Blizzcon 2007 : Changes mega-list !

[Boubouille]

Blizzcon information report

We're monday and some people probably missed the Blizzcon (shame on you), but actually even people who tried to follow everything couldn't see everything. Here comes the compilation ! This list isn't official at all, I made it to summarize the informations available at the Blizzcon, if you see something missing please post in comments. As usual, 5vs5 Arena Tournament results are on PvPScene.com

Wrath of the Lich King
Level Cap: 80 (New talent (up to 51 points tier) will be added to every class.)
Skill Cap: 450
Continent: Northrend
Number of Zones: 10 (tentatively), for levels 68 and above
Profession: Inscription
Class: Death Knight (first-ever Hero Class)
Features: Outdoor PVP zone with siege weapons and destructible buildings.
Beta: Only closed beta announced for the moment
Release date: Unknown, but probably beginning of 2008.

Leveling

• Leveling from 70 to 80 should take the same amount of time as 60 to 70. Don't expect this to go too fast because Blizzard won't let you use your flying mount in Northrend at the beginning. They're planning to keep you grounded until level 75 or 78 before you can use your uber netherdrake again.
  

Inscription

• Inscription will be the new profession of the expansion. It will let you customize spells and abilities, for example you could make your fireball crit more often, or change the casting time of a healing spell.
• You will also be able to create a totally new type of items, but there isn't any particular information about them yet.
  

Hero Classes

• The hero class will be created on a new character slot once you completed the quest, you won't lose your original character.
• The Death Knight should be the only hero class of the expansion, the devs want to see how the Death Knight works out before talking about new Hero Classes.
  

Death Knight

• This is a tanking/DPS class, you will be able to tank with a 2H or duel wielding
• Any race can become a Death Knight
• You unlock the ability to create the Death Knight when finishing the tough quest chain, your character will not be overwritten, it will be retained (so you are not losing something to gain something)
• Death Knight's will spawn into the world at a high level, they are still deciding which level you will start out at, 55,60, and level 70 have been discussed as possible starting points
• You will not be Kill on Sight from your own faction, so you will still be able to browse the AH, there will be flavor differences with NPCs however, expressing their distrust of Death Knights
• You get to choose your own type of Runeblade. You can choose from a traditional sword Runeblade or an axe variant
• Death Knight abilities are dictated by 3 runes : Blood, Frost, and Unholy.
• Your abilities will depend on how many of each rune you have. From what I saw from the demonstration, their are 6 slots for runes, so a balanced build would be 2 blood, 2 frost and 2 unholy. Spells will work like you use a spell that requires 1 blood rune, that blood rune is now on cooldown. Some spells will require like 4 of a rune for that ability to be used.
• There will be talents to reduce the cooldown on runes (Talent trees are Blood, Frost and Unholy)
• You will be able to summon minions but it is not the focal point of the class, it is just an accent to it, kind of like how Frost mages deploy their water elementals, summoning minions will not be integral to how you play the Death Knight
• You will wear plate armor
• The armor is said to be bulky and threatening like Arthas's armor. It will not look exactly like his. There were several different armor variations shown during the presentation that were definitely showing Death Knight look but also not looking like exact copies of Arthas's gear.
  

Known Death Knight skills

• Unholy Embrace
  Instant Cast. 5 min cooldown.
  Target is embraced by a silhouette of darkness for 6 seconds, corrupting any healing spells and effects cast upon or currently affecting the target to cause damage for 50% of their healing potential instead of restoring health. Any damage shields cast upon or currently affecting the target will also be instantly consumed, dealing 50% of their absorption potential in damage. Once afflicted with Unholy Embrace, the target cannot be afflicted with Unholy Embrace again for 1 minute.
  
• Army of the Dead
  Raises several temporary minions (ghouls)

Zones
Having learned a valuable lesson about funneling 8.5 million players into once single starting zone with The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King lets players pick a zone on either side of the continent to start from: Borean Tundra in the west or Howling Fjord in the east. Each zone has level-equivalent quests (appropriate for approximately level 68 through 72) and one Hellfire Peninsula-style instance hub with multiple dungeon wings for level 70 characters, level 80 characters, and raiders. While Northrend immediately calls to mind ice and snow, Blizzard doesn't want to make those themes dominate Northrend completely-expect as much variety as ever, only not quite as weird and wild as Outland.

Dalaran (Capital)
Dalaran will be the capital city of Northrend. It will hover above the continent and you will be able to access it without even a flying mount. (You won't have it for your first levels in Northrend)
Basically the Blue Dragonflight has taken a turn for the worse and the Kirin Tor are concerned about it. What's about to ensue is a battle over magic and once Dalaran is rebuilt, it will be the staging grounds for that battle.
Dalaran on WoWWiki.com

Dragonblight
Graveyard of Dragons from the Blue Dragonflight.
Dragonblight on WoWWiki.com
Dragonblight Video on Youtube

Howling Fjord
This is one of the two entry points of Northrend, and is the zone where the forces of Arthas originally landed on the continent. In this region you will find the outpost of Valgarde, the Forsaken settlement of New Agamand, and a few other towns.
Howling Fjord on Official Site
Howling Fjord on WoWWiki.com
Howling Fjord video on Youtube

Utgarde Keep
This is the first dungeon appearing in WotLK. It's inhabited by Vrykuls (viking-like race) and should feature 4 wings once complete.
Utgarde Keep preview on WoWinsider.com
Utgarde Keep on WoWWiki.com

Borean Tundra
This is the second entry point of Northrend for players. This is where the horde has established the settlement of Warsong Hold under the command of Garrosh Hellscream (currently in Nagrand). You will also meet friendly Tuskarrs here.
Borean Tundra on WoWWiki.com
Borean Tundra video on Youtube

Grizzly Hills
Zone of the ... Furbolgs !
Grizzly Hills
Grizzly Hills video on Youtube

Other regions
There are still 6 unknown regions, but we can assume that they are Azjol-Nerub, Crystalsong Forest, Icecrown Glacier, Sholazar Basin, Storm Peaks, and Zul'drak

New races
No new races for players, but there are a few new NPC races. The most active one in Northrend will probably be the Nerubians, Tuskarrs, Vrykul, and of course the Blue Dragonflight

PvP
Lake Wintergrasp

• Lake Wintergrasp will be an outdoor non-instanced PvP zone in the middle of Northrend. The main focus will be interesting reward affecting the whole region (or continent) and of course it will features ... Siege weapons and descrutible buildings !
• The region is entirely avoidable and siege weapons won't be useable outside the designated area.
  

Siege Weapons and destructible buildings

• Siege Weapons will be available in Lake Wintergrasp, and they're considering including them in old battlegrounds too. The current plan is to have mobile siege weapons so they can be positioned and aimed. For the moment we've heard about very "warcrafty" siege weapons, Meat Wagons, Ballistas, Catapults, Steam tanks etc ...
  

New battleground

• A new battleground is also under development, it will have siege vehicles, 15 people in each team, and games will last 30~40 minutes.
  

Arena Changes

• Arena weapons will probably have a rating requirement in the future, for example you'll need 1500 points to buy a weapon, but won't be able to buy it if your rating is below 1750 (this is an example, there isn't any value for the moment)
• They might add a "Skirmish mode" to let you chose which team you want to face in Arena.
• Arena Season 3 is scheduled, with a new arena and new gear.
• Season 1 gear will be available through honor system when the season 3 starts.
  

Battleground changes

• In AV, players won't spawn in the cave until there's nowhere else to spawn. Players will have the ability to report other players for being AFK, like the spam reports. You can remove this debuff by going in combat. If you don't, you won't gain any honor.
• Honor gain will be more important at the end of a BG to make people stay.
• Guild battlegrounds might be added (let guilds challenge each other, join battlegroup as a guild, etc). The ability to join AV as a group will probably be reactivated.
• More items will be added to battleground's marks rewards.
• They're also thinking about letting people chose the size of a battleground (15vs15, 20vs20, etc)
  

Dungeons

• Wrath of the Lich King will have new 10 man and 25 man raids.
• Arthas will be the final boss of one of the dungeon (but probably won't be available at the beginning because he's supposed to be the final boss of the expansion, expect a patch like Illidan)
  

Zul'aman
Nothing really new about the instance itself, except a few screenshots, but we had a nice preview of three loots here : [item=35000], [item=35001], [item=35002].

New 25 man raid dungeon
A 25 man dungeon is scheduled for release after Zul'aman (and before the expansion). Loots will be better than tier 6 and it will have 6 bosses.

Caverns of Time
A new CoT instance will be added in WotLK.

Stats

• Spirit will be improved in WotLK.
• "Free" spell damage will be given to healers.
  

Classes
Druids

• Mana issues are being looked at. (Moonkins)
• Cat form's range will be tuned
  

Mages

• Water Fountain and Muffin Factory (like the soulwell) are incoming. (No more "WATER PLZ !!!")
  

Hunters

• A legendary ranged weapon will be available soon. (New 25 Man raid ?)
• Mana issues are being looked at.
• Many changes for hunters will be implemented in 2.3, more utilities for arena battles and group utility are planned.
• Hunter's arena weapons prices might be lowered to reflect the fact that they need to buy two weapons (or even three).
  

Shamans

• It seems that shaman talents were changed in the game version available during the Blizzcon, you can check them here
• Crowd Control spells might be available in levels 71 to 80.
• Totems are being looked at, The Mana Spring totem will be a lot stronger than it is and some other will be made stronger too.
  

Priests

• Fear Ward will be spread around.
• Lightwell and other abilities are being looked at.
  

Paladins

• Stat distribution will be changed for retribution paladins, spell damage won't be as much needed as before.
• The Season 3 Paladin Retribution set will have resilience.
  

Rogues

• Rogue mobility in arena could be changed.
  

Warriors

• They might up the damage a bit while tanking to make the class more fun.
  

Professions

• Daily quests are coming in 2.2 and 2.3 (Cooking !)
• More best-in-slot equipment will be added. (Give each profession a very good BoP item)
• They want to make the leveling of crafts easier, especially from 275 to 300 (because it's not the "top" anymore)
• Crafters should have the possibility to create great leveling gear (including 70 to 80 leveling equipment in Northrend to reward people who actually takes time to level their craft while they xp)
• Itemizations gaps will be filled with crafting.
• Vendor recipes will be more random and less campable
  

Engineering

• Engineering is gonna get some love ... And more precisely, engineers will be able to craft a flying machine.
  

Alchemy

• Transmutation will be changed, a daily cooldown will replace the current 24h cooldown. (Like instance resets)
• Discoveries will be changed to make some of them easier to get. In the first place they were supposed to be "bonus", not something that you really need which is uber-hard to find. (For example, deviate delight would have been good as a discovery)
  

Jewelcrafting

• A few epic gems were shown and presented as Zul'aman drops, you probably already saw them because they were all parts of the gems available in 2.2 PTR Patch.
  

Inscription
See first part of the news.

Cooking

• A lot of new recipes will be available in Zul'aman, including melee hit food, spell crit food, a food that deals AOE damage to enemies near you, and a few other things.
  

Items/quest (anything I couldn't add in other categories)

• Green items in Northrend will be better than current Tier 4 equipment.
• Next patch (2.2 ? 2.3 ?) will add a dungeon daily quest, a battleground daily quest, and a cooking daily quest.
• A lot of heroic badges loots will be added to the game with Zul'aman
  

Useful links
This section will be easy, WoWinsider.com did a fantastic job during the Blizzcon.

• WotLK Official Website
• Expansion Demo Panel
• Opening Ceremony
• Dungeons & Raids Panel
• Professions and Item Panel
• PvP Panel
• Class Panel
• Class Panel Days 2 (Q&A)

Screenshots

Artworks

World Map

Wallpapers

[Quetas]

Very very nice to hear all that stuff from a Blue

Looking forward to the Engineering thing

Thanks for the fast post here dont bother anymore looking at wow forums

[Unspoken]

Release date: Unknown, but probably beginning of 2008.

Am i the only one that believe that this isn't going to happen before the second half of 2008 ?

Zul'Aman and the new 25 man instance alone will take 4 months to be tested and delivered and i am not even counting Pre-expansion patches or Expansion Beta testing, plus why on earth they should release 2 new instances (lets speculate that ZA will released on September and the 25man one on November) that will only be played for 2-3 months and then become obsolete.

When Naxxramas was released we were given 6 months until TBC ,my guess is that the will follow the same pattern.

[Juju]

Great stuff man, thx for all those info.
I am afraid that there will be delays, but w:e it's still good stuff to look forward to
Does anyone know more about the new talent tree for each class?
(also wanna know more about the blue flight gone wild and the kirin tor on the watch )

[Boubouille]

Very very nice to hear all that stuff from a Blue

Looking forward to the Engineering thing

Thanks for the fast post here dont bother anymore looking at wow forums

The post itself isn't from a blue, I said it wasn't official. But all the infos are from the Blizzcon anyway

[Shadowclaimer]

The flying machine came from Jeff Kaplan himself, therefor its official Boub, I was there in the xfire chat with him when it was said =3

[Boubouille]

I mean, the list isn't official, but all the infos are.

[viel]

Release date: Unknown, but probably beginning of 2008.

Am i the only one that believe that this isn't going to happen before the second half of 2008 ?

Zul'Aman and the new 25 man instance alone will take 4 months to be tested and delivered and i am not even counting Pre-expansion patches or Expansion Beta testing, plus why on earth they should release 2 new instances (lets speculate that ZA will released on September and the 25man one on November) that will only be played for 2-3 months and then become obsolete.

When Naxxramas was released we were given 6 months until TBC ,my guess is that the will follow the same pattern.

You remember the BC start? The big PVP-Patch was released about a month before BC shipped. Everyone was playing a bit insane to get the rank14 items such cheap. Maybe they'll release this 25 man instance about 2 months before wotlk, blizzard knows how to waste content (naxx)

[Mantisen]

Drool, omg boosting mah totems Giving me CC Rawr!

[Juju]

It's a very good looking list IMO, I'm just curious about the new talent tree, the new spells we'll have etc, but more importantly about that new proffesion :-) it looks great on paper, but i'm really curious to see how good it's going to be. Looks like caster's future favourite so far (with enchanting I guess as tailoring gear can almost be matched by "hard-to-get" drops)

[prx]

the Enchant Weapon Executioner will work for the ranged attaks ?


.

[KaonNemesis]

Very nice compilation, thanks for putting it all together.

A few more things you might want to add...

- They are not adding any more character slots. So if you're capped for characters on a server and you unlock Death Knight you'll have to delete one. Not a big deal but kind of a bummer.

- It was kind of an ambiguous statement, but they kind of hinted having extra space to store all our "trash". Does this mean just more inventory space or does it mean they'll finally be adding more things like key rings to store our extra crap such as vendor trash, trinkets, small pets, and so on? OMG I hope so!

- They hinted at adding some more popular mods to the core UI, such as Wardrobe/Outfitter functionality, a threat monitor, and maybe even boss mods! This would be really cool, imo. I just hope that they FINALLY add a visible coordinate system (x,y) to the core UI (this wasn't mentioned though), I've never understood why it wasn't there in the beginning...

- Alchemy may be getting profession exclusive pots. Sounds cool, but I bet they won't be too good and the profession will still suck. IMO, they should make the "Increases the effect that healing and mana potions have on the wearer by 40%" bonus from the Alchemist's Stone work all the time for Alchemists (without needing the trinket). Maybe even add a new trinket that reduces the cooldown on pots and increases the length of elixirs instead. This profession really needs some loving to make it worth taking, since they other profs get such nice exclusive items now (and many more to come, supposedly). Transmutes suck, lol.

- Leatherworking's best-in-slot items may be getting looked at... it kind of sounded like they were talking about the current ones, maybe improving them before WofLK?

- Hero Classes will only be a "little" stronger than normal classes, but have their own dynamics to make them a different experience to play. It sounds more like they're going for the "epic feel" for hero classes than the "overpowered" model, which is a good thing for game balance (and to be expected from Blizz).

- Last but definitely not least, they said that everyone will be able to interact with Arthas (not just raid content). I'm betting this will be for the quest series to unlock Death Knight...

[KaonNemesis]

PS. You guys should link the stats for Frostmourne! I know it was a joke but it was damn cool, lol.

Hail to the king, baby!

[Juju]

- Last but definitely not least, they said that everyone will be able to interact with Arthas (not just raid content). I'm betting this will be for the quest series to unlock Death Knight...

I agree, perhaps you'll have to "sacrifice" a friend to get your runedblade too, and after that you'll hear the Lich King's call, and he will guide you thruogh the DK quest chain ^^

[Duskster]

Release date: Unknown, but probably beginning of 2008.

Am i the only one that believe that this isn't going to happen before the second half of 2008 ?

Zul'Aman and the new 25 man instance alone will take 4 months to be tested and delivered and i am not even counting Pre-expansion patches or Expansion Beta testing, plus why on earth they should release 2 new instances (lets speculate that ZA will released on September and the 25man one on November) that will only be played for 2-3 months and then become obsolete.

When Naxxramas was released we were given 6 months until TBC ,my guess is that the will follow the same pattern.

Nope, I'm in the same camp here. I doubt we're going to see WotLK hit the shelves until Spring 2008 at the very earliest.

[stormgust]

Didn't they mention alchemy only potions at blizzcon o.O?

[Carbon]

Boub,

I noticed an error.

Under howling fjord, its not a Scourge town of New Agamand, its a Forsaken town.

Just nit-picking. :\

Nice write up tho!

[path411]

anyone else think the new arena rating system is dumb?

I rely on my crappy arena team to save up enough points for each new season's weapons for raiding, as a rogue this is very important as often blizz isn't great with itemization at certain levels and arena makes everyone able to get the weapons that they want.

I would also think it would hurt the arena community as fewer people would be willing to start arena, saying that you have to have a certain rating to buy some of the armor, but can't get good enough armor to get to that rating.

=/ this sounds like a not fun patch.

[Malineros]

I agree. Our guild is fairly casual, but we like raiding and PvP. We're slowly working our way through Kara with 2 or 3 short runs each week (2.5-3 hours each). Some of us really enjoy the occasional battleground session and have embraced Arenas since BC, but we have jobs, other obligations, and (most of us - read: not me) families. As such, we don't have time to run a hundred or more Arena matches each week (which helps you build on win streaks and raise rating). Also, we have all ten slots filled on our team (and without a good balance for just forming two teams) and each week turns into a math game with a core group rotating others in when we have enough on and capping ourselves at a number of matches so as not to push others below 30%. Our rating hovers right around 1500 from week to week.

If PvP leads to PvP gear, but you have to do better than some benchmark to earn it, that gap is just going to widen, and soon, resetting the ratings to 1500 at the start of each season won't make any difference, because things won't start level again. The people who could never buy the season 3 gear will lose a LOT to those wearing it, allowing them to get their season 4 stuff, while the worse-geared team's rating continues to suffer in successive seasons.

I think this is a really bad move on Blizzard's part. I understand the logic. The Gear shouldn't be EZMode to attain so that anyone with no skill but persistence can end up with it, and I'm sure the teams with higher ratings (but not high enough to get into tournaments) feel like their work and accomplishments are for nothing, since anyone else can get the same stuff they do (just slower). There's got to be a better way to limit it, and if not, having no restriction would be better than setting the bar in the wrong place.

[Kajitt]

just as long as holy pallys don't get nerfed again, we're >3