I'm a little ambivalent about upcoming changes in the expansion, but overall, it will be fun. As of August, 2008, we also seem to be pretty early in the development curve; warlocks are changing so fast I have no idea what they'll look like at level 80. Driving up to the annual guild party, I listened to about 2 hours of WoW podcasts ranting about the beta, so I feel obliged to jump on the bandwagon.



1. New content in general: This is desperately needed! Basically, I and many other players are running out of reasons to play World of Warcraft. We've been all over the Old World and Outland and seen what there is to see. Time to move on!

I've always enjoyed exploring virtual worlds, especially ones with nice art and great storylines. The movies and screenshots I've seen indicate that Wrath of the Lich King will be a winner on both fronts. I also really enjoy quests and leveling, so it will be fun to get back to those after two years (minus some patch hits). Some zones are always cooler and more atmospheric than others (i.e. Eastern Plaguelands, Zangarmarsh, Duskwood). The Scourge are back! If you want a look at some of that spiffy scenery, check out the official Blizzard WotLK movie.

I didn't sign up for the Beta because I really want to enjoy the leveling experience mostly free from technical difficulties. It's a little sad that we all generally end up with the same story (no new warlock quests since the Dreadsteed series ), but fun to do them anyways!

2. Achievements: most of the interface changes they want to add to WoW are already available through add-ons, but I've never found one that could figure out which quests Warpy has done. This feature may actually give our toons a little individuality.

It's essentially a list of the various interesting in-game things your character has done: such as explore all of Kalimdor, kill 50 Horde n00bs in Alliance capitol cities, complete certain questlines, etc. As a relatively old character (133 days played over 2.5 years), Warpy has done lots of stuff some of the fancy Sunwell raiders never got around to, much of which doesn't show up as gear. For more info, go to Blizzards Achievements Preview.

3. Inscription: Our new profession. Makin' stuff is fun, and I understand that currently, our character will have 6 inscription slots: 2 major, 2 lesser, 2 minor that enable us to customize our abilities. Sounds like enchants; we'll need good ones to raid. Unlike enchants, these are part of the character, and may need to be redone when we respec. I've got an alt with herbalism (which provides the inky reagents for inscription), but not enough rep to be much of an alchemist. I think he'll be taking up the new profession. For the latest on inscription, go to the wowwiki article.

4. Death Knights: I'll have 3 level-70 characters when the expansion hits; the last thing I need is another alt! But I understand that the quest line that they start with is really neat, and if I level a Horde one, I'll get to see the Horde side of Outland... Or perhaps I'll make a gnome death knight to annoy everyone with...




To learn more, or at least be entertained:

• Blizzard's official Death Knight Introduction
• Nyhm's rant: Death Knight Spree
• More Anti-Death-Knight Bitterness

5. New warlock spells/talents/pets: At the moment, there seems to be a serious nerf in the works for every improvement. Blizzard will make Master Conjurer and Aftermath effective, but gimp Improved Shadow Bolt. The new 51-point talents keep getting nerfed. At the moment, things are changing so fast that clearly they're all in development. But the kind of inspiration that showed in the The Burning Crusade talent trees isn't there. Haunt looks cool, but I've a bad feeling that a lot of the best builds will be hybrids unless they make the most expensive talents worth the points. The new teleport spell will be a lot lamer than blink unless the range is huge.

No new pets, but the existing pets are buffed on the PTR, which I can't see lasting because of PvP. Buffing pet hit is great, but I'll be surprised if Blizzard makes it worthwhile to use our pets for high-end raiding. And that's what I'm concerned about. It will be fun to level and explore Northrend, but if I can't provide decent DPS compared to a mage/hunter/etc., I won't be raiding, because guilds will only need one warlock/raid for CoE and other raid-wide warlock buffs.

Sounds like Blizzard needs time to come up with new ideas for expanding warlocks, and time to test if the ones they have leave warlocks playable in end-game (that means competitive with other classes in both PvP and PvE). Leveling sounds like it will be fun because I get to see more things; not because my toon gets to do more things.

The WoWHead Talent Calculator gets updated pretty frequently.

6. Gear: Can't say much about this as I haven't seen any. Snifles did screenshots of some of the stats, but what does it look like? Less ugly than Frozen Shadoweave shoulders, I hope?! Haven't heard anything about upcoming tailoring or enchanting stuff, so I'll just wait and see.

Check out the Warlock's Den Wrath of the Lich King Discussion.

Initial image nicked from wowwiki.