Death Knight Q & A
Bornakk took the initiative to answer some Deathknight questions as posed on the official forums:
Q u o t e:
-Everyone will roll death knight alts because they startat lvl 60, so they have less work to do.We do hope a lot of people try out the class, it should be a lot of fun. But we also know that people have their preferred style of play so we don’t expect everybody to drop their current character(s) and play the Death Knight exclusively.
Q u o t e:
-It forces you to master a class in high-level areas where you need to know your class to suceed, and most new Death knights won’t know how to play their class at all.Just leveling up to reach Northrend will take time and should provide players some great experience in learning the new class.
Q u o t e:
-You will get less hours out of your death knight alt.I’m a little confused here, but are you saying that it’s a problem that you can’t spend more hours at lower levels?
Q u o t e:
-Other classes will fall out of favor for alts, because they start at lvl 1, wheras Death Knights start at 60.I’m not sure that other classes falling out of favor as alts is really a big deal, but I wanted to clarify that the starting level of the Death Knight has not been finalized, but they will start at a higher level as a level 1 Death Knight doesn’t sound quite right.
Q u o t e:
-The massive flood of Death Knights will clog battlegrounds, making matches extremely uneven (No class variety, so less heals, druid bufs, etc.)While a lot of people may make Death Knight alts to try out the class, especially near the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, not everybody is going to level them to 80 or switch them to their main character. Also, both factions will be interested in playing the Death Knight, so any lack of heals will probably go both ways.
Q u o t e:
-The lack of levels to obtain takes away what makes WoW so fun: Leveling up and gaining new abilities.They will still need to level through Outland and Northrend which can take a fair amount of time.
Q u o t e:
-New players will have to wait months to try a class they may have wanted from the beginning.We have not finalized way that the Death Knight will be unlocked yet, if that is what you are referring to.
We have wanted to make Hero Classes for a long time and we feel the Death Knight will be a fun one to start with while adding a great new element to the game for players to enjoy fighting with… and against.
Bornakk also went on to answer a few other questions. When questioned about a 3rd faction, he replied:
While hearing murloc noises already makes me shudder, the Alliance and the Horde are a strong basis to build a story of conflict and war for players to experience and we have no plans at this time of adding a third playable faction. We are happy with the way the two factions are “interacting” in the game and plan to continue weaving the story around them.
And when questioned about the way vanish works:
While we are always evaluating abilities and making changes as appropriate, we have no current plans to change how vanish works. Hope that helps.
September 19th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Death Knight at 60? What a gyp, it’ll be the same cheater experience as buying an Ebay account with the ’sink or swim’ approach. I personally like playing from lvl one, learing your abilities, but do think that the 1-60 does serve some purposes. (1) Acknowledges that grinding to that level is a PAIN! (2) Puts chinese power levelers out of the market. It’s all give and take. Maybe we can expect to jump to 60 or the option of doing so on WotLK?
September 24th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Ahh… never underestimate the ability of the WoW population to whine and complain. Half of the threads on the WoW forums are complaints about how hard it is to level to 58 in Azeroth now. So Blizz says, “Hey, great news! Now we’re gonna let you start this one class at a higher level.” And the WoW community response is, “Why are you cheating us out of levels 1 to 58?”
/sigh
Well I am definitely looking forward to the Death Knight. I’ve played a DPS warrior in the past and this sounds like it’ll be right up my alley.
And to respond to what Hybuir said, Tigole has mentioned that they are going to lower the leveling curve from 1 to 60. We don’t know any details yet and jumping from 1 to 60 probably won’t be an option, but they are going to make that quicker.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:25 am
The death Knight MUST be aquired at highler lv - you REALLY want to lv OTHER alt from lv 1?
New players should have to lv their chars like anyone else. They SHOULD have to lv to 80 to roll a DK, yes - it’s a hero class after all. Or old players will feel EVEN more cheated for having chars for 3+ years and gaining NOTHING in their new Death Knights that someone who just started playing doesn’t have.
October 1st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I think the Death Knights should at least level from from 50-80, but instead of having to level from 60-80, they should be able to be an elite when they get to 60-80. Like once they get to level 60, they should have an option of doing a really really long chain quest that lets them become a level 1 elite. Once they get to level 1 elite, they would still have all their abilities at level one elite. People can fight level 70’s and kill them at level 1 elite! Thats what I think they should make happen in WOTLK.
October 4th, 2007 at 5:06 am
i think you should start at lvl 1 but you dont achieve the rank of “death knight” until your a lvl perhaps as high as 60, until then u could be a death aprentice hahahahahaha.
October 13th, 2007 at 2:11 am
wow,. some people take this game too seriously,. i tried playing,. its ok,. if your into magically wisking leather armor out of thin air and calling it tailoring cool,. I stopped playing when the storyline made absolutely no sense,. a race of Alien Being with warp Cores and power generators,. suddenly lost all intelligence they had and went from ray guns to swords and magic,. uh yeah ,. you guys shouldnt have anything to complain about,. if i could shell out however much money monthly to play a game where i spend more waking hours,. then actually Dating/Working/Living life then hey i might be all for it,.
October 13th, 2007 at 2:12 am
P.S. my mom plays that game 18 hours a day,. she’s 56,.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:27 am
my concern is that WoW battlegrounds and instances will become flooded with DK’s… everyone will want to be one, and new players wont bother with other classes!
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 am
That trailer was great. I don’t own WoW currently but I have played WarCraft 1 through WarCraft III The Frozen Throne. Obviously i’m a big fan of the stroyline. I hope they pour in the elabrote process involved in becoming a death knight in the first place. Wouldn’t want to hit level 50-60 and then suddenly *ding* i’m eligible to become a death knight. I just hope it stays true to form. Arthas or better known these dasy as the Lich King went through quite a lot of hell before he was even transformed intothe death knight. *shrug* Time will tell.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I just started WoW just about a month ago(57 bloodelf lock). I’m only play like 4 hours a week due to my job and school.I love the game, I think the DK is a good idea, but I dont really plan on using a hero class a DK because a Dk is the one who destroyed the Sunwell, if my memory serves me well.
Besides everyone and their grandma will be like “oh mai god! a hero class I has to gets this!!” I will get it with some random alt I have.
~Remember The SunWell!~
April 7th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I can’t wait I am a retribution paladin and I think this will be a fun change. Most people are just complaining because they don’t have a paladin main or alt so they want to be a death knight at level 1. Oh and clegane’s Idea is really stupid a level 1 elite?? wtf makes no sense.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:58 am
i think the have 2 make a deathknight from lvl 1 because then people will see it like a real alt after the achived it.
i mean if i get my deathknight i can lvl him from 60-80 in around 1 month to 80 because i know outland and i know northrend in that time so then it will be a piece of cake 2 lvl him