Wrath of the Lich King First Impressions
November 21, 2008 - A little over one week after launch, seeing level 80 players running around isn't such a rarity in World of Warcraft. Since Wrath of the Lich King's release, many have been sprinting like gazelles fleeing lions toward the new level limit, presumably Runescape Money so they could be first to delve into the high-level dungeon Runescape Money content and grab hold of the more powerful items Blizzard included. Yet doing so presumably precludes fast levelers from experiencing what seems to be one of the stronger aspects of the expansion: the narrative cohesion of the game world. Instead of just smashing together a bunch of pretty looking and diverse zones and calling it a new continent, Blizzard has clearly made the effort to build in the Lich King and his accompanying fiction into many of the world's quest lines, generating anticipation for the eventual battle against him. Of course the biggest draw of pretty much any MMO is the social aspect of it, whether it's shuffling resources between guild members to craft powerful items or organizing tactics to combat the most difficult dungeon challenges, but that doesn't mean the leveling process has to be a chore.
We won't have our full review until next week as there's still more for us to experience in the new lands, but most signs so far point to this being an expansion packed with entertaining content that's worth your dollar.
If you're just about to start Wrath of the Lich King, here's a recommendation you've probably heard a hundred times: read the quest text. As familiar a method as it is for delivering storyline and context for your actions, it's a method Blizzard understands how to utilize effectively, presenting them with a high quality of writing and creating some interesting setups. For instance, if you stayed away from reading the quest text, you'd never know why you ran all the way up a narrow mountain switchback on the border of the Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills. You'd just know you have to do something once you got to the top, kill whatever spawns, and then return to the quest giver.