Electronics Gadget Reviews

World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack

Fans of World of Warcraft, prepare for Blizzard Entertainment’s next installment — World of Warcraft: Wrath of King Lich. In this latest expansion, something is afoot in the cold, harsh northlands. The Lich King Arthas has set in motion events that could lead to the extinction of all life on Azeroth. The necromantic power of the plague and legions of undead armies threaten to sweep across the land. Only the mightiest heroes can oppose the Lich King and end his reign of terror.

The tuskarr, a walrus-like race of nomadic fisherman, inhabit the icy Borean Tundra. View larger.

Half-giant warriors, the vrykul, once inhabited the land. View larger.

You’ll enjoy exploring Northrend and all its environments and dungeons. View larger.

Explore Northrend and battle the Lich King with World of Warcraft’s first hero class character — The Death Knight. View larger.

One of many new environments, Dragonblight is an arctic wasteland surrounded by dense forests. View larger.

Many strange and terrifying creatures inhabit this frozen continent. View larger.

Enter the Death Knight
This expansion adds a host of content to the already massive existing game world. Players will achieve soaring levels of power, explore Northrend (the vast icy continent of the Lich King), and battle high-level heroes to determine the ultimate fate of Azeroth. As you face the dangers of the frigid, harsh north, prepare to master the dark necromantic powers of the Death Night — World of Warcraft’s first Hero class. No longer servants of the Lich King, the Death Knights begin their new calling as experienced, formidable adversaries. Each is heavily armed, armored, and in possession of a deadly arsenal of forbidden magic.

If you have a World of Warcraft account with a character of at least level 55, you will be able to create a new level-55 Death Knight of any race (if on a PvP realm, the Death Knight must be the same faction as your existing character). And upon entering the new world, your Death Knight will begin to quest to level 80, gaining potent new abilities and talents along the way. This expansion allows for only one Death Knight per realm, per account.

New Environments in Northrend Await
Journey through the remote, diverse lands of Northrend and explore Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Borean Tundra, and Howling Fjord. Named for bones of perished dragons and majestic shrines to the fallen creatures, Dragonblight is an arctic wasteland surrounded by dense forests.

Not everything is frozen in Northrend. The lush mountains of Grizzly Hills are the ancestral home to the furbolgs, who have grown accustomed to relative peace. Although their tranquility is being challenged by trappers, goblins, and ice trolls, Grizzly Hills remains a vast and dangerous wilderness.

The southwestern tip of Northrend is home to the sprawling Borean Tundra. The Horde has established a dominant presence in this icy portion of the continent and has formed a bond with the tuskarr, a walrus-like race of nomadic fisherman. Magical energy is afoot in the region, and it has caused increased tension.

High above the Great Sea at the southeastern tip of Northrend lies the Howling Fjord. Ancient mythology holds that a race of half-giant warriors, the vrykul, once inhabited the land, founding a prosperous civilization. They mysteriously vanished, leaving deserted villages and abandoned temples. In present times, the Alliance and the Horde have come to Howling Fjord to confront the Lich King. Strangely, this has prompted the return of the vrykul, who are attacking the Alliance and Horde settlements. Howling Fjord presents a difficult challenge on two fronts: withstanding the vrykul’s onslaught and battling the evil Lich King.

A Multitude of Monsters
Strange and terrifying creatures inhabit the frozen continent of Northrend, such as Nerubian Viziniers, Plague Eruptors, Shoveltusks and Flesh Giants, to name just a few. Half-spider, half-humanoid, the viziniers utilize sorcery and high intelligence to emerge as the rulers of Nerubians’ underground kingdom. The Plague Eruptors are walking corpses created by the Lich King’s evil experiments to spread horror and chaos across the living world.

Massive curved antlers make it easy to identify the Shoveltusks. These grumpy beasts are very dangerous, territorial, and best left alone. The Flesh Giants are nothing short of nightmarish abominations. Cobbled together from the pieces of giant body parts, the Flesh Giants employ tremendous strength to carry out the Lich King’s wishes.

The World of Warcraft: Wrath of King Lich expansion pack allows you to engage in epic siege warfare. The pack presents the first Hero class and allows you to transform your Death Knight’s look with character customization that even include hairstyles and dances. You’ll enjoy exploring the Northrend and all its environments and dungeons, filled with some of the deadliest creatures — and greatest treasures — on all of Azeroth.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great add the best mmo out there
Great addon adds alot more playabilty, everything i expected and more, raises level cap, another land to explore, more monsters to kill, adds barber shops, death knights, and lots more, a must have

3 Stars More of the same
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.

5 Stars This game rocks
Great game, older game but good even for those of us that are not kids. I haven’t played it in two years but I miss it.

The new games need kick butt video cards, I don’t want to spend $500 on a vid card right now.

Get all the expansion packs, it’s awesome and worth it. Watch your kiddies on there, too many adults are around.

ENJOY!!!

4 Stars I’m such a sucker…
I have to admit that I have cancelled my membership with WoW 3 different times over the years since it came out, for various reasons.

I recently started playing again and had to upgrade to see all of the new content available. I am trying to explore the world, and it just takes me to another place. I love the achievements, the battlegrounds, the way that the time flies by when I play this. Since I’ve been playing this game since the beginning, it’s nice to the see the UI improvements.

I wish that they would add incentives to the older content, since it gets very lonely in the old areas. Either that or make the instances recruit from multiple realms like they now do in the battlegrounds.

Also, Blizzard needs to finish the old world maps so that you can use your flying mounts there.

4 Stars Excellent game, but use caution, read this post.
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.

Buy/More Info