Hmmm, actually, that raises a point nobody discussed yet.
What happen for the ultra casual guy who has only WoW, and wants to pick up WotLK.
Without TBC.
To be honest, I doubt you'll find much of anything in WotLK that you can access or participate in with a sub-level 70 character, much like TBC was for level 60+ (aside from the new races' zones). The ultra casual guy can pick up TBC whenever he gets around to hitting 60, and then WotLK at 70.
I would be surprised if TBC weren't additionally discounted by that time, but remember that you're also paying for a whole 60-70's worth of content.
Making the deathknight just a 'character you create on the selection screen after doing a quest-chain' doesnt fit with the whole idea that its your choice and your characters soul at stake - it just becomes.... simply another character slot on the selection screen.
I can understand your feeling, but that is how it is described in e.g. the offical FAQ:
The death knight is the first hero class in World of Warcraft; once certain criteria are met, players will unlock the ability to create a new death knight character, which will begin play at a high experience level.
The same with the wowinsider liveblog: the thing that is special about Hero classes is that a player has to unluck the ability to create one that they start at a high level - and that's it.
As for the quotes from the trailer and other good soundbites such as "will YOUR soul survive?" - that's seems to me to be just good marketing.
To be honest, I doubt you'll find much of anything in WotLK that you can access or participate in with a sub-level 70 character, much like TBC was for level 60+ (aside from the new races' zones).
As a matter of convenience, setting the hearth of a low level character (pre mount) to Shattrah simplifies travel to the various continents.
I just had an interesting thought regarding what would make a cool deathknight quest line.
Imagine the new CoT instance being Howling Fjord circa WC3. The infinite dragonflight captures Arthas in an attempt to have his men leave him and ultimately make his quest to defeat Mal'Ganis fail. You are charged with burning the boats in Arthas's stead. This eventually leads into you witnessing Arthas pick up the Frostmourne and slay Muradin and literally following in his footsteps. This could unlock an additional line where the Lich King recognizes you in the future as one of the mercenaries that helps him burn the boats. He would offer you a place in his service and bring you to the Death Knight wing in Naxx. You and 3 other people would take the place of Razuvious's students and fight an NPC raidgroup. If you defeat the group you unlock your deathknight potential. This could involve any number of money sinks into the Deathknight training process.
Damn you, now I'm going to be so disappointed if this doesn't happen cause it sounds to dang cool to not.
*Sigh* No real confirmation but it looks like Ashbringer is going to become and stay a NPC Legendary(Might see it "drop" during an encounter like Kael'thas).
And I don't know about you guys, but the deathknight seems like it would make a perfect gathering profession alt. You'll probably only need to level it from 70-80, though even 55-80 isn't too bad.
Is anyone else extremely concerned about their professed intentions to stack the talent trees even higher? We're already in a situation where classes are very highly specialized, and adding another 10% or 15% to each tree is going to make it even more so. I'd hate to think that Arms/Fury warriors could possibly get any worse at tanking, but I can't picture a scenario where that won't be the case, other than moving major talents way down the tree so everyone can get them.
This may seem like idle speculation, but how can they possibly arrange it so that loading another 10-15% to a tree (that other trees won't benefit from, by definition) won't result in deeper specialization?
Is anyone else extremely concerned about their professed intentions to stack the talent trees even higher?
Yes, I am worried about it. I enjoy being able to play as a hybrid - 33 resto, 28 feral, which works because the extra points in resto would only improve HoT spells. If they made it so the 51-point resto talent became 'required' for druid healers, i.e. 'in Tree of Life, you receive a Lifegarden spell which casts Lifebloom on everyone in the raid simultaneously', then there's no way I could avoid being locked into Tree of Life. Downgrading from 28 feral to 20 feral would be a huge setback.
I'd really rather see them keep the trees 41 points but add additional talents in the lower end to give people more choices.
If however you look at the gold inflation, more daily quests, 100g could be the equivalent of 15 mins of daily questing, which means respecing on a whim is even easier.
Its very suprising to me still to not allow people to carry 2 specs and switch with cooldowns, its something I would have expected them to announce, especially with 51 point talents.
If however you look at the gold inflation, more daily quests, 100g could be the equivalent of 15 mins of daily questing, which means respecing on a whim is even easier.
Its very suprising to me still to not allow people to carry 2 specs and switch with cooldowns, its something I would have expected them to announce, especially with 51 point talents.
I'm not entirely sure that, in an ideal world, you *want* users to be respeccing right and left, and essentially forcing players who need to do that to funnel all of their world earnings toward that. But in the current state, there certainly isn't a better alternative that doesn't involve substantial development investment.
If however you look at the gold inflation, more daily quests, 100g could be the equivalent of 15 mins of daily questing, which means respecing on a whim is even easier.
Its very suprising to me still to not allow people to carry 2 specs and switch with cooldowns, its something I would have expected them to announce, especially with 51 point talents.
Daily quests are limited to 10 per 24 hours per character. Adding more quests will only spread people around the zones but not add more money.
Perhaps they could add a kind of Alchemist's Stone for Inscription. Extremely hard to make, usable by everyone; right click, changes your talents to a different set.
The only problem this creates is retraining spells.
And I don't know about you guys, but the deathknight seems like it would make a perfect gathering profession alt. You'll probably only need to level it from 70-80, though even 55-80 isn't too bad.
It's somehow a bit sad, but there is zero doubt in my mind that this is what I will do. I've never had an alt (seriously, never) and my main is a smith/LW. I'll make a DK and level him to 80 if only to have a miner/skinner.
Perhaps they could add a kind of Alchemist's Stone for Inscription. Extremely hard to make, usable by everyone; right click, changes your talents to a different set.
The only problem this creates is retraining spells.
If they did this, inscription would become basically required for warriors/priests, and most classes would pick this up just for the pvp->pve and back again talent switch.
It's somehow a bit sad, but there is zero doubt in my mind that this is what I will do. I've never had an alt (seriously, never) and my main is a smith/LW. I'll make a DK and level him to 80 if only to have a miner/skinner.
I managed to get a Warlock to level 37 in the post-holiday, pre-TBC downtime, but haven't played him since TBC was released. My main is an Alchemist with all the flask recipes (guild flask bitch), but it will be nice to be able to drop Herbalism and pick up Enchanting or something, with the DK my farming alt.
If they did this, inscription would become basically required for warriors/priests, and most classes would pick this up just for the pvp->pve and back again talent switch.
Well, Alchemist Stone is a bad example. A BoE item with a cooldown that takes Nethers. If the item was BoP for the profession pretty much everyone in the universe would been an Inscriptor.
And I don't know about you guys, but the deathknight seems like it would make a perfect gathering profession alt. You'll probably only need to level it from 70-80, though even 55-80 isn't too bad.
A gathering profession alt that can be DPS-specced for all the healing/tanking mains out there. Many healers and tanks in my guild want one just to have an effecient farming character for downtime without needed to respec.
That it's a good idea to *want* players to respec constantly is rubbish. Forcing players to switch specs simply discourages players from playing the other half the game that they need to respec for. I was feral, I wanted to kill stuff, but my heals sucked balls, so I said, 'fuck healing.' Then I became a tree for a while, so I could advance, but I needed to farm and claw hits for like 26 damage with even insane amounts of strength, so I said, 'fuck that, I quit.' Respeccing favors certain classes because of the retarded talent system. And it's only going to get worse in Wrath, with even more talents. Hybrid classes, tanks, or healers, will have to leave behind 2/3 of their class, while mages just leave behind redundant forms of damage like arcane missiles. Maybe rogues without 51 in subtlety should have shitty stealth. 'Cuz that'd be about equivalent. In TBC talents became more effective and thus more defining. And it sucked a lot, because it basically meant many of the aspects of your class became amazingly inferior. In Wrath, talents need to get nerfed to hell and back. Give players back the diverse classes that they levelled up with 1-60 or whatever. Enough of the one-move-wonders.
And finally, I thought it was established that Blizz said 1) you can unlock DK with any character and 2) they don't know what races can BE a DK, but they are thinking *maybe* all of them. From this we can derive that the DK is not a clone. And the trailer is just a trailer.
Speaking of being wanted by healers/tanks: I wonder how guilds are going to sort out the eventual mad dash for the Death Knight reroll.
Still much too early to start worrying about that to be honest. No details are known about just how good their dps or threat generation is given unknown talent trees and what gear/stats benefit them the most. Something to look forward to and worked out when the time for the expansion comes.
Personally I think its a terrific marketing approach for Blizzard - to ask every single gamer the question 'will your soul survive, or will you be serving arthas?'. Talk about player interaction with Arthas! Illidan never once came and asked me if I wanted to serve him.
C: Dancing, dressed in only a spiky helm, on the IF mailbox.
You know this will be be very true. I don't think our souls willl survive.
Now, have they given any hints on raising the character per server limit, or is high level mule deletion time?
Yes, I am worried about it. I enjoy being able to play as a hybrid - 33 resto, 28 feral, which works because the extra points in resto would only improve HoT spells. If they made it so the 51-point resto talent became 'required' for druid healers, i.e. 'in Tree of Life, you receive a Lifegarden spell which casts Lifebloom on everyone in the raid simultaneously', then there's no way I could avoid being locked into Tree of Life. Downgrading from 28 feral to 20 feral would be a huge setback.
I'd really rather see them keep the trees 41 points but add additional talents in the lower end to give people more choices.
Actually, what I'd like to see are hybrid talents that require points in multiple trees to pick up.
Going down to 51 points seems kinda lame. Though I said the same thing of 41 points and I can't complain too much about how it turned out. But whatever problems this method of talent setup creates (notably that specs tend to get more and more pigeonholed) will only be compounded by subsequent expansions. =\
Actually, what I'd like to see are hybrid talents that require points in multiple trees to pick up.
Sort of like the synergies they introduced in one of the later Diablo 2 patches? I think they could make that work.
"You are better than I am," Inigo admitted. "So it seems. But if that is true, then why are you smiling?"
"Because," Inigo answered, "I know something you don't know." "And what is that?" asked the man in black. "I'm not left-handed."
Now, have they given any hints on raising the character per server limit, or is high level mule deletion time?
I can't find the post currently, but I believe their response was something along the lines of "we have no current plans on increasing the character per server limit."
Last edited by Darjin : 08/10/07 at 10:29 PM.
Reason: inscription is not confirmed as secondary
I don't know why you see this as a roadblock. Inscription is a secondary profession, besides the possible event of it being very boring to level, why wouldn't you pick it up?
I dont believe there is any official statement that Inscription will be a secondary profession, if there is/was could you source it please?
08/10/07, 4:01 PM
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