MMO Champ claims the new expac will be announced at Blizzcon, and that it's:


http://www.mmo-champion.com/

Anyone know more? Not sure how I feel about adding a Shadow Kni... err Death Knight.. to the game. I want my bard damnit.

Thats just as bad as this.......

http://pc.ign.com/articles/809/809350p1.html



Same old bullshit hype like before Starcraft 2 was announced. People will theorycraft it for the next few days until the last second this weekend...

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Hero classes are dumb.

That's quite a bit worse than the other rumor. Mentioning Hero Classes at this point after they had told us several times they aren't going that direction is just ridiculous. Not to mention some of those hero class abilities, that shit is just so fake I can't even believe someone wasted the time typing it.

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Check out the front page of MMO Champion now. Usk.de (same as ESRB/PEGI in Germany) have a list up of upcoming games, and World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King is on it. Also next to it, is GC - Demo. Assuming this is correct, it will be demo'd at GC in Liepzig Aug 23 - 26th.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Even more crap on MMO-Champion now...



So...unlocking a hero class similar to unlocking a Jedi in SWG. Fuck that. As someone who spent months and 23 Mastered Professions to unlock a Jedi when I played SWG, I care to not repeat that kind of process again.

The rumormills are really starting to scrap the bottom of the barrel...

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Well good thing there aren't 23 professions to master in WoW!

I still don't believe that shit. I hope to be proven wrong though, but introducing 1 hero class? Super imbalanced PvP anyone?

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Good Point....



And I don't believe it either, no matter where the info is coming from...hero classes this late in the game after they'd be scrapped nearly 2 years ago would be completely retarded.

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I liked the idea of hero classes, I still like the idea but ya they seemed to have scrapped it quite a while ago. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to them dropping some serious bombs on us. This is probably my favorite MMO ever, so new cool stuff is good! We need something to freshen up the game a bit!

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Regardless of whether it's hero or not.. the though of a Deathknight seems extremely lame. Maybe it's just my feelings after seeing how unexciting SK's were in EQ to me, but I'd rather see something truly interesting with some different game mechanics, like warriors/rogues/shaman.

The hero classes from Neverwinter Nights were very interesting to me (I'm not a DnD guy but I'm assuming those were from some extended edition or something). Maybe it's the name Deathknight that I hate.

The level cap is a good and bad thing from my perspective. I'd rather get raped in jail than level another character from 1-80. They need to do something about that, because one of the high points of WoW for me was in being able to have fun with alts.

Just add bards ffs.

I always wanted to see a ranger class like the ones in WC2. Just a straight up ranged class that specialized in ranged combat only, no pet shit. I was very disappointed when I read about hunters. If they're going to make a hero class where you need to level it up to 80 or something they need to add more low level content. Because if I level through elwynn>westfall>loch modan>redridge>duskwood>etc again I'm going to kill myself.

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

It would seem reasonable to lessen the experience required to level to 70 by some small percentage to maintain the relative ease of rerolling in WoW.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Well, they trademarked the name.. so I think we can bank on it being Northrend and the rest is all speculation until they announce it.

Yeah, I saw the trademark news on MMO-Champion this morning...

As for the rest of the information, yeah...have to wait until tomorrow...

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I saw some link to a US copyright listing or some such (on a .gov hosted site) of "The Wraith of the Lich King" or some such.

A German equivalent of the ESRB had a title "World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King" on their website. It was pulled down a few hours later.

5th post.

Out of all the rumors, I still find it hardest to believe that they would raise the level cap to 80.

Since it most likely won't be out for another year, or more, I don't find that hard to believe. We'll just have the same bit where we are replacing epics with Northrend greens.

Especially this soon after 70.

It's too big of a jump too quickly, maybe level 75. I don't understand the whole hero class deal at all as I've only been playing since mid-November, what's the deal?

I've heard a lot of people say that level 80 is too much too soon. But no one has really quantified why that is a problem. Can anyone take a stab at why that is so bad?

I dunno, when that expansion rolls around the game will have been out for almost 4 years. Seems fine to me.

I really enjoyed leveling from 60 to 70, was lots a new and really interesting things to see and do. Provided they manage to capture that experience again, can't see what'll be bad about going to 80.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I think the itemization problems that existed when the cap was raised to level 70 (and top-notch gear was replaced overnight, the second the expansion came out) would only happen again if they raised the level cap to 80, and that is the last thing that Blizzard would want to happen. With the Black Temple being fairly new and largely untouched by most guilds still, I think it would be foolish to add new raid zones, new loot, etc., this soon. However, I don't doubt that the expansion won't be coming out until mid-2008 so I guess that wouldn't be such a bad thing. It just doesn't seem that smart to raise the level cap to 80 in less than a year's time, but I am no marketing expert. I guess we'll know the details soon enough.

Yeah I know exactly what you're saying, I'm still a bit disgruntled I never got to see much of Naxx since our guild never formed until a year into things. At least this time around we should see the end of Black Temple prior to the next expansion.

Ultimately I'd rather have too much to do rather than not enough.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Leveling to 80 would pretty much make any TBC instance worthless, just as Naxx is now. 10 more levels, higher sta, higher Ilevel for gear, you could steamroll into Hyjal and BT and there would be no point to it. Will it happen? Dunno, but knowing blizzards track record for making things obsolete, it's a big possiblity. If they were smart, they would require previous instances from TBC before you could start raiding in the next Xpac. With 1% of the population clearing BY / Hyjal, they really are making new content for those people, wasting what they spent so hard to get out.

As for a release date, you're probably looking first quarter 2008, to coincide with Warhammer, as by now I'm sure they don't think Conan is going to be that big of an impact to them.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

=REALLY basic WoW History Time line=
Nov 2004 - Release.

Summer-Sept 2005 - We start hearing about Burning Crusade. Even see some stuff at Blizzcon

2006 - Frustrating year of rumors and nothing

Jan 2007 - Release of Burning Crusade

July 2007 - Rumors of Lich King Expansion

2008(?) - Repeat of 2006 (Highly likely)

Early 2009(?) - Release of Lich King Expansion

Seems to me they are following RIGHT on cue if they were going to release this thing in the same alloted time as BC, from announce to release.

So whomever said it's too early to be thinking about a 71-80 raise. I'd have to say not.

Blizzard just likes to majorly jump the gun on their announcements is all

Who knows though. They might surprise us on release.

I'm fairly certain they won't bother to challenge Warhammer though. What'd be the point? People who are fed up with WoW aren't going to stay with it just because they release something new. So they will go to Warhammer regardless of release.

And besides. Why not give Warhammer a year long chance to fall flat on it's face if it goes bad? Then stomp them into the mud with the new expansion as WoW People who went to Warhmmaer fed up with WoW, have had time away and now have reason to come back?

By announcing NOW. They get a leash on those who like WoW enough to stay when Warhammer comes, and put the tantalizing bits out there to draw back those dissatisfied with Warhammer when the expansion DOES come out.

Wahmmer is playing right into their hands.

(OF course if you like me. You're hoping that the day after Warhammer comes out, that you like it so much you take your WoW discs and use them for skeet shooting. And that by some miracle Warhammer drowns WoW like a red-headed stepchild)

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.

Think every blizzard release EVER in history.

They always take forever to release. This expansion will be no different.

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-Rileigh (aka Golliwog)

What's the alternative though? Release an expansion with no new levels and raid content for only those who've beaten Illidan? Sure they save a bunch of content for those who've yet to experience it and some may be thankful who are a bit behind but you can bet the majority will be disgruntled that there's nothing new for them to experience immediately. Everquest started to do this and I think it was definitely one of the things that contributed to their fall from grace.

The Burning Crusade consisted of seven brand new zones in Outlands, two new races and associated starting zones (I've not played either race but I think they got two zones each), fifteen dungeons, hundreds of quests, thousands of items and twenty-seven raid bosses (not counting Karazhan). I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the content in TBC was experienced by everyone.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

They are running out of notable villains to kill off. It is a god damn greek tragedy that Illidain was killed.

There should be no way that Arthas should die to the hands of mortals, and no way in fuck Frostmourne should be weilded by some gaggot named Herowarrior or Thepaladin.

This will make me sad.

Well put.

They could throw in Deathwing, and maybe other dragon aspects. They still haven't fleshed out anything to do with worgens beyond SFK. Or anything to do with the Scythe of Elune/Dark Riders. There's a ton of lore they could've used, but we're getting another god damn troll dungeon thrown our way. -_- There's that Maelstrom business too, and Azshara is supposed to be the strongest entity in Azeroth. It never really explained how one of her servants and a chunk of her race came to be allied with Illidan.

Data as of 7/10/07. US Servers.

- Gryzemuis, EJ forums.

10 Man content is being experienced by everyone. Everything else, newp.

That does not make a successful expansion.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Yeah but it would at least be in the fucking game. The ability to unlock Jedi wasn't in the game when they claimed it was.

Which remains IMHO one of the most absolute horrific pieces of bullshit to happen to players like you, who busted their asses on it. I had quit before that point over them repeatedly fucking over my tradeskilling (I was the 2nd master weaponsmith and would have been the first, had I not gone also for 2 other masterizations, including the full salesbot one...allowing me to have every alien option available at my home/shop...which was fun for a bit).

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When I finally unlocked the Jedi, the last profession I finished was Squad Leader. Good olde #23...but techincally, only #17 of those professions where mastered after the unlock was enabled.

And truth be told, the class was a fucking joke. The most overpowered and underwhelming class ever. Once I hit the second tier (Jedi Knight) all I needed to do was macro saber spin 1 and 2, force pull and force lightning...and at tier 3 (Master) I macro'd saber spin (with the double bladed saber) and force lightning. I would sit in the Rancor spawns on Dathomir 9 hours a day....

But my reason for mentioning that stands with that rumor about Deathknights (or other hero classes for that matter)...the reward for all the retarded shit wasn't really worth it at all.

Funny story about SWG Tarot, your house was still up when I quit playing...and that was May 2004 (when I got my WoW Beta Invite).

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I only read the first post and the last post .

Tarot, you never did make me that special master sharpshooter rifle...since the mineral never spawned in Ahazi until 1.5 years later.

Look at Sola's sig!

What about all the zones, quests, items and instances I already mentioned that make up 85-95% of the expansion? The Burning Crusade was so much more than SSC/TK and Hyjal/BT.

And here's the million dollar question, what makes a successful expansion? Seems to me you're perpetually unhappy with anything they do and if things had of been different, you'd be here claiming how crappy the expansion was because all the top guilds blew through it in three weeks.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Let me put this out there in terms that you can understand. Think of the expansion as a book. The zones, quests, items, and instances you mentioned represent Chapters 1 through 15, the start and middle of the story. 16 through 22 are represented by Mag, SSC, TK, Hyjal, and BT, A.K.A. The End. Now, as a reader, I don't enjoy getting 3/4 of the way through a book for it to be replaced by the next book. This is what's happening with the way that Blizzard is developing WoW.

Get the picture?

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

"16 through 22 are represented by Mag, SSC, TK, Hyjal, and BT, A.K.A. The End."

Unless they plan on doing something seriously dynamic like writing seriously new and unseen material that did not exist until the expansion.

You know. Like they would be doing if (maybe when) they make a Warcraft IV?

Its not out of the Realm of possibility they have far more in mind than they are showing right now.

I mean look at EQ2., What's their current level cap (I dunno). I know its got to be under 90 or something. But the game is designed to expand to level 200, they've got a LONG ass way yet to go.

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.

what?

I thought we were talking about the above point, how Blizzard was wasting time on content that only got to be seen by a small percentage? Obviously I concede that point but counter with that fact that the content that goes unseen is actually not all that much in the grand scheme of the expansion.

If you're a raiding guild that's striving for the end and comes up short, yeah that sucks but like you already pointed out, those people are a minute fraction that make up the total population of the game.

With that said, where's the line, what percentage of the population should have completed all the content prior to them releasing the next expansion?

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Jesus christ, it's true.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/

*The dark, necromatic Death Knight - the first new character class added to World of Warcraft since its launch.
*Northrend, the harsh, icy continent where the Lich King holds rule, complete with new zones, quests, items and monsters.
*New level cap of 80 providing access to mighty new powers and talents
*New battlegrounds featuring siege engine warfare and destructable buildings
*Expanding character customisation options including new hairstyles & dances, the ability to change the hairstyles of existing characters, and new skin color variants.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Gwiber is the Cicely of the mmorpg forum.

At the very least Death Knight isn't a hero class...

However, I quite honestly hope they aren't a Tank class...game has too many tank classes to begin with. But knowing Blizzard they probably will be, and they'll probably end up being the best tanks...

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Sounds like that is exactly what they are:

From MMO.

Isn't that a warrior already? Fury/prot

I'm hoping it'll be closer to a Prot/Ret Pally without healing spells, just damage spells. But yeah, sure does sound like a dps warrior as well. If it's like a SK in EQ it should be a fun class.

Straight from the opening ceremonies, the Death Knight is being refered to as a "Hero" class, so hopefully more on that later.

Edit: Spoke too soon, it seems a TON of people have been sitting on this information.

Straight from 1up.com minutes after the opening ceremonies.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3161725

New Hero Class: Death Knight
World of WarCraft's first Hero Class is a plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid that works a little something like this: When players hit level 80, they'll be able to embark on a quest (similar in difficulty to the Warlock's epic mount quest, back before the level cap was raised to 70) that unlocks the ability to create a Death Knight character. The Death Knight starts at a high level (somewhere around 60 or 70, though Blizzard isn't certain yet), so you won't have to grind your way back up all over again. It's intended as an alternative, advanced class for end-game use only.

Rather than using rage, energy, or mana, Death Knights have a special "rune sword" displayed beneath their health bar, onto which the player can etch six different runes (choose between Frost, Blood, and Unholy). Different abilities require different mixes of runes, and using abilities consumes the requisite runes until a cooldown timer causes them to be available again. Stuff like talents, spells, and other specifics are still being finalized. So are key questions like what races can be a Death Knight (start a Gnome petition now) and whether unlocking the Hero Class on one server means you can create a Death Knight on any server.



Wow..just...wow.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

That's surprisingly a really cool idea. I really like that.

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-Rileigh (aka Golliwog)

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The trailer looked good, no mention of a projected release date though.

How to become a Death Knight? Kill Arthas in under 1 minute, haha, if only.

Nonetheless, this new "hero" class will only bring whining from the masses who can't get it, and make the devs decrease requirements for unlocking it.

It sounds like all classes can get the quest to unlock the new hero class.

God I called that, 8 levels in Outland just to get the ability to zone in Iceclad Ocean, I mean Howling Fjord.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Straight from the WOTLK panel.

1:55pm: Burning Crusade made people ignore existing content-- with new expansion will Legacy content be supported more? We expect the old content to be used for leveling up, but as far as a lot of the old raid content, "we don't intend to keep it around." It had it's time, it's fun, and now we're moving on to new stuff.


Thank you drive through.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

Wow, I can't believe they're so passive about all the old stuff. Heh. Wow.