For my second part of what I hope is a neutral look at World of Warcraft, I'll start with the PvP system, which has gone from a diverse and well rounded player versus player experience, to somewhat of a grind over the course of the last year. One of the most controversial additions to the system is the requirement of Arena Points for Battleground items. This has angered a large portion of the community and - as far as I can see - it is understandable why. Previously, the Arena System and the Battleground System were largely entities of their own. The BG system provided a stepping stone into Arena by giving players low-end PvP gear, with the Arena System then providing higher end PvP gear. In Wrath, Blizzard have added an additional cost to Battleground gear in the form of Arena Points, meaning that the stepping stone that was the Battleground system has been greatly diminished. Frankly, the idea behind this decision is plain as day - Blizzard really don't want you getting more than 1 or 2 items per week from PvP, padding out your play time. By doing this, Blizzard ensure you pay them money for a larger portion of time. As well as that, it is discouraging to those people who would buy the aid of chinese farmers as the AP requirement has increased the cost of Battleground item farming. As far as the PvP system goes, I'm less than impressed.
The PvE raid content seems to have taken a hit with Wrath as well. Naxxaramas - an instance famous for being underplayed in vanilla WoW - was brought into Wrath as the entry level raid dungeon, presenting those who did not see the dungeon a chance to visit it. Sadly, within a matter of days of the game being released, the hardcore guild Ensidia (formerly Nihilum/SK-Gaming) cleared all of the raid content on offer. Many are worried that this is a reprisentation of what raid content in Wrath will be like. Blizzard have always been playing a balancing game with raid content. They want as many people to see it as possible, but they don't want it to be too easy. They try to hit the middle road but find that they often hit too high or too low. Naxx reprisents Blizzard arguably hitting to low but we can't judge raid content in Wrath on one of several dungeons. How raid content evolves will play out over the course of future content patches and Blizzard have promised that future dungeons will be less of a walk through and more challenging, with more stupidity checks - such as having to be in x positions at x time - to add a little difficulty. We'll have to wait and see I suppose.
Now, Wrath of the Lich King has been accused of plagirism when it comes to two content additions. These content additions should have been covered in the PvP section but I left them until now - Wintergrasp and the new battleground Strand of the Ancients. A few years ago, Mythic Entertainment announced that Warhammer Online would take advantage of siege warfare and shortly after that, Blizzard announced they would be adding it to WoW at some point in the future. Does this mean they stole the idea? No, not even vaguely. Wrath of the Lich King and Warhammer Online are very different games in this regard, and Warth manages to hold its own. The siege weapons in Wrath are fun to play with and really do add a whole new compelling layer to PvP. I myself have had great fun watching others use them and I think that as they evolve, they will become a widely used source of fun and entertainment. The new battleground is also good fun but sadly, I have only got chance to play 1 or 2 times, neither of which were won by Horde. Needless to say, these two content additions are a couple of shining stars in Wrath.
There are other additions that were added in patch 3.0, such as the Achievement System and Barbers that I shall touch on now. Firstly, the Achievement System is a fairly nice addition, although not too inventive. It is the same as every other Achievement System out there and hardly reprisents a large chunk of content. Aquiring points through Achievements is worrying as Blizzard will blatantly use these as some form of currency beyond buying vanity items. This has already been demonstrated by allowing players to acquire epic crafting patterns through achievements and whilst players have to get a specific achievement and still have to get the mats to make the items, this choice reprisents a step in the wrong direction. The barber shop is nothing more than a addition provided because of the growing demand from players to be able to change their appearance and once again, does not resprisent a massive chunk of content. It is no wonder then that both systems were added in a content patch, rather than the expansion itself.
The future for Wrath is the same as the future for TBC - more content. Sadly, World of Warcraft looks like it has been handed over to the second-line developers. What I mean by that is the latest additions to the game seem - for the most part - to be efforts to prolong your exposure and lengthen the time you need to play. Instead of coming up with compelling ways of getting you into more of the content or getting you to revisit old content, Blizzard have thrown in the Achievement System and made adjustments to existing concepts to make them go further. Wrath seems to have watered down a large chunk of the game and made things a lot more clear but a lot more lengthy. This has heightened my fear that future expansions won't add more compelling content. It is my belief that we are now starting to see WoW move into the MMOs equivalent to, "old age," where content becomes slow and tedious over compelling and enhancing. Perhaps I am wrong. We'll have to wait for the next expansion to turly know.
So what sort of score to I think Warth deserves? Well, it is a good game and it has some spark in it. That said, there are a lot of content additions that make me repulse at the way Blizzard is trying to lengthen the game by forcing me into things I don't really want to do. From a new players perspective, this won't matter as they have never experienced vanilla WoW. From an old timers point of view, Wrath reprisents a step in a good direction, but not really my direction.
I give World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 80%. I don't think it is as strong as vanilla WoW or The Burning Crusade and Ifeel it may reprisent the steady decline for World of Warcraft.
Please note: there is much more to World of Warcraft and I only covered the content that stood out to me.
