Curse visits Blizzard HQ to check out Lich King

It's been a while since Blizzard has talked publicly about Wrath of the Lich King; nearly nine months, to be exact. However, recently they invited a select group of fansites to their headquarters in Irvine, California for a day of everything World of Warcraft -- all pertaining to the game's next expansion, where all ten million players have the opportunity to tango with Arthas in some capacity.

That said, we were also given a tour of Blizzard HQ -- which is mighty cool for a game development studio, I might add. But really, what you're most interested in is hearing some new juicy info on the expansion, right? Right.

The day kicked off with what turned out to be one of the most informative presentations I've sat in on for a game or its expansion thus far in my days at Curse; and it was done in style, in Blizzard's state of the art, high-quality theatre (we're talking leather seats with cup holders here, folks).

In on the presentation was both Jeffrey "Tigole" Kaplan and Tom "Kalgan" Chilton -- co-Lead Game Designers -- along with J. Allen Brack, the expansion's Lead Producer.

The march on Northrend

Kaplan started things off by introducing us to the expansion, its key features, and a general overview of how players will actually get there. It depends totally on which zone you'd like to start your trek to level 80 in; you have the choice of visiting either Howling Fjord in the east, or Borean Tundra in the west -- and you can move between the two fairly easily at a nearby Tuskar camp -- one of the new neutral races being introduced in the expansion. Both Horde and Alliance will be able to befriend this faction, raise reputation with them, and do quests -- ultimately receiving some nice rewards in the process.

An event will occur prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, which will place the Horde and Alliance in a race against time to move their forces into Northrend and battle Arthas at Icecrown Glacier. Vengeance Landing is the name of the Horde camp in Howling Fjord, and will be the first area that is built using Forsaken architecture, rather than the Human/Scourge hybrids the faction borrowed from previously. Yes, that's an example of the new Forsaken architecture in the screenshot to the right. The Forsaken play an important role in not only Howling Fjord, but also the entire Northrend campaign, with both Sylvanas and Varimathras making themselves known.

Once in Borean Tundra, you'll notice a vast contrast to Howling Fjord's lush, forest area; the Tundra is a very rugged, dangerous place in comparison. Both the Horde and Alliance have starting points here; Valiance Keep for the Alliance -- reached via traveling out of Stormwind. As you can see to the left, Valiance Keep is an impressive, epic introduction to Northrend for Alliance players. On the Horde side is Warsong Hold -- a new-look design which houses the Horde's aggressive leader in their assault on Arthas -- Garosh Hellscream, son of Grom Hellscream. "Horde players will have an epic entrance to the expansion as well," said Kaplan.

There are entry-level dungeons for players in each starting area; Utgarde and The Nexus. Utgarde -- situated in Howling Fjord -- will have both a level 70 version and a level 80 version. Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent in Borean Tundra, players will immediately have access to a level 70 dungeon in The Nexus, as well as a level 80 wing, and finally, at the top players can enter an Onyxia-style raid instance which is very quick to complete, and will pit the players against Malygos, the Blue Dragon Aspect himself.

Kaplan described the first encounter in the instance, which will use the expansion's new vehicle technology. Players will fight an interrogator who has captured many drakes of the various dragon flights. Upon freeing the drakes, players will be able to ride them for the remainder of the instance, and with the new vehicle tech in place, gain access to special abilities while mounted.

The face of raiding changes again

Aside from the Death Knight information, which you can find in the next section, a major announcement during the presentation was the fact that raiding in World of Warcraft is changing again. No, you're not getting 40-person raids back. Instead, each raid instance introduced in the expansion will use Heroic Dungeon technology, allowing both 10- and 25-person versions. This means that if you prefer the smaller-scale 10-person content, you'll still be able to challenge Arthas in Icecrown Citadel -- the most prestigious raid zone of the expansion.

Of course, this isn't the only good news. The content will also be tiered just like a 25-person raid progression -- each with their own separate progressions -- ensuring players take on the content they want, and only that content; not having to do 10-person content to unlock 25-person, and vice-versa. Loot will still be better in 25-person raids, but Kaplan assured us that you'll see a clear progression, with multiple tiers of 10-person content, at the same growth rate as the 25-person content.

Heroic Dungeons are getting some love in the expansion as well, and will be on their own tier of loot progression -- meaning no more blues from Heroics -- it'll be similar to what's seen in Magisters' Terrace, added with the Fury of the Sunwell patch.

A quick recap of the information we know thus far on the changes to raiding and dungeons in the expansion:

• Similar to World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, all 5-person dungeons will have a Heroic mode
• All raid dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King will have both 25-person and 10-person versions
  • 25-person raiding progression is not dependent on 10-person raiding; players will not have to obtain keys or attunements in 10-person raids to participate in 25-person raids
  • 10- and 25-person raids both have their own, independent progression paths
• Players will receive more, higher level rewards for completing the 25-person raid dungeons over the 10-person version

The Death Knight -- your very own Arthas... well ok, not really, but they're pretty cool

Ah, the illustrious Death Knight. Everyone has been clamoring for information no this since its announcement last year at Blizzcon. Well good news, we have the information you've been waiting for on that front! Players will unlock the Death Knight class as long as they have a level 55 or higher character on their account. From that point forward, you can create one Death Knight per-server; the class starts at level 55, and enters specially created areas where you begin the Death Knight quest chains. Blizzard felt that rather than requiring players to complete a quest to unlock the Hero class, they'd introduce the quest progression after the class is created so that it's not as painful to actually gain access to the class; the journey begins once you create a Death Knight.

The Death Knight uses a dual-resource system: Runes -- which there are a limited number of slots of; I saw six on the Death Knight used for the demonstration -- and Runic Power, a resource that fills up as you fight in combat by using a Rune-based ability that requires an enemy target. Runes are used to power your basic abilities; certain abilities require a certain number of that rune to be slotted before you can use them, and then those runes have a cooldown timer before they can be used on another ability. Runic Power on the other hand, is used to fuel what Chilton described as "finishers."

What kind of spells do Death Knights get? Are they cool? Are they useful? Well, we saw a number of them on the hotbar, and were shown quite a few -- and yes to both questions. The Death Knight looks to be a direct descendant of the Warcraft RTS series; it has a slew of the class' abilities from the games, including Death Coil, Death and Decay, Raise Dead, and a few others.

A quick description of some of the spells:

• Death Coil -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing 600 damage to a non-Undead target, or healing 900 damage on a friendly target.
• Death Grip -- This is the Death Knight's "taunt" ability. It also pulls the target to the Death Knight, forcing them to attack the Death Knight for a short amount of time. Yes, I said pulls the target; Blizzard is going to allow players to move mobs in the expansion both with Death Grip, and other knockback/pull abilities. This works on players too, so PvP balance ahoy!
• Chains of Ice -- Roots the target in place. When the spell fades, it places a snare on the target that reduces in potency as the duration runs out.
• Raise Dead -- Raises a nearby corpse to fight for the Death Knight for 2 minutes. If used on a player corpse, the player has the option to play as the ghoul for the duration -- gaining access to the ghoul's abilities.
  • The ghoul has the ability to do the following:
    • Leap to the target
    • Rend for decent damage-over-time
    • Stun target, and of course more
• Death Pact -- Sacrifices the raised ghouls to heal the Death Knight.
• Death and Decay -- Targeted, AoE Damage-over-time which pulses similar to the Paladin spell Consecration. Anyone affected by Death and Decay has a chance to be feared.
• Frost Presence -- Increases Armor by 45% and allows the Death Knight to generate 25% more threat. Only one presence can be active at any time.
• Unholy Presence -- Increases Attack Speed and Movement speed by 15%. Only one presence can be active at any time. This was described by Tom Chilton as the "PvP" presence.
• Anti-magic Shield -- Reduces the damage of the next magical spell cast on the Death Knight by 75%. It also converts the damage reduced into Runic Power.
• Strangulate -- Depletes all Runic Power, dealing minor damage and silencing the target for up to 5 seconds.
• Summon Deathcharger -- Allows the Death Knight to summon a Deathcharger mount. This mount is acquired through quests, similar to the Paladin and Warlock land mounts.

So after taking all that in, and thinking "Holy crap, goodbye game balance," Chilton and Kaplan both assured us that Death Knights aren't the most-loved class of the expansion -- all classes are getting attention and the balance as we know it will change. The class is designed at the base level of the game to be a useful tank or dps class for instances, and at the endgame, to be the spellcaster tank for raids -- and of course offer dps when not tanking via their two-handed-only weapon gameplay. That's right, your Warlocks won't have to tank on the Eredar Twins anymore once you have a Death Knight... or any future encounters similar. As with other classes, the Death Knight will have three talent trees -- Blood, Unholy, and Frost, but the talents were still very much under development still, so sadly we were not shown them.

A quick recap of the information we were told about the Death Knight:

• Death knights will be available to all players with level 55 characters
• Players can create one death knight per realm, per account
• Death knights can be any of the races
• Once created, death knights can undertake a series of quests to introduce the player to the new class and its associated lore
• Death knights utilize a rune system as their resource mechanic
  • Three different rune types are available: Unholy, Frost, and Blood
  • These runes allow death knights to cast spells and abilities; spells can cost any combination of these runes
  • Spent runes automatically refresh after a set period of time, similar to a rogue’s energy bar
  • The death knight will have the ability to customize which array of six runes is currently available
• As rune abilities are used, the death knight also generates another resource called Runic Power
  • The death knight will have several abilities that cost all available Runic Power, with varying levels of effectiveness based on total Runic Power spent
  • Runic Power decays over time if it’s not spent, similar to a warrior’s rage bar
• The death knight has three different presences to use: Blood, Frost, and Unholy; each presence grants the death knight a unique buff that will allow him or her to fulfill different roles in combat
• The death knight can serve either as a tank or as a melee-based damage-dealing class
• Death knights are designed to be highly viable tanking, magic-using characters
• Death knights will have the ability to summon undead guardians to fight by their side
• Death knights will have the ability to summon a Deathcharger mount

Now that you've been slain by a wall of text the likes of which you'll probably never see again (eh... ok so you will -- the General Forums are littered with them), the good news is this isn't the last article. We'll have another for you tomorrow which covers some of the other zones in the expansion, as well as info on Arthas, Icecrown Glacier, and much more. You can also look forward to an interview a bit later with both Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton. We had a lot of questions, and I'm sure you do too after seeing this new information; hopefully the interview will answer some of them.