Asmongold Reacts to "Wrath of the Lich King... 10 Years Later" by Bellular

another video in the past we've broken down mr. fondari an expansion of experimentation that in addition to having wonderfully deep classes also developed loads of important gameplay mechanics and laid out the patch template that made Legion so successful then we covered Cataclysm a very troubled expansion that was beset with issues but it managed to innovate in a few ways even having the progenitor two artifacts and the heart of Azeroth being left on its cutting room floor today though we're going to cover World of Warcraft's most popular expansion and expansion that brought World War II music IIST subscriber count' ever and an opposition that brought tremendous change that was the inversion behind their wholly different from its initial one so today and over the coming weeks we're going to delve into what would go on to be the largest incarnation of World of Warcraft ever now during DBC while was still growing it had not yet peaked and well most of us are rather like wow back in 2007 we've came close to peaking yes we've got all the stuff we'd love to do all the things we'd love to learn today sponsor Skillshare well he can teach you the skills that'll take you to 12.1 million subscribers 1 million might be a bit ambitious but an amazing series of skills course on guessing and honestly it's been pretty inspiring for me it's lined up with me starting to overhaul the channels look and feel there are some set changes in the works we've got new logo we've got loads of other new elements that you're going to see in this very video and it's one of the many examples of me getting a lot out of my skills for subscriptions so no matter what you do a lot of content allow first 5 I mean you've got to diversify in description they will get two months of premium absolutely for free so there's nothing to lose there's everything to gain plus I'm sure of the upcoming holidays that'll gave us all a break to focus on ourselves a bit also documentary content like this takes a long time to make so I'm very thankful to Skillshare for helping the channel and helping make it happen [Music] okay [Music] the years 2007 the month is August and wrath of the lich king is about to be announced at this earlier than usual Blizzcon now players got their hands on the Burning Crusade originally planned to release in winter 2006 it ended up being delayed with lizards citing a desire to further no players were at this stage quite familiar with TBC and through its multiple raids and attunements they have went on a pretty massive journey Grohl fell in February mckerrod on late February Vash in late March kale fastened late May and not opened up Hyjal and an insane June eliten fell to nail him on the 5th and then Archimonde on the 9th now these bleeding edge players have cleared through all this twice in the current date most games like D guild back raid tears lasted a lot longer Kieran was a lot slower and tears didn't really replace each other when you ones were released so even now in August 2007 right before rats announcement most players had a wealth of content progress through world Warcraft of course was still on its a meteoric rise with sub numbers being between 9.1 and 9.3 million and while the game would while the growth would continue but slowed a little bit from this point why would prove that would have a long way to go now this time Wow story was direct stop points and three with the brittle and having else to knock out many of that game's characters now we all remember the end of Warcraft 3 Illidan was defeated by Arthas and then he fled back across the dark port I was actually a similar matter said so oh so bad but it was all we had big Warcraft characters so in biscone 2007 going into it everything was pointing towards the ledger [Music] [Applause] [Music] I wonder how many people were at Blizzcon back then yeah I really wish they had redone the illidan sorry you were going to Northrend Azeroth's frigid north most continents that was first revealed in Warcraft 3 and then expanded upon in its expansion the Frozen Throne which of course is where we saw Arthas transform innovating when the original list oh yeah NER Zhul commanded Arthas to returned Northrend to defend him that of course narrative I'm acting Jewell Ellison and then was trying to become the Lich King Illidan flats to Outlands I'm in the Burning Crusade we defeated him now as Blizzard that [ __ ] UI that wouldn't be the end for the Burning 23 with the team actually teasing what would eventually be revealed as the Sunwell and Zola man now Arthas remained in Northrend he melded with the Lich King for five years and with Rahul H king he was ready to strike at anything again this expansion would have us sail to one of two starting zones and Northrend a big departure from the Burning Crusade which funneled us because everybody had to be in hellfire citadel so this promised replayability a promise more story and better load balancing and overall seemed like a fantastic idea the take about aware of narrative problems as well Illidan just didn't hit the mark for a character who was once a protagonist his portrayal in game was OneNote and he had a very low screen time they did not want that to happen again the Lich King had a more active and now this dedication to his character was really exciting to people who were disappointed by the lore of the Burning Crusade and really disappointed in the lore of world Warcraft in general Ralph Lich King would forego adding new races like The Burning Crusade did but the death knight a new hero class was a headline feature offering players world Warcraft first new class and an instant level 55 now this is people like whenever this happened originally nobody knew like what the hero class was supposed to mean so whenever decays were just completely [ __ ] overpowered in the first tier of of Wrath everybody was like oh is this what's supposed to happen or why am i playing a warrior like what's the point they didn't even know yeah there were a hero class and they played like it too especially at the beginning of the expansion that was I think in retrospect maybe Blizzard did that on purpose they made they made decays overpowered on purpose so that everybody would go over there and play them that's smart something that was greatly valued at the time because leveling from 1 to 55 took many times longer than it does today now the death knight would be a unique tank and DPS hybrid with a focus on melee cast abilities plus an innovative rune system and a unique starting experience being world Warcraft first new class these guys would go on to have a hell of a time so we're going to bench them for now and come back to their story later not on a new races also meant they could put more time into the zones after all the Draenei and blood elf I'm starting zones well I was two zones each wrath Lich King would launch with the game's largest roster of zones yet and him Blizzcon they detailed loads of them the frozen wastelands of dragonblight the big redwood forest of grizzly Hensley's Borean tundra and the rustic charms of howling fjord like any sort a lot cooler look really epic and then of course the Tusk art so take these zones out in the wonderful soundtrack that they taste and you have an addition to world of warcraft that felt distinct from the bass games offering and that of the Burning Crusade Brizard had one last surprise though for the world of northrend our capital city for years the mage cup oh yeah tirean had been a mystery to players it was mostly destroyed in Warcraft Warcraft but was locked behind this massive arcane shield yeah for years players were speculating what was there so a marital excitement when it was finally revealed not only that they could go to dial around but that would fly to North rent that hardly make any sense be strong a place combat was and that's ok they also teased new PvP features such as aerial combat siege engines and destructible buildings with the latter two being told through that happened when - via menu on instant aerial bomb man pee zone then being an expansion it would add 10 levels complete with new abilities new talents for all the classes dungeons would of course return but they would work as both level up and and gain content due to the continuation the heroic rampage super successful heroic dungeon system we then see new raids with Jeff sort of teasing them talking about a queue inspired unlocks which isn't really something that came to pass then blue so we double their commitment to Templar content when they look to the Burning Crusade they noticed that Kara's on was by far the most popular bit of raid content so they wanted to lean into that going forward they announced much more though the new inscription profession would let players customize their abilities with fireball actually having a knock back that's an example where while some some new customization feat well I shouldn't even have a shot will let you change that what is it obviously and why would get some new dances plus the dance studio that would let us customize her own wait what is the match king on the whole oh that was fantastically received now I remembered some shacking out the Warcraft radio coverage I was glued to the WoW inside her live blogs overall it was just an extremely exciting time to be playing the game at this time what was almost entirely a success story it was on top of I don't think I've ever told this story before and this goes back to the DK story is that I got into the Wrath of the Lich King beta and I did guard keep and outside of it guard keep there was a level 68 death knight and I dueled this level 68 that night on my level 70 warrior with full brutal gladiator gear and I lost the duel I was so embarrassed that I still remember it to this day like I was a bad time yeah it's a very bad time the world sure there were dramas the forum post roles talking about the game dying but for the most part it was moving from strength to strength and this expansion looked incredible of course Blizzcon will ends but wrath would not come out for another 16 months but thankfully the Burning Crusade was very healthy the design of its raid content had such tremendous longevity because of how subsequent raids did not really replace each other and this is here that's right Oster of active raids is back whatever the game was gaining sub which Ivor has a casual friendly tam player option now this is something that they would soon dabble in again with patch 2.3 Solomon but 2.3 did a lot more for the game it added guild banks but for the most part while players are really excited about was the madelung changes blazer to decreased XP requirements by 15% and increased that only gained from quests now this was especially focused towards the 30 to 60 bracket no idea so saw more quest being opened up to solo players there he's like strong guard no longer being crammed full of elites now Wow 50 to 60 still was a legendary drag but this was a big improvement for the you there was something they need if they wanted to put crafts oh and this patch also revamped dustwallow marsh which is a very welcome little addition so this was actually the existing content cat players though all the while they knew that there would be a final tier the one that the developers had teased during please come so two point four fury of the Sunwell was this new patch and it brought a new island crammed full of daily quests or unlocked excite server by server basis over time a new 5 player dungeon with Magisters Terrace and then 225 player raid with a rock-hard Sun well this patch came out and made but it would take a total of 66 days for its final boss kil jaeden to fall going to show that this patch for regular raid teams put Lux for quite a while now unlike future expansions such as mists the Burning Crusade would enjoy a successful latter half with subscribers continuing to rise the bridge is one for another time and it was that play that all this was happening the together were still things to achieve of Wrath of the Lich King so the team had a number of goals when they looked for words from TBC TBC's questing was pretty impersonal and it didn't really cover that much lower that well then looking at the zones they something a bit more familiar but done at a scale that was only Paul yeah without land as well as a number of technical engine to bring us the story of more personalized questing they focused on building a relationship between Arthas the player that lied to you Hearst requesting did not end there [ __ ] that man II remember quest lines like Aries and Crusader bright and bard which at the time even though they had standard mechanics proved themselves to be a cut above the rest in terms of storytelling Blizzard's a narrative ambitions also then extend to dungeons which were now designed to tie a little bit more into the narrator's own dick sucker from watching the old interviews and the DVD features it was really clear that the team just weren't all happy without them missions also then extended to dungeons which were now designed to tie a little bit more into the narrative of each zone now from watching the old interview there he is isn't the DVD features it was really clear that the team just were not happy with how the narrative of TBC was told and that they wanted wrath of the lich king to do far far better all they were is that Chris Metzen oh my god Wow so it's bono yeah Wow that's wanted wrath of the lich king to do far far better in that regard now once locked in development of zones seems to have been quite smooth when comparing the original concept map to the finished one you really do see that not much changed broad strokes I mean sure shapes and layouts a bit but overall they seem to have got the right structure Blizzcon 2007 laid out many general ideas for this expansion but at that point it was clearly quite early in development especially from his system's perspective the death knight for example only had a few abilities and their rune system wasn't really fleshed out as it will continue to be working for didn't even have a development and also many patches and expansions after wrath being a hybrid class though the DK was initially designed to have tank friendly talents spread across all three talent trees makes Japanese town I can see that design now the devs did end up scrapping a wacky plan that must literally turn your character into a DK permanently just like what we saw the revealed kind of cool but yeah probably a good class and what's quite clear is it wasn't intended to well do more of them in an interview after Blizzcon 2007 Jeff Kaplan joked about having demon hunters and Ark mages and blade masters all of course based off the Warcraft 3 here great idea Joe personally I saw that these plans were greatly slowed by how long it took Blizzard to get the DK right and of course as a part of that Blizzard did tell people the decays wouldn't be overpowered that's not a hero class was any of us really believed them and I think we were proven right by time so looking at event of the initial version of Wrath it's super clear that they wanted to make a TVC plus in terms of structure where the TBC zones didn't have stories of Justice were successful to have a two-tier justice and our system 10 player rating was a massive success so this would be integrated into the games raid format with some well being the last 25 player only raid the world Warcraft would ever see her or dungeons were of course about success and TV they were so they wanted them to be more accessible in Wrath attunements were a bit too exclusive so wrath what do you mean that they then load I was perfect of the Burning Crusade and they started to slowly move in direction all bring the player not the class a little bit less so at the start of Wrath but you can definitely see how they attempted to smooth out the large little bit over boiling the class having to bring from the Burning Crusade to be fast for a player would be quite intuitive which really is quite different to the current game where you generally I was supposed to be a role of external yes or new expansion Blizzard's goal really does seem to have been to deliver a more accessible and ideally more popular incarnation of what made the Burning Crusade strong now do remember that many of the features in director was utilized and a leftie they just weren't implemented yet and they would not be for quite some time but that said there were some other things there was the introduction of phasing this would let Blizzard move you between different versions of this same area and that allowed them to have the world reacts to your actions I wasn't definitely dumb and it did have some downsides but it was a massive leap forward for storytelling allowing Blizzard to show events like say the wrath game more viscerally through the world including the more realistic shadows that we have to this day and enhanced visual quality that combined with their natural tating ball design experience really shaping up to be one of the best looking continents yet Blizzard also introduced new vehicle mechanics and as well as an open world PvP vehicle they wintergrasp I know a lot of people say that but everything else pretty much did and this gave us our first taste of a big siege battle in World of Warcraft but that wasn't all because the team then went on to add PvE quest content and miniature raid into wintergrasp which gave that big PvP battle some real stakes for the world we then had UI additions there is the xbox live styled achievements which gave players a sense progression and more importantly gave them second to do over rewards that of course the new calendar feature which would be pretty damn handy for gills the world also saw some changes right never you saw that game director ian has a coasters join as an encounter designer as well as the hiring of Greg Streeter of course more commonly known as Ghostcrawler now look I would be lying if I said that it all went perfectly as you all know rob was the largest casualty of development at snow while it would become to dungeons it was actually meant to be a fool questing zone at one point this would have been a massive departure completely different now what do you know they made that range but for whatever reason it was canceled now the dingbat is hard to pin down because it was not announced during Blizzcon 2000s and Ghostcrawler did say that cutting it was like you know it was a big regret to him that it didn't pan out thing is he's hired fabio 8 which means that softly counseled in the latter third of the expansion's development whatever the truth is though I think it might be a tree finds out the next major casualty is crystal song forest content because well it's a beautiful zone it's so unique looking but oh do you guys remember doing the quests in that area yeah me either oh the I caused by dollar on would degrade gameplay too much and lead to too many server and stability issues which is why the zone is pretty much barren of things to do then finally while the barbershop people used to have such bad computers in Wrath which King that they would have to make sure to not look in the general direction of dollar an or it would just brick their computer it would just stop working you just look at dollar and it's like looking at the Sun and it just blinds you did make it in the announced John Studio did not many were sad about this and you know I can completely see why that said I don't think I don't think disappointed about that seems to have went quite well falling from Blizzcon and players were actually kept happy with Zola Mann and son well with wrath beta test beginning only a few months after the first kill Jaden kill now rats beta seems to have been a resounding success where the press consensus at the time basically being that yes this is still very much World of Warcraft's but it's the best version to date with blizzards greater attention to detail in the questioning and the zone design really shining through on first impressions and of course shortly after that the release date was announced along with the announcement of the pre patch this is a pre patched it would be like no other before or since patch 3.0 zombies dude release in the 14th all the zombies and things were quiet for a while people were in town enjoying new talents like Titans grit and they were seeing what their class changes felt like they were customizing their hairstyles for free at the new barber oh that was actually the only thing that I did in the new patch is I went over and I changed my character's hairstyle and I was like okay that's it we're ready for wrath that was the only thing I needed to do quite normal but then the H King attacked the zombie plague is easily one of the coolest events that they've ever done just like the accidentals and larry bug plague before it now this impacted the massively multiplayer world of Azeroth it sent the inhabitants into a crisis it began three weeks before wrath launched initially it was small plagued grain arrived at booty Bay equity events the character of Warcraft 3 infected players this madness was so [ __ ] fun a major problem until it's on why people along with roaches arrived at capital cities more and more players are being infested once they logged in and even worse the argent healers who would remove the plague buff from players they began to disappear and the gestation period of the buck went down to a mere minute soon cities were infested but as this happened players called a quest called desperate research it would lead them to shattrath city so remain that good for days to come and this was such a special time to be playing you were seeing groups of players fighting off the play being pushed back and being overwhelmed people were retreating to save hideouts and it was just amazing seeing a virtual world react to a plague react something completely opposite to it was this sustainable no but was it unique and interesting and worth doing I think absolutely now the late King had more in his arsenal and shortly afterward the cities came under attack by frost worms and undead soldiers as big floating necropolis in the skyline it was quite the image and it could not have sat up I forgot all about that wait until launch day which meant that every day no my mom actually almost quit the game over the zombie invasion if they have this for one more week I'm gonna quit this game I'm sick of going to the auction house and dying there was one time a zombie ran me down and I knew what he he knew what he was doing he knew what he was doing and he killed me anyway she was [ __ ] pissed like that was probably the only time that I ever saw my mom legitimately mad about Wow besides the the dire mall incident leading up to the 14th of November felt longer and watched it happened to like she'd target azam be that was a player and he'd be like hey and then she'd try to get away from him but he'd just get her anyway you know cuz she didn't know what she was doing it was pretty [ __ ] funny and grow them to last but eventually that day would come rapper Lich King would release I never do and this we kick off a pre game as well many future successes but also future failures and also reaching its highest point ever so join me next week where I'll go into depth on the launch of Rath what the game was actually like to play how its systems worked and what made it distinct both from the game as it is now and what wrath would develop into by the time 3.3 rolled around so thank you very much for watching this video I love putting the documentaries together they take a lot of us but it does just let or go back and I I think bring some of the history of World of Warcraft to the front when you know it's it's a game that's so old and most of the people playing now you know they probably haven't seen these expansions so I think it's it's just so interesting to talk about this stuff so yeah there you go that is part one subscribe for part 2 which will be next week and this will be continuing throughout December I really hope you enjoy it I've loved making it thank you very much for watching I'll see you next time this is a good video it was raffle which came like if I look back on him there were a lot of legitimately like great things about wrath and while I do believe very firmly that wrath which Cain was the beginning of the end of the game and I think that it set the stage for all the bad problems that wow has nowadays I will gently feel that way a lot of people think wrath is like this great amazing thing etc to me it was good but I think there was also a lot of mistakes that were made at the same time I absolutely do feel that way

Channel: Assertonsin [Asmongold Stream Reactions]

Views: 167,349

Rating: 4.8680773 out of 5

Keywords: asmongold, BFA, WoW, world of warcraft, wrath of the lich king, bellular, BellularGaming, bellular gaming, asmongold reacts, asmongold watches, asmongold highlights, best of asmongold, twitch chat

Id: HozyXyIP3Mw

Length: 25min 31sec (1531 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 08 2018