World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Somehow I posted this in March of 2008 yesterday. Bizarre. Reposted to bring it current.
No one on my friends list will be surprised to see this. I'm totally hooked on WoW, but I thought it would be interesting to post a review of the latest expansion. When they first announced the expansion and the general concept I was honestly not that excited about it. I don't think the cinematic really does the expansion justice and the more I read about it, the less excited I was about it. This is in complete contrast to Burning Crusade. So, what happened? Click behind the cut to read my thoughts.
With Burning Crusade, I went and stood out in the snow for a couple hours to get my copy of the Collector's Edition. I signed up for the beta, I checked out the two new races and was really, really excited about the content. My interest in it waned after it came out and I still don't have a Blood Elf or Draenei above level 30. I feel like I endured a lot of Outland instead of really enjoying it.
There were absolutely parts about it that I enjoyed. Zangarmarsh wasn't completely horrible and Nagrand was a joy - totally love that area. But for the most part, I couldn't wait to hit 70th to get my flying mount and then I pretty much checked out. Wasn't interested in running raids or dungeons and, for the most part, checked in from time to time but didn't really play that much once I wrapped up some quests I wanted.
Now, this didn't change the fact that I still loved WoW and wanted to get the next expansion - there were a lot of things they were talking about that seemed like they had potential, but I just wasn't that interested. The improved graphics they were talking about and some of the screen shots looked absolutely gorgeous, but the story didn't grip with the same level of excitement. And I wasn't really that interested in Death Knights. My initial thought was "Oh, great, another evil undead group."
I have pulled a 180 degree turn on Wrath of the Lich King. The graphic improvements alone are absolutely GORGEOUS. The improved textures, colors, armor, etc. just make it so nice to look at. One of my favorite graphic improvements is dynamic shadows - basically the shadow of your character or NPCs looks and behaves like a shadow from the real world. The character models are also absolutely stunning. There is a race of nordic folk called the Vrykul that are amazing to look at. They're half-giants, but I tell you...if they made the humans look as good as these models I'd actually consider rolling a human (and I NEVER play humans in a game if I can help it). There are a several other races that look just amazing and it's such a refreshing look while obviously being part of the World of Warcraft.
I have an absolute blast every time I sit down to play (except when I run into the odd bugged quest here or there, but that's pretty rare. And yes, I've even rolled a Death Knight and I could probably write an entire post about that experience as well.
The bottom line for me is that it has revitalized my desire to play WoW and the themes, the look and feel, everything about this expansion is head and shoulders above the last one and makes me hopeful that there may be further updates and patches that do more than just implement new content but also improve the old content. Blizzard isn't known for that, but with the changes they successfully implemented without an increased hardware requirement, it seems all too possible.
I have been pleasantly surprised and I'm hooked all over again.
No one on my friends list will be surprised to see this. I'm totally hooked on WoW, but I thought it would be interesting to post a review of the latest expansion. When they first announced the expansion and the general concept I was honestly not that excited about it. I don't think the cinematic really does the expansion justice and the more I read about it, the less excited I was about it. This is in complete contrast to Burning Crusade. So, what happened? Click behind the cut to read my thoughts.
With Burning Crusade, I went and stood out in the snow for a couple hours to get my copy of the Collector's Edition. I signed up for the beta, I checked out the two new races and was really, really excited about the content. My interest in it waned after it came out and I still don't have a Blood Elf or Draenei above level 30. I feel like I endured a lot of Outland instead of really enjoying it.
There were absolutely parts about it that I enjoyed. Zangarmarsh wasn't completely horrible and Nagrand was a joy - totally love that area. But for the most part, I couldn't wait to hit 70th to get my flying mount and then I pretty much checked out. Wasn't interested in running raids or dungeons and, for the most part, checked in from time to time but didn't really play that much once I wrapped up some quests I wanted.
Now, this didn't change the fact that I still loved WoW and wanted to get the next expansion - there were a lot of things they were talking about that seemed like they had potential, but I just wasn't that interested. The improved graphics they were talking about and some of the screen shots looked absolutely gorgeous, but the story didn't grip with the same level of excitement. And I wasn't really that interested in Death Knights. My initial thought was "Oh, great, another evil undead group."
I have pulled a 180 degree turn on Wrath of the Lich King. The graphic improvements alone are absolutely GORGEOUS. The improved textures, colors, armor, etc. just make it so nice to look at. One of my favorite graphic improvements is dynamic shadows - basically the shadow of your character or NPCs looks and behaves like a shadow from the real world. The character models are also absolutely stunning. There is a race of nordic folk called the Vrykul that are amazing to look at. They're half-giants, but I tell you...if they made the humans look as good as these models I'd actually consider rolling a human (and I NEVER play humans in a game if I can help it). There are a several other races that look just amazing and it's such a refreshing look while obviously being part of the World of Warcraft.
I have an absolute blast every time I sit down to play (except when I run into the odd bugged quest here or there, but that's pretty rare. And yes, I've even rolled a Death Knight and I could probably write an entire post about that experience as well.
The bottom line for me is that it has revitalized my desire to play WoW and the themes, the look and feel, everything about this expansion is head and shoulders above the last one and makes me hopeful that there may be further updates and patches that do more than just implement new content but also improve the old content. Blizzard isn't known for that, but with the changes they successfully implemented without an increased hardware requirement, it seems all too possible.
I have been pleasantly surprised and I'm hooked all over again.