Wraith of the End of My Life King

[phantomhitman]

Unfortunately I started playing WoW. Unfortunately I will be buying Lich. Unfortunately I cannot find out who is opening Wednesday night for a midnight launch since I did not preorder my game.

Can someone lead this unfortunate person towards a source that confirms midnight launches (not the fancy ones that Blizz developers will be at). Or do I need to suck it up and start calling gamestops to preorder?

[jacob.armitage]

I believe at least one gamestop in every city should be doing a midnight launch. Thats how it was with Burning Crusade (as i was working for Gamestop at the time). Your best bet is to go that route, unless you have a 24 hour Walmart (and can brave going there)

You know, my girlfriend has been playing this for years and she finally talked me into playing with her. I picked up a basic copy of WoW yesterday, started the patching process and am still running it! hah.

[Goronmon]

Gah, tell me about it. I've probably sunk 2000 hours of my life into WoW and still going strong.

[Troggles]

I bought WoW the first day, BC the first day, and hit 70 first in my guild. Unfortunately I will not have time to get WotLK this year around, and won't play until Christmas at the earliest.

[Arilin]

I'll be picking up two copies. One for her, and me. (Both CE's, already paid for). I still have about 40-50 overs of vacation to burn, so I decided to take Thursday off. So I can watch the game not be playable all day.

[phantomhitman]

sooo......anyone know who will be opening Wednesday night for retail sales? If not I have to suck it up and call gamestop.

[jacob.armitage]

Well, i'm opening if you live in Kingston Ontario, otherwise, you may be out of luck.

[Commissar Rob]

Best Buy is doing a midnight launch. I haven't pre-ordered either...so I'll try that avenue.

[roboninja]

This (http://bestbuy.com/midnightopenings) might be of help.

[diablopath]

Every Wal-Mart is getting 90 copies on launch.

INSIDER NEWS LOL

[evilgoodwin]

I have my reserved, so I will be picking it up the day of. I'm going to treat Thursday like any other patch day and not get my hopes up on playing it until the weekend since the servers will probably crash a few times. Plus, Thursday's my birthday, so I'll probably be too drunk to play.

[pomeroy]

I have my reserved, so I will be picking it up the day of. I'm going to treat Thursday like any other patch day and not get my hopes up on playing it until the weekend since the servers will probably crash a few times.

It's still that bad? Fuck.

[digitalErich]

I'll be getting it Thursday but might wait until Friday night or Sat morning before I head to Northrend. I remember trying to grab some of the quest mobs in Hellfire during the BC launch and it was insane. Actually it was kind of a fun atmosphere, it just took 4 times as long as it should have to get anything done.

I know the two entry zones are supposed to help, but it's still going to be mayhem. Maybe I'll head to Northrend but just kind of hang out.

[evilgoodwin]

It's still that bad? Fuck.

Well, not all patches bring the server down, but shit happens when a crapload of people try to log in at once, followed by forum spamming and website refreshing on how there's lag and queues. Doesn't matter which game it is, bad things can happen.

[Commissar Rob]

Well, not all patches bring the server down, but shit happens when a crapload of people try to log in at once, followed by forum spamming and website refreshing on how there's lag and queues. Doesn't matter which game it is, bad things can happen. Good point that. I've been running the daily quests on Quel'danas (sp?) for the past few days. Easy money and a load of fun - but there are always a ton of people there. I'll assume Northrend will be that much worse. Maybe I'll catch up on my backlog and give this one a couple of weeks to settle down.

[Goronmon]

If BC was any indication, there will be more players in Northrend then there are available mobs to kill. Hell, BC release was the reason they implemented the variable monster spawn times where monsters spawn faster with more players in the area. It got so bad there were times when a mob would respawn before you could even kill it the first time.

That said, it was fun as hell. Especially as people discovered the Fel Reaver roaming Hellfire.

[Libuke]

If BC was any indication, there will be more players in Northrend then there are available mobs to kill. Hell, BC release was the reason they implemented the variable monster spawn times where monsters spawn faster with more players in the area. It got so bad there were times when a mob would respawn before you could even kill it the first time.

That said, it was fun as hell. Especially as people discovered the Fel Reaver roaming Hellfire.

They have always had that variable respawn time, when the game orginally launched the same thing happened with the mobs basically respawning as fast as they were killed, it made areas with agro mobs tough if it was there was a temporary slow down of the people going through.

[Savok]

They have always had that variable respawn time, when the game orginally launched the same thing happened with the mobs basically respawning as fast as they were killed, it made areas with agro mobs tough if it was there was a temporary slow down of the people going through.
No those were just broken (I know you're thinking of that island in Loch Modan).

I just quit again after only returning (under duress) to help a friend. Outland quests are still broken, you can still get so stuck you need a GM to rescue you and the community is still the dumbest bunch of assholes on the Internet. YouTube comments make more sense then half the WoW population.

And somehow I don't think you're going to have a problem getting Wrath (unless you want the CE with almost the same fucking pet as last time). I expect you could build a 1:1 scale model of Icecrown out of the boxes there's going to be.

[Karmakin]

Just got back from picking up my copies, didn't pre-order, but I got lucky that I went in a bit early. Because there were people...a lot of people who I think are going to be left out in the cold (ha).

Installing right now. 97% done.

[LordDon]

I've heard 7-11 has copies.

[Rylos]

Installing right now. 97% done.

Gah!

My copy is in transit and I won't be able to install and play until I get home from work tomorrow (release date is the 14th, here in Aus). I started BC a couple of months after it had been released, so this is going to be a unique experience! I'm so excited...it's like Christmas! :o

[Savok]

Rylos.... you do know BC didn't work, right? You're just going to experience fighting over spawns and bugs.

[BLeeP]

Rylos.... you do know BC didn't work, right? You're just going to experience fighting over spawns and bugs.

Game works fine.

I wish Blizzard would go back and put as much care and love into all of the other classes as they have the Death Knight. If you don't love your Death Knight by the time you reach the end of the quest line, then you are pretty much just playing absentmindedly. I heard more than one person say they wanted to give up their mains and stick with Death Knight 8-P.

[Abednigo]

I'll be going by Best Buy shortly to pick up my preordered copy. I did not (and will not ever) go to a midnight release. A coworker said his neighbor saw a group of people in costume out by the local Gamestop last night.

Dorks. :p

But my highest level character is 46, so I won't be getting to any of the new expansion stuff for awhile. Heck, I haven't even gotten to any of the BC stuff yet!

[BLeeP]

I'll be going by Best Buy shortly to pick up my preordered copy. I did not (and will not ever) go to a midnight release. A coworker said his neighbor saw a group of people in costume out by the local Gamestop last night.

Dorks. :p

But my highest level character is 46, so I won't be getting to any of the new expansion stuff for awhile. Heck, I haven't even gotten to any of the BC stuff yet!

I'm sort of the same way. My highest character is a level 61. Pretty casual going, but I still grabbed the expansion at midnight. I find it best to set goals that are nearly immediately obtainable (within 10 levels).

You, for instance, can look forward to Death Knight in less than 10 levels ^_^.

[Goronmon]

Picking it up after work and took tomorrow off so I have the whole weekend to get fat and play.

[Abednigo]

I'm sort of the same way. My highest character is a level 61. Pretty casual going, but I still grabbed the expansion at midnight. I find it best to set goals that are nearly immediately obtainable (within 10 levels).

You, for instance, can look forward to Death Knight in less than 10 levels ^_^.

Just picked it up. It is nice to know that I only have 9 levels to go until I can create a Death Knight. I really try and limit my time per session though. I used to play Everquest for entire weekends. With a pregnant wife I don't want to do that. :) Besides, she keeps picking on me and asking if I'm playing "that Second Life game again" (in reference to that episode of The Office). LOL!

[sparkfizt]

My copy is sitting in the car. Although I do plan on taking tomorrow off... A friend of mine is taking off thur/fri and mon-fri of the next week... aparrently his guild is obsessed with hitting 80 in a week. I Intend to take a leisurely stroll to 80 and hopefully not get wooed into leveling a death knight....

[Housemixer]

The installation time is ridiculous! Copying from the DVD took close to an hour, then some more patches were applied, and to make matters worse, some of my addons stopped working altogether. And my server pop went from medium to full today, now I'm waiting in the queue just to login. Not that I didn't expect this.
To top it off: I just read that you could somehow use the WotLK beta to play the game today, essentially skipping the DVD copying part.

Well, I'm off to Northrend, happy questing! ;)

[Ink Asylum]

Yeah, I'm going to wait until the weekend or next week to pick this up. I don't mind playing behind the pack. Let the millions of launch day death knights and Northrend explorers swarm out of the starting areas.

[Troggles]

I'm with you, Ink. I got BC at midnight and played it that very night, getting one quest done in an hour. I can wait this time around, as I have not played the game in over a month and I can easily handle a week or two more.

[DigitalFirefly]

Mines coming from Amazon today. I'm only level 51 so I probably won't install it for a week or so. Hopefully by then any broken addons will be fixed.

[Housemixer]

To be honest, I was already playing this afternoon, and despite the masses of people it was really playable. Much better than the Euro beta, and to my surprise: lag-free!
I think Blizzard anticipated this, since most quests in the starting area don't really depend on a drop from a certain enemy, but rather they drop some world object that everybody can collect thereby circumventing the spawn camping in most places. But there still are some quests where you are in heavy competion with other players (although the respawn rate is insanely high right now, mobs and objects alike).

[Ink Asylum]

If I don't stumble across a copy in stores by next Tuesday I'll probably wait even longer, as Left 4 Dead's full release will be eating up my available playtime.

[sttgriffin91]

I finally broke and have picked up WoW again at about 42% installed and I can't wait :) Got all day tommorow to play too. As much as getting the old wisdom teeth out hurt this does soften the blow...that and the bottle of vicoden.

[Arilin]

Alright, so the woman and I picked up ours last night at midnight. I installed, and made my deathknight and he's currently about to be 61. He's a blast. Once you get DnD at 60, the DPS just kinda skyrockets. I'm all unholy spec right now, andit's pretty badass.

[Abednigo]

I know I'm a big loser for doing this instead of working hard to get my 46 warlock up to 55 so I can start a Death Knight, but I'm loving inscription (especially for making money). I know it's been around since the 3.0 patch, but now that I've gotten over 100 in it I'm making some pretty cool glyphs (or myself and to sell). I've been working on herbalism too (obviously since it's required for inscription), but it's made me a good chunk of gold with my first few glyphs (1 Backstab glyph got me 30g). Plus it's just easier when you don't have much time to go hunting for some herbs and work on those skills.

Is anyone on Altar of Storms by any chance? And possibly Horde? :) I hate grouping with random people but would totally group with someone from here.

[sttgriffin91]

Not on Altar of Storms, but I have the same question about Vashj I know a few months ago Evil Avatar had a guild on that server but since the whole move and what not I didn't know if any CoG people were on there anymore

[Quantum]

Yes.

We are still on Vashj. We had a vote one night and decided to keep the Evil Avatar name since we had so many bank slots purchased already.

Just type /who evil avatar and ask one of us to put you in.

Hope to see you in Northrend.

[Uno Ill Nino]

www.moofpack.com just put up our videos of the midnight release for this game. Its pretty funny and we had a great time doing it, so check it out when you get a moment.

Direct link to part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGkSpVQ629g

Direct link to part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrpd8yDSBfA

[Commissar Rob]

Wandered into Best Buy this morning...and lo and behold there's a collector's edition of Wrath of the Lich King. Hee, I'm a happy camper. On to the frozen north!

[evilgoodwin]

Yeah, went to Fry's to replace my mouse, saw 8 or so copies of CE. It's still out there :D

[OldeWolf]

Almost got a CE one but decided to save money and just buy a simple one. ;)

[diablopath]

I grabbed a standard one.

If I stumble past a CE, it's mine, though.

[Abednigo]

I grabbed a standard one.

If I stumble past a CE, it's mine, though.

My thoughts exactly. The WotLK CE would be nice to add to the collection, but I'm not going out of my way to find it. I never use my little Zergling or little dragon guy (forget his name) from the last two CEs, and while the art books and DVDs are nice to have, I flipped through the art books once and have never watched the DVDs, so what's the point?

[Stoke]

I grabbed a standard one.

If I stumble past a CE, it's mine, though.

I stumbled past a stack of them at Best Buy today, they looked lonely. And enormous. Decided on a whim to pick up the battlechest and see what the fuss is about but it looks like I won't be playing any tonight. I guess all the people buying WotLK are clogging up the tubes because I'm patching pretty slow.

[diablopath]

I wish my NELF Druid was higher.
She's 13 (I like the small frame), and I really want to take her into Northrend.
But 70 is so far away. Plus I've no alliance friends who are very social :(

[Commissar Rob]

I stumbled past a stack of them at Best Buy today, they looked lonely. And enormous. Decided on a whim to pick up the battlechest and see what the fuss is about but it looks like I won't be playing any tonight. I guess all the people buying WotLK are clogging up the tubes because I'm patching pretty slow.I'd taken the thing off of my lappy and had to reinstall just prior to the expansion. Took a bloody day and a half of downloading and patching...

Ugh.

[Goronmon]

So, far, I am finding that Northrend really puts Outland to shame. Not even comparable. While the entire zone of Howling Fjord is awesome, Utgarde Keep and the area around it is easily more amazing than anything BC introduced by far.

[Ink Asylum]

Yeah. I've mainly just explored the Borean Tundra and a part of Howling Fjord, but they are stellar. The quest variety is much wider and more compartmentalized. It's almost like having mini-zones inside the larger zones, if that makes any sense. You seem to get more "go back to the same area for the next quest" but with enough variety that you don't feel like you're wasting time.

Though I have to say that poor Azeroth is going to be suffering from overpopulation soon. In Warcraft III Northrend was a vast frozen wasteland with a few groups of scrappy survivors and ancient spider people. Now it's another bustling community. Huge cities have sprung up practically overnight, races of animal-people no one's ever heard of live there with rich histories, new organizations pillage ancient artifacts, and goddamn Nesingwary is out exterminating the rich fauna again. The same thing happened to Kalimdor and Outlands. The Horde and Alliance combined have spoiled more virgin territory in 7 years Warcraft time than the colonial powers ever could.

[Goronmon]

It's almost like having mini-zones inside the larger zones, if that makes any sense. You seem to get more "go back to the same area for the next quest" but with enough variety that you don't feel like you're wasting time.Yeah, I've noticed this as well. In BC I always had a full quest log as it seemed like you were always in the middle of trying to track a dozen quests at once. It's nice not having to worry about the size of your quest log while playing.

[Ink Asylum]

Yeah, I've noticed this as well. In BC I always had a full quest log as it seemed like you were always in the middle of trying to track a dozen quests at once. It's nice not having to worry about the size of your quest log while playing.

Exactly. If you stay focused you'll get to a new section of the map with a very distinct color scheme and topography so you don't mistakenly wander off, complete 4-6 tight quests, then get pointed in another direction.

With a few exceptions Hellfire Peninsula was mainly uniform, whereas the Borean Tundra looks like a pathwork quilt.

[Abednigo]

Do you have to be a certain level to reach the Northrend starting areas? I know you needed to be 61 to get to the Outlands and the zones in Northrend are 70+. I see the zeppelin to Borean Tundra near Orgrimmar but haven't tried it. I'd love to just see the starting area even though I know I wouldn't survive the other zones.

[Quantum]

Do you have to be a certain level to reach the Northrend starting areas? I know you needed to be 61 to get to the Outlands and the zones in Northrend are 70+. I see the zeppelin to Borean Tundra near Orgrimmar but haven't tried it. I'd love to just see the starting area even though I know I wouldn't survive the other zones.

I think you can go there at any time but you can only get quests at 68.

[digitalErich]

I've only run 3 of them, but I absolutely love their new approach to the 5 mans. Minimal trash and very, very distinct and cool looking instances. But the best part is with even a decent group the 5 mans don't even take an hour. It just feels like boss fight after boss fight.

Also, are there any server out there with more than 1 or two CoGs on Alliance? In my break from WoW it seems that everyone I used to play with left my server.

[Abednigo]

I think you can go there at any time but you can only get quests at 68.

Ok good. I gotta check out some of the new areas. At least so I can say I saw some of the new content.

[Ink Asylum]

You know, I ran Utgarde Keep yesterday and felt like there was a lot less trash, but didn't really think about it too much. There was one passageway that had just a couple elites with groups of non-elite ghouls. We still wiped a couple times, but only once on a bad pull when the tank got out of heal range, the other times were on bosses, which you would expect for a group where only one person had been through before.

I think it's a good change. Dungeons need to be more accessible on regular mode for pugs that notoriously don't have the cohesion to stick together for a 1-2 hour slog. Give them some decent loot so they have a reason to check out the dungeon and Heroic so guilds can have a challenge and farm.

I would still love for Blizzard to retool older raid dungeons for 5-10 man groups, since there are many I have yet to see. Though I imagine a goup of 5 well-geared 80s might be able to get through some of the 25 man TBC dungeons, and waltz through the old 40s.

[BLeeP]

I know I'm a big loser for doing this instead of working hard to get my 46 warlock up to 55 so I can start a Death Knight, but I'm loving inscription (especially for making money). I know it's been around since the 3.0 patch, but now that I've gotten over 100 in it I'm making some pretty cool glyphs (or myself and to sell). I've been working on herbalism too (obviously since it's required for inscription), but it's made me a good chunk of gold with my first few glyphs (1 Backstab glyph got me 30g). Plus it's just easier when you don't have much time to go hunting for some herbs and work on those skills.

Is anyone on Altar of Storms by any chance? And possibly Horde? :) I hate grouping with random people but would totally group with someone from here.

I find it ridiculous that you are making so much gold (I'm jealous!). Glyphs are worthless on my server and I'm lucky to make a gold off of one, and I've sold tons that only go for 10 silver or so. My Death Knight obviously isn't going to be the bread winner 8-(.

[sparkfizt]

Do you have to be a certain level to reach the Northrend starting areas? I know you needed to be 61 to get to the Outlands and the zones in Northrend are 70+. I see the zeppelin to Borean Tundra near Orgrimmar but haven't tried it. I'd love to just see the starting area even though I know I wouldn't survive the other zones.

You can go to outlands at 58 and Northrend at 68. I reccomend always getting there as early as possible as the xp is usually double that of the older content. Not to mention the rewards get a big bump.

[Savok]

So in a suicidal depression I got Wrath.

Good news, Blizzard learnt how to make zones. Seriously, I've just been trudging around Borean and it's amazing.

As expected the Death Knight lore makes no god damn sense at all but hey, goth chicks wearing metal, I'm all for that.

[sparkfizt]

I find it ridiculous that you are making so much gold (I'm jealous!). Glyphs are worthless on my server and I'm lucky to make a gold off of one, and I've sold tons that only go for 10 silver or so. My Death Knight obviously isn't going to be the bread winner 8-(.

The key to making money is'nt tradeskills, it's gathering skills. In warcraft rarely does making things end up netting you much money. But fueling crafters will always make money. Most my characters have gone herbalism/skinning or mining/skinning since that only requires one tracking skill at a time.

[sparkfizt]

So in a suicidal depression I got Wrath.

Good news, Blizzard learnt how to make zones. Seriously, I've just been trudging around Borean and it's amazing.

As expected the Death Knight lore makes no god damn sense at all but hey, goth chicks wearing metal, I'm all for that.

Did you roll a DK yet? the starting zone is unparalleled.

[Savok]

Did you roll a DK yet? the starting zone is unparalleled.
It was amazing too. The ending bit made no sense though, but hey, lore's been a joke since BC anyway.

[roboninja]

So, the xpac caused 1000+ person queues on my realm, so my tiny little guild (me, brother and two friends) all used the free character transfers last night to get to a new server. Fuck waiting an hour to play. It said the moves could take 24 hours+, but when I got up this morning, mine were complete. Hello, Dawnbringer.

[sparkfizt]

It was amazing too. The ending bit made no sense though, but hey, lore's been a joke since BC anyway.

To understand the end you have to know all the lore behind ashbringer. I read up on it at wowwiki a while back and it makes sense now.

I think the biggest problem with the lore is that as a player you weren't involved enough unless you beat all the raids. Wotlk has done a much better job involving you in the story if you read all the quest texts. It's hard for an MMO to put forth the same kind of narrative that a linear single player game does.

[Ink Asylum]

From my experience, while Blizzard tries to keep every Warcraft game consistent with the rest of the series, they have no qualms messing with established lore in order to make something work in WoW. Within the World of Warcraft, though, I believe they've done a very good job keeping the lore consistent.

[court12b]

I've only run 3 of them, but I absolutely love their new approach to the 5 mans. Minimal trash and very, very distinct and cool looking instances. But the best part is with even a decent group the 5 mans don't even take an hour. It just feels like boss fight after boss fight.

.

woah really? WTB more info on this.

[digitalErich]

woah really? WTB more info on this.
There's not really much I can tell you other than even with 3 or 4 bosses, you can clear some of the early 5 mans in 45-60 min. You really just have to try them to see. And while the boss encounters aren't raid-complicated, most are more than a tank and spank, too.

It's really quite nice. Clearing trash isn't fun, so they made it a smaller part of the instance.

[Commissar Rob]

To understand the end you have to know all the lore behind ashbringer. I read up on it at wowwiki a while back and it makes sense now.

I think the biggest problem with the lore is that as a player you weren't involved enough unless you beat all the raids. Wotlk has done a much better job involving you in the story if you read all the quest texts. It's hard for an MMO to put forth the same kind of narrative that a linear single player game does.
So it does make some sort of sense if you read up on Ashbringer? Honestly, I was totally lost at that point. One minute, I'm a souless killing machine, the next I'm a "good guy."

Seemed really, really abrupt to me...but overall that experience was so much fun that I don't mind too much.

[Ink Asylum]

So it does make some sort of sense if you read up on Ashbringer? Honestly, I was totally lost at that point. One minute, I'm a souless killing machine, the next I'm a "good guy."

Seemed really, really abrupt to me...but overall that experience was so much fun that I don't mind too much.

Yeah. Without knowledge of the Ashbringer I can see why you'd be completely confused. They did pack a lot into that one exchange after the Light's Hope fight.

WoWWiki (http://www.wowwiki.com/Portal:Main) is a great resource for looking up both the lore and how it relates to WoW.

The Scarlet Crusade has a very rich history and you can see parts of it in game. Go into the Old Hillsbrad part of the Caverns of Time, even if you're alone, and head to the inn in Southshore to see some of the members of the current Scarlet Crusade and Argent Dawn when they were younger.