As I was writing this line, I was sitting here thinking about how to approach this challenge. Review an MMO. But it had to be done. I can’t skip it just because it’s a never-ending game with new things to discover every day. Duh.

After Illidan’s fall, peace was restored in the chaotic realm of the Outlands. The armies of the Alliance and the Horde could not rest for long, however. Arthas the Lich King has awakened from his five years old slumber. His undead army is now ravaging across the frozen continent of Northrend, slaying their enemies and raising them again as their allies. Arthas has even started raising fallen heroes as Death Knights. The Death Knights, however, quickly finds out about Arthas’ evil masterplan, and breaks free of his control. They then join the Horde and the Alliance in the fight for survival. With the Lich King’s army of elites on their side, both factions of Azeroth take the fight to the Lich King. Everything will be decided on the roof of the world.

It’s been over a year since the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, was released. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. Most of the quests consisted mostly of ‘go to X and kill Y enemies’ goals. The zones never really grabbed my interest (Save for Nagrand and Blade’s Edge Mountains). As a result it didn’t take long before I lost interest - and I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. A few million players jumped ship in favor of Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings and Warhammer Online. The fun started when we were finally prepared for raid dungeons. Our guild was far from the best on the server, but we had good fun, even when we were wiping.

I have many fond memories of the WoW of yesterday, but let’s take a look at the newest expansion to Blizzard’s popular online game. Transportation to the new content have been made availible for both factions. The keeps in Borean Tundra are under attack, and there’s a lot to do. As usual, you are in charge of defense, offense, getting rid of spies, clearing out cultists and destroying enemy spawn points - alone. And that’s just the first few quests of the first quest point in the first zone. In total, you have 9 new zones to explore and over 1000 new quests to do. This will definitely keep you busy for a while.

What surprised me is that Blizzard actually decided to do something about the horrible grinding quests you were forced to do through the whole last expansion. On your travels across the frozen continent you will have to sneak in behind enemy lines and blow them up with a cannon, battle drakes with a mammoth, protect dragonshrines with your future self, infiltrate scourge bases and much, much more. Of course there’s plenty of grinding quests as well, but you I guess it can’t be avoided. WoW is all about combat, anyway.

Siege weapons and taxi mounts are just some of the new features that have been added. I have to admit I was a bit worried the siege weapons would be a bad idea, but it turned to a damn good one instead. The weapons have different skills you can use, and you can easilly aim with the mouse. ‘Knockback’ has also been added to the game. Enemies are no longer glued to the terrain. Several skills - especially siege skills - will send your enemies flying in all directions. I’m stuck with a permanent grin on my face when I’m blasting other players to bits. Then teabag a big pile of corpses. With a massive tank. Did I forget to mention that another class has been added? Yep, WOTLK introduces the Death Knight, the very first Heroic Class. This means that you can start a lvl 55 character as this class - as long as you have leveled a character to 55 already, that is. The Death Knight is a Protection specced Paladin merged with a fury warrior - with the destructive powers of a warlock thrown in just for the heck of it. This means you’ll have a tank able to do ranged attacks as well as throw in powerful damage spells and will still challenge the hunters in total damage done. It makes me feel bad for the soon-to-be unemployed hunters.

The level design has been greatly improved since the world opened back in late 2004 (beta). It’s hard to find a favourite zone in this insanely big new continent. General architecture and environment’s clearly inspired by the age of the vikings - which is really neat, especially for scandiavians such as myself. Hell, you can even find Jotunheimen in the hardest zone.

The game also does good storywise. With Illidan, Kael’thas and Kil’Jaeden stopped in the last expansion, only Arthas the Lich King remains to be put down. The main storyline is optional to follow, but I strongly suggest you do so. It’s actually quite hard to find the storyline quests, as they’re disguised as normal quests. Sometimes you have to do a long chain just get the basic idea of what’s going on. The rewards,however, are beyond good if you can manage to complete the chains. A certain quest chain will even lead to a special cinematic scene.

There isn’t much to say about the negative sides of WOTLK. Blizzard perfected all the errors from the last expansion, and made an almost flawless addition to the already massive Warcraft universe. But only almost. Class balance is still a major problem that has been given little attention by the developers - especially when it comes to player vs. player.

Putting the balance aside, World of Warcraft is still World of Warcraft. Of all the millions who stood in line at the release, I would bet that at least 25% of them turned out to be disappointed after a week or two when they found out that ‘nothing had changed’. True, there aren’t many revolusionary features in WOTLK. The classic feel is still there, and that’s all fine by me. World of Warcraft is still the best online game out there, despite what others might say. If you have to blame something, then blame the people. Not Blizzard.

WOTLK has lots of potential for further expansion. As of now, there are very few activities availible for those who have reached max level. There are only four raid instances to choose from. THREE of those four are very short with basically only one boss to fight in each. The last one is Naxxramas, which was the last raid instance to be released with the classic content, right before the Burning Crusade was out. Once your guild’s mastered Naxxramas, all you have to do is wait for more.

And yes, there are spiders in this game. And they are as big and hairy as ever.