- Level cap raised from 70 to 80.
- A new continent, Iceland, with three exciting new outdoor zones, with hundreds of new quests. For the sake of simplicity and symmetry there will be only neutral cities and quest-givers in Iceland.
- New teleporting mounts, available at level 80, for the low price of only 20,000 gold. Due to technical restrictions these will only be usable in Iceland.
- Two new races, one for each faction. The Leper Gnomes joined the Horde, while a new, previously undiscovered race of Pink Orcs is joining the Alliance. New starting zones that will allow you to level these new races up to level 20, then its back to the ever popular Barrens and Stranglethorn.
- Due to popular demand a new class will be introduced, the monk. The monk is martial arts expert, dealing high amounts of melee damage, but wearing only cloth armor, and using only fist weapons and staves. He has some fascinating psionic stealth abilities, and will be able to open locks with just the power of his mind.
- New tradeskill, woodcrafting. Players with this profession can kill treants to gather wood, and craft it into an exciting range of bows, arrows, and staves. Craft exclusive epic bows and staves from wood dropped only from raid dungeon end bosses.
- Many great new loot and quest reward items. Green quest rewards at level 71 will be superior to old Black Temple epic items.
- New, more challenging dungeons. After listening to our core audience we decided to make all dungeons much harder, so that only the best can expect to beat these encounters.
- New raid dungeons, all capped at 10 players. New raid interface that only allows 1 player of each class to join a raid group, and that only if he has put at least 41 talent points in the talent tree marked "raid talents" for his class.
- New Permanent Elite status. One week after release of TFJ a special event for level 80 characters will become available, lasting only 1 week. Everybody who succeeds in this event will receive the Permanent Elite status, giving him exclusive access to the raid dungeons, and a floating Elite gold star over his head. Don't miss this chance to finally distinguish your elite skills permanently from the masses.
- Yet another total revamp of the PvP reward system. New battleground added for level 80 players.
- New Looking for Group interface. Drawing on the developers vast experience with meeting stones, global chat channels, and LFG windows from the past we came up with a new Looking for Group interface which will finally work, we think.
A blog with my thoughts regarding games I am playing and other stuff in life. Please read my Terms of Service
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Blizzard announces second World of Warcraft expansion
Blizzard today announced that the second expansion for their best-selling MMORPG World of Warcraft, to be named The Freezing Jihad (TFJ), will come out in January 2008. This expansion will offer an exciting list of new features:
I almost believed it... then I saw the teleporting mounts.
ReplyDeleteGAH.
PS. I really meant GAH.
ReplyDeleteALmost thought I was looking at news. :p
I hope Tobold, you won't become one of the Many WoW Bashers that are floating around the forums.
ReplyDeleteBecause i'm really sick of them.
Of course, there is alot of improvement to make, and there will be never a 100% satisfied MMORPG community.
But in my Opinion, Blizzard did make a great effort, to make BC an enjoyable experience for both casual and hard-core gamers.
There are some limitations they have. The Basic principle of WoW won't change (level up, looking for gear, etc.).
While Lord of the Rings and others, surely do look promising, they are also building up the same principle.
Bashing on that Principle is just a waste of time.
If this "News" was intended just as a fun post ,and not as critismn towards Blizzard, then i was missing a comment of yourself.
In my opinion (and many other people) , WoW is (yes still is), the best game around. They are annoyances, but they are in every game you play for more than a few minutes.
Hehe that was Fun
ReplyDeleteIt made me smile
Savrukk
Made me laugh. Although I am really dissapointed with TBC myself i'd still buy anything that blizzard release. Once a junky, always a junky.
ReplyDeleteSounds like someone is frustrated?
ReplyDeleteThis Blog was insightful with well reasoned topics. It brought up some valid points and interesting views on various things in WoW. Since it's your blog Tobold, post whatever you like. But like Markus said, I hope indeed you won't become one of the many WoW bashers.
Everyone has his/her right to get mad about things, but I rather read a post summing up the shortcomings of an instance that caused you to wipe 13 times than this. I value your opinion Tobold, I just didn't expect this coming from you.
HA!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the coffee out of the nose moment.
I hope Tobold, you won't become one of the Many WoW Bashers that are floating around the forums.
ReplyDelete...
If this "News" was intended just as a fun post ,and not as critismn towards Blizzard, then i was missing a comment of yourself.
Can't ruin a perfectly good parody by writing something nice at the end just to not upset anyone. :) The "comment from myself" is found at http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2007/02/burning-crusade-review.html.
There are about as many people thinking of me as a stupid WoW fanboi as there are thinking of me as a WoW basher. Which is the way it should be, as I am striving for a balanced and centrist point of view, always pointing out the good and the bad. I just can't put the good and the bad in every single phrase, so you'll find posts praising the good stuff, and others making fun of the weak points on my blog. This is a "making fun of the weak points" post.
I don't need to repeat every time that WoW is the best game currently out there, everybody knows that, and the popularity of it speaks for itself. But "best" doesn't mean "perfect". The perfect game doesn't exist, and probably never will. LotRO isn't the perfect game either. I must be allowed to point out the weak points of any game, without being labeled a "basher".
The Basic principle of WoW won't change (level up, looking for gear, etc.). While Lord of the Rings and others, surely do look promising, they are also building up the same principle. Bashing on that Principle is just a waste of time.
I'm certainly not bashing the principle behind MMORPG. It works. But around the basic principle there are lots of variations of flavor, and different factions trying to pull a game in different directions.
The one aspect that I don't agree with in the current Blizzard policy, and which I've been complaining about in every game since Everquest, is the catering towards a small, vocal, hardcore minority, often favoring them over the huge silent majority that provides the game company with the bulk of their income. The reason why WoW is more successful than any other variation of Everquest (including Vanguard) is that it started out being more accessible to the average player, from casual to semi-casual middle-class. But since then the percentage of content created for the absolute top elite players has become much larger than the percentage of income from these players. If player A plays 10 times more than player B, you should *not* create ten times more content for him, because at the end of the month he only pays the same monthly fee as player B. I don't know why every single game developer falls into that stupid trap.
Very funny! Well done.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite possibly the most useful summary of TBC I've yet seen. Quite glad I wandered out of WoW before it came along really.
ReplyDeleteAm curious about one thing though Tobold - would you say it's that the game (and expansion) is objectively lacking these days, or is it that you're getting a touch of WoW Fatigue? No snarky dig implied - I am genuinely curious.
I can never really trust my own opinions of a game after a few months - gets hard to tell what is geniune rubbish, and what I'm just fed up with.
Man, I can't wait for Leper Gnomes though! That's going to be awesome! :)
Am curious about one thing though Tobold - would you say it's that the game (and expansion) is objectively lacking these days, or is it that you're getting a touch of WoW Fatigue? No snarky dig implied - I am genuinely curious.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in the balanced review linked to above, The Burning Crusade is not a bad expansion. I wouldn't call it "lacking", it provides exactly what most people expected of it, which is more of the same. There are some genuinly new ideas, and fun quests, but the majority of the package is on the conservative side. Where it comes close to deserving the adjective "lacking" is in sheer volume. I just don't see how TBC would provide 1 year worth of entertainment. I didn't play all that much, due to a busy work schedule, and I made level 70 in a month. Even at a 10-hours-per-week schedule you'd hit level 70 in 3 months. And the hardcore did it in a week, or most famously in 28 hours non-stop. Even with the very probably addition of 2 more raid dungeons (which are obviously missing right now) in upcoming content patches, there isn't enough to do until the next expansion comes out. *Especially* not if you don't raid.
And of course I suffer from WoW fatigue. As I said before, my decision to start playing LotRO can be fully explained with WoW fatigue. I do *not* switch because I find LotRO "better" than WoW, I switch because LotRO is "about as good" as WoW *and* is new. After two-and-a-half years of WoW I expect to be not the only one in this situation.
And of course I suffer from WoW fatigue. As I said before, my decision to start playing LotRO can be fully explained with WoW fatigue. I do *not* switch because I find LotRO "better" than WoW, I switch because LotRO is "about as good" as WoW *and* is new. After two-and-a-half years of WoW I expect to be not the only one in this situation.
ReplyDeleteSame situation as I am. True words ./signed
Geronimo Caduff
They could have slowed things down by simply reducing the amount of xp doled out.
ReplyDeleteIt is plain that you can hit 70 way before you have done all the quests (or even half of them).
Ha!!! I was completely fooled at first! Well done!
ReplyDeleteThanks Tobold, you saved my day...
ReplyDeleteEvery day, the more I play LotRO, the more I feel like that article is going to be true. LotRO truly offers me (and I suppose you too) everything world of warcraft misses: new zones, new mobs, new everything and removes all the bad stuff in world of warcraft like ganking.
To me Burning Crusade was some what a disappointment. Sure it was fun while it lasted, but getting to level 70 in about 2 weeks and not getting much more content after that (part from heroic dungeons which is exactly like normal ones, just... impossibly hard) and raiding, I just snapped...
But now I found my baby, Lotro ;).
Ha!!! I was completely fooled at first! Well done!
ReplyDeleteI should have waited with this for April 1st. Didn't think it would fool anyone. "The Freezing Jihad" was supposed to be an easy giveaway. The chance of a major game company releasing a game with the word "Jihad" in it in this post-911 world is very close to zero.
@ sare:
ReplyDeleteI'm right with you. I'll likely keep checking back in on WoW from time to time, but LotRO just plain offers so much more for me. Not to mention the game's going to have way more in the ways of regular updates (it's Turbine after all) and we won't be left waiting at max level for 2 years.
Viva la Middle-Earth!
:P
(I still love me some WoW, even if I'm sick of the gameplay. Great times were had, but moving on time is fast approaching.)
I had to check my calendar for a second there, make sure it wasn't 4/1. :)
ReplyDeleteI'll probably get hate for this... but thanks for inspiring my post, Tobold: The Ramblings of a Bildo
ReplyDeleteI would take your opinion seriously if I didn't believe your problem with WoW TBC was based solely upon your own inabilities and comprehension of the game play.
ReplyDeleteMost of the people agreeing with you are the exact same people I kick out of my group within the first 15mins of an instance. I can just tell by the ignorance in the comments that you and many others simply do not grasp that the game isn't "too tough" it's more like it's more difficult then you personally have time to put into it.
Why don't you cry "GIMP CHESS" cause if you haven't been playing chess and don't realize the intricacies of the game "chess" then you simply are going to lose badly everytime you play someone with skill and talent.
That's what the TBC is. A game for those with skill and talent. Those of you who play just to play, well you have fun leveling alts and not doing the end game material because it wasn't designed for you. What was designed for you were the 1,000's of quests before endgame, then many zones to explore, the professions to master, the company to share with other people and guilds, the arenas, the pvp, everything else.
SO why don't you stop complaining and realize you have exactly what you want and blizzard is making a good business move by providing content for everyone.
Wow, way to hide behind the anonymous tag, Mr. Kaplan.
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, why is it that no one can dislike a game, or grow to dislike a game, without getting bashed for doing so?
Blizzard began with the idea that WoW would be the casual player's MMO, and it's been morphed over time into an EQ-esque raid-fest, that I for one don't want to play. THAT'S whay I stopped playing, not because I lack your notion of "skill", sir.
Get a grip.
And as an addition, if you think WoW is "difficult", you need an eye-opener on what "difficult" means. There's nothing difficult about rehearsing strategies and pressing a few hotkeys. It may take practice, but it's certainly not "difficult". There is little to no skill in any part of WoW's gameplay, being that the challenge is directly correlated to the gear your characters possess. Play EVE, then tell me what's difficult.
ReplyDeleteSorry, anon touched a nerve with me...
Once more... sorry Tobold for triple posting...
ReplyDeleteTIME is WoW's greatest hurtle, and TIME =/= difficult either. It may = frustration, but certainly not difficult.
Anyone who's played Gunstar Heroes, Ikaruga, or any number of the short but sweet shooter console/arcade games can tell you that a quick game can be more difficult than any other.
I think I'm done now, but no promises.
Good blog, funny post.
ReplyDeleteI guess I have mixed feelings about the topic.
I have some WoW burnout, but I'm still playing quite a lot.
But I can laugh myself, and I can laugh at Blizz.
Who doesn’t have their inside jokes about the oddities of players, and of the game?
OK, here is the question for Tobold (or any other taker):
In one comment you bemoan catering to the hardcore
In the next you say you are disappointed with lack of content
My question is: Where is the balancing point?
The ones who need more content are the ones who consume content the fastest, right?
And the ones who consume content the fastest are the most hardcore.
The ones who play less, use Thottbot and guides as only a last resort, explore and discover rather than read up about it, didn’t consume BC content in the beta, don’t buy gold, and are consuming content more slowly - those people are probably still finding new content and will for many months to come.
Bringing up a secondary point, as some predict that content they will completely use up the BC content in three to six months, I wonder what percentage of the generally population will reach that plateau?
Did the guy who made 70 in 28 hours do it cold, or did he invest many hours into beta BC play and research before he ever even loaded the expansion?
I can say with confidence that everyone I know in RL who play WoW, probably ten people or so, will not completely use up the BC in a year. Especially if Blizz patches in additional content.
I cancelled my account a few weeks ago. Sure I got into Karazhan fast before they nerfed leaving BM open and getting everyone keyed. but then kara became so boring. 20hrs a week raiding for maybe a tiny improvement. Wow is done for me, too boring. They really screwed it up and I was in the top guild on my server. But I had no more desire to play 30hrs a week in the boring format they created. Good luck to those that stay, i'll be off enjoying life and other games, wow 70 is dead.
ReplyDeletePink Orcs rofl. I was about ready to quit WOW just out of sheer disgust until I realized you were pulling our legs.
ReplyDeleteThe name "The Freezing Jihad" was the first clue that your post was a spoof, but with Blizzards attention to "balance" I thought maybe that was just their way of evening the score for introducing a crusade. ;)
If player A plays 10 times more than player B, you should *not* create ten times more content for him, because at the end of the month he only pays the same monthly fee as player B. I don't know why every single game developer falls into that stupid trap.
ReplyDeleteFrom an effort/cost perspective, Blizzard may very well be spending their money propotionally, it is just that one type of content is much faster to consume.
And looking at the Asian market, the business model used there may make the more time consuming content more profitable, if people pay for the time played.
lol for a start its called northrend not iceland but sounds good bring it on
ReplyDelete@Anonymous fanboi:
ReplyDeleteTBC is not a game about skill and talent. It is a game about patience and time commitment. If you have the patience to farm the consumables, along with the time commitment to do the same crap over and over again to maybe get a minor increase in power you will "succeed".
You should also be bored to tears.
People have said it before, but companies should be ok with putting in a game over screen in MMORPGs. Blizzard shouldn't put brick walls in place just to stop the uber leet burning through the content in 15 seconds when that stops the 90% of casual to semi-casual people from ever seeing that content.
It would be much better to just leave things as they are and put your effort towards another game or another expansion. Hell look at the number of expansions that EQ2 has had in the time that WoW has had a single one!
Bah - I was just about to have some fun teasing all the hardcore raiding lewt wh***s about how their current shinies are already out of date. ;)
ReplyDeleteDon't call the devil....
ReplyDeleteROFL. And yeah, why the hell is Eye of the Storm only for lvl 70s? What kind of logic is behind that? AV I can understand, what with the npcs and mobs, but not for EotS. I wanna play it on my alts and twink.
ReplyDeleteI had my suspicions already at "The Freezing Jihad".
ReplyDeleteGood Laugh Tobold, Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI checked the calendar to see if it was the first already. I can't wait to see the real April Fool's piece.
ReplyDeleteSome of it, though, seems sadly, but chillingly, predictable. "For the sake of simplicity and symmetry there will be only neutral cities and quest-givers in Iceland" I can see it. Hellfire Peninsula anyone? Or Eye of the Storm. Just line up a mirror and replicate. And we'll just toss them together in a neutral city and have them do the same stuff.
Nothing like the good old days like making the Night Elves run for an hour and having the Orcs and Forsaken in easy Zep Flight of each other's capital cities.
"New starting zones that will allow you to level these new races up to level 20, then its back to the ever popular Barrens and Stranglethorn." If they don't make Northrend, or whereever it will be, a full level 1 to 60 playing experience, they will be losing folks. LotRO will cause some to leave, maybe. The reason so many power-leveled to 70 was there was not nearly enough new content between level 1 and 60, and zero between 20 and 60. The expansion basically catered to 60+, and even folks with new races have leveled them to 70 now. "Screw all content, screw any form of immersion, I'm going raiding." And the Outlands killed the previous end-game content. Dead.
Otherwise I like the idea about woodcrafting! ;)
Leper gnomes should start in the suburb Gnomeregan, which will be a major city of the Horde and not a dungeon anymore. Quests about Gnomeregan (most of them starting in Tinker Town of IF) will be then cancelled.
ReplyDeleteThis was funny. I kept re-reading the xpac name thinking, that can't be right. I love it.
ReplyDeleteI asked this on my own blog, so to the people complaining here... Why the hell is everyone so up tight?? WOW is just a game. It's NOT a religion. I think you need to step back and breathe. Poking fun at WOW is like mocking the Pope or burning the flag. Geez, people, get a gri.
lol iceland doesnt exists, it is called northcrown. i would love a monk thou. lol
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed at some people's comments on this - sense of humor by-pass anyone?? Thought it was genuinely funny, and Bliz must agree as it's on the front page? (I don't know anything about these things though, perhaps its just an auto link? But wouldn't have thought so). Thanks for the giggle :)
ReplyDeletethe monk part... nice well done
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell got in to blizzard? I mean pink orcs and leper gnome...come one ..leper gnomes were made for beeing mobs and pink orcs for the aliance is just ubber lame.BTW Iceland doesn't exista and 4 those who are stupid enough it's called Northrend where the final boss showld be Arthas the Lich King.And the best 2 new races showld be none other than queesn Ashara's naga 4 the horde and probably high elf 4 the aliance.so pls Blizzard dont turn this terrific game in to crap !!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAH!!! :D
ReplyDeleteSo freaking funny, thank you for making my breakfast come out of my mouth again :D
It´s really funny to see people who doesn´t even realise that this is all a joke :o) They´re almost as funny as the blog itself
ReplyDeletehaha very funny :D
ReplyDeletebut honestly, screw LOTRO.. who the *bip* wants to play a game with borring un-original classes and only human-based races? blows.. no the upcoming WAR is the way to go!!! every 6(7) races have their own classes and they can be nothing but their own... see thats original!!! + it is going to be a skill based game and you can be Chaos :D .. so yeah screw LOTRO.. its got nothing new..
HAHAHA, i cant beleive some people actually replied so seriously to this.... lighten up people.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, if u only play about 20hrs a week there is more than enough content to go around.
2 things.
ReplyDeleteWTF is a pink orc.
Leper gnomes sounds queer as a horde race.
Monk? WHAT IS THIS DND?
High DPS..Cloth armor...Mage maybe?
They need fooking shadowknights for undead. seriously. like..warrior/warlock.
this is stupid blizzard wouldnt do something so early on after the release of Burning Crusade. this post is an obvious joke and you people shouldnt fall for this idiot
ReplyDeleteWhat about the long rumored Chuck Norris channel?
ReplyDeleteAs an avid Wow Player, I think this post was funny as hell! Rock On!!!!
ReplyDeletesome info may be false i have seen an image of a murlock charecter whioch was rumoured to be for tbc but it may be for tfj pink orc wtf dude lepper gnome no. i hope that the new alliance race starts in kul'tiras (the little island of the coast of the hinterlands) it is alliance area but u cant go there ( i think) how about flying mounts availible in not only outland but azeroth (and iceland???) oh and i think its unrealistic with pink orcs(there is 1 high elf definetly in stormwind in mage tower could also be new race)
ReplyDeleteThe Frozen Jihad!? WTF Blizzard has stated that norhtrend will be their LAST expansion, and that is a LONG way away. I came to this site looking for reliable accurate information, not some crazy BS someone pulled out of their ass.
ReplyDeleteDONT LISTEN TO HIM!!! IT'S NORTHREND, NOT ICELAND!!! THERE ARE NO NEW MOUNTS!!!! THERE ARE NO NEW CLASSES EXCEPT FOR DEATHKNIGHTS!!! THERE ARE NO NEW RACES!!!
ReplyDeleteHaha this mustve been even more funny pre-wotlk. Although the comments make it even better. Why doesn't tobold make a new one about what comes after northrend. Thanks for the laugh- it was really good!
ReplyDelete