WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Arrives

With worldwide fanfare, breathless cheers and not a few tears of joy, World of Warcraft fans at last have the Wrath of the Lich King in hand. Check out the official notice of live status below.

For years, the heroes of the Alliance and Horde have fought against the evils in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, against the demons of the Burning Legion in Outland, and against each other -- all the while unaware that a threat more dangerous than any they had yet encountered was preparing to make its move in the icy continent of Northrend. Now the Lich King, Arthas Menethil, has emerged from Icecrown Citadel to claim the world as his own. Heroes of the Alliance and Horde gather in Northrend to make a stand against the malevolent being that dares to declare himself Azeroth's one true king... and seeks to scour all life from the world.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is now live and available at a store near you. Featuring a massive new continent, the brand-new death knight Hero class, unique dungeons, an open-world PvP zone with siege vehicles and destructible buildings, and hundreds of brand-new quests, Wrath of the Lich King provides a huge variety of content for solo and group players. The expansion is available in both a standard and Collector's Edition; find out more about the latter in our Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition Preview. To learn more about what awaits you in Northrend, visit our Wrath of the Lich King Features Page and check out the primer to get you started.

During installation of the expansion, you'll be able to upgrade the World of Warcraft account you play to allow access to Wrath of the Lich King. You can click here to upgrade as well.

Just remember, oh best beloved WoW fans, get some rest in between battles.

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I'll have you know I got at least four and a half hours of sleep last night! :P

Im not even bothered to get the expansion unless my friends are whining that its too good to miss, which i highly doubt

Guessing the best part of WOTLK was the trailer

WoW = give me something new already.

I don't even play it and am burnt out on it.

Psh.

You should read the review :P It's for that sort of thing, you know.

wasnt the summary something like "More of the same?"
Moar levels
Moar quests
Moar grinding
Moar instances
Moar time to waste on gear improvements

?

Nightfreak:
Im not even bothered to get the expansion unless my friends are whining that its too good to miss, which i highly doubt

Guessing the best part of WOTLK was the trailer

Trailer is pretty nice for sure.

This made evening BBC news in England, as well as a spot on The One Show; they managed to work in 'Internet addiction', though.

Nightfreak:
wasnt the summary something like "More of the same?"
Moar levels
Moar quests
Moar grinding
Moar instances
Moar time to waste on gear improvements

?

Well yes, there are more levels, quests, instances. But they're all better :P

Nightfreak:
wasnt the summary something like "More of the same?"

Isn't that the safest bet all around? =)
Sadly, that's what the majority of players want and expect. So why should Blizzard break a working formula?

Well, it's an expansion. It's not a completely new game. They aren't going to suddenly go "Right, we're making a single-shard world a la EVE, and players are actually going to be controlling groups of characters, and it's now a tactical turn-based strategy MMO." It's going to be more WoW.

That said, it's an expansion that makes the game without a doubt the best it's ever been, and the new content blows Classic and TBC out of the water :P

Melaisis:
This made evening BBC news in England, as well as a spot on The One Show; they managed to work in 'Internet addiction', though.

Well with more players than many small countries have citizens, it's not a wonder. :)

Y'all have fun now, ya hear? I'm waiting on EQ2: Shadow Odyssey and NWN 2: Storm of Zehir myself. :)

EQ2... is getting an expansion, people still play that?

I love WoW and I really think it gets a bad rap from the people who are "too cool" to play what everyone else is playing. Enjoy Darkfall twirps.

I will take more of the same please... sorta like someone saying "Hey you can have a third helping of icecream or a first helping of dog crap." I will go with the icecream every time."

ROFLOL, BL. I don't play WoW simply because I tried it for the free two weeks and, for some unknown reason, it just didn't appeal to me. *shrugs* That's not elitist but there -are- different strokes for different folks. After all, WoW "only" captures 10,000,000 people. :D

Sigoya:

Nightfreak:
wasnt the summary something like "More of the same?"

Isn't that the safest bet all around? =)
Sadly, that's what the majority of players want and expect. So why should Blizzard break a working formula?

Agreed, but to draw people back to a game which they've played for countless hours already, something new might be appealing!

I just got the feeling that if i would go back i'd play intensely for a week or two and than be even more bored than before!

Kalia:
ROFLOL, BL. I don't play WoW simply because I tried it for the free two weeks and, for some unknown reason, it just didn't appeal to me. *shrugs* That's not elitist but there -are- different strokes for different folks. After all, WoW "only" captures 10,000,000 people. :D

^^ Isnt that what you say about every game ? ;)
well - the 10,000,000

Nah, I have great passion for a few games but WoW just doesn't happen to be one of them. :)

I love: Diablo 2 (STILL) and the upcoming Diablo 3, Wizard101, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Everquest 2, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights 2, Guild Wars and the upcoming GW 2...well, the list could go on but you get the point. :P

But I do say something like that for WoW and Darkfall. :P

Kalia:
Nah, I have great passion for a few games but WoW just doesn't happen to be one of them. :)

I love: Diablo 2 (STILL) and the upcoming Diablo 3, Wizard101, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Everquest 2, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights 2, Guild Wars and the upcoming GW 2...well, the list could go on but you get the point. :P

But I do say something like that for WoW and Darkfall. :P

Interesting that you like Guild Wars but not Wow!
And like Pirates but already know you wont like DF (which has Pirates!)
Other than that I managed to buy and install mass effect, but never got 'round to playing it, saw a shitload of weapon upgrade options from the first mission on , got bored :P

Nightfreak:

Interesting that you like Guild Wars but not Wow!
And like Pirates but already know you wont like DF (which has Pirates!)
Other than that I managed to buy and install mass effect, but never got 'round to playing it, saw a shitload of weapon upgrade options from the first mission on , got bored :P

I actually played GW for a long time before I picked up WoW, and I have to say that I liked many parts of GW better. It definitely held my attention a lot longer. I quit WoW after 3 months. So staying on topic, is WoTLK going to change my mind about WoW anyone?

Kalia:
ROFLOL, BL. I don't play WoW simply because I tried it for the free two weeks and, for some unknown reason, it just didn't appeal to me. *shrugs* That's not elitist but there -are- different strokes for different folks. After all, WoW "only" captures 10,000,000 people. :D

Almost right. WoW captures 10,000,000 shitty computers.

And 15 hours later people are dinging 80. Too funny that Blizzard banned Athene cuz he made their expansion a joke. Nice bit of damage control.

Hemi, I honestly don't mean this in a snippy way but is there ANY game you like and/or look forward to playing?

And so what if the guy got to 80 in 15 hours. Most expansions aren't meant to be more than 15-30 hours anyhow. For instance, the Storm of Zehir expansion for NWN 2 is designed for 20 hours. Does that mean it "sucks" if I finish it in, say, 15 or 10?

If someone's willing to surrender their life to being the 'first' to 80 and plays for 15 hours without eating, drinking, communicating with the outside world or pissing in a toilet, more power to 'em. It doesn't, however, render the expansion a "joke".

***The above post brought to you by a NON-WOW playing poster***

I'm enjoying it, quests are a welcome break from the standard "go here, get 10 of these, come back" fare of most MMOs. Areas are all lovely and it genuinely just seems like a much more refined game. And I kinda pity those who rushed to 80 and now have weeks to wait before everyone else hits 80 and they can actually raid or pvp.

so you would say its a better expansion than the previous?

Having never experienced the previous expansion in respect to Classic WoW --> TBC, I can't really say 'better' as such, but I can certainly say it blows everything else out of the water. I got into BC fairly late in terms of progression, BT was released about a month after I started playing, so while I didn't get to experience everything TBC had to offer, I did try and do as much as possible.

The best way I can describe Wrath is 'cleaner'. The graphics and surrounds are more refined, more appealing than previous, some of the areas are just unnaturally beautiful. Also, as Mrcheese has stated, the quests offer so much more variety than before, rather than just kill and collection quests. Cheese and I level together, so while some things take a little longer than they should, in terms of drops/collections, other quests take half the time. And some are just plain fun! The use of vehicles of various types from the offset really set Wrath apart from BC. The development teams have gone all out, so in fact it's not 'more of the same', its kinda the same, but riding on the back of a dragon to kill that elite, rather than looking for hours on end for groups.

So in short, yes, it's generally much better than BC, so much so it feels like an entirely different game at times.

I was pleasently surprised when I got to Northrend to find none of the standard fare quests that cheese mentioned. Even if there's that little extra step of "feed the plaguehound the meat" it makes it that much more interesting imho.

Also, they did a very good job with the Death Knights, the first 3 levels are very fun and their starting gear looks incredible (too bad I have to wear ugly BC stuff for the next 10 levels :P). The class itself is very fun, and the skills and runes make for some interesting gameplay mechanics.