World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Blizzard’s heavyweight money guzzling colossal MMORPG - World of Warcraft, gave birth to its second expansion last month, sending shock-waves through out the industry (2.8 million sales on Day 1!). The Wrath of the Lich King already boasts of bolstering WoW’s 15 million subscription base, with gallons of new blood pouring in and legions of old WoW vets returning from hibernation. The question then is - is it just the tremendous amount of hype that’s paid off, or has Blizzard truly outdone themselves in giving the weary MMORPG grinder a breath of fresh air?

To start off, let me tell you what any old dog from the ‘Vanilla WoW’ days (pre-Burning Crusade; when WoW had no expansions out) would tell you - Wrath of the Lich King’s made the game a lot simpler than its forefathers, almost geared to the casual gamer completely. What does this mean for the hardcore raider? They’ll probably skim through every bit of content in no time at all. Levelling up has become a lot easier with roughly 30% less experience required per level gain, and thanks to the copious amounts of experience given by quests and killing creatures, most people will level up in less than half the time they did before.

There’s a brand new continent unlocked to WoW players this time around - the frosted wastes of Northrend - the domain of the devious Lich King. This new addition to Azeroth features 10 new regions ranging from the frozen glaciers of Borean Tundra, to the forested region of Grizzly Hills. Since the Alliance and the Horde have rallied their forces to take on the undead legions of the Lich King, a plethora of new factions have cropped up with the Argent Crusade and the Knights of the Ebon Blade making their appearance the most prominent.

A lot of the old forces have made their presence felt such as the Kirin Tor, the dragonkin of the aspect of Magic, Malygos, and the nerubian forces of the bug king - Anub’arak. Lore-wise Wrath of the Lich king certainly stays in tune with the Warcraft universe and keeps the storyline progressing in the right direction. Those of you who’ve read the Warcraft books or played the Warcraft games prior to WoW are sure to appreciate the lore rich quests, and the fact that Blizzard’s done everything to ensure that this one doesn’t bastardize the storyline like Burning Crusade did (Space Draenai? WTF!). In fact this is the first time that actual in-game cut scenes have been implemented to push the storyline forward. On completing a certain quest chain half-way through your way from level 70 to 80, you’re rewarded with a truly epic cut scene involving the Lich King himself.

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Speaking of which, Blizzard’s gone all out to add a huge variety of quests, including one where you control a siege tank to kill 100+ scourge units. One where you control a Giant and help him stomp through hordes of the undead, and finally my favorite - one that puts you in a God of War-ish aerial fight where you jump from dragon to dragon, fighting dragon riders to win the favor of an old god.

The most epic quest line though comes from the campaign of the game’s new class - the Death Knight. To play a Death Knight, you have to have a character of level 55 or more on a realm, upon which you get the option to create a Death Knight on the same realm that starts from level 55. The Death Knight starts off working for the Lich King, so you start off questing for the bad guys - which is unheard of in the WoW universe and pretty incredible. You start off as a fallen hero of the Alliance/Horde, who was resurrected to wage battle for the very forces he fought against. Along your way the true nature of things unfold, and you eventually fight your way to your old allies once more.

More impressive than the Death Knight quest line, is the way the class actually plays out. The Death Knight is a completely unique class - a Spell/ability based tank/damage dealer that’s directed towards advanced players. All spells the Death Knights yield depend either on a set of 6 runes or on runic power. There are three kinds of runes, and two of each kind - Blood, Frost and Unholy. Most spell requires a certain kind of rune to cast, which puts them on a 10 second cooldown. Using runes generates runic power, which is sort of like a warrior’s Rage that’s required to cast certain spells or use certain abilities. Playing a Death Knight boils down to mastering the art of balancing out rune usage, which is no easy task for new players. It’s quite hard compared to most classes, but once you master the class its a lot more rewarding.

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Rolling a Death Knight for end game raiding, is still a sensitive affair for many. The problem is that the class hasn’t been tweaked to its maximum potential, and it has a few glaring flaws while playing the role of a tank that even Blizzard has acknowledged. The main issue is that unlike Warrior, Paladin and Druid tanks, Death Knights rely on active abilities rather than passive ones, making it incredibly hard to mitigate damage while abilities are on cooldown. Still, they’re in no way a bad class to master or tank with, they’re just a little more squishy than others.

One gripe I have with Wrath of the Lich King is that most of the encounters are rehashed versions of old boss fights. While the new dungeons look truly amazing, many of the bosses have the same abilities as older ones. For instance, an encounter in Halls of Stone plays out a lot like Magtheridon from the Burning Crusade with just a few new special effects. Even the end game content has a lot of re-hashed stuff such as the age old Naxxaramas. All of the dungeons and raid have had their difficulty level toned down so tremendously that its a complete put off for the hardcore raider.

For the casual or mid-core gamer on the other hand, this nerf to the difficulty level comes as a blessing. It means that most end-game raids won’t be enjoyed exclusively by the 5% of hardcore raiders; instead, everyone gets a shot at gearing up their character and experiencing being part of a highly coordinated 25 man team. While this transition won’t appeal to the dwindling croud of hardcore WoW players, it’s sure to bring in a lot more people to embrace the World of Warcraft in all its nerfed glory.

It’s pretty much a no-brainer - Wrath of the Lich King did everything that Burning Crusade did wrong, right. If you’ve been playing WoW for a while chances are you’re sure to buy the game. If you’d quit the game like I did, I recommend you pick it up again to enjoy all the new content and epic storylines the game has to offer right now. If you’ve never played WoW before, with the game so easy and level ups as effortless as it is, starting a new character isn’t a bad idea at all. The game’s not available in retail in India though, so if you wish to give it a shot you’re going to have to download it digitally off the World of Warcraft website.