Fans of World of Warcraft, prepare for Blizzard Entertainment’s next installment — World of Warcraft: Wrath of King Lich. In this latest expansion, something is afoot in the cold, harsh northlands. The Lich King Arthas has set in motion events that could lead to the extinction of all life on Azeroth. The necromantic power of the plague and legions of undead armies threaten to sweep across the land. Only the mightiest heroes can oppose the Lich King and end his reign of terror.
The tuskarr, a walrus-like race of nomadic fisherman, inhabit the icy Borean Tundra. View larger.
Half-giant warriors, the vrykul, once inhabited the land. View larger.
You’ll enjoy exploring Northrend and all its environments and dungeons. View larger.
Explore Northrend and battle the Lich King with World of Warcraft’s first hero class character — The Death Knight. View larger.
One of many new environments, Dragonblight is an arctic wasteland surrounded by dense forests. View larger.
Many strange and terrifying creatures inhabit this frozen continent. View larger. Enter the Death Knight
This expansion adds a host of content to the already massive existing game world. Players will achieve soaring levels of power, explore Northrend (the vast icy continent of the Lich King), and battle high-level heroes to determine the ultimate fate of Azeroth. As you face the dangers of the frigid, harsh north, prepare to master the dark necromantic powers of the Death Night — World of Warcraft’s first Hero class. No longer servants of the Lich King, the Death Knights begin their new calling as experienced, formidable adversaries. Each is heavily armed, armored, and in possession of a deadly arsenal of forbidden magic.
If you have a World of Warcraft account with a character of at least level 55, you will be able to create a new level-55 Death Knight of any race (if on a PvP realm, the Death Knight must be the same faction as your existing character). And upon entering the new world, your Death Knight will begin to quest to level 80, gaining potent new abilities and talents along the way. This expansion allows for only one Death Knight per realm, per account.
New Environments in Northrend Await
Journey through the remote, diverse lands of Northrend and explore Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Borean Tundra, and Howling Fjord. Named for bones of perished dragons and majestic shrines to the fallen creatures, Dragonblight is an arctic wasteland surrounded by dense forests.
Not everything is frozen in Northrend. The lush mountains of Grizzly Hills are the ancestral home to the furbolgs, who have grown accustomed to relative peace. Although their tranquility is being challenged by trappers, goblins, and ice trolls, Grizzly Hills remains a vast and dangerous wilderness.
The southwestern tip of Northrend is home to the sprawling Borean Tundra. The Horde has established a dominant presence in this icy portion of the continent and has formed a bond with the tuskarr, a walrus-like race of nomadic fisherman. Magical energy is afoot in the region, and it has caused increased tension.
High above the Great Sea at the southeastern tip of Northrend lies the Howling Fjord. Ancient mythology holds that a race of half-giant warriors, the vrykul, once inhabited the land, founding a prosperous civilization. They mysteriously vanished, leaving deserted villages and abandoned temples. In present times, the Alliance and the Horde have come to Howling Fjord to confront the Lich King. Strangely, this has prompted the return of the vrykul, who are attacking the Alliance and Horde settlements. Howling Fjord presents a difficult challenge on two fronts: withstanding the vrykul’s onslaught and battling the evil Lich King.
A Multitude of Monsters
Strange and terrifying creatures inhabit the frozen continent of Northrend, such as Nerubian Viziniers, Plague Eruptors, Shoveltusks and Flesh Giants, to name just a few. Half-spider, half-humanoid, the viziniers utilize sorcery and high intelligence to emerge as the rulers of Nerubians’ underground kingdom. The Plague Eruptors are walking corpses created by the Lich King’s evil experiments to spread horror and chaos across the living world.
Massive curved antlers make it easy to identify the Shoveltusks. These grumpy beasts are very dangerous, territorial, and best left alone. The Flesh Giants are nothing short of nightmarish abominations. Cobbled together from the pieces of giant body parts, the Flesh Giants employ tremendous strength to carry out the Lich King’s wishes.
The World of Warcraft: Wrath of King Lich expansion pack allows you to engage in epic siege warfare. The pack presents the first Hero class and allows you to transform your Death Knight’s look with character customization that even include hairstyles and dances. You’ll enjoy exploring the Northrend and all its environments and dungeons, filled with some of the deadliest creatures — and greatest treasures — on all of Azeroth. (Taken from Amazon.com)
Blizzard Entertainment took online role playing by storm with their hit title, World of Warcraft. With mind-boggling improvements in graphics, gameplay networking, and interface — really every category — this game became the crown prince of the genre. World of Warcraft players will be excited by the approaching release of the new expansion pack: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. This pack expands the already massive, award-winning multiplayer online role-playing game by tremendous bounds, adding new races, lands, battlegrounds, professions and items, and much, much more. Although no release date has been set, here is sample of what you can expect from The Burning Crusade.
The Burning Crusade is the highly anticipated, unreleased expansion pack for Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft.”
What lies in Medivh’s tower? View larger.
Blood Elves emerge as a new race in The Burning Crusade. View larger.
The Blood Elves seek the golden destiny that has been promised to them. View larger.
Warcraft’s newest continent: Outland. View larger.
Once a beautiful land, Outland has been ravaged by war. View larger.
Outland is a vital strategic location. View larger.
The expansion pack features an increase in the level cap to 70. There are two new playable races, including the magical Blood Elves that you can read more about below. The other race has not yet been released by Blizzard. There will be new starting zones in Quel’Thalas and beyond. Another eye-opening addition is the entirely new, unexplored continent of Outland that is reachable through the Dark Portal. Plus, you’ll find many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth, Outland, and elsewhere that will substantially boost gameplay. There are new flying mounts in Outland; tons of new and dangerous monsters (including epic world bosses); hundreds of new quests and items; and even a new profession: Jewelcrafting. Of course this isn’t the end of the list — this is just a glimpse of what Blizzard has planned for their unreleased expansion pack.
The New Story, the Rumors, and More
Several years have passed since the Burning Legion’s defeat at Mount Hyjal and the races of Azeroth have continued to rebuild their once shattered lives. With renewed strength, the heroes of the Horde and Alliance have begun to explore new lands, and have broken through the Dark Portal to investigate the realms beyond the known world. In this expansion pack, The Burning Crusade refers to the Burning Legion’s ongoing efforts to destroy life on Azeroth. To date, the Burning Legion’s exploits have been documented in Warcraft III and in the War of the Ancients novel trilogy. As part of the expansion pack, players will now be able to travel through the Dark Portal to confront the Legion on otherworldly battlefields.
Although only one race has been revealed, Blizzard has announced plans to unveil details about possible additional races at a later date. On the other hand, many details have been released about the new continent, Outland. Players last visited Outland in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, alongside Illidan as he conquered the Pit Lord Magtheridon’s domain. Players will also gain access to Quel’Thalas, the region to the northeast of the Forsaken lands, where the Blood Elves reside. Blizzard says that this expansion pack holds even more new areas that are ripe for player exploration — additional details will be revealed in the months ahead.
Blizzard also has plans to add new dungeons and battlegrounds with the expansion, though the exact number has not yet been determined. One upcoming dungeon that has players excited is Karazhan, which is located within Medivh’s tower. Because Medivh has played such a central role in Warcraft lore, Blizzard is convinced that longtime players will be especially interested in seeing what Karazhan contains. As for battlegrounds, Blizzard has released very little information. However, they have announced plans to make some of the battles from the past accessible through the Caverns of Time.
Blood Elves: The New Race
Thousands of years ago, the exiled Highborne landed on the shores of Lordaeron and founded the enchanted kingdom of Quel’Thas. These high elves, as they called themselves, created a fountain of vast, magical energies within the heart of their land — the Sunwell. Over time, they grew dependant on the Sunwell’s unstable energies, regardless of the bitter lessons they’d learned in ages past.
During the Third War, the villainous Prince Arthas invaded Quel’Thalas and reduced the once-mighty realm to rubble and ashes. His undead army decimated nearly all of the high elven population. In addition, he used the Sunwell’s energies to resurrect a powerful undead Lich, Kel’thuzad, thereby fouling the Sunwell’s mystical waters. The few elven survivors, realizing that they had been cut off from the source of their arcane power, grew increasingly volatile and desperate.
In the midst of the elves’ darkest hour came Kael’thas Sunstrider, the last of Quel’Thalas’ royal bloodline. Kael, as he was commonly known, knew that the remnant of his people would not long survive without the nourishing magic that once empowered them. Renaming his people “blood elves” in honor of their fallen countrymen, Kael taught the survivors how to tap into ambient mystical energies — even demonic energies — in order to sate their terrible thirst for magic. In search of a new destiny for his people, Kael’thas ventured to the remote world of Outland where he encountered the fallen night elf, Illidan. Under Illidan’s watchful eye, Kael and his blood elves regained much of their former power.
Unfortunately, the blood elves practice of embracing demonic energies caused their former comrades in the Alliance to shun them. Thus, the remaining blood elves on Azeroth look desperately to the Horde to help them reach Outland where they can reunite with Kael’thas and achieve the golden destiny he has promised them.
Outland: The New Continent
Once the beautiful homeworld of the orcs, all that remains of Draenor is the scattered wastes of Outland. Following the Second War, the Alliance invaded Draenor by crossing through the Dark Portal. To their horror, they discovered that Ner’zhul — the dark warlord of Horde — had constructed a series of new gateways that could lead the beaten Horde to newer, unspoiled worlds. As the Alliance forces closed in around him, Ner’zhul opened his gateways as a means of escape. However, his plan backfired and the gateway’s clashing energies resulted in a massive catastrophic explosion that ultimately ripped the world of Draenor to pieces.
Nearly thirteen years later — towards the end of the Third War — the fallen night elf, Illidan, discovered that huge chunks of Draenor still existed, floating upon the astral winds of the Twisting Nether. After his defeat at the hands of the evil Prince Arthas, Illidan fled to the remnants of Draenor and dubbed them “Outland.” He quickly seized control of the chaotic region and sealed the last of Ner’zhul’s gateways.
Though he is the undisputed ruler of the ravaged land, Illidan lives in fear that he will be discovered by his powerful enemies — most notably Arthas, the new Lich King, and the remaining Lords of the Burning Legion. For now, Outland is home to a number of scattered draenei tribes, primitive orcs, and powerful, arcane creatures of the Nether itself. Agents of the Burning Legion have also targeted the region as a vital strategic location in their unending Burning Crusade to scour all life from the universe.
What else can expected? Blizzard has tantalized Warcraft players with the brief glimpse into The Burning Crusade’s storyline. Will these heroes find friends or foes? What dangers and rewards lie in wait beyond the Dark Portal? And what will they do when they discover that the demons they thought were vanquished have returned to renew their terrible Burning Crusade? These and other questions will remain unanswered until the gameplay can be explored by role-playing Warcrafters. (taken from Amazon.com)
World of Warcraft didn’t invent the online role-playing genre, but it certainly benefits from the missteps of other titles that have come before. A mind-boggling array of improvements in graphics, gameplay, networking, and interface–really every category–makes this game the crown prince of the genre, a great starting place for newbies, and a challenge to any other MMORPG currently in the works.
The game’s beautifully rendered locations are filled with small details, such as flying birds and flowing water.A History of Conflict
WoW takes place just four years after the real-time strategy Warcraft series, which chronicles a 25 year struggle between the Alliance (humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves) and the Horde (orcs, tauren, trolls, and undead). Even though there’s tons of accumulated story to the series, new players should not be daunted. The background is there for you to explore, but you don’t have to tread a lot of Azeroth history to get into the action.
The makers boast 2,000 existing quests with more being added, many of them noncombat in nature.
The game looks magnificent. There’s plenty of detail and variety to the landscapes and interiors, and the artwork has a refreshingly playful style. There’s not a lot of variety in the character creation process, but with all the skills and proficiencies to combine in the game, WoW focuses its customization not on the appearance of your character but rather on the character of your character. The game lets you adopt any two trade skills, regardless of character race or class, and combine those skills in useful ways. If you choose skinning and leatherworking, for example, you can fashion bags from the carcasses of monsters you defeat, which will allow you to carry even more inventory items.
Expanded Commerce
You can sell the items you make, find, and loot through a variety of outlets. Like any role-playing game, WoW has merchants who will buy your cast-off items for fixed prices, but you can also sell to other players at your own price through in-game chat or by leaving it with one of the auction houses located across the map. This virtual free market is a game within the game, like Monopoly somehow inserted into the middle of Chess. Heck, you can even send items C.O.D. to other players via the game’s mail system.
The game’s Quest Log keeps track of up to 20 quests at a time. In other online role-playing games, starting players have to invest dozens of hours whacking at small prey and doing other odd jobs one at a time to gradually “level up” to more interesting challenges. WoW lets players accept a variety of quests–up to 20 at a time without penalty for abandoning any of them before they’re complete. The makers boast 2,000 existing quests with more being added, many of them noncombat in nature. Where some games only grant experience through battle, WoW grants experience for exploring and fulfilling quests too.
A Level Playing Field
There’s also a built-in handicap for casual players where your character enters a rest state when you log off from the game. The longer you’re logged off (up to a week), the bigger the experience bonus you’ll get when you return to battle. An enemy tagging feature–the player who lands the first attack on an enemy claims the loot for himself or his party–prevents onlookers from swooping in and pilfering items from a monster that you brought down. That resolves a common complaint of other titles.
Icons and pop-ups help put complex controls easily within reach. Most games severely penalize players when they die in-game, usually by shaving experience points, funds, or both. In WoW, death just relocates your ghost to the nearest graveyard, and the only penalty is the time it takes you to get back to resurrect your character’s corpse.
All of this makes for a very complicated game, but the well-designed interface puts all the game’s elements into icons either visible framing the action or within a simple keystroke. The enemy’s artificial intelligence is quite strong too: Monsters will join nearby fights to aid their comrades, switch targets strategically midbattle, and ambush players. The map system fills in details on places you’ve visited, so you always know where you are and where you’ve been.
Overall, World of Warcraft is a game that’s easy to learn, challenging to master, beautiful to watch, and tons of fun to play. –Porter B. Hall (Taken from Amazon.com)
Hey WoW Arena fans. There have been a lot of questions and inquiries as to how World of Warcraft calculates Arena points for your team and decides your ranking. Well, today I’m going to get a little mathematical on you and break down exactly how your Arena points are calculated. WARNING: Nerdy Math Ahead. (more…)
Zygor’s Leveling Guide is a World of Warcraft Power Leveling Addon that claims to get ANY CHARACTER to level 80 in 8 days or less.That’s a pretty Bold Claim! We’ll see. (more…)
Thanks guys for visiting Noobsation. In appreciation of you guys and gals visiting me every day and reading my blog, I’d like to give you a 1-10 leveling guide for free. This will be the first installment and I can’t promise I’ll write them all, but if you chose Human, you’re in luck. Thanks for your support and I hope this guide helps you out. *cracks knuckles*. Ok…Let’s get started. (more…)
You know, right from the very get go I realized something when playing World of Warcraft compared to MMOs of the past. Blizzard has fun with their games. I just recently wrote a post about Celebrity and Historical Easter Eggs throughout the game, but Blizzard keeps pushing it one step futher. Today, I’d like to introduce to you something that nearly made me fall over laughing when I saw it, but first, I’ll set up the situation:
I was walking down the street (because there is a gas station right up the road) to get an energy drink, and I saw an asian man walking upon the opposite sidewalk from me. I glanced back down after looking at him, but then looked back up to see his shirt. The shirt that he was wearing was none other than this one.
I nearly had to stop drop and roll to keep from laughing. Seriously Blizzard, Bravo on that one. You guys have a hell of a marketing team and honestly, I wouldn’t have thought of that in a million years. I’m buying one. That is all. I know I’ve just wasted some of your time….and you are welcome! =P
That is correct Sirs and Madams. Noobstation now proudly brings you the Official World of Warcraft RSS Feed for your browsing enjoyment. In order to continue to bring new and useful information to Noobstation, we’ve implemented this so you’ve got a “One-Stop-Shop” type of deal when looking for information on World of Warcraft. It’s located in the top navigation bar. Thanks for reading fellow WoW fans and have a great day!
Sincrely,
The Crazies who run this joint.
During your stay in World of Warcraft, you may or may not have seen the various NPCs around with names resembling those of famous or accomplished individuals in the real world. Today, I felt like doing something a little bit different with an update – dare I say…something fun? I’m going to run through all the different Easter Eggs and NPCs inspired by celebrities within World of Warcraft! (more…)
The long awaited third World of Warcraft Expansion is almost upon us. For World of Warcraft players who have cancelled their accounts, this could mean a comeback. For those of us that are still playing, this means even more stuff to explore and love about World of Warcraft! Today, I’m going to go over a few features that are going to be implemented within Cataclysm, including Races, Classes and new content. (more…)