By: Jarno Kokko May 09, 2008

Blizzard held a presentation at their HQ for a selected group of media, and spilled the beans on a ton of new details about the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The torrent of new information also means that the first stage of closed beta is inching closer.

Blizzard also released a set of new images and and some new video material...

New Details

• All raid instances in WotLK will be available in both 10- and 25-man form.

• Both versions of each raid instance will have a separate reset timer and completely separate loot table.

• Both 10- and 25-man raids have separate "progression paths" for loot.

• 25-man raids will give higher level rewards than the 10-man versions of the same instances.

• All 5-man instances in Northrend can be played both in Normal and Heroic mode, and these modes will be more separated, with completely different loot "tiers" for each mode.

• The goal is to have 5-man instances that can be completed in about an hour.

• There will be new flying and land mounts in Northrend, and players can "unlock" flying (either using their existing mounts or the new ones) in Northrend at Level 77.

• It looks like the mounts that will become available in Wrath of the Lich King will be able to take passengers! So your Level 80 character can carry around your friend's lower level alt . You can also use them in the old zones, but the rest of the Azeroth will still be limited to land mounts only.

• Northrend is very large - larger than Outland by a couple of zones, and some of the zones are larger than Outland zones.

• Death Knights become available to players who have a level 55+ character on the same realm.

• Death Knights will start at level 55, and they will start with a set of green/blue quality items, with early Death Knight specific quests providing them class-specific upgrades.

• Players can roll one Death Knight per realm.

• Death Knights will "born" in a floating Necropolis over the Eastern Plaguelands.

• Death Knights have a spell "Raise Dead" that can resurrect any corpse into a ghoul, to act as a pet similar to a Hunter pet. However, if used on a friendly player, the player can choose to accept this "combat res" and raise and play as a player-controlled ghoul, complete with unique abilities for the duration of the spell.

• Death Knight taunt, "Death Grip" will actually pull the target to the Death Knight in addition to taunting the target. There will also be other spells and abilities in the expansion that allow players to push and knockback mobs *and* players.

• Death Knights can dual wield.

• Death Knights will get a summonable Deathcharger mount through questing, similar to Paladin and Warlock mounts.

• Death Knights are viable either as tanks or as melee-based damage dealing class.

• Death Knights are designed to be "caster tanks" - best at tanking spellcasting opponents (similar to the role of Warlocks today in some encounters), but they are still able to tank melee targets, just not quite as well as Warriors or Druids.

• Death Knights do not use mana or energy, instead they have their own rune system.

• There are three different types of runes - Unholy, Frost and Blood and Death Knight can select any combination of six runes to their "rune bar".

• Specific spells call for specific runes.

• Spent runes refresh automatically over time, similar to rogue's energy bar.

• In addition to runes, Death Knights have another resource, Runic Power.

• Runic power is somewhat similar to Warrior's Rage and decays over time if not used.

• PVE ladders in the Armory similar to current raid progress ladders maintained by players are planned.

• It looks like there will be a similar pre-WotLK patch 1-2 months prior to the launch of the expansion as there were prior to the launch of Burning Crusade. There won't be a big "world event", but this pre-launch patch will add quests and NPC dialogue that hints towards the expansion. It's possible that this pre-expansion patch will feature new talent trees and other class changes.

• It's possible that some new spells and abilities for the existing classes will be on display next month at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris.

• Many UI improvements planned, continuing the trend of incorporating popular addons to the base user interface.

• It's possible that other old raid instances will be reworked as maximum level content in the future, similar to Naxxramas.

• Naxxramas will serve as the entry raid dungeon for WotLK and will feature same layout and same bosses (but obviously re-worked abilities and encounter tactics) as the old Naxxramas.

• Trainers and Auction Houses will remain to be available only in the "Old World", similar to how things are today with Outland.

• There will be something cool replacing Dalaran (that big purple dome that holds a city in Alterac) when the city moves to Northrend to act as the "capital" of the new areas.

• There will be a new Badge of Justice-style loot system with a new type of Badges.

• All professions will get some high-end profession-specific items they can craft for themselves at 80. Similar to epic weapons that Blacksmiths can craft today at 70.

• If your character is currently equipped with top-level (Sunwell, Tier 6) gear, you probably won't need to upgrade your gear until very late in Wrath of the Lich King. So your raid epics won't be obsolete on level 71, but they will probably be by the time you hit 80.

• There will probably be two new Arenas in Wrath. One set in Dalaran, one in Ogrimmar.

• The new metal in Northrend is Cobalt and the new cloth is Frostweave.

New Screenshots

New Wrath of the Lich King material elsewhere

• Curse Gaming has an interview with World of Warcraft lead designers Jeffrey "Tigole" Kaplan and Tom "Kalgan" Chilton.

• WorldOfWar.net has a six-page report from the event. Includes many details about the new areas.

• JudgeHype has also posted a large set of photos from their visit to the new Blizzard HQ. Looks like they have put some of that revenue generated by World of Warcraft to a good use!

• WorldOfWar.net has a video tour of the Blizzard Museum at their new HQ.

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