13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
Excellent Expansion to a Great Game
Date of Review: Jun 16, 2009
The Bottom Line: I would recommend WotLK to any avid player of WoW. Even for the casual player the content is fun and has an immersive story line.
Its an expansion-
I have been an avid gamer for a number of years. I must say that since I started playing WoW I have played that more than anything else. Since this review covers that expansion, I'm going to just quickly note that if you are not a WoW player, you will need to get the Main Game and First expansion before venturing off into the latest expansion Wrath of the Lich King.
For those that are WoW players, I think that WotLK is an excellent expansion. It keeps the story line moving in interesting directions. If you are an RPG enthusiast, read the quest text and listen to NPC, and you'll find that the story line is well conceived and stays true to the lore of Azeroth ( the fictional world in which WoW takes place).
The Graphics-
The graphics are improved, yet still a bit cartoony for the taste of some. Not a lot has changed with the UI, some small enhancements have come through patches, but for the most part what you are buying is more content.
New Character-
WotLK introduces its first "hero class" the Death Knight. Like many classes in WoW the death knight has its origins in the Warcraft III RTS game. Once you meet the minimum requirement of having a level 55 character in the game. The story line for the Death Knight is fun and for me was as fun to play as any other class in the game. In fact having 7 characters at 70 or higher, the DK is the character I play most. It can serve as a tank or DPS. I have done both and believe it can serve both of the roles through the end game.
New Level Cap-
For those that buy the expansion, your toons now have a new level cap of 80. While this might be a slight irritation for those that have progressed through the end game of the last expansion, I think those players need to understand that the business of the game is to get lots of players involved, not just tailor itself to hard core gamers.
New Continent-
WotLK also bring the zone Northrend which is reached by taking transportation from outside the major cities in Azeroth. Northrend has a number of new zones that are made to level your level 70 toon and also has a number of dungeons for those that like doing instances and raids. The zones have a number of different attributes and keeps things interesting as you progress through the zones.
New Instances-
There are a lot of new dungeons, which can be done on a normal or heroic setting. Heroics being tuned to level 80 game play. And the natural progression for charaters will be to do normal dungeons as they level, then begin heroics as they hit level 80, and then continue on to harder Raids.
New Raid Instances-
There were 4 new raid instances when WotLK was introduced and then one more added as a patch since then. They all have normal (10 man) settings and heroic (25 man) settings. I think that this is great as it allows for a number of playing experiences. Many will find their way into a guild each of which will have a varying amount of experience or will be of varying size. Having 10 man raids available for all raid instances, I think will make it easier for players and guilds to experience more of the raid content then they would if they needed to do 25 mans to progress.
PvP-
In Northrend is a zone Wintergrasp that is dedicated to PvP. And to encourage participation, one the raid instances is only available if your faction (horde or alliance) wins the Wintergrasp PvP event. Besides that not too much new.
