Wrath of the Lich King Classic - What We Know So Far!

In November 2008, players eagerly awaited to board the docks of Ogrimar and Stormwind to breach the seas of Northrend. The story of the Lich King began a few years ago in the RTS (Real-Time Strategy) Warcraft III Frozen Throne. In the extremely successful RTS, we follow Arthas Menethil in his descent to madness as he claims the all-powerful Frostmourne. Players were finally able to play this epic tale through the 3D MMO RPG and couldn’t be more excited to see how that story ended.

Story aside, TBC created a yearning for players to consume MMO RPG content and was excited at the idea of a new expansion release. With Raids being the best co-operative content, Wrath of the Lich King had high expectations from players, and Wrath did not fail these expectations. Icecrown Citadel was one of the greatest raid encounters World of Warcraft offers.

With the brief breakdown over, let’s go ahead and look at what information we know about the Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

While sources are unconfirmed on this, we have a little information that suggests a release at the end of 2022. However, Beta testing will commence sometime between June and July, suggesting that we will be able to join the action only after a few months of Beta testing. This information has been confirmed by Blizzard, as they state that WOTLK will be released this year.

As with any classic release, we will not have to purchase Wrath of the Lich King Expansion but, instead, just have to have a subscription to World of Warcraft. A subscription is $15 for America, £10 for the UK, and €12 for European countries.

Like with the burning crusade (TBC), players will find a few distinct changes from their game 14 years ago. Here is a list of changes we can expect to see with the release of WOTLK Classic:

●There will not be any LFG (Dungeon Finder)

●There will be boosts to level 70

●Reports of Barbershop changes to fit Retail Standards (More customization)

●Personal Arena rating will Replace Arena Teams

Blizzard stated that these changes were a response to community feedback. Specifically, the Personal Arena rating that will replace Arena Teams is a direct change from TBC due to the player feedback.

These changes are not without controversy, as players are disgruntled about the level 70 boosts. Like with TBC, players were outspoken with disgust towards the level 60 boosts, but in Wrath, we may see fewer people buying the boosts as the content will be easier to manage and better for leveling. In many ways, the level 60 boost from TBC has a few benefits, as most people will quit the classic WoW experience and not do TBC content. With Wrath of the Lich King, however, the game is doubly easier to level and will have players excited to level their characters; that’s how the optimistic community views it anyways.

The Barbershop changes are a welcome sight for anyone playing World of Warcraft Classic; these changes allow for gender changes, hairstyles, facial features, etc.

Lastly, the biggest point of contention between the community is the removal of LFG (Dungeon Finder). The removal of LFG is a bold move from Blizzard as an attempt to keep player engagement by forming groups manually instead of just clicking a button and being paired up with random people to do silent content. However, this solution does not tackle the main issue; players aren’t very community-driven in classic expansions even without the LFG and instead have toxic gear and build requirements that leave players feeling alienated for content.

The solution of removing LFG just isn’t good enough, and Blizzard should create systems in place to recognize and promote helpful behavior between player interactions instead of removing systems for players who don’t wish to be insulted when doing progressive content.

All of the above changes make for a lot of controversies, but one thing is for certain we are excited to go back to Northrend to take on those difficult heroic dungeons and raids; for those who are new, let's take a look into what will be introduced in Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

Here is a quick breakdown of changes from TBC to Wrath of the Lich King Classic:

●Raised Level Cap to Level 80 from 70

●Cold Weather Flying (This is expensive, so make sure to check out our store to get flying in Northrend instantly)

●Release of the Death Knight (New Class)

●A new zone to do quests and current content (Northrend)

●Profession Updates from 375 to 450

●New Mounts

●New Raid Content (4 Major Raids)

●PvP Battle Ground Zone called Wintergrasp (Which also unlocks the VoA raid for the winning faction)

●More Reputation and Daily quests

There are a lot more changes to WoW classic that WOTLK brings, but these are the most important and exciting changes. Follow this WotLK Classic Preparation Guide to prepare for its release.

That’s it for what we know about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion so far! We hope you are as excited as we are for the expansion release in 2022. Keep up to date on news as it comes out on our website. To prepare for any big expansion release, make sure your gold reserves are full, as cold weather flying will be expensive, so check out our WotLK Classic Gold store for cheap gold deals today. As always, Happy Hunting!