles and objectives isn’t constant. I’m going to try participating with my 72 DK today if I can, I’ll let you know how that goes.

    The raids are apparently more accessible now. 10 man Naxxramas is supposedly pretty forgiving and has loot thats only slightly less powerful than the 25 man version. Also, 5 man heroic loot and the items you can purchase with tokens from those has been improved to be closer to 25 man raid loot. They’ve listened to some of the casual players concerns and done a lot to address them. WoW’s PVE, dungeon and raid encounters have been more fun than WAR’s (the king encounters were fun in WAR beta, but how often has that happened since WAR went Live…) and the new 5 mans I’ve done have been a good deal of fun so far. They’re not overly difficult, I tanked the first two at level 69 on my death knight.

    Anyway, hope that helps you with your decision. I’ve had enough fun just doing the death knight quests and Northrend that I won’t regret buying the expansion and paying the monthly fees if thats all I do and decide to quit at 80.

  • 1. If you want to jump in, jump in now. It is the perfect time. As for playing catch up, again this is the perfect time to play even if still having to go through the Burning Crusade. I don’t think it’s going to have bad raiding tiers anymore.

    2. No money = No problem.

    3. There are a lot of raids but the ease of raiding has been changed drastically. A lot more fun and casual to do raids. Also raid sets and pvp sets are different for different reasons so you can just do PvP all you want for really good PvP gear.

    4. Wintergrasp was always fun on beta. With a 2.5 hour lockout you have great concentrated battles now. It’ll be even more fun as more people hit 80. Yes it IS as good as they say.

    5. To me, 60-70 is grindy but that’s only because I’ve done it four times. The first time, I had a blast. Almost everyone does. However, the 70-80 experience blows it out of the water.

    6. Play a death knight.

    Also, in regards to raiding and gear treadmills I recently posted this that might interest you: http://mordiceius.com/2008/11/21/the-difficulty-of-raids-or-why-care-about-nihilumsk-gaming/

  • Logged into WoTLK, went to the new zones. It looked nice. Picked up first quest… “kill 12 wolves”, so I logged off.

    Not gonna quit WAR for it myself, but then I’m on a server with a very active openRvR scene in Tier4 where both factions are organising themselves and working together.

    IMO far more fun than grinding WoW mobs and scripted boss events. Though I can understand how people on a dead WAR server would not be seeing much in WAR and certainly if people are more PvE inclined.

  • @Keen,

    Well, I hope you stick around in WAR. It’s been fun running with you and your guildees in T2/T3.

    WoW may have added a great PVP zone and the DK hero class. But until the game has many viable PVP specs per class and the game isn’t by design an endless grind for gear, I won’t be tempted to play it again.

  • Keen-
    for me Gold is no problem with having two 70’s that can run daylies in the Sunwell area. I can make, with out trying, 150 gold on each 70. the daylies are fast and easy. Before WotLK prices where pretty high because of this but I imagine with the new WotLK out prices should drop back to normal. Easy $$ to afford epics land mounts or through badges from PvP. and honestly to just fly faster as transportation with your epic Flying mount is not worth the 5,000gp in my opinion.

  • @Taugrim: Oh I’m definitely NOT quitting WAR. I enjoy it too much. At this point I’m just gathering information on WoW incase I decide to try out WotLK.

  • Play the Death Knight starting area, you’ll thank me later. As for quests and level in northrend? Most are nothing but fun. Today I just discovered a daily where I have to ride around on a Red dragon and kill Blue dragons. (RED VS BLUE ASPECTS OH YEAH) awesome fun with that one.

    Oh and for Wintergrasp, we simply need more level 80’s to experience it to it’s fullest. Like the 200 vs 200 battles we had on beta.

  • dear keen

    i played both WAR and WOW and i regret buying WOTLK because it is more-of-the same. truthfully i enjoyed burning crusade expansion more than this expansion. (got multiple lv70 here with loads of gold)

    Few thing to consider :

    – WOTLK is just the same old WOW : the deathknight quest and lv71-80 quest is just more of the same PVE quest style. if you already bored with the ‘kill xx mob’ or ‘get xx stuff’ type of quest then WOTLK wont be fun.

    – if your char is in a high population server then be prepared to wait for hours just to play. success is double edged sword imho

    – Graphics are dated especially compared to WAR and LOTRO , after playing WAR you will notice the dated WOW graphic.

    – its better if you already got a lv70 , then you can enjoy northrend new area, if you only got lv60 then the leveling game WILL bore you to death. best thing here is to do PVE with friends and not solo..

    – DK is mostly melee, so if you dont like melee class then DK is not your thing. Hero class is just a name only, nothing heroic about it.

    – PvP in WAR is more fun than WOW, both in Scenario/battleground or in world pvp. Lake WinterGrasp is ok if there is people participating lol.

    – blizzard nerf the leveling time for lv 1-70 and they make gold farming easier now, thats the positive thing imho

    – no collision detection on WOW’s pvp , this is the one thing i love from WAR.. and no xp from doing battleground/pvp in WOW

    My suggestion to you keen :

    Dont buy WOTLK before you tried it , Borrow someone’s account and try playing in northrend and rolling a DK. Check out the new stuff and quest. if you find it fun then buy it 🙂

    remember the grass always seem greener on the other side of the fence..

    cheers

  • @mathias “the deathknight quest” NO!

    The Death Knight quests are better than the Battle for Undercity quests! They are amazing and well polished, quests that really get you into the mood of the death knight.

  • @drezzah

    sorry it is my own subjective opinion , imho all new quest in WOTLK is same-old-same-old boring quest mechanic.. DK quest is disappointing and northrend quest is just another leveling grind. now after 3 years of WOW and leveling almost all class to lv70 (except shaman and priest) i am a ‘bit’ tired of WOW lol.. (getting exalted with sunwell for multiple alts can really kill your appetite)

    i regret buying WOTLK at launch day, i should have waited for at least 6-9 month because i am still bored with WOW. WAR satisfy my pvp lust for now and fallout 3 satisfy my pve quest with its incredible world.

    dont take it wrong, all im saying is for Keen to try out WOTLK 1st before jumping in, check first if you still got the WOW bug and still willing to quest grind to 80..

  • 1) Yes. Beginning of expansion is the best time because gear pretty much always “reset”.

    2) Money is nothing, really. Well first epic flying mount can be hard, thats it. You can make sea of money if you know how to do that with professions and ah but even if you don’t you can just do daily quests.

    Your gear does not matter at all, you will get quest upgrades in Outlands and Northrend.

    3) You can now do arenas in sandbox to get PvP gear. You can always stop your PvE progress at 5-man heroics too, but where is fun in that?

    4) PvP zone. Every 2 or 3 hours or so there is battle for ~1 hour or so. Faction that did controlled it from last battle defends it, other one is attacking it.

    If you have it there is continent-wide buff that gives 5% XP and bosses will drop shards for you which you can turn in for some stuff (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43228#currency-for).

    You also gain access to one small 10/25-man instance with one boss that drops PvP loot. That is I think main reason people will keep doing it.

    5) If you never did Outlands it will be nice and fast for you. Northrend is made of win, very good lore there.

    6) They are kings of leveling and very fun.

  • lol keen

    dont listen to these WOW fanbois haha

    dont listen to the jaded ex WOW player either lol

    because what they find fun / unfun doesnt mean nothing.

    Try borrowing WOTLK and play around , check if you find it fun yourself.

    cheers

  • As an avid WoW player my first instincts are to go against Mathias but that would not be right. Because he has a point. I read your blog regularly and I think I have some idea of what kind of a player you are and WoW is mostly PvE. I myself am only 74 yet and enjoying WotLK immensly but that is because I am an explorer and quester.

    Ofc there are a lot of kill x amount quests and fed-ex quests but there are also some really well made fun quests to do.

    The rest of the commenters have brought up very good point which I can confirm (whatever power that holds ;)).

    I would say try out a friends account and play around for a few days with a DK and explore Northrend. See how you like it.

    And considering you are not a real fan of quest “grinding” get the questhelper addon. It does what WAR does with the red blobs on your map and radar. But also it calculates the faster route to do the quests and keeps track of where your party members are with their quests. It speeds the questing up immensly especially if you have to do outlands as well.

    Cheerio GS

  • Ah and forgot to mention, they increased the amount of XP you get in the instances. Some of my guildies reach 80 with just doing instance runs. That could be a nice diversion to questing. And the instances I have done so far take maximum 1 hour but mostly about 30 min if you have a good group (no pug just guildies ;))

  • i lvled my lock to 80, for the people who are saying its just more of the same how far did you get ? yep some of the same old kill 12 wolf quests, but also a lot of fun quests and nothing like any quest in WoW before.

    i have always liked questing and lvling so i am sure i would have had fun anyway, but some of the quests where so much fun better then any in War by far.

    wintergrasp is a lot of fun, and only see it getting better, most people right now are still lvling. the timer on it does suck and hope they do something about that sooner or later. you cant use flying mounts there at all so dont have to worry about that hehe.

    as for making gold it really is easy. roll a DK you get a free epic mount after a few quests,do the DK starter area thats so much fun btw. then you are ready for outlands, by the times you are done outlands you should have 2 or 3 k gold no prob.

  • hehe guo si you got it right.

    personaly i prefer Carbonite Quest, and Quest Helper seem a bit unstable for me. I wish LOTRO got Carbonite / Quest Helper system too lol

  • Nice post and nice questions.
    I stopped playing a bit after the BC release. Lack of time, bit of a burnout, new girlfriend, real life things.

    Started WAR some time ago but never really got into it. I like the pvp and the zergs and all that, but like I said, WAR never got a hook on me. I’ve not logged my Zealot for over 3 weeks now and I’m not feeling like I’m missing something.

    This is different with WOW. Allthough I stopped playing a long time ago I do keep up on it by reading a lot of player blogs. And you asked a lot of questions I also have about the LK.

    Actually I’ve been at the local gameshop a couple of times and had the expansion in my hands. The temptation is killing me. Especially since I keep reading LK has made WOW more casual friendly (if it’s trurn I don’t know).

    Ahh, where are the days where one could just play for hours and hours…

  • @Keen: While I disagree with the derogatory viewpoint of Mathias (#39), I do agree with him in that trying out a friend’s account is really the best way to see things from your own viewpoint, especially if you don’t want to risk the $50 yourself. But let’s be honest here, you asked people to be objective but everyone’s viewpoint is extremely subjective because everyone finds different aspects of the game interesting and other aspects boring. In other words, every aspect of the game can have an upside and a downside. You have to decide for yourself if the upside outweighs the downside though.

    “I’m honestly looking for the reasons why I should not give it a shot at this point.”

    “Are there server transfers where I could take a character to a server where I have friends?”

    Again to be honest, based upon these statements of yours above, I’m surprised you haven’t purchased the game already (because you can transfer your character for $25). It sounds like you’re interested in the PVP, DKs, and playing with existing friends (who I’m guessing are enjoying it already otherwise they wouldn’t be playing it). I mean that was the same perspective I had with my friends. If I wanted to continue playing with them, I had to purchase the game and at least give it a long look from my own perspective. When I did, I was pleasantly surprised.

    “Can I level from 55-80 and participate in the 10-man stuff like everyone else or am I forever going to play catch-up and be behind everyone.”

    Ignoring your interests in the new PVP and DKs for a moment, I assuming this statement above is the real defining question for you, correct? It almost sounds like maybe during BC, your friends were ahead of you and you were constantly trying to catch up to them (which is totally boring I agree). However, that’s a problem with any game that has levels to it but, if anything, as others have said, the WotLK expansion levels the playing field and the new DK hero class gives you a big jump start into the game, not only with regards to levels but in terms of gear and money. Even more so, I’m assuming some of your friends are trying out the DK class as well, so you could level alongside them. However, the longer you wait (i.e. few months) then the more likely you’ll enjoy the game because again you will be behind your friends and have farther to catch up.

    So to sum up, I’ll make some guesses here based upon what I’ve read from you so far.

    Visuals: Trust me. You’ll love them. EPIC!
    Death Knights: I think you’ll like them.
    Levels/Gold/Gear: Easily obtained with DK.
    New PVP: I think you’ll like it.
    Raiding: You’ll most definitely enjoy it based upon your WAR posts. This is why I wish you were in my guild.
    Quests: This is the clincher. As long as you don’t feel like you’re having to “catch up”, I honestly think you’ll enjoy at least 60% of them. The other 40% are a means to an end (i.e. help to improve rep, professions, and gear).

    In closing, if you can level to 70th and play regularly with a group of friends through the new content, particularly the dungeons (i.e. Utgarde Keep), I honestly believe you won’t feel rushed to get to 77th or 80th to get to the end game content because you’ll be enjoying the content along the way.

  • “However, the longer you wait (i.e. few months) then the more likely you’ll enjoy the game…”

    Obviously meant to say the “less” likely you’ll enjoy the game the longer you’ll wait (since you’ll have to catch up).

    Oh and don’t get me wrong about my last statement about getting to 70th level. My point is that if you play a DK with friends who are also trying it out, you can actually level together, so again it doesn’t feel like you’re having to catch up. If they already have 70th level characters, maybe at the very least, they’ll be nice enough to level an DK alt with you until 70th (so you can play together). Then they can choose to continue with their mains after that if they want.

  • This is precisely the info I wanted and I appreciate EVERYONE’s input, insight, etc. Opinions are subjective but if they are made about factual things then I consider them fairly objective. Such as: “There is a lot of questing”. You can take that comment two ways. If you like questing you can say “There is a lot of questing and i like it” or “there is a lot of questing and i hate it”. Both define that there is clearly a lot of questing and then, ideally, the person gives their reasons why; usually with the word “because”. It’s only when someone says “it’s the best thing since sliced bread” or “it’s horrible” without an explanation that I consider their viewpoint lacking on a subject like this. 🙂

  • I think this quote best sums it up… Insert Keen for Butters 😉

    “South Park: Make Love, Not Warcraft (#10.8)” (2006)
    Leopold ‘Butters’ Stotch: I don’t play world of warcraft…
    Eric Cartman: Butters, you said that you’re on your computer all the time.
    Leopold ‘Butters’ Stotch: Yeah, but I’m playing hello kitty island adventure!
    Eric Cartman: Ugh… Butters, go buy world of warcraft, install it on your computer, and join the online sensation before we all murder you!
    Leopold ‘Butters’ Stotch: O-oh… Al-alright then!

  • There are a LOT of quests. There are eight zones in Northrend and each has 80-150 quests in it. You’ll level from 70-80 in probably about 5-6 zones, but I always keep doing them because I enjoy the hell out of questing and think the lore is fascinating.
    I don’t know how you prefer your questing ease, but I know a lot of people use mods like quest helper which direct you exactly where you need to go and basically hold your hand the entire way (doesn’t WAR do this for PvE quests?). Personally, I prefer to not use mods like that and just get my quests and go. The game already holds your hand enough, it bothers me when people get mods to basically do their quests for them.

  • I’m one of those WAR players who went back for WotLK, and so far I haven’t regretted it. WAR was fun, but I also felt like it was lacking terribly in some areas (lacklustre PvE, horrible crafting, shoddy animations, slightly dull art direction)

    I had a level 70 paladin with 200g to her name when I came back, now I’m 76 and I have almost 3000g, so money isn’t really an issue. I didn’t farm this money, it’s just quest rewards and selling drops.

    The new quests are mostly good (much much better than WAR’s, but those sucked anyway). There are ofc still “go kill 10 of this mob” type quests, but there are just as many that are interesting and original. The Wrathgate quest chain in Winterblight literally had me picking my jaw up off the floor (ok not LITERALLY, but it’s amazing) :p

    The new areas and instances look amazing of course. There’s no one better than Blizzard in the art department. Those guys are geniuses at what they do.

    Gear: hardly matters, you’ll get t5 equivalent gear pretty fast in Northrend quests. I replaced all my stuff within 1 day of playing. Sure the Sunwell raiders will still outgear you, but they’re mostly level 80 by now anyway.
    If you start a DK you will be given a full set of great blue gear through quests, so you’ll be very well kitted out by the time you’re 58 and headed into Hellfire Peninsula.

    PvP: well I haven’t actually been to Wintergrasp yet, since it’s 77+ but the new Battleground “Strand of the Ancients” is pretty damn fun and IMO much better than any Scenario in WAR. It reminds me somewhat of WAR keep sieges, but faster paced and more tactical. In WAR the numbers tend to decide the outcome: He who brings the bigger zerg wins.

    To sum it up: Give it a shot. Maybe you’ll get bored with it again at 80, but I feel that the 70-80 game alone is worth the price of admission.

  • Personally it depends. With my first character I often try not to use questhelper too much. But I am somewhat simultaniously leveling 3 level 70’s and then questhelper is usefull at least to me. It sounds a bit harsh maybe but after doing a quest one time I want to move on. Most quest objectives you remember often but some you do not. I see it as a convenient tool to help level my alts faster.

  • at one time i would never have used a addon like quest helper, but after playing War and AoC made me lazy i guess. i just dont want to spend half a hour running round when i could do it in a few mins.

  • I really would like to try WOTLK , but i dont for 2 reasons i made some friends in my WAR guild although they rarely play anymore.

    With WoW comes Drama, theres no if and or buts here, ive been through Black temple and wow will never change on this subject.

    Basically the lack of friends and knowing what comes Endgame keep me away from that in these points of time.

  • A lot of people commented on quests, but I’ll throw something personal here that I think should be mentioned. If you just read the quest target then yes a lot of quests are repetitive “kill x mobs”, “collect x items”. However:

    1. There are many many many (you get the idea) “none-template” quests which are loads of fun. Tobold wrote a nice summary (from http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2008/11/keeping-market-leadership-with-old-game.html): “I’ve shot a giant with a cannon from a ship, mated a sea bull with a sea cow, disguised as a wolf, fed a pirate captain to his pet bear, and controlled an abomination to kill monsters by exploding. And that’s not all, and all that in just one starting zone, with my next character being able to start in a completely different zone. In dungeon boss fights I fought the mirror images of my whole group, got transformed into a skeleton, had a fight in which I had to move a step after every spell cast, and explored a dungeon in which there were as many bosses as trash pulls.”

    2. The new “vehicle” mechanism added by Blizzard in WotLK makes an appearance in many quests and adds a lot of spice. So far I’ve controlled a robot, a gyrocopter, a hawk… I’m loving it 🙂

    3. If you also bother to read the entire quest text, not just the “bottom line”, even “kill x mobs” quests will fall into some storyline which will make them more interesting, at least it did to me 🙂

    4. There are surprises and hidden treasures all around which perhaps some jaded people (*cough* mathias *cough*) will skip through, being in a hurry to level to 80. For example, last night I did a quest in Howling Fjord which required me to jump in a lake and get a few fish of a specific type. On the face of it a standard “get x” quest but first of all the quest title is funny 🙂 Secondly, the quest requires you to chop at some underwater plants which after a few hits yielded either a fish or a crab (crabs being useless for the quest). However to my surprise once or twice the plant yielded a “forsaken spy”, a humanoid wearing an underwater breathing helmet (obviously he had been hiding in the plant). Once I killed those a grey book dropped, which most people might be tempted to vendor or even not pick up, as is the fate of most grey items. However being the curious fellow that I am, I actually right-clicked the book and started reading it… I won’t spoil it for you but the book was great reading 🙂 Just one of the million of little touches that Blizzard make in order to turn even ordinary quests into a source of fun while leveling.

  • @Speno: “With WoW comes Drama…” For the most part in guilds that’s very true and the primary reason for this is what I mentioned before. With raiding in WoW, only a select number of people can participate, thus a rift can form in the guild between people who do get to go and those who don’t get to go. And this is caused by the age old, “How can I get a job if I don’t get experience?” but in WoW’s case it’s “How can I participate in a raid if I don’t get good gear, since being well geared is necessary to participating in a raid?” The best solution to this is being in the right guild that cares about all it’s members, not just those riding the raiding crest. So sure have raiding nights where the core raiders go but also have guild nights where those core raiders in turn help those below them, so that those in turn can get well geared and help repeat the cycle of helping those below them.

    @Solidstate: “…controlled an abomination to kill monsters by exploding…” Just did that Horde quest the other day. Pretty cool indeed. Actually the funny thing with me is that I’m having so much fun just exploring the world itself (i.e. travelled through Icecrown at 71st lvl) and using my professions (i.e. collecting herbs & fishing, cooking & crafting potions) that I’m only spending 50% or less of my time doing quests. So instead of vertically grinding through levels, I’m having lots of fun just doing these lateral things.

  • I will NEVER go back to WoW because I STILL KNOW WHY I quit it. Do you think this is a different/new game after the release of the addon? I will always remember the good old times I had in the game but I also know these times will NOT come back!

  • @Grinch: “Do you think this is a different/new game after the release of the addon?” Any game that has the opportunity to expand itself should most definitely keep the “best bits” of the game, as that what makes it popular. However, at the same time, ongoing issues within the game should be resolved and improved upon, so that in effect, yes certain aspects of the game are new and different, so it becomes “better”.

    For example, Speno mentioned “drama” that often happens in guilds and this is often because only 25 people can be selected for a raid. This is extremely frustrating for small guilds because they need a “critical mass” of “active core” players to tackle these raid dungeons. Our guild encountered this problem numerous times in it’s evolution.

    With WotLK however, most 25 man raid dungeons can now accommodate 10 man raids as well. This is a huge huge deal, as it makes the end game much more accessible for everyone. So instead of a guild getting frustrated because it couldn’t start a 25 man raid event because they could only muster 20 people. Now these guilds can actually run TWO 10 man raids that night meaning even more opportunity for people to get gear and enjoy the game. Heck with our guild, we now have the possibility to even have one 25 man raid and a secondary 10 man raid tackling the same dungeon (but in different instances). Pretty cool indeed.

  • Death Knights are immensely overpowered, and even early 80 heroic dungeons are, despite the inherently beautiful design, too easy. AoE Grindfest for all classes!

    This is bad, they made beautiful and stunning areas in northrend, amazing quests… and it is all so boring piss easy, players overpowered like there is no tomorrow.

    Very casual and accessible, but I doubt the long term value.

  • About Wintergrasp: many player farm the ore nodes there between the fights but here it is…

    … the true story: nobody cares for or likes Wintergrasp or actually has a clue what to do there.

    It is an odd open world pvp zone, but people somehow still prefer the new battleground.

    I wonder if this will change, but the tenacity buff given to the smaller sized faction is a bummer.

    You get overbuffed if you are outnumbered, so you one-two shot stronger enemies before their healers even notice you are on them.

    So yes, the inferior side in fact often wins more often due to this buff that increases hp, armor, damage, whatever!

    And in general this zone looked so much better than it is right now.

    Not many level 80 players and they are doing other stuff, but it is not popular on my server, which is actually one of the more pvp oriented ones…

  • @Longasc: “This is bad, they made beautiful and stunning areas in northrend, amazing quests… and it is all so boring piss easy, players overpowered like there is no tomorrow.” I did lots of end game raiding in BC, so I’m fairly well geared with lots of purps. Because of that, I’ve been able to traverse most of Northrend and tackle most mobs, even though I’m still only 71st level. For example, I killed a 79th level mob with 40 to 50% health left. Yet after that I barely survived by a sliver (health bar showed no health) when attacking a massive 78th lvl beetle in Icecrown because of it’s special attacks.

    The thing in all of this is that you have to realize that we are the exception to the norm. I often use the OnPar mod to check the gear level of most people and it’s fairly low (about 100 for them to my 500, compared to 800 with my friends who have T6 gear but we’re all 70-71st level). Even more so, I’m seeing lots of people who are above the level of the area they are playing in (i.e. 77th level person killing 75th level mobs). So from what I’m observing, most other people seem satisfied with the content, levels, and gear. Still like you, I wish they had a “shortcut” of some kind so I could tackle these tougher mobs but unfortunately most quests have level limits so I still have to go thru the hoops in that regards.

  • My account was recently hacked, so my first venture into Northrend is with no gear and 18 silver.

    Northrend is a beautiful place, but I have to agree that it appears to be very easy. My 70 pally, with no gear, is soloing 71 elites (with normal adds) with no problem.

    I am skeptical about the longevity of this expansion. The pvp will be the deciding factor as to how long I stay. Hopefully Wintergrasp lives up to the hype.

  • Amazing as it sounds but they have finally got open world pvp right with Wintergrasp. Fortress sieges are great, siege machines are excellent, in fact it’s everything I was expecting from a Warhammer siege.

    The Wintergrasp entrance is in Dalaran which is reachable by a level 74 quest or earlier if a mage ports you. I’ve seen people lower then 74 in Wintergrasp as it’s all about the health of your siege gun or siege vehicle initially so your level isn’t a factor unless you are fighting on foot. I think all the kill quests etc are a higher level though

    Also the side with fewer players automatically gets a buff to their health and damage dealt while the imbalance lasts.

  • Indeed. I’ll post a blog entry this morning on it. I was very busy this whole weekend. It felt like there just were not enough hours in the day.