Customer Reviews

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack

5 star:		(125)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

I have been playing World of Warcraft since a month after it came out. Not quite consistently, as I've taken a couple of 6 or so month breaks in that duration, but I've been there through all the changes. Having started playing the game again 2 years ago when Burning Crusade came out and being pretty disappointed, I have to say that restarting the game again this time with Lich King has been a much better experience. At first, I only got the expansion because all of my friends and all the old folks from my guild were getting back together. So I figured that even though I wasn't really looking forward to getting into the game again, at least I'd have the fun social aspect of it. But I'm having more fun playing the game with this expansion than I have had since the game started and everything was new.

So does that mean that the game has totally changed and we're playing a whole new WoW? Not exactly. It seems that this is the expectation that a lot of people are having. I'm reading a lot of negative reviews saying that this is more of the same. Well, unfortunately for them, it is. It's the same game, just more of it. There are still plenty of obnoxious people with bad manners and even worse skills in English, still plenty of quests that involve killing mobs and gathering items, still an opposing faction that kills you while you're questing (for me there is anyways) and so on. But in my opinion, the new content in Northrend has much more depth, much more detail and is just plain more fun than anything I experienced with the Burning Crusade Expansion. It really seems that Blizzard took their time in making the quests much more unique and varied as well as many other aspects of the content.

A lot of people jump on WoW to plow through the quests and instances and get to level 80 as soon as possible. Why? There probably won't be another expansion for 2 years, so what's the rush? That's my feeling about that anyways. I find that when I play the game more sparsely, I'm able to appreciate the time that was put into it and also prevent myself from getting burned out. I pay attention to a lot of things in games that other may not care about at all, such as environment and music. The new zones in Northrend look really cool (at least by the standard that WoW looks considering the graphics are outdated in general, but with an MMO that's not really a problem for me.) With the first zone in Northrend, Borean Tundra, I was just impressed by the scope of the place: four flight points, 130 quests, NPC ships raiding NPC towns, undead crawling out of the earth, gnome planes flying all over the place... It was all a little overwhelming. And I didn't find that much annoying repetition as I did the quests there, despite the fact that there are twice as many quests in that zone as there are in the first zone of Outlands. In fact, some of the quests were pretty innovative. And the environment for the second zone I went to, Howling Fjord, was simply amazing to me. The boat ride into the huge cove with the towering canyons, waterfalls, all around was unlike any WoW environment I had seen. Continually as I go into each zone, everything about Northrend just seems bigger and more grand than anywhere else.

Another thing that's impressed me with the expansion is the music. Most of the up-tempo quasi Lord of the Rings style score has been replaced with more mellow and melodic fare. From the first boat ride into Northrend you'll hear a somber but really amazing fiddle tune and much of the music in the many zones matches that tone. It's sometimes a little odd to be in the midst of slaughtering enemies to the sounds of fiddle and pipes in the background, but somehow it all works. A lot of the music throughout the rest of the world has been changed and enhanced for the better as well.

These things aside, everything else about the game seems to be enjoyable. PVP is one of my favorite WoW pass times and there's no shortage of that here. Admittedly, the Wintergrasp PVP zone isn't quite as huge and amazing as I'd hoped, but it's still fun, as is the new battleground. The instances are more attuned for my liking, since I rarely get a time to play video games for more than an hour or two at a time. The new smaller, more easily accessible dungeons are much more fun and like a lot of the quest lines, they're actually pretty fun and unique.

So perhaps it was the fact that I bought it with low expectations, or maybe it's just because Blizzard really put out a good product, but I really like Wrath of the Lich King. If you're looking for the childish and a**hole players to disappear, looking for less questing to do, less... Warcraft, then you're looking for another game. This is still World of Warcraft, but now it's as good or better than it ever was.

For the most part, this is by far the best incarnation of WoW yet. Northrend is joy to quest in since it looks nice, has excellent lore (at least for the alliance) that involves you like never before, and a new class that is really fun to play. However, after awhile the novelty of all this new stuff wears off and you're left with the end game content to keep you playing. As someone who can't raid, I was really looking forward to getting to run the new heroics and things. However, Blizzard's new philosophy on the "difficulty scaling" of the game has pretty much completely changed the way end game content runs. After less than a month of playing, my friends and I were tearing through the heroics like nothing. Its hard to get psyched for new gear when you can already dominate in what you have. Heroics in TBC were basically hard as heck raids for 5 people, and I miss that. Heroics aren't the only casualty to the new system: I've never seen so many people with the best gear in the game before just running around. My friends that do raid have nothing left to do, and are now just epicly gearing out all their alts. That situation will be fixed with patches, but it stinks to have to just wait for everything. This is basically the first time playing the game I (and my friends) were left with nothing to do except level alts. I can't really comment on the pvp state of the game since that's not my thing (bg's are the most frustrating thing ever... especially on Alliance).

In summary, exploring the new world for the first time is fun, but that's about it. If you can't raid and aren't obsessed with pvp, find an alt you love or be prepared for boredom.

This expansion has been out for a week, and there are some who would say you can't really review MMORPG content until it's been out long enough to see how it affects the play environment as a whole. There are hundreds of hours of gameplay in this expansion set, and it will be months before anybody has played through the bulk of it. And of course, the release of an expansion has wide affects on style of play, the in-game economy, and the community. Nonetheless, I've played through the entirety of the first two zones, a couple of the new instances, and visited a few other zones, and I think I can give a fairly good assessment of this content.

I'll assume that if you are a devoted and regular player, you've already purchased this or are planning to do so soon. Reviewing the game for them would be pointless. But what about the casual player, or the lapsed player interested in coming back to WoW? For them, this expansion is really top-notch.

To start with, if you enjoy the questing aspect of the game, you're in for a treat. Each zone now has more flypoints, the quest hubs are easy to identify, and there are more quests at each hub. There's less travel time and less hassle keeping track of your quests, which makes the experience of questing much more enjoyable -- and rewarding. I was able to reach lvl 74 solely by completing the two lower-level areas of the new continent, Northrend. In general, the quests are designed very well. Where to go and what to do are usually quite clear from the quest description. Quests are also designed to lead you to other points of interest, such as another travel or quest hub or isolated quest that you might otherwise have missed. There's no more need to grind out part of a level before heading for another zone, the quest experience is more than sufficient to get you prepared for the subsequent zones. This has come quite a long way since the game was released.

The environments are quite pretty, especially for a game running on a 4-year-old graphics engine. The graphics have reportedly been upgraded a bit, but my NVidia 8800GT is still able to play the game on fully maxed-out settings in the range of 50-80fps in the outside enviroments, and up to 200fps inside. The art design is fantastic, especially on the low level zone Howling Fjord. It's impressive that these designers and programmers can do so much visually with a game that needs to be able to play on alot of computers, including those without high-end graphics cards.

If you are one of those casual or lapsed players who are on the fence about this expansion, consider giving it a try. The revisions to the game over the past couple years have really cut down on the things that often gave MMORPG players the biggest headaches. If you have a character at or near lvl 70 and can hop right into the new zones, all the better, as their design seems to be the best yet.

WoW sucked me in for quite some time when it first came out. Quit for several months and came back for 1 month for BC and 1 month for LK. WoW is a finely crafted time sink...I mean game. You can putter around doing solo stuff, but the amount of effort, preparation, and time commitment for end game raiding is mind boggling.

This type of game is impossible at end game without a guild. The buildup of levels and the amount of statistic boosts on gear to convince people to play and try to collect new pieces for their paper dolls makes it so that there is a very low element of skill, since geared out people will slaughter without good gear.

WoW does offer other options, such as playing PvP instances to collect gear, but that is just a different time sink. Instead of raiding you get a PvP team together and try to kill other players.

The game itself is fun, but to be competitive it is a full time job that is only realistic for college kids skipping class, the unemployed, retired, or people who have no real life outside the game.

WoW is brilliant in the addictive factors of the game. You may not be the best at anything in real life, but in WoW you can feel pretty powerful and important.

However the longer you spend in game and if you type /played and see you spent 250+ DAYS in game on the one character alone and realize all that time is gone forever it is a pretty empty feeling.

So if you want to see, fight, and kill the Lich King, just realize the politics, time, effort, and what you have to give up for a chance to be part of a guild that does end game content, much less does in game content well.

The first thing you should know is that this product is not for you unless you already have World of Warcraft and its first expansion, The Burning Crusade. There is nothing for you in Wrath of the Lich King unless you have both of those titles and a level 55 or higher character (level 68 if you intend to go to Northrend straight off). If you don't have a level 68 character, don't bother with this expansion until you do (unless you just want a Death Knight, in which case you just need level 55).

That said, Wrath of the Lich King truly does the Blizzard brand proud. Unlike Burning Crusade in some ways (which is still worth it on its own merits), WotLK seems to return WoW to its roots as players explore Northrend. The famous Blizzard polish and attention to detail are everywhere, from the storylines that unfold as you quest to the visuals and terrain as you explore. The base game was great, but it's clear that with WotLK they took what they learned as they made it and went forth to produce an amazing product.

I took my time leveling up to 80. While I got the expansion on the day it was released, I did not reach 80 until early February. I wanted to spend the time enjoying what Blizzard has to offer. But even at 80, there is still good things happening (though not as much yet as there was at 70 in BC). Naxxramas is a very well-made instance. Experienced raiders won't have much difficulty, but there are definately some fights that people with little to no raiding experience will have trouble with. Malygos is a very entertaining fight that definately keeps you on your toes. As is the Obsidian Sanctum. Definately a good start for the level 80 raiding scene, and more to come is promised with the Uldaur instance coming in patch 3.1.

As for PvP, a new battleground and an outdoor PvP zone (that feels much like a battleground as you are engaged in it) keep the Horde/Alliance conflict fresh, while the arenas are still around for level 80 players to test their mettle. While I feel that Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients are a little heavy on the vehicle combat (a new mechanic introduced in WotLK), they are fun nonetheless.

If you enjoy WoW, then this expansion is a must-buy. Really, what it comes down to is you will either buy the expansion or cancel your account, as if you don't buy it everyone else will quickly pass you by. But even were that not the case, it is worth every bit of money you will put into it.

Blizzard has knocked it out of the park again. This game is specially great if you're an oldschool, 30 something gamer with a full life yet still lust for a rich, engrossing RPG environment a few hours a week.

The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is due to the age of most of the players (ie, people half my/our ages), but I guess thats where most of the money comes from. Other than that it's top notch.

-G-

Wrath of the Lich King is the second expansion pack for World of Warcraft. If you already own Burning Crusade then you have a good idea of what to expect - a higher level cap (80), a new profession, and instead of a new race, a new class, the death knight. Blizzard has always been a company which has focused on releasing polished products and incrementally improving products they've already released, and this expansion continues that tradition.

The quest content in this expansion is substantially improved from the previous expansion, which in turn was much better than quests in the original WoW. A lot of the tedium in quests has been eliminated, while a new, flexible vehicle mechanic allows Blizzard to introduce more interesting and varied quests. There is much more story coherence in the quests, with each zone having several lengthy chains of quests each with a unified plot. Blizzard also knows that people don't want to spend as much time re-leveling, so they have quickened the leveling curve from 60 to 70.

One of the biggest draws of the expansion is the new death knight class. This class, which is only available if you already have another character above level 55, starts at level 55 and uses a new "rune" and "runic power" mechanic, which is kind of like a mix of energy and rage. At this point, death knights are probably slightly overpowered (they are dramatically overpowered at low levels, but converge towards other classes as they approach 80) but that makes them a lot of fun to play. They can tank as well as dps, with considerable self-healing abilities that often trivialize group quests.

The 5-man content in this expansion is also well done. The 5-man instances are all interesting, not too lengthy, and well balanced for a variety of groups. With regards to raids, Blizzard has decided that every raid dungeon will have a 10 man and an entirely separate 25 man component. The physical dungeon environment and mobs are the same in each, and many (but not all!) mob abilities are shared between the two dungeon sizes, but of course each dungeon is balanced to the appropriate number of people. Right now, there is only one full raid zone (Naxxramas) and three smaller raids (Malygos, Sartharion, and Archavon), but the new Ulduar zone will be patched into the game in 3.1, which is probably going to be released within two months. Unfortunately, as many other reviewers have noted, the existing content is not particularly challenging. While this makes raid content more accessible, it also makes better raid groups bored of existing content. It remains to be seen if Blizzard intends on ever making raids as difficult as Sunwell Plateau or the original Naxxramas at level 60.

Player vs. player does not seem particularly balanced at this point in the game, although it never was completely balanced anyway. There is a new battleground, Strand of the Ancients, as well as a world pvp zone, Wintergrasp. If you ever plan on playing in Wintergrasp, make sure your computer is decently powerful, becuase the sheer number of people in the zone during server wide battles can drastically slow down older computers. The main city of Dalaran also suffers from this problem at times, because it is much more condensed than Shattrath and thus forces your computer to load many more models at once than ever before.

If you intend on playing World of Warcraft you probably need to get this expansion. Almost everyone who plays owns this expansion so you won't find many people to interact with if you don't own Wrath. The existing content is polished, for the most part, and enjoyable to play, but the end raid game can become boring since it's so easy. Hopefully future patches will introduce challenging raids that will keep better groups busy for a while.

UPDATE (May 28 2009): The new Ulduar instance was released in the last major patch for the game, in mid-April. This instance basically addresses my critique of the end-game raids in the initial release of Wrath of the Lich King. Ulduar is quite large (14 bosses total), well-designed, and makes extensive use of "hard mode" raid encounters, where the base encounter is fairly easy to do (though not trivial), while the hard mode for bosses, which are activated in various ways, will present a challenge for even hardcore guilds. If you're looking for a combat-oriented MMO, you should probably get World of Warcraft and buy this expansion now.

As is usual with Blizzard Products the quality is excellent.
Not much to say about the gameplay except maybe they "dumbed down" the quests a bit. But it could be because I was overgeared starting out. And as usual, Blizzard's quest tips are sometimes vague.
Addons are working flawlessly. And I have no lag in Dalaran, only when it is extremely busy (Shattrath City?).
The new acheivements give a nice twist to the game, meaning you can focus on other things, besides leveling.
What I really like is the number of Flight Paths. Travel is alot easier at the lower levels than in Outlands.
The graphics are intense so you NEED to have some updated or modern hardware to get decent gameplay.

Amazon's service was on par - package arrived on schedule, without incident. No problems from that side.

Hope this helps!

This is a very long post, but well worth it if you're seriously considering this game.

Pros:

First and foremost this game is a milestone in the both the MMORPG and online gaming industry. With over 11 million subscribers, it's the largest online game to date, and for good reason.

The graphics, while cartoonish, indulge you in a moving work of art with flowing waterfalls, freezing tundras, and shadow-ridden caves. The world itself is simply huge (though surprisingly easy to navigate), spanning across four continents (one in outer space), and leaves the gamer with an unparalleled sense of citizenship. Once you log into World of Warcraft, you truly plug into a hidden universe.

The music is truly worthy of mention. When you first launch the game, you are met with a symphony of heart-pounding drums, violins, bassoons, or what-have-you. The music/ambience then changes frequently throughout the game depending upon your current location and really adds an element of class to the experiences of stepping into a haunted mine, or riding up to the gates of a citadel.

The gameplay ranges from simple to slightly complicated depending upon your class selection, but always maintains the smooth controls that are oh-so-user-friendly. You can select from 9 different classes at the start (another is available further on in the game), each of which have their own roles to fulfill by either Healing, Tanking (taking the hits for other less-hardy classes), or DPSing (DPS: Damage per second, a term used to explain classes adept at dealing damage). Also with the introduction of "dual-spec," a character is able to switch between two customizable talent builds (determines your main role: healing/tanking/dps, through the selection certain talents) at the drop of a hat.

The most basic gameplay consists of leveling your character from 1 to 80 via the completion of quests, invading of dungeons, and slaying of monsters, all of which grant "experience," and move you closer to the next level. If you grow wary leveling, it is possible to "que" into a battleground from anywhere in the world. There are four different types of battle: capture the flag, protect the resources, defend/attack the keep, and control the territory. You compete against real players controlling real characters on different computers, which is typically referred to as "PVP," or player versus player.

Once you have reached the maximum level, the fun has just begun. You will continue advancing your character by upgrading his or her equipment (or "gear"). Raids, dungeons and "heroics" offer thousands of powerful monsters that, when killed, give weapons and armor that strengthen your character. Dungeons and heroics are typically conquered by five players effectively working together to defeat the obstacles and creatures within. Raids follow a different suit, requiring 10 to 25 skilled players able to communicate and coordinate themselves in order to (hopefully) kill the most difficult monsters in the game.

Another option to the post-leveling stage (or "end game content") is coordinated PVP. Beside the four available battlegrounds, the game contains four "arena" maps offering extremely competitive play in the form of 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5. If you are successful, the rewards are some of the most powerful upgrades in the game.

Guilds, world events, seasonal events, mounts, professions, mini-games, parties, transportation and real-time economies are just a few more of the many other unnamed aspects to this game. Some things are simply best if discovered.

Cons:

In recent times, the game has found difficulties in PVP in terms of equality. Some classes seem to always be more powerful than others, however, the developers of the game promise that they're addressing this situation.

It is fairly expensive if thought of as simply a video game. The game runs at (I believe) $15 a month, or $12.99 if you pay for 6 months at once. By the time you've purchased the original game and the two expansion packs, you're out $100+, which doesn't include subscription fees. The cheapest route to take is to purchase the Battle-chest (the first two games), the second expansion pack (soon to be added to the Battle-chest) and a large chunk of game time.

A key thing to consider in terms of price is that you're buying much more than a game. You're paying for the new content which is released almost every two months, the server maintenance, and in-game customer support. Also, keep in mind, that this game will (probably) entertain you for much longer than a TV or DVD or Console game. Sure, an XBox game is only $59.99, very cheap compared to World of Warcraft, but within a few weeks/months the XBox game will become dull, whereas this game will have already released new content to be conquered.

*This is why I only gave it 4 stars*
The game is addicting. Extremely. Dangerously. No, seriously, if you have any history of alcohol/drug/gambling abuse, you should reconsider, or at least be informed prior to purchasing.

I offer to you this solution: first, download the 10 day free trial. Next, keep a log of the amount of time you spend on the game during these 10 days. It's expected that you will 1-3 hours a day initially, but will quickly fall into the 4+ hours as your trial nears its end. After the 10 day trial, take a look at how much time you've spent on this game. Some might find themselves in "good shape," with only a couple hours of play time. Most will find that they've spent an upwards of 30 hours (or much more) on the game in only 10 days.

Determine for yourself if you truly have that much free time to spend on a video game. If you do, wonderful, then this is the game for you, and I hope you enjoy your experience. If you believe this is too much time to spend on a game, don't fret! Within the account creation process, you will be able to set up "parental controls" for the availability of play. It is in this device that you can limit your playtime to a healthy and sustainable amount.

I hope this was helpful.

First off lets just say blizz has done a good job with their graphics and music. As usual some of the music is really exceptional, but a lot of the time there is none? In case u players that don't listen there are lots of no sound spots in this game.

Second, it is mostly more of the same and some of new and great fun! Lots of cutesy quests and fun areas. Blizz has made it a lot easier, but that has it's up side also. You can quest around and feel confident that you will succeed without dieing 5 times and get burned out, dieing a lot gets rather tiresome. In some ways the game is more age appropriate, which a lot of the adults don't like and we all get to hear about it in the general chat channel. I've finished 4 areas totally, the go do this, kill that is getting rather repetitive or should I say really really boring. They have taken pieces of WOW and BC and mixed it up, moved it around, thrown in some new and made it into LK. Some things better some not. Franky, I'm really tired of the snow, way to much snow, after I've played for a while I feel like I need to go put on a coat and turn on the heater. Sorta how all the plains in BC. All in all the new release has some really good points, but it won't hold me as long as BC did and it will be time to move on.

Want to mention this cause I find this as being a major draw back in the game and found it to be this way in all there releases. THIS IS NOT BLIZZARD'S FAULT. Bad mannered people, there's a ton of them! They ninja, they will stand there let you clear an area then race in and take whatever quest you were trying to finish and you will have to wait for respawn.

If you are letting your children play supervise carefully and don't let them get on an adult vent servers for raids. There are some really sick people out there and it seems they've found each other. I have heard some the sickest most twisted conversation go on in vent servers during raids. The language can be a major drawback also because it seems a goodly amount of younger adults think profanity is the thing to do in RPG's> Got Me?

All and all, it's a really good game, has it's ups and downs but I think its worth the money for a while.