Last month, the American work force took a big shock to its system.
Productivity fell, and absenteeism rose to levels not seen since January 2007. Many workers seem apathetic about their jobs, and most appear to be getting less sleep than they need.
The reason for this should be obvious to all. On Nov. 13, the second expansion to "World of Warcraft" was released, and addiction therapists could be heard cackling with glee across the United States.
If the original "World of Warcraft" was heroin and "The Burning Crusade" was high-quality methamphetamine, then "Wrath of the Lich King" is a big dose of the candy raver's favorite variety of ecstasy. Everything is friendlier in the second expansion, the instanced dungeons are tuned for the casual player - even at "heroic" difficulty - and the raid content can be done by smaller groups, albeit with lesser rewards than the big, 25-player raid groups get.
Blizzard Entertainment got right the graphical atmosphere of the new continent, Northrend. It has a gothic fantasy feel that was sorely lacking in "The Burning Crusade" - land of high fantasy and, apparently, space goats - and was one of the most charming design elements in the original game.
The writing has gotten better since "Burning Crusade." The player quests in "Wrath of the Lich King" are above and beyond anything that can be found in the previous two chapters. Both on the level of individual quests and on the level of overall plotlines, it seems much improved. When compared to Blizzard's previous attempts at a coherent storyline, it's possible that it just seems improved. Whatever the quality of the writing, one thing is certain: The new quest lines concentrate heavily on the role of individual players, rather than the epic 40-player raid quests that could be found in the original game.
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The biggest change of the new expansion is the new player class: Death Knights. If ever there was a class designed for solo players, it is the Death Knight. The class seems overpowered out of the gate, though things even out as a new Death Knight approaches level 80. The whining about how overpowered Death Knights are will eventually lead to the class being tweaked down a bit, but for now, it's easily the most entertaining class in the game to play, and it can breeze through things that would have given other classes fits at level 60.
The player-based economy is developing nicely a month into the game. The new inscription profession has changed the way weapon and armor enchants are sold, making things much easier for the solo player, not to mention anyone who has picked enchanting as one of his or her crafting professions. On the raiding front, the relatively sane guilds are progressing through the raid content at a fun pace, rather than the outright insanity of guilds that cleared all the raid content the first week the game was out. Other than a few aberrations of that nature, it seems like most of the player base is fairly happy about the expansion. People seem to enjoy the new player-versus-player zone and the new Battleground. The vehicles are entertaining - that siege tank sitting in Ironforge that you always wanted to drive? Now you can.
The new expansion seems weak on the amount of new raid content. However, there are going to be at least two content patches this time around, possibly more. I, for one, cannot wait for the long-promised dance studio to get patched in so I can change the "dance" animation my Rogue does. The Macarena was funny in 1998. Not so much 10 years later.
'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King'
Available Now
Grade: A-
