WotLK: the hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands to fight the Horde, sing and cry: Valhalla, I am coming!

Ah the Ottoman Empire. No not an inappropriate name for a specialty furniture shop, I'm referring to the record account holding MMORPG known to anyone who watches TV commercials, plays video games, and hasn't been trying to reenact fallout shelter living from Blast from the Past, as World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment.

It is very hard to take a contrary stance as to the point that the Blizzard beast WoW is by far the best altogether MMORPG available. Down Caps Lock Key, down boy.

I am always in search of better and more fun to play games. An MMO compared to a solo RPG gives the chance to interact and play with so many others. WoW is the best MMO for just that opportunity. I have played and tried many before WoW including Ultima, EQ, FFXI, DAOC, Asheron's Call, Conan, Warhammer (and a few others that I can't remember their names at the moment) and in my constant pilgrimage to find the best MMORPG, WoW is the one I keep coming back to. It's not to say I haven't had fun playing other MMOs. I had quite a bit of fun with FFXI especially, but the downsides of each have pushed and pulled so many other people, like myself, into the realm of WoW for their MMO pleasures.

One part of the MMO experience that keeps players coming back to the same game is expansions. Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard's latest expansion was released on Nov 13th, within 24 hours had sold 2.8 million copies.

Thinking about trying to review an expansion to an MMO is a difficult task to accomplish because I have to assume that those that care to read this review have already played WoW (2.8 million out of 6,602,224,175 chance). I also have to assume that you've got a character that is near the level 70 pre-WotLK cap. If not, you'll just be futilely banging on the keyboard as the review will do absolutely nothing for you and further reading will not be to your liking (except the section at the end) and even if you do play WoW, I'm not sure there's too much I can do other than talk about the observations I've made.

For those that don't know, I tend to focus my WoW involvement on my doppelganger blog Lifeblooming Onion but I feel that since 2.8 million copies of this piece of software have been sold, I need to make an effort to give it some sort of respect here too.

For those of you that play WoW, casually or every waking non-working hour hardcorely, I'll touch on some of the highlights and compare the changes to the vanilla version and the Burning Crusade expansion. I first was pushed from the latter type of player to the former due to a lot of physical realm responsibilities and events that occurred during the month of November. But thankfully, before November was in full swing, a prerelease patch was given to all those that were already playing. A lot of "expansion" features were made available at that point and the following is a list as to those changes:

• New class spells and talents
• Stormwind Harbor
• Barbershops in capital cities
• Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades
• Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles
• Blizzard's usual teasing of its players by offering only the whip cream instead of handing us the whole cherry pie
• Guild calendar
• Hunter pet skill revamp
• New profession: Inscription
• Achievements which sometimes are just for bragging rights and others yield actual rewards
• Changes to things such as Spell Power and Healing Power have now been combined into the same stat and therefore similar gear can be used for dps and healers alike.

The expansion itself included the following additions:

• New continent called Northrend to explore. Northrend features ten zones with content for levels as low as 68, though players may travel to Northrend at any level. One zone is open PVP no matter what type of server you play on.
• New instances including many 5, 10, and 25 man dungeons. A new addition is 10 man and 25 man versions of larger dungeons will now be open and loot will be different depending on what version is run.
• Death Knight Hero Class. This class starts at level 55 for those that already have a character above that level and is somewhat a cross between a warrior, paladin and warlock in its abilities.
• Graphical improvements including magic effects.
• New Factions
• Plethora of quests
• More frustration
• New Mounts
• Lots more of the same
• More fun
• More of the word More

Combined there were plenty of changes, and from what I remember, more than when TBC was released. Some were way overdue like the guild calendar while others were somewhat a surprise such as achievements giving new mounts and small pets.

Here are my observations of WotLK:

1. The first thing that should slap you in the face once your foot hits the snow in Northrend is the noticeable overall style that the landscapes have compared to TBC. TBC had a fantasy sci-fi look mixing medieval with futuristic. Some people really enjoy fantasy sci-fi and others, like myself, find it to be an awkward conglomeration of things that shouldn't be placed next to one another. Northrend's decor is more of the classic vanilla WoW focusing mainly on the medieval setting and doing so with landscapes, weapons, mounts, etc.
2. The next thing you'll notice is the neverending story called the grind. By grind I mean leveling and by leveling I mean spending way too much time doing tasks for ungrateful NPCs. For me to reach one more level of experience I had to almost put in 6-8 hours of play which gave me FFXI flashbacks on the same level of seeing my buddies die face down in the muck.
3. Reputation grinds seem easier as the total amounts have either changed or including larger gains in accomplishing quests. Faction tabards now give the ability to give you rep based on that faction no matter what level 80 dungeon you are doing.
4. Inscription is a wild card profession including once per day random recipe gains. Herbalism is a must to go along with it and scales to a large amounts herbs needed to level as you get to the herbs of TBC and beyond.
5. Death knights seem like a great class but I'm not sure they will ever be a main tank for a guild beyond smaller 5man/10man things. Everyone I had talked to about their DK really seemed to enjoy it over the last TBC pally/shaman addition.
6. I haven't fully tested PvP, Arena, and BGs for this expansion yet so I am unsure on how those are now. There are additions such as the BG Strand of the Ancients and an outdoor all PVP area both involving the use of seige weaponry.
7. Most of the fluff from dungeons (walking distances, extra packs of mobs) has been removed for the new ones such as the Violet Hold which instantly throws you into 1/18 encounters and can be completed in under 30 mins. The look of the dungeons is very well done and gives each their own little persona.
8. Lots of extra distractions from dungeon diving and pvp like new mounts and pets are very plentiful and hard to pull some people away from.
9. Dungeon difficulty has been changed going back to more of the original version of WoW where damage is more predictable instead of sporradic and helps keep raid makeups more diverse.
10. Achievements, which at first looked to be all wastes of time, can actually yield some very individualistic rewards that few others will have such as tabards, mounts, pets, titles, etc.
11. More abilities and talent spec choices giving players more choices and decisions but making balance something harder to achieve for Blizzard.

WotLK is more content, more undiscovered territory, and more distractions from the real world for those that already love and live for WoW. What each want out of their monthly payment experience is up to the individual but know that if you aren't attempting to experience all that you can, you might be missing out on some great fun.

So get out there today with your group of friends and start to make the cold journey through Northrend into the soft heart of the Lich King.

To those that are on the edge since TBC or before, others intending on putting more effort into playing now, not a single reason as to why to start a frustrating debate, and probably because this is a better outlet for my opinion over my other blog:

Since playing the expansion and talking with people that had given up during TBC or earlier, with people that had taken time off and planned on coming back just for the expansion, and with those that have played everyday since WoW was released, I am starting to notice a trend in the types of people that are playing WoW.

I've noticed people only really continuing their WoW lives for 4 reasons: Raiding, PVP, socializing, and there isn't a better MMO out there. It is an MMO and therefore puts you in situations for necessary interactions with others but if you are a person that has a hard time socializing and finding others that have similar play schedules and interests, you start to become ostracized intentionally or accidentally so my suggestion is to not pick up the expac if you haven't already.

Since WoW is an established MMO, trying to pick up from a previous spot (well under pre-WotLK lvl 70 cap) or starting from the beginning is almost asking to be placed in the corner by yourself for months while others are out in the playground reaping the fun of things you cannot be involved in. Socializing as a lower level is something that you can join in unless it's talk focused on in-game aspects and then it's like a five year old child sporting an average IQ trying to get involved with a conversation about diversification of 401k elections in a crashing market, a bouquet of a Chilean wine versus a French, and String Theory. Again you become left out in the cold.

If you aren't into the socializing but want to play with random other people, PVP is really the main outlet and is a constant forum of debate for balance of play. This is can be the main reason people will choose a different MMO over WoW (aka Warhammer) or quit MMOs altogether. And even though recent changes have made BGs and other PVP (arenas) unorganized messes, good true fun PVP is still an organized form of play done with others.

The fact that there isn't a better MMO out there is mainly a financial constraint and is only noticed because you have to flip the bill once a month. If you pay for it ($156-180 for an entire year of play) you really should be trying to get the most for your money and that requires playing with the massive amounts of others.

Solo PVE will only get you so far and pugging dungeons can be nightmarish and suicidal. If you are all alone and solo PVE all the way up into the level 80 cap you will be greeted by a lovely brick wall of boredom and thumb twiddling as there is nothing else left for you to do unless it is with others.

In the end, organized dungeon diving and PVP are the only things you can do in the game beyond leveling and they have to be done with a group. Yes, you can sit and chat like I mentioned but if that's all you're doing why not download a free IM program or join a pedophile free chat room? This leaves you with playing with a few other people or larger groups of 25 people. The 5 to 10 man content only gets people so far before hitting the brick wall again and to be effectively jumping into that sized content with outside of game responsibilities can require closer to 10-20 people respectively.

Blizzard really puts some of the biggest amount of time and thought in its 25 man dungeons which is the last outlet for everyone. Progression through these dungeons require some of the best teamwork, leadership, and coordination which is best accomplished through already solid relationships that can only be built by previous camaraderie. All of that cannot be accomplished overnight and is best done by people playing together for quite a bit of time prior.

So if you are on the wall on whether to buy and continue your WoW adventures, remember in that your ultimate goal should be aiming for endgame dungeons and/or PVP with a good social guild to do that otherwise you really aren't getting your money's worth and could just spend 50 bucks on something else. If you already bought WotLK, I hope the best to you in your raids and HKing continuance as you attempt to slay the Lich King.