Jeff Kaplan talks WotLK: Death Knight creation and other features

[Spitfire]

Jeff Kaplan, World Designer of the highly celebrated World of Warcraft, talks about Blizzard's upcoming expansion to the MMO with Wrath of the Lich King. In a feature article posted on CVG, he explained some of the major features players will get to see once it goes live.

Wrath of the Lich King was primarily designed for high level players who have reached the proverbial pinnacle of their MMO gaming careers. The new areas in WotLK will provide them additional content to quest, kill, and farm their way to even greater heights.

One of the biggest changes that Kaplan noted in this expansion is the fact that players can get to interact with the important NPCs of the Warcraft universe from the get go - case in point, the fallen hero Arthas.

That's right, you don't have to storm his keep like what you did with Illidan just to meet the legendary dark knight. Instead, several quests circle around Arthas which will give players the chance to meet up and have a nice chat with him.

Kaplan also explained some very important details on the creation of the much anticipated new Hero Class, the Death Knight:

While originally we planned for characters to become Death Knights, we felt that players shouldn't be required to lose the character they've played for so long. Instead, we're looking at how we can involve players in the story of freeing a Death Knight from the Lich King's grasp through a quest chain. Once complete, this will allow a player to create new high-level Death Knight characters.

He also talked about new Inscription profession and the PvP areas that gamers can sink their teeth into once WotLK is released. Couple this with other features, such as new character customization options, new hairstyles, and dances (there always to be more in every expansion sigh ), and you've got an even bigger expansion ready to take on the MMO community than the last one.