Wrath of the Lich King

There are some really common questions that are going to come up when players are done upgrading to Wrath of the Lich King. They are sure to polute your trade and general channels and it might even be hard to get a striaght answer. Here are some of the questions we saw in the Wrath beta and our best attempts to answer them:

How do I get to Northrend?

Wrath of the Lich King is coming out, well, practically tomorrow! While many of you are going to create Death Knights and run around the Outlands for a week or so, you're going to end up level 70 eventually, and you're going to find yourself in places you've never been.

Whether or not you are for or against outsourcing, you won't believe what I'm about to tell you. Blizzard has long been opposed to the representatives of the World of Warcraft Labor Union (WOWLU), but this time they have gone too far. The message is clear, labor unions have no place in our work place.

On October 14th, 2008, a day that will live in infamy, Blizzard has intentionally deleted their best selling game, World of Warcraft, and incidentally deleted all of the characters associated with the game.

The only thing that remains the same is your character names, class names, and levels; the entire game has been deleted and remade right before your eyes. Not even David Blaine can get away by charging you $15 a month for this type of magic trick, but Blizzard has pulled it off, undoubtedly making them one of the greatest magicians of all times.

Late in August we learned there would be a patch containing a lot of Wrath of the Lich King's features. This patch, known as Echoes of Doom, is expected to be released Tuesday morning. Most importantly it will include all the new talent builds, including new 51 point talents and several new abilities. Everyone will receive a free respec, meaning you will get all your talent points back. Additionally, you'll need to visit your class trainer to learn your classes new abilities.

Yesterday we found out that Season 4 will be suspended with the release of Patch 3.0. A snapshot of rating will be used to reward end of season rewards but the season will continue. Today Nethaera gave us their promised 2 week notice for the ending of Season 4. Reasoning says that October 14th will not only be the end of Season 4 but also the release of Patch 3.0.

Last week Blizzard began the Great Honor Controversy by announcing that all player earned Honor and Honor Marks would be wiped out when Wrath of the Lich King goes live. This was set to affect players of all level and skill. Players sprung up on the forums pointing out that an Honor reset was similar to a gold reset. Players argued that precedence was set when The Burning Crusade went live, when they DID NOT reset honor. There was even reference made to the official World of Warcraft Honor FAQ which says stated:

After making an official statement in May explicitly saying that Honor and Honor Marks would not be reset in the expansion, Blizzard changed their minds and promised to do the exact opposite.

Let's take a look at what type of impact this is going to have. Anyone who spent the last 3 months saving up 75,000 honor and 100 marks of each flavor will be forced to spend them on existing or new honor gear (listed below). Just to get 75,000 honor we're talking 50-100 hours. If you actually managed to cap all the marks that's another story I won't get into. This is roughly equivalent to 5,000 - 10,000 gold, and easily more (of doing dailies, farming primals, doing heroics, etc). All completely gone.

The end of The Burning Crusade is coming on November 13th, 2008. Tier 4, 5 and 6 gear will all start diminishing in value rapidly as The Alliance and The Horde begin exploring Northerend, collecting Frostweave Cloth and adventuring into Utgarde Keep and The Nexus.

Blizzard Poster, Eyonix, promised that a patch containing some Wrath features (including talents) will be released prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King (source). Similar to the 2.0 release made before The Burning Crusade. Here is a list of some of the things to be included in the patch: