WOTLK Infos

[Joy]

Inscription

* Inscribers will create glyphs that allow players to modify their spells and abilities. (Eurogamer.net)
* Going by the first recipe, which requires Peacebloom, they'll rely on the herbalist gathering profession. (Eurogamer.net)
* Every player will get a new spell book page to which they can add six glyphs - currently, four major and two minor. (Eurogamer.net)
* Major glyphs will be effective in combat - adding damage over time or stun to a physical attack, for example - while minor glyphs will give convenient or cosmetic improvements, removing the need for some spell reagents. (Eurogamer.net)
* Glyphs can be sold at the Auction House (Eurogamer.net)

Enchanting

* Allowing enchanters sell their enchantments at the Auction House is still planned.(Eurogamer.net)

Lake Wintergrasp / Vehicles

* The new vehicle technology, which introduces physics and handling characteristics - including inertia, turning circle, grip and suspension bounce - to land and airborne vehicles and special mounts. (Eurogamer.net)
* It also allows for up to eight passengers per vehicle, and brings up bespoke action bars and skills for vehicle and turret operators. (Eurogamer.net)
* It was intended to be used solely for PVP siege weapons - Dwarven steam tanks, Forsaken plague spreaders and Orc demolishers. (Eurogamer.net)

World

* Even if you'll be able to meet him as soon as you reach Dragonblight (LVL 71-75), the final encounter against Arthas won't be until the last patch of the Lich King cycle. The Icecrown Citadel, will appear after launch. (Eurogamer.net)
* Dragonblight will also let you reunite (violently) with the Scarlet Crusade. (Eurogamer.net)
* Players will meet a lot of monsters from Classic WoW in the Grizzly Hills, including Furbolgs, Kobolds, the Venture Company, and Worgen Werewolves. (Eurogamer.net)
* Arugal has been resurrected and now leads the Worgen Werewolves in Grizzly Hills. (Eurogamer.net)
* In Grizzly Hills, you will also find an evil sister city to the Alliance capital, Ironforge. (Screenshot ?) (Eurogamer.net)
* The Argent Dawn faction returns in Zul'Drak. (Eurogamer.net)
* In Sholazar Basin, you'll take part in a faction-reputation war between the Wolvar (sentient wolves) and Oracles ("the next evolution of the Murlocs" - a worrying thought). A much lighter take on reputation gaming is promised here, with players actively encouraged to defect to the other side at will. (Eurogamer.net)
* The expansion will contain a lot of "vehicle quests" as an evolution of BC's bombing runs - throwing flaming oil at Worgen from horseback, airlifting supplies in a gyrocoptor, and yes, mammoth wrangling. (Eurogamer.net)

Vehicles w00t

 

[Razors]

So, Joy. Good luck restricting the amount of people who gets to be a death knight in Wotlk

/wink

 

[Ayu]

It will sort itself out eventually, just like Paladins/Shamans in the new factions.

 

[Hom]

* Dragonblight will also let you reunite (violently) with the Scarlet Crusade. (Eurogamer.net)
* Players will meet a lot of monsters from Classic WoW in the Grizzly Hills, including Furbolgs, Kobolds, the Venture Company, and Worgen Werewolves. (Eurogamer.net)
* Arugal has been resurrected and now leads the Worgen Werewolves in Grizzly Hills. (Eurogamer.net)
* In Grizzly Hills, you will also find an evil sister city to the Alliance capital, Ironforge. (Screenshot ?) (Eurogamer.net)
* The Argent Dawn faction returns in Zul'Drak. (Eurogamer.net)
* In Sholazar Basin, you'll take part in a faction-reputation war between the Wolvar (sentient wolves) and Oracles ("the next evolution of the Murlocs" - a worrying thought). A much lighter take on reputation gaming is promised here, with players actively encouraged to defect to the other side at will.

That whole chunk is smacks of either pure laziness or they have ran out of ideas

 

[Ayu]

I thought it was a nice touch really, especially Argent Dawn is to be expected in an Undead based expansion, no?

 

[Hom]

Was more refering to the ongoing reuse old shite and the stupid "Evil Sister" of ironforge

 

[Cronocious]

I imagine most people would find continuation and filling in the gaps of old lore more interesting than bringing in brand new things that people have never heard of before and don't really make any sense. I think it's more just continuing the story that wow is rather than running out of gaming ideas.

 

[Hom]

Rubbish. I would reckon most of the playing public have no fucking clue about the lore and dont care one bit about filling in small gaps.

And yet I always hear people complaining about reusing stuff a shit load more that some lame back story fill-in

 

[Anshrr]

More Worgen is pure win :<

 

[Cronocious]

Even though few people actually care about the lore, they still have to follow the lore to make the games, they're already stretching it somewhat with draenei shamans etc and although not many people care, they still make it follow lore for a reason i'm sure they know.

 

[Braque]

i care

 

[Ayu]

i care

^

Lore background is important so you actually know why you are killing stuff. In that same vein, LOL@ZA lore.

 

[Ozzimandius]

As far as I can remember the AQ dungeons and patch was very unpopular with players because it did not fit in with the lore or was to vague and 'different'. I don't think blizzard are eager to make that mistake again.

 

[Ded]

Once you get enough fans of the game, even if they weren't there during the old Warcraft games, they'll be lore nazis popping up, outraged at any change they feel doesn't fit in with the current storyline (despite the work Blizzard have done to put a backstory to it) ....there's people still annoyed by the whole Draenei thing, lol

There's alot of gaps in the lore atm, and it would be nice to see some filled in.. looking at these leaked notes, we'll hopefully find out more about the Worgen, would be interesting Adding too much brand new stuff to the story just gets confusing without some old stuff..

Although reusing the same NPC models for so much does seem lazy.. Hom has a point there..

 

[Anshrr]

Shamelessly stolen from MMO-Champion:

World

Northrend is Huge. It is larger than Outland by a couple of zones, and some of the zones in Northrend are bigger than the largest zone in Outland. (Source)

The mounts available to buy in Wrath will probably be able to take passengers. These mounts will also work in the old world (Provided they are land mounts), so players can give low-level characters a ride! The new mounts will also be slightly faster, around the speed of the Armored Netherdrakes. (Source)

We're not sure if that will be available from the start but one of the ideas is to give the players new mounts they can buy and allow these new mounts to be available for passengers. (Source)

Trainers and Auction houses will remain in the "Old World" (Source)

Dalaran wil be in Nothern/Central Northrend, near the final zones (Source)

The Ashbringer lore will feature heavily in Wrath (Source)

More details on Northrend and Vehicles in Part 1 and Part 2


Professions

Blacksmithing may be able to put Gem slots on items that didn't have them before (Source)

All professions will give players something powerful specific to them, similar to the Epic weapons that weaponsmiths can make just for themselves (Source)

A new metal ore found in Northrend is Cobalt. (Source)

The new cloth in Northrend is called Frostweave. (Source)

The way inscription is going to work is you'll have a series of mats that you need to do and then you'll create a scroll that will actually do the buff of the spell in question. Each scroll will have a specific use, so you won't create a generic scroll, it'll be a special scroll that will upgrade this fireball to do this type of thing. Right now we're still trying to make sure we've got that kind of mechanic down. That's actually most of the work. Most of the work is figuring out how that all works, what the materials are, how that comes together, and once we have that, then figuring out what the individual spells are and what the individual spells are and what the effects are going to be is going to be relatively easy. (Source)

More details on Inscription in Part 2


PvP

Lake Wintergrasp will have daily quests, and there will probably be a buff that effects the entire continent, as well as rewards from all dungeons similar to the Spirit Shards players can currently get from the Auchindoun instances when their faction controls the area. (Source)

There will probably be two new Arenas in Wrath, one set in Dalaran, one in Orgrimmar Arena (Source)


Raids & Dungeons

In Wyrmrest Temple there's a raid instance similar to Onyxia's Lair where it's a small raid instance with a single encounter in the Chamber of Aspects. We plan to put a raid encounter in there and let you take part in that and initially we plan to go with one raid encounter, but if we want to expand the space and introduce other dragon flights we can do that through the Chamber of Aspects. (Source)

A raid encounter in the Nexus will let players free drakes and then fight on their back, allowing them to use their abilities. Bronze, Green, and Red drakes will be available and each one of them will have his own set of abilities. The boss fight is tuned around the abilities of the drakes and players will be able to pick any combination (e.g. 3 Green, 1 Bronze, and 4 Red). There's a boss fight that has lots of adds in it, and one of [the drakes] can apply this buff to a bunch of adds while another one can basically consume the buff and get health back from all of it and also assume a tanking role. So your tank is then healing himself based off of this debuff that another one is applying to everyone. (Source)

Developpers think they didn't reward PvE enough in the Burning Crusade, and will try to change that in WotLK. (Source)

Heroic dungeons weren't rewarding enough in BC, Wrath of the Lich King will change that and make player feel that Heroic instances have their own tier of loot instead of a few additions to the normal loot table. Expanding the Heroic Badge system will be a major step to achieve this. (Source)

The Arthas storyline will play out through the patches as well. So Arthas doesn't die in shipping Wrath of the Lich King. Arthas will die in a content patch. (Source)

PvE ladders on the official armory are possible in the future (Source)

More details on Raid & Dungeons in Part 1


Death Knights

Changing runes won't be as prohibitive as talent speccing or anything like that, but at the same time, it won't be so fluid so that you're doing it between fights. We're going to hit some sweet spot between those two. (Source)

Death Knights aren't restricted to swords, they can also uses maces and axes and dual-wield their 1-hand version. Obviously, they can't use a shield. (Source)

Using a 2-hand weapon or dual-wielding won't change anything to the amount of runes (6) you can use. (Source)

Death Knights will start off in a floating necropolis in the Eastern Plaguelands, much like Naxxramas in its current location. They will then go on to level in a dedicated area East of Tyr's Hand and the Noxious Glade, where they will learn more about the background of Death Knights. (Source)

A few more DK abilities
Blood Presence - DPS. Increases DPS and heals the DK slightly when attacked. (Source)
Blood Strike - Does an amount of damage based on how many diseases are on the target. (Source)
Blade Strike - Applies disease to the target in addition to doing damage. (Source)
Mind Freeze - Interrupts spell casting (Source)

More details on Death Knights in Part 1


Patch 2.5 ?

"We just released 2.4.2 on the PTR [public test realm] last week and that's just kind of a minor bug fix patch with a handful of small adjustments. 2.4.0 does represent kind of the last content patch for Burning Crusade and for WoW before Wrath of the Lich King comes out, and so we are talking about doing something in between when 2.4.2 comes out and when Wrath of the Lich King comes out but haven't decided exactly what that is or when that's going to come out. It's only a possibility at this point." (Source)

"There will be no event to open the route to Northrend like AQ; the day of the expansion release, players can go straight into Northrend. However, a month or 2 in advance there will possibly be a large patch, similar to pre TBC. Players will get hints of why they will have to go to Northrend in this peroid, and this patch will possibly feature new talent trees and class changes." (Source)

"Blizzard are planning to bring out cool new items for players to spend all their money on, BEFORE Wrath comes out." (Source)

With rewarding "PvE" and Heroics more, combined with 10man versions of 25man raids, I kinda get the feeling they're trying to phase out raiding
But new mounts and the drake raiding seems like lots of fun ^^

 

[Ayu]

10 and 25 mans *are* raiding Oo

 

[Lebuff]

What they mean is that the PvP gear that was added in burning crusade was too close to raiding gear in quality. Lots of people did arenas and batlegrounds to get upgrades for their raiding sets, which I don't think was intended. In wotlk there is likely to be a bigger difference between raid loot and pvp rewards.

 

[Anshrr]

Well, Raiding was 40 man, then it turned into mostly 25man, with 2 10 mans and lots of heroics, now they're rewarding those heroics even more, making more 10 mans, basically making 25mans less "wanted" imo.... Expansion after WotLK will probably be 1 25 man, couple of 10mans, and lots of Heroics lol
(Yeah I know, exagering(sp?) alot).
Tho, with the 10 mans getting the same Tier models, just different colors, 25man seems less rewarding :<

 

[Lebuff]

In the interview on curse it sounds more like they want to reduce quality of questrewards and normal dungeons rather than make heroic loot overpowered. What they are after is to distinguish better between different tiers of gear.
In short they want you to do quests for normal gear upgrades, then dungeons for the first dungeon set, then heroics for the heroics set, then you can start raiding the 10-mans, and after you got enough good gear from the 10-mans you can start with 25-man raids.

That is how I interpret it.

 

[Anshrr]

I just hope the 25man Tier color is way way nicer than the 10man version
Like, red or black or something for 25, and like.. orange and pink and brown for 10 ^^