World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack Reviews

• A solid improvement over the core game and previous expansion

  
  By A1Z3LU078VNOA6 on 2008-11-19
  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.
  
  

• Terrible

  
  By A2UEV7OG4C465A on 2008-11-13
  I came back to wow for this expansion exclusively. This expansion adds nothing new, and wotlk is just more of the same. Endless repetition, massive crowds of children, and hours upon hours of wasted time gathering horribly rendered gear.
  
  I'm glad I only bought one copy and didn't go full BORE on this.
  
  Don't waste your money!
  
  

• WOTLK ... MEH

  
  By A3CJPO2G6Y7VWR on 2008-11-14
  OK I wanted to hit everyone at once with my review of the WOTLK.
  
  SO far my over all impression is ... Meh.
  
  I go for my first quest and its... go kill x of y and come back here. Really? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? your on your 2nd expansion you've had years to plan and that's the best you could come up with? Fine whatever... OK so its a 69 th level mob and they drop what? GREYS? AND 3 or 4 silver? SERIOUSLY? Oh come on... Well let me fly up high and get a better view...What the HECK?? My flying mount doesn't work???
  SERIOUSLY??
  
  And the explanation for that would be? well we created allot of (WORTHLESS) game content and we don't want you to skip any of it. How about areas that were designed to be traversed by people with flying mounts. YOU hadda KNOW that just about every one would have at least the Jr version of a flying mount. Why not come up with a better plan than declaring NORTHREND a NO FLY zone. Apparently there are plans to let you use your flying mount in North REND eventually.. they think maybe around level 78. But they are not sure yet? OK whatever.
  
  The Death knight looks cool. I played him for about 5 minutes and then put him away. I want to get my lock to 80 and if I start splitting time with my death knight forget it, it will never happen. That and i think I'll let every one else figure out how to use the new class best and then start playing it.
  I was extremely pleased with the name I got. JORDEAD. Pronounced (your dead.).. I had a good laugh over that one.
  
  OK the first area that I was in was loaded down with new trainers... and i have to say if you've killed yourself to level tailoring to the Max, your going to be annoyed because there are right away recipes that are going to be real easy to make with drops from the humanoids and thread that are going to be way easier to do than making shadow cloth and farming motes of water to make the dreadweave gear. Its not as good as your purples but it is a ton easier to make... so its going to be much easier for me to make it to 375 and above than before the expansion. Which means i am very grateful that I didn't spend that time grinding motes more than I needed to make one set of the shoulder blades.
  
  I will say this that The scope of this game with the second expansion is truly breath taking. There is now so much to do that it boggles the mind.
  
  Now in fairness I Only played about 2 or 3 hours of content so far and it may well be that the game has gotten much better but so far All I have to say is this. Its just more of the same, and I am not impressed. As a matter of fact I will probably head back to warsong gulch and finish getting my second purple, before I go back to north rend.
  
  Oh and so far as I can tell there are no banks or auction houses in the first area you go to for the horde at least.
  
  
  
  

• Great game, horrible players....

  
  By A2HZPJ1DB0I0PZ on 2008-11-24
  Pros: The new class, Death Knight, is fun to play. They have a lot of advantages with any of their Talent builds. There are a lot of quests to complete, comparable to Burning Crusades. The new zones are big, and are visually appealing. Items in this expansion are also nice. The game is stable compared to Everquest 2's latest expansion. Server down time hasn't deviated from the weekly update, aside from server restarts.
  
  Cons: Every Tuesday brings apprehension that a patch will nerf Death Knight abilities. You need to reach level 77 and spend even more gold to be able to use flying mounts in Northrend. The terrain in the lower leveled zones requires you to wait for automated traveling systems.
  
  I like this game, and I like the concepts this game brings to the table compared to other MMOs. The problem with World of Warcraft in general, is that it's full of griefers and people who lack common ethics and courtesy. It's a problem in all MMOs I suppose, since a lot of people overcompensate when they aren't personally held accountable for how they act.
  
  

• Shipping Nov 18 (!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!)

  
  By A2E6WWL5YRJ0AJ on 2008-11-13
  I know the game is good but I can't review the expansion because I don't have it yet.
  
  I generally like to think of myself as a laid back person.
  
  I preordered WOTLK the first day I was aware I could, (Sep 15) a long while back. I didn't check the emails they sent me then. Maybe it was my bad for not thinking I needed to double check the service. But it was my presumption that the whole point of Pre Ordering was to get the game in time to play when it went live. I had not had a bad experience with Amazon before, so it didn't cross my mind that I should check when they would have the game to me as I had ordered it several months before the game was to go live.
  
  So now it comes down to the time WOTLK has gone live and I still don't have my game. I was willing to give them a day or 2 on a massive event like this. I have worked in several sectors of the service industry and so am inclined to give people a break when things don't turn out exactly like I think they should.
  
  So I go into my email and find what they sent me. I find 2 disturbing pieces of info in 2 separate emails. 1 states that my "shipping estimate" is Nov 18. The other says that if I want "release-date delivery" I should pay an extra $6. In my mind the big question that comes up is: "What the hell did I preorder for?" Does Amazon expect that I just like to part with my money early? Or isn't there a basic understanding that a preordered item is preordered for the entire purpose of being able to have the product in your hands the day of release? Asking me to pay an extra $6 for what I thought I was already paying for may be excusable but still smells of cooperate greed. But then giving me a shipping time AFTER the game is going to be AVAILABLE defeats the purpose of preordering ALTOGETHER.
  
  So I thought well maybe they are just giving themselves some room with the delivery date in case items don't arrive in time and the shipping estimate means I should give them a couple days in case something goes bad. Then I check the shipping tracking number given in the email and find that "Shipping estimate" apparently means the date they plan to ship the item. Meaning...... THE ITEM STILL HAS NOT SHIPPED YET THE DAY OF RELEASE.
  
  I am not going to die or anything because I couldn't join my friends in the opening days of WOTLK. Though I did put an enourmous amount of effort into my characters so that they would be ready to go into northrend and dominate the expansion which is now made a laughable sentiment seeing as how I will now be playing catch up.
  
  The only clear and clean way to put what I am fealing towards Amazon is that they FAILed me. Even with my expectations left a bit lax in understanding with what can happen in a service industry, Amazon has compleatly and catagorically failed to deliver satisfactory service to me. And I venture to say, a great many other costomers may feel similarly.
  
  On the off chance that Amazon reads what people write on their own site... I am going to give this challenge to Amazon directly. Find a way to make this situation right. Corporations, like people, are entitled to mistakes but they must also apologize and attempt to compensate for the mistakes they make. You as a company are treading on your customer's loyalty. And it isn't like you are the only place I can order any given product. I can simply enter the name of an item I wish to purchase into google and probably have 10k companies available to exchange my money for the goods or service desired. So you need to 1) apologize sincerely giving me the feeling that you recognize the mistake and will take steps to prevent another mistake like it. And you need to 2) do something substantial for me as a customer to win back my loyalty. By this I do not mean tweak a marketing ploy or give me something I don't want but I mean really give something that hurts a bit to give as a gesture of good will, and a reassurance that you regard me as a customer as something more then a number. Because I can chose to simply regard YOU as a number and one that I have tried and which failed me and move on to another company. In the interest of Damage Control for your company concerning this mistake I think you will find it wise and profitable to find a significant way to make this situation right. As it stands I will not be ordering Anything from you and I will actively discourage people I know from using you as a vendor.
  
  
• Graphics/Music Review of WotlK + Unfairness to Horde in Strand of the Ancients
  By A3FVRUH0YAAWRI on 2008-11-14
  Graphics & Music
  ------------------------------
  The ethereal graphics are astoundingly beautiful, tailored to real-life tastes, with snow-covered pine trees and a pastel colored sky dazzled by the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights). One of the most crazy places I've visited was the starting zone where I actually climbed a snow-covered mountain (which is drawn to scale!) in Howling Fjord. It as so realistic, I could almost smell the fresh pine cone scent, feel the icy cold nip of the crisp air, and taste of flying snowflakes on my lips.
  
  If the graphics don't surprise you, the music will. The celtic-like Uilleann pipes (sounds like bagpipes) have a middle-earth feel and mythical tunes, that, for a moment I felt like Xena or a character from Lord of the Rings. The music is truly pleasure to my ears. The Dark Knight class is very well thought-out, with a strong storyline and new voice effects. I recommend you playing through the Death Knight class even if you intend *not* to play it, because the entire storyline ends in 3 hours and is quite epic. Just make sure not to skip any cutscenes or dialogue for the DK quests, or you'll miss out on a lot. In addition, the entire expansion pack has an innovative "feel" for the game of WoW, in fact so much so I thought I was playing a different game with characters that looked like WoW.
  
  
  Problems with Strand of the Ancients
  ---------------------------------------
  
  WotlK is a fantastic new addition to WOW but there's one thing I dislike, the new BG. Much like the inequality to Horde found from AV, Strand of the Ancients has an Alliance advantage.
  
  There are 2 rounds (1 round for Alliance attacking/Horde defense, 1 round for Horde attacking/Alliance defense) in the game and 5 gates. Whoever reaches the final gate by breaking through with tanks wins the game. 1 tank can controlled by as little as 1 person. The defending side may use turrets or people to kill the tanks.
  
  The problem with unfairness comes from the fact that Alliance ALWAYS starts the battle as the attacker and has the full duration of 10 minutes to break the gates. In addition to this, Alliance are able to SET the time limit for the second round. If they zerg and win the game in 3 minutes, for example, Horde now has 3 mins or less to reach the final gate themselves in round 2 to win. This means, unless Alliance used up the full duration of 10 minutes attacking, Horde will never have the full 10 minutes to attack, as Alliance would.
  
  In addition, having Horde start out as attacking in the 2nd round (middle of game) will almost always mean people (Alliance & Horde) will have had the chance to finish queue-ing up and make it an even game (10 v 10), thus allowing more Alliance be ready to defend the gates with the turrets. Whereas, when Alliance attack in the beginning, there is a shortage of players on both sides making it easier to attack (since you are attacking with tanks not with people, and 2 tanks is more than enough to break a gate), where there is less defense.
  
  The PVP forums are alive with complaints against Strand of the Ancients and its inability to randomize who starts the game first (attacking).
  
  Besides this unfairness, great game.
  
  
• Engaging, but more of the same.
  By AXSO8WWR4QSF7 on 2008-11-18
  I've played through the initial death knight introduction. It took me about two hours and there were some high points. The world changed as you complete quests, gradually the town got more and more torn up as you did the Lich King's bidding. That was pretty cool. One of the last quests was using a undead dragon to decimate the Scarlet Crusade's army. Way fun.
  
  My problem was with the quests. Most of them were kill X amount of civilians. Lame. Plus, rather than fight, the civilians would a) run and/or b) beg for their lives. It is sad that I empathize with computer characters, but I felt horrible for killing them and at the same time was pretty bored, because they didn't fight back. A half-hour of that is tiresome. (They kept saying "Please, I have family!" Made me feel like whale dirt.)
  
  So those are the initial pluses and minuses for me. I hope this helps.
  
  
• Excellent expansion to a fun and addicting game
  By A1YF4W0555OUHO on 2008-11-20
  I've been playing World of Warcraft for about two years now, with a few level 70 characters. So I'm not a hardcore player, but was still getting bored with the quests and instances in Outland. The Lich King expansion is only a week old, but I'm already having a blast leveling some of my older characters in the new Northrend zone. The new areas have an overall "cold" theme, lots of ice and snow and some great new characters. The quests follow the standard pattern, lots of traveling around and exploring.
  
  The new Death Knight class is a great enhancement to the game. You can now create a character that starts at level 55 with a full set of gear. This saves the tedious leveling process that usually is required when creating a new character to try out. I've had a lot of fun running my Death Knight through her paces (you can create one DK per server), so far just to level 60.
  
  As I said, I'm not a power-level player or hardcore, so my main characters are only level 72. I've seen several level 80 characters already so there are some who could provide many more details about the expansion pack. For me, this expansion looks like it will keep me entertained for at least another year. See you in Draka!
  
  Garanth
  
  
• More of the same just in an icy and cold theme
  By A2VVF5Q6JI0WIF on 2008-11-22
  I can't believe after 4 years Blizzard give this to us. Let's see some
  facts:
  
  1 The game was not it for casual players, now it is worse. Do you remember how impossible it was to gather 5000 gold for a casual player for the flying epic mount?, Now there is a mammoth mount that transports 3 players, and it costs 20,000 gold! fantastic Blizzard!
  
  2 The quests are the same:
  Go kill X of Y.
  Deliver some box.
  Gather X of Y.
  
  3 Death Knight: an overpower class, it is ruining the amusement of the other classes. Now all reroll as DK. 95% of players online in any battleground are DKs. Also they start at level 55! awesome Blizzard!
  
  4 Naxxramas: an old level 60 raid zone is level 80 now! For the next expansion, what we would get, perhaps Ahn Qiraj in level 90?
  
  5 No world PvP: if you try to attack some town of the opposite faction,
  from nowhere a bunch of high level guards rape your character. Bottom line: you have to pay a bunch of gold in fix your armor. Is this fun?
  
  6 Just one more Battleground! At least you can add 4 or 5 more. Is it so difficult to make a map for a BG?
  
  7 No gnome healers! After 4 years the gnome is the only class with no heals at all! come on Blizzard! Imagine how cute a gnome priest or druid or shammy could be!
  
  8 They removed all Attunement from outlands raids, but no in the classics raids. WTF?
  
  9 They nerfed almost all classes in patch 3.0. But what about the infamous "fear" of the warlock? fear is the worst game mechanic ever.
  
  10 Leveling from 1-80 can be a nightmare for new players to WoW. The fact that I have to level up 80 levels make myself sick. I'll never make a new char again. No way!
  
  But don't worry at least you can get a haircut in Orgrimmar if you
  are horde or in Stormwind if you are alliance. :-)
  
  
  
• Finally! Getting What You Pay For With WotLK
  By A277TO3PKKNYDH on 2008-11-22
  I am a fairly casual gamer. I enjoy many types of games and have played a few MMORPGs over the years. I began playing in November of 2005, about a year after WoW first came out. Being a woman there was no way in heck I was going to go with the cliche and play a healer. So my first toon was a warrior. Since then I've tried each class to some extent and tried different incarnations of the talents available for those I've chosen to level. When Burning Crusade came out I was more interested in making my first toons in the new races and exploring the new zones there. But eventually I had to head out to Outland and work on getting my characters to 70.
  
  That was when I realized how little I cared for the BC expansion. The environments were alright but the questing was tedious and constant long runs made it hard to get from place to place. I prefer World PvP and play on a PvP server so the addition of Arenas didn't really appeal to me but my husband and cousins tried it and enjoyed it to some extent. Outside of raiding with some guildies and friends once I hit 70 there wasn't much appeal to do anything.
  
  Enter Wrath of the Lich King. I admit, I was going to wait until after the holidays to bother. With BC being very disappointing I didn't see the point of grinding to 80 and having nothing to do but raid. Fortunately the patch before WotLK introduced Achievments. I began to dabble a bit with those before the expansion and have found that it has made the leveling process much more entertaining. As someone who enjoys exploring, professions and world PvP my needs have been well met with the new expanion. While levels are certainly goals in themselves, finishing the majority of quests in a region to get the questing achievments has been a good motivator. This time around there is a wide variety of quests (collecting, locating, taming, flying/riding, kill-so-many, named mobs, group quests, lower level dailies, rep, sneaking and soooo many more types!!!) and many are chains that stick to one general area, then send you to another -- less running all over a zone in circles. You will also find that most quests now give better directions ("Go south of here and talk to so-and-so, he's standing by a tall rock...") to what you're searching for.
  
  The changes to the graphics engine have indeed made it easier for me (I am a frequent lag sufferer when flying mounts are near) to move around. The environments are so beautiful, Dalaran PWNS Shattarath! The mobs are great looking and have terrific animations. Multiple flight paths per zone have made travel in the large areas much easier! Daily quests pop up all over, from basic gathering quests and bombing runs to the new cooking dailies (earn Dalaran Cooking Awards and use them to buy new recipes!) it's easy to make a little cash every day without spending hours on them. The only thing I'm not very impressed with yet are the instances. I've had time to do Utgarde Keep (70-71), The Nexus (71-72) and Azjol-Nerub (74-76) so far but other than the final boss of UK I haven't found any of it really fabulous. Maybe I'm just sulky because I'm running an Arms War and a Boomkin and still haven't seen any gear I can use drop. /giggle
  
  Now, I'm sure most players are looking forward to trying out the game's first heroic class: the Death Knight. Knowing the first few days it would be insanity I waited a couple so I haven't gotten very high yet. I've been royally ganked by a few so far though and watched a lvl 68 DK with less than 25% health (& a mob on him) get ganked by a 70 mage w/full H/M... the DK made the mage look like a noob, hardcore. Needless to say it looks like they are going to be a very strong class in PvP situations. I haven't given into temptation and tried the ganking yet but DKs definitely have some really cool spells and talents. Plus, if you're into Lore they have a detailed, entertaining story. My husband and I have come across cut-scenes (sorry not cinematics, but still a nice touch) related to the story that were very enjoyable to watch.
  
  Overall I have been so impressed with the expansion I actually felt I HAD to write a review. I have a pair of friends who quit in the weeks right before the expansion because they were so bored. I think with the many factions to earn rep with (in more quested forms than mob grinds TY Bliz!), areas to explore, more instances, achievments and enjoyable dailies players who cap out their levels will find more to do with their time while waiting for the next expansion. Having been pretty bored at 70 myself I am glad I decided not to wait or worse--quit! I do think it definitely depends on what aspects of the game appeal to you. PVP vs. PVE, Instance grinding vs. Questing, Crafting professions vs. Gathering professions. I think WotLK has added elements to keep the more casual player like myself (lvling 2-3 days a week, raiding 2 nights a week, lots of herb farming and crafting on the lvling days) busy without neglecting the hardcore gamers in the process. A balance I think we all can appreciate! Now I just wish I had sprung for the collector's edition... that Frost Whelp pet is awesome!
  
  Enjoy your adventures in Azeroth!
  
  And just because I imagine it might help you judge whether my opinion and what I play reflects what you might be interested in... I play Alliance on Azgalor(PvP) -- 70+ Warrior (Arms) & Druid (Balance), 40+ Hunter (Hybrid), Mage (Frost) & Priest (Holy), 60+ Death Knight (Frost), 20+ Shaman (Enhancement) -- Herb/Alc, Herb/Tail, Skin/Mine, Mine/JC, Skin/Ench, Mine/Insc, Min/Eng ...and I always lvl Cook/Fish/FA on all toons.
  
  
  
  
• More of the same -.-
  By A10C9S8F15FSP1 on 2008-11-25
  I really wanted to build onto my achievements in tBC when I went to Northrend. Sadly, they disabled flying until 77 and you have to re-purchase it just for Northrend (I think that's just stupid; like my mount can't handle the cold air @.@ I also felt like that was a blow to my esteem since I worked hard for my flyer), and the quests are more of the same! Monsters grant hardly squat for exp so you're forced into doing all of the quest hubs, which don't even have good directions most of the time. All of that frustrated me to the point where I wanted to do something else.
  
  OK, the second part of the expansion is the addition of the Death Knight class which starts at 55. So after making my DK I was quickly surprised to see what appeared to be the Lich King standing in front of me. Now, I don't know about you, but for me it kinda takes the thrill out of defeating a epic boss like Arthas when you get to train under him and do his bidding. Anyways, I proceeded to do the introductory quests and quickly noticed that the DK was so powerful that you could literally just randomly hit 4 buttons and decimate any target your own level(up to 3 levels higher than you and elite also).
  
  I didn't mind the quest's in the DK area to much bcus it was cool to actually play the 'bad guy' for once, but I thought the story ended rather lamely with the battle at Light's Hope Chapel.
  
  After finishing the "noob" area for DK and becoming a member of the Alliance by presenting a note to the king (after getting spit on and food thrown at you by all the guards in SW [I felt humiliated, honestly!]) I preceded to locate and see the what info I could find on the forums about the DK class.
  
  Well, I found out that DK was so powerful that they could tank in any spec and that since they started gear with better than tBC gear, they were decimating the 50-59/60 bracket battlegrounds, and were dominating world pvp as well. Now I kinda thought that was interesting, bcus I thought Blizzard always kept balance in mind, but I guess they didn't see this happening. This made me mad because I was unfairly treated due to the release of tBC when I was 51, It made it very hard to level; And now, to see that DK was one of the most overpowered classes and over populated classes made me feel sorry for people trying to level the classic classes.
  
  Blizzard also killed pvp for me IMO. The new arena sets look terrible, and IDC what kind of stats the items have. If they don't look brutal and represent my class I'm not going to wear them, period.
  
  Over all I give blizzard some props for making a game that I enjoyed playing with my friends for about 2 1/2 years, but I also have to put my foot down and say that I'm not impressed with the quality of game dynamics and content Wrath brought. I'm going to quit playing WoW since it just isn't together anymore. Hopefully another company will make a game that can compete with WoW [Maybe Warhammer Online, but I'm not happy with EA bcus of the male-ware and limited install stuff they have been putting with games recently]
  
  for those that said "Wall of text" and didn't read; I made a easy Con/Pro chart below.
  
  -TL,DR-
  Cons:
  -Recycled quests (e.x.: kill X then deliver Y; Kill X loot Y; Kill X and return)
  -Quest grind from 70-80
  -Loss of flying mount in Northrend until 77 and cost of 1k gold
  -Imbalanced implementation of the Death Knight Hero class
  -Poor lore and story (mostly concerning DK IMO)
  -Poor pvp item design
  -Easy Dungeons
  
  Pros:
  -New content including: a new class(DK), land mass(including quests/dungeons), ten levels (on top of 70), new Arena/battleground, higher level professions, and a new profession (inscription)
  -New multi-person land mounts (If you can afford it)
  -Siege warfare
  -A few new quest designs that were interesting, but too short
  
  
• I Enjoy Wow, but...
  By A3CW8H2CC3HH2H on 2008-11-18
  The expansion is very well done. The new content is inventive, engaging, and very well produced. So why only 2 stars? The new instances and raid content are way too easy. Blizzard didn't just dumb this game down, they emasculated it.
  
  
• WTF?! Disturbing and not for those under 18
  By A1HKSKD2Y0SJPP on 2008-11-30
  I love WOW, but the new expansion is disturbing. One extremely popular role (The "Death Knight") requires you to brutally murder innocent, cowering, unarmed people begging for their lives, men, women and children. The only motivation on the part of the "Death Knight" is pleasure in doing this. Also, the story, the world, seems to reward that behavior.
  
  I don't get it Blizzard.
  
  It's just a game, a chance to role play, to live a fantasy life, but why on earth would anyone enjoy doing that? Where's the pleasure or the fun in it? For me, it's not enjoyable at all, and I need to figure out how to play the game w/out doing these disturbing acts.
  
  I think it may be possible to chose to skip these "brutally murder innocent, cowering, unarmed people" quests. If so, I'll continue to play the "Death Knight," but I can tell you right now, 1) if I can't, I won't play and 2) in real life, if I met anyone who enjoyed doing this in some fantasy online world, that's a person I would want to have little to do with, and it would really call into question their character and emotional state.
  
  
  
  
• dope
  By A1P3LF37HOAH4 on 2008-11-15
  death knights (the new class) are insane. almost too cool. northrend (the new continent) is ok so far.
  
  
• very appealing to most wow enthusiasts
  By A2A5KVV1SHTCDS on 2008-11-23
  I played WoW two years ago, and briefly played the last xpac. This new xpac has very creative quests that are technically well done. I've run seven of the 5 man instances, and while they were quite creative, they were also simple and I enjoyed them the first time but don't plan to go back. The Wintergrasp siege battles are also technically well done, but the machines seemed to have only one or two skills, so I'm not sure about the long-term playability. The musical scores are exceptional for a game and integrate a new arrangement of the old scores with new music. The lore is well done and alludes heavily to WC3.
  
  On the negative side, the game is extremely focused on gear grinding, and the people I know who play WoW sincerely enjoy (or think they do) doing repetitive and time-consuming activities to get gear, rinse and repeat. Compared to say, Guild Wars pvp edition, where paying $5 unlocks full sets of pvp gear enabling you to enjoy arena combat immediately, WoW involves much repetitive grinding just to get a basic set of gear for pvp. The forums and general chat consist mainly of constant 3rd grade insults, and reflect a huge gap in the quality of the community compared to other mmos (for example, Eve Online).
  
  
  
• Beautiful scenery and fun quests
  By A1POB7XZC9BJ15 on 2008-11-20
  I bought the game, thinking the content would be very similar to what is already out there, just in a new area. I was a bit right, but there are a ton of interesting and fun quests. Bombing quests, quests where you become a bird, a robot, drive a tank, help save endangered species, etc. It's not just "kill x amount of y" anymore, though that will always be sprinkled in the game.
  
  Having 2 starting areas is great. I went to Borean Tundra, it seemed very crowded, so I went to Howling Fjord for a bit. Howling Fjord reminds me of Darkshore. While initial quests are nearby, further ones require a bit more running around. Borean Tundra seems more compact somehow. Another consideration is gear. Much of my gear, except for my chest, was blue or epic. The chest piece I got in Fjord was tank, but I'm dps. I went to the Tundra and got the same piece, but with crit instead of defense and more strength on it. So it might be worth running both areas if you need to level your gear.
  
  I've done both Nexxus and Utgard instances and they are faily easily for a level 70 with a mix of gear. I actually got a blue shoulder slot item that was better than my epic item and there is a nice dagger (100+dps) that drops from the last boss in Nexxus.
  
  Death knights? They are fun. They have a separate beginning area and quest line. Can you skip these quests? I don't know, but you actually earn your talent points via questing until you leave the area so I don't see why you'd would want to. Much of the game for this part is more like an instance, with those players on the same quest being in the same instance. So the area changes as you play and the story progresses.
  I think it would have been better to make the Death Knight a third faction who is independent of the Horde or Alliance, but I also understand that this might require other additions that they developers didn't have time to or want to make.
  
  And a note to all you people who just rolled DK's: You quit being an evil character when you chose an allignment. You don't need to keep acting like a jerk in the outlands.
  
  
• Blizzard makes a great game better, wow!
  By A1EN4XAKX9LK4A on 2008-11-25
  The Lich King expansion has been out for almost two weeks now, and whereas I can only review portions of the expansion, what I have seen and done has been amazing thus far.
  
  As soon as I got to Northrend, I could tell this place was built correctly. The beginning areas of the continent have a very old-world feel to them, and you can immediately understand that this place has history. Anyone who played the prior Warcraft games knows that Northrend is a place with a certain feel to it, and the creators of the expansion have hit that dark, evil feel on the head.
  
  The expansion is typical of a WOW game with numerous quests available the moment you get off the Zeppelin. There is a lot of variety, and as soon the starting areas clear out from all of the people looking for new continent, there really is a lot to do.
  
  Graphically they've improved the look of the game completely, which is saying a lot because the prior content looked amazing as well.
  
  I've only run one instance, which was Uthgarde Keep and it was stellar. The difficulty was there, the place was just crazy looking with a huge forge and an outside area where dragon riders fly over head. The loot has been upgraded to be in line with players over level 70, and unlike Burning Crusade, not everything is as obvious an upgrade. Many of the stats on items have been redefined so you won't always be looking for the same stats you had looked for previously.
  
  I've only played myself to level 72 which is a lot of play considering Blizzard has DOUBLED the amount of exp it takes to gain a level. It's been alot of questing and hunting, and more questing for my Warlock as I've been trying to balance finding new places with upgrading my character.
  
  All in all, an excellent upgrade, WOW never fails to impress me.
  
  
• A Little Surprised
  By AYYKVKQLXZK6Z on 2008-11-27
  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.
  
  
• Extension of the first two
  By A3GP1NQGLARR6 on 2008-12-01
  i've been reading a couple of these reviews and agree with most of them fully. I've been playing this expansion for a while now and have come to these conclusions:
  -The new content including the new land, is very interesting and very unique. The game looks a whole lot better than it did before.
  -The new class: the death knight, regardless of what some say made me actually care about the history of the character because the first couple quests gave you an in depth background.
  -MORE OF THE SAME, yes many have said it, once you get past the ooooh aaaah, of this is new (which would probably be after a day or so of playing) you get the feeling that everything you did in the endgame before these two expansions was pointless. But since you like the game you run around picking up flowers and killing mammoths in your t5 armor.
  
  
  my final score for this is an overall low rating, it just feels to me that blizzard is sucking what money they can out of the WoW chain before people find the next game, which many have started trickling out for other games such as Warhammer online, or a few went to Age of Conan.
  
  
• Fun and addicting lol
  By A2RH4Q2MD2V6XV on 2008-11-17
  I've been playing WOW for 3 years. This expansion is UBER ~ I am loving the new interface options as well as the new quests, gear, and territories. The only thing I might change is more detail to the graphics. Having a great time so far ~ keep up the great work fellas!
  
  
• A Must Have for any WOW FAN
  By on 2008-11-17
  I purchased this expansion pack for my husband and 7 year old son. They are both WOW fans. Its a must have for any serious WOW player. Many new areas and features. My 7 year old hasn't left the PC all weekend, not even to eat, he was busy playing the new WOW. He couldnt stop.....I recommend this purchase .....Very entertaining you can't imagine all the new areas and features. I dont want to say too much and spoil the fun for you to discover you wont be dissapointed.
  
  
• Awesome
  By A1BSJC00T4KIX3 on 2008-11-18
  The new phasing engine is unreal, you actually change the world for yourself after you do certain missions! Coolest thing I've ever seen in WoW, and I've played since launch.
  
  
• Delayed Shipping is WRONG!!
  By A2WLK25VXKTPFH on 2008-11-18
  I too preordered this for my son as a birthday gift. I cannot tell you how frustrated we are to still be waiting for the game to be delivered! All his friends are online playing and I am sorry I chose Amazon to purchase from. Worst of all the tracking isn't at all helpful! At least it could be linked to UPS or Fed Ex so we know that it is really enroute. ALl the tracking tells is that it left shipping center.
  
  Amaazon is MY favorite retailer for gifts -but this experience has turned me sour. If it is something exciting and we want it even CLOSE to release date, I will purchase elsewhere.
  
  Amazon - think this one over & figure a way to improve it!
  
  
• Yes its more of the same, but way better
  By A1JSJT34BFH71J on 2008-11-26
  I see a lot of bad reviews talking about WOTLK as "more of the same" and heres my point of view:
  
  1- Yes its the same but way better, thats why its "an expansion". If you have played wow for more than a year you ll know that this is a game that evolves, in graphics, gameplay and many other things.
  2- The new class (the Deathkinght) is very very fun and it doesn't feel like any other class
  3- Everyone will have a different point of view, mine is that this expansion is great and it revived the wowness in me lol.
  
  
• Wow WoW
  By AKQ72GMCEEVIV on 2008-11-27
  I play on sevril servers but don't have a lot of time to play. With a wife and 2 kids this game is a nice way to stay in touch with my friends and get a releace from the family life. Lots of new features in the Lich King gives me more to try and acomplish in the short time I have to play so it keeps me going. If you are looking for a good MMORPG I would recomend World of Warcraft.
  
  

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