World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Previews

Finally! I knew there was a reason I still had my Blizzcon 2007 beta invite/murloc costume card in my wallet...besides boring old forgetfulness! Blizzard just recently nudged open the door to the Wrath of the Lich King beta for the press and Blizzcon and Worldwide Invitational attendees, and being Johnny on the spot with the card in my wallet, I was the first 1UPer to get in. I transferred my two level 70s over to the beta PVP realm, logged in on my warrior long enough to see tumbleweeds blow through an empty Stormwind, and then fired up a new Death Knight. Who's laughing now! Oh right, Jeff Green, because while he's just finished the install, I'm the guy stuck writing up the impressions.
 
So, Death Knights -- the new character class. After a short intro movie, your goth hero enters the world on the top of Ebon Hold, a floating Necropolis in Eastern Plaguelands, decked out in a full set of appropriately dour, green-quality armor and no weapon. Downstairs, after chatting with Instructor Rasuvious, who you may recall from such pre-Burning Crusade raid instances as Naxxramas, you'll learn Runeforging and create your first Runed Soulblade. Runeforging is a Death Knight-only skill that basically replaces conventional weapon enchants with your choice of six (so far) Runes. At the moment there are no materials required to apply a Rune, so you can swap at will. The Rune of Swordbreaking is designed for tanking (+3% to parry), Spellbreaking looks good for PVP (-5% on all incoming spell damage -- yes please), but for leveling I opted for Fallen Crusader, which is like a buffed version of the old Crusader enchant.

After a bit more running around and chatting with various Scourge and Lich-types, you'll warp down to ground level. Turns out the Death Knights have a new encampment north east of Tyr's Hand called Death's Breach, from which they are terrorizing various civilians and Scarlet Crusaders milling around the formerly-bucolic Havenshire. Now, it was my understanding that the DK starting area in the beta was pretty much placeholder, and maybe Blizzard is going to switch some things up with the Necropolis and all that, but I have a feeling the Death's Breach quest chains aren't going anywhere, because they seem pretty well thought-out already.
 
One of your first quests is to win five duels with Death Knight initiates. You can pick on the NPC initiates milling around and beat up on them pretty easily, but you also get credit for winning duels against fellow players.
 
Another of the earliest quests involves stealing a horse from a nearby stable, and this was my first, brief taste of Blizzard's new 'vehicle' system. Once you hop on the horse, a new action bar replaces your usual bar and offers you a speed burst ability. The follow up to this quest warps you into some kind of alternate dark reality (similar to when you die and are in ghost form), and you need to challenge and kill a mounted dark rider. When you do, you take his horse, and bingo, that's your new mount. The Deathcharger looks similar to a warlock's Dreadsteed, but the hooves glow bluish white, and when you mount up your horse elicits sort of a Mr. Ed-from-Hell whinny-scream. Quite a few of the quests offer blue-quality armor as rewards as well as talent points (I'm 25% of the way through level 56 and rolling with mostly blue gear and 20 talent points).
 
And another particularly memorable quest, and also a reminder that this is indeed a beta, involved hiding in a mining cart and infiltrating a cannon ship. I had to take control of a cannon and kill 200 Scarlet Crusaders, who were conveniently in formation right there on the shore. Problem was, once I opened fire, so did they, along with their beach-based cannons. I must have died about six times before I managed to massacre 200 of those bastards. And yeah, maybe I missed something key and was doing it wrong, but I prefer to think that someone at Blizzard screwed up big time and should probably be fired. No, but really, the quest looks like it'll be fun once it's working right.

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