Work-in-Progress: Wrath of the Lich King

WARNING: This post contains spoilers.

I'm sure it goes without saying at this point that reviews of MMO games and their expansion packs are impossible to post prior to or even right around the time of their release. Right now I anticipate having a Wrath of the Lich King review ready shortly after Thanksgiving but, in the meantime, I wanted to let you all know what I've been up to in Northrend since the expansion went live almost two weeks ago.

Actually, the very first thing I did didn't involve the new continent of Northrend at all--Jim "video reviews guy" Maybury and I were among the first people on our server to create Death Knights (WoW's first hero class) and to play through the class's unique starting area. I haven't played my DK enough at this point to really comment on how they are as a class, but they're certainly a lot of fun, and while comparisons to both paladins and warlocks are valid, I think the DK feels unique in a lot of ways. My DK is still only level 59 at the time of this writing--that's because while leveling my main character to check out level 80 dungeons and the like, I've mostly been using the DK to check out the new inscription profession.

The Armored Brown Bear is a steal at 750 gold.

So far I'm liking inscription even more than the engineering and leatherworking professions that I've mastered previously, not only because there's an interesting randomness about the way that you experiment to learn how to make new items, but also because, even as a relatively low-level inscriber, I'm able to make items that are genuinely useful and which have a good chance of selling on the auction house. I'm having to spend a good chunk of time revisiting a lot of WoW's "classic" areas to gather all of the herbs that I need to make pigments and inks, but if nothing else that's serving as a timely reminder of how much better-looking Northrend's environments are.

As you'd expect, there's no shortage of variety where Northrend's distinct regions are concerned. There's plenty of snow of course, but there are also lush green forests, perpetually dark ruins, and plenty of other locales in the mix. More surprising, perhaps, is that Blizzard has managed to inject similar (and much-needed) variety into the gameplay. Most of the quests still involve killing a specific number of enemies or fetching and delivering items, but there are a good number that are far more interesting. My favorites right now are those that see you taking the controls of various mounts and vehicles, each with their own unique and uncomplicated controls. To date I've rescued villagers while flying around on a dragon, collected lumber at the controls of a machine known as a shredder, battled the undead in a tank, taken on a titan while sat atop a giant, and ridden a torpedo into the side of an enemy ship, to name but a few. Elsewhere, variety comes when you have an opportunity to wear a disguise or to wield an item with a unique power. Oh, and just last night I completed a quest that, even though I was playing solo at the time, bore more than a passing resemblance to the Prince Malchezaar boss fight in Burning Crusade's Karazhan 10-man raid instance.

Speaking of instances, I've played through several of the dozen or so smaller dungeons introduced in Wrath of the Lich King, and so far I've enjoyed every one of them. Unlike some of the older dungeons, these seem designed to take only an hour or so to play through, and in that time there are generally at least three or four boss fights. Presumably because they're relatively easy to get to and to defeat, bosses aren't dropping spectacular loot the way that some of their predecessors did, but that's what the more difficult "heroic" level-80 variants of these dungeons are for. I'll be getting to those over the Thanksgiving break I hope.

Spot the Gnome competition #1

I'm also planning to spend a lot more time in Wintergrasp, the new PVP-oriented zone where an attack/defend battle involving siege weapons takes place every few hours. I've been frequenting the zone quite a lot for the past week, because there are a lot of mining nodes there that, until recently, other players seemed to be largely unaware of. I've participated in plenty of battles there as well, though to date I think the most people I've seen in the zone simultaneously is still less than 50. The zone seems large enough to accommodate at least 10 times that number, and I suspect the battles will be at their best when more people start showing up. I have no doubt that it'll happen, because the incentives for participating are great: The faction in control of the zone not only gains exclusive access to a dungeon located there, but can also collect shards from the bosses inside other dungeons. These shards can then be redeemed for rare items used in crafting, new gear, and even a black war mammoth mount.

Honestly, there's a lot more stuff I could talk about here, but I need to save some stuff for the review and… you know, my rogue isn't getting any closer to level 80 while I'm sat here typing. Expect a full review of Wrath of the Lich King next week.