World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Something a bit different for you today. This is a review I did while at university as a part of my degree. I don't recall what mark I got for it but I do remember spending my half term playing the MMO as a part of my course - win! I hope you enjoy this review, normal service will resume next time I assure you.

Expansion or extension? Did Wrath of the Lich King really shake up World of Warcraft?

Believe it or not it’s been four years since Blizzard released it’s eagerly awaited World of Warcraft into the awaiting arms of would be adventurers, and nearly two years since the first expansion, The Burning Crusade. Although the release schedule appears lazy on behalf of Blizzard compared to other MMO’s, such as Everquest, who release two expansions per year since it started, it remains massively popular, boasting around eleven million players world wide. Expectations for Wrath are high, otherwise respectable people will forget to go to work or eat during the first few weeks of release. I have prepared by stocking up with a crate of Red Bull to keep me awake during the first few days. All eleven million of us are due to hit the frozen tundra of Northrend before the first week is out. Which leaves me the problem of where to begin? The game is so in-depth and involving it’s almost impossible to know where to start.

The appearance of the new zones certainly did something for me. Blizzard kept their promise by not making the entire continent of Northrend snowy frozen wastelands. The howling Fjords must have been based on the Norwegian Tundra, with more than a few hints of Norse mythology as well, players are sent to work in and around Viking encampments add to the feel as well. Grizzly Hills has a North American forest air to it; you can almost imagine the cool air as you explore the zone. Zul’Drak defiantly captured my imagination while playing too. It is possibly the most atmospheric zone of the entire continent, which enhances the type of mission you have to do in the zone. Battling undead trolls and freeing old Gods is not your everyday run-of-the-mill jaunt. Two of the new zones however seem totally out of place with the snowy theme. Borean Tundra, one of the starting zones is just a mash of different landscapes randomly stuck together; boasting everything from Salt flats to scorched charred earth, lush grassy plains to frozen tundra. It is almost as though the designers ran out of ideas and shoved everything they had left together. To even further disrupt the impression players are in the frozen north Blizzard have stuck a jungle basin in for good measure; Sholzar Basin, although it looks fantastic, would be better suited to a more southerly location rather than have a jungle in what is supposed to be a frozen wasteland.

So, what has Blizzard changed about the mechanics of the game itself? Not a great deal really. OK, there are some new quest formats which were fun, controlling a frost giant to stomp on some undead is one that sticks out. Being disguised as a ghoul in order to bring down one of the Lich King’s minions is another. These quests however are few and far between. I find myself once again killing X amount of Y mob, one quest in Winterhoof Village had me picking up Hippogriff feathers. I thought I left all this behind in the Hinterlands! Let us not forget the odd bombing run for good measure as well, because we didn’t have enough of that in Outland. It’s not all rinse and repeat though, the addition of phased areas is a huge step forward for the game. It makes individual players feel like their actions are making a difference in the fight against the Lich King.  I aided one faction in the capture of an undead base, and since then it has been a place of refuge for me and the faction I was working for. It was also a grand kick in the proverbial for the Lich King, who personally turned up and threatened to kill me for my actions. This is another great change for Blizzard; apparently, the major bad guy for Burning Crusade was Illidan, he never turned up to threaten me with a painful death! I didn’t know who Illidan really was until I got to kick him in while on another quest chain in Ice-mordor, which showed me a little of the history of the Lich King. This is another innovative Quest chain for “noobs” like me who never played Warcraft 3 or any of its expansions.

This leads me nicely into commenting about the lore of Lich King, Northrend is filled with it, not so obvious it is forced onto players unwillingly, but those who want to know more can seek it out. Players have the opportunity to find out how and why the Lich King came into being and even get to go back in time to aid Arthas Menthil while he was still a goody-two-shoes prince of the light, although some may argue how good slaughtering a load of plague-infested peasants really is. It’s refreshing to see Blizzard expressing a less wholesome side to its usual moral self. The new hero-class they have added starts off as a minion of the Lich King, being ordered to do general bad guy stuff, steal horses and  murdering innocents is all in a day’s work for the Death Knight. Although in the end you’re redeemed and sent off to become a member of the Horde or Alliance depending on your choice of race. The downside to playing the killing machine that is the Death Knight is by the time you’ve turned to the good guys your only level 58, which means having to play through The Burning Crusade content and both you and I have levelled enough alts through that already. It also seems that the new class has received a lot more of the developer’s attention than the already existing ones. Ok, they got a few new abilities here and there and a talent reshuffle, which seems to have made some abilities a lot more awkward than they used to be, and that is it. Maybe we should expect more from the company that’s supposed to be the leaders of the MMO market.

Accessability is another issue I have to raise with Lich King and any future releases from Blizzard. Every expansion they have released has raised the level cap by 10 levels. At level 80, the idea of starting again at level 1 turns my stomach, even taking the time to level my alts through from 70 is a daunting task. The game play is wonderfully easy to learn but very time consuming and this may put potential new players off. All the new content seems to be aimed at the high end players too. There has been nothing new for those casual players who are content to remain somewhere between level 20 and 40, and I know a number of people this applies to. Some new instance or maybe a new battle ground for these players certainly won’t go amiss. On a more positive side, Blizzard has applied Heroic mode to all their raid dungeons. Players now have the choice of either 10 or 25 man groups, meaning smaller guilds can now see the content without having to merge with larger guilds or brave the elements and entering a Pick up Group (PuG for short) and the very thought of doing so will send most players running away screaming. Naxxramas, the first 10/25 man of Lich King is the same as it was at level 60, exactly the same... except the mobs are designed for 10/25 people, not 40. I am not entirely sure how to take Blizzard’s recycling of old content. Admittedly I am one of the lucky few who actually saw Naxx at level 60. It was the hardest dungeon in the game back then and only a handful of people got to see it, it needed 40 of the best geared hardcore players, and even then it wasn’t easy. One part of me wants to accuse Blizzard of being lazy and to slander the designers as lazy good for nothing no brainers, the other thinks this is brilliant because now everyone gets to see it and enjoy what I think is one of the best instances in the game. Everyone can now have their chance to shoot Mr Bigglesworth and alert Kel’Thuzad that we are coming and these in game jokes are now shared with the entire 11 million players, not just those lucky, or nerdy enough to be in the top end guilds.

The other major new input for the game is the new Player verses Player (PvP) zone Wintergrasp. This is a high level PvP chaos that rewards good team work, either the Horde or Alliance takes control of Fortress Wintergrasp and has to destroy the workshops before they can construct siege weapons to smash afore mentioned fortress to smithereens, which awards coordination and team work on behalf of the two teams. Those brave or foolish enough to go it alone soon find themselves killed off by packs of opponent players, no matter how good a players experience or gear is, they are not going to win against a catapult. It is a refreshing new take on PvP however; this is not the drop-in drop-out available-to-all zone that it could have been. For a start it is totally inaccessible for those who do not have a flying mount and given the nature of the area only really going to work for those players that go there all the time. Instead of being available for all players it has turned into a club for elitist PvP players, perhaps not what Blizzard wanted in its answer to the PvP-centric Warhammer online.

The expansion has its good and bad points, it may not have shaken up or reinvented Warcraft as maybe it should have done, it has merely extended an already massively popular, easy to use game mechanic. It has had two years to develop and shake up the genre, instead it just prolongs the same experience that people have been waiting to continue for years. Despite its faults I, and around 11 million others, will still be chewing our way through the masses of new content, staying up way too late on a ‘school’ night, forgetting to eat and playing until our eyes bleed.