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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Chris Barylick — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:16:02 -0600

Say hello to my little Death Knight friend. (Click to embiggen!)

Four years ago, Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft, one of the most absorbing, in-depth massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) to ever hit the market—it currently boasts a subscriber base of more than 9 million players. Now the company is casting more magic with Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion pack for the ever-growing fantasy universe.

Like the first expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK) adds a new continent (Northrend) to explore, and it raises the level cap from 70 to 80. But that’s not all—WOTLK also introduces the playable Hero class, player-controlled flying mounts, a new Inscription profession, new mission and quest content, and even an improved graphics engine.

The highly anticipated Hero-class characters function as exceptionally powerful hybrids of previously available classes. The Death Knight, the first of this class, combines the damage-absorption of a warrior capable of wearing full platemail armor with elements of a magic-user through their ability to summon pets, raise armies of the undead to fight on their side, and use sigils to boost their own magic or fellow party members’.

Professions matter in World of Warcraft, and the new Inscription role in WOTLK doesn’t let players down. While a fireball spell was once considered powerful, players who take on the Inscription profession (known as Scribes) can use Glyph slots to add features such as a knockdown or daze effect to a spell or ability. This adds yet another layer of complexity, letting players customize the game to their style.

Some companies’ expansion packs contain little else but some new levels, items, and maps, but Blizzard goes futher:

WOTLK’s improved graphics engine augments the game’s flame and water effects and heightens the detail in the shadows to create stunning new environments. Plus, a terrific sound system makes the game and its storytelling elements as immersive as ever.

The terrain looks more realistic, and the overall scale of the game is heigtened—especially when you're routinely killing fairly gigantic enemies. Blizzard has put some top-notch work into the models, and the engine carries it over, adding some incredible detail without appreciably slowing the computer down. (We tested WOTLK on a 2.66GHz quad-core Mac Pro with 2GB of RAM and a 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT.)

The team-play aspects keep World of Warcraft interesting, and WOTLK brings additional 10-man content that makes it easy to gather a large, but still manageable, team to raid a dungeon, while coordinated guild play makes it fun to take down the most challenging quests. Our guild enjoyed dressing up in a Murloc suit (think of a weird anthropomorphic fish), and another tongue-in-cheek quest has you collecting ingredients to make Tasty Cupcakes to boost your stats and stamina.

But this is Azeroth, not Utopia, and so we found a few bugs too. While it’s convenient, the in-game voice chat system lags, which forced us to use alternative methods like Skype, Ventrilo, or iChat. The new Death Knight character’s strengths and weaknesses are strangely balanced, making it tough to figure out how to best customize it to your advantage. Still, overall Blizzard’s latest expansion is beautiful, imaginative, well thought-out, and challenging.

Chris Barylick would like to thank the fellow members of Team Awesome Force – Rachel Hoyer, Eli Sarver, Monika Grigore and Kimberly Hernandez – for their help in testing Wrath of the Lich King, and he apologizes for the sleep lost and caffeine ingested in the process.

Latest World of Warcraft Expansion Pack Promises to Steal All Your Precious Time

John Pitko — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:52:01 -0600

If you thought standing in line for the newest iPhone was bad, the latest expansion to the incredibly popular World of Warcraft MMORPG, Wrath of the Lich King is being released tonight at midnight.

For WoW fans this means your chances of seeing sunshine before the middle of next year are pretty slim. For spouses and friends of these souls, remember to approach with caution and to pepper your dialogue with terms like Azeroth, the horde, leveling up, siege and Night Elf. Analysts speculate pizza and Hot Pocket stock will rise, and Red Bull will become the new national drink.

Gamestop has already approved 3000 stores to open in local malls across the country at midnight and is calling it the "Lunar Event." Rumors have surfaced that 7-11 has broken street date and that you can pick up the expansion pack with a delicious Slurpee.

Wrath of the Lich King content includes

- Master the necromantic powers of the Death Knight - World of Warcraft's first Hero class.
- Quest to level 80, gaining potent new abilities and talents along the way.
- Learn the craft of spell augmentation with the new Inscription profession.
- Brave the harsh new continent of Northrend, the icy domain of the Lich King.
- Engage in epic siege warfare, deploying mighty siege engines to lay waste to destructible buildings in your path.
- Transform your hero's look with new character-customization options, including new hairstyles and dances.
- Explore perilous new dungeons filled with some of the deadliest creatures -- and greatest treasures -- on Azeroth.

Along with the regular expansion pack, hardcore World of Warcraft fiends can purchase the Collectors edition. On the expansion pack gamers can expect these features;

- World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King on DVD-ROM.
- The Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game.
- An exclusive in-game pet: Frosty, the baby frost wyrm.
- A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, the Wrath of the Lich King intro cinematic with director's commentary, and more.
- The official soundtrack CD, containing 21 epic tracks from the game, along with exclusive bonus tracks.
- A mouse pad featuring a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend.
- Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game March of the Legion™ starter decks, along with two exclusive cards available only in the Collector's Edition.

World of Warcraft is available for Mac and PC November 13.

City of Heroes Flying to the Mac

Danny Estrada — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:30:41 -0500

With great power, comes great Mac-responsibility. Everyone here at Mac|Life knows this saying. We live, and sometimes die by it. Now we can finally prove it.

NCsoft announced that they are tag teaming with TransGaming, Inc. to bring the heroically-awesome award-winning City of Heros franchise to Macs in it's western territories. As you can already tell. The battle for good and evil has already started by setting up the western territory against the North, East, and South territories. The game will be available for beta testing, along with a free expansion pack, "Issue 13: Power and Responsibility," this fall. Which pretty much means now, or some time around now.

Brian Clayton, executive producer of City of Heroes for NCsoft West, took time out of his busy world-dominating schedule to state, "players will soon be able to join the battle of good versus evil in the most popular comic book MMO on both the PC and Mac platforms...and in the same game world... given Mac's fame as a platform for creative people and City of Heroes' unprecedented character customization options, I think City of Heroes is a perfect fit for the Mac gaming community."

We think he is right. Now we have to fly away and save another innocent bystander from the confusing and buggy grasp of Vista. Has anyone see the keys to the Mac|Life scooter?