If the announced date is respected, this new WoW expansion will come after almost two years, 1 year and 10 months to be exact, after the first expansion “The Burning Crusade”; definitely a big leap compared the promises made by Blizzard of releasing an expansion each year, but lets hope the wait is worthy.

This new expansion will introduce the new continent of Northrend, the home of the Lich King Arthas Menethil and it will introduce many new aspects to the game, like:

• the level cap raised to 80;
• the first heroic class: the Death Knight;
• a new profession: Inscription;
• siege weapons and destructible buildings (for PvP);
• the implementation of the “Achievements”.

Links
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/;
Wowhead: http://www.wowhead.com/;
Artanis’ announcement: http://artanis.myblog.it/archive/2008/09/15/wrath-of-the-lich-king-a-novembre.html.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to attend, but my friend Artanis did and he has made a very nice report; since his report is in Italian I will give you the most important details in English.

The show opened with Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock on the “Original Series”, that gave brief presentation of the game; unfortunately it was pretty much it and after him, Emmert took charge of the show.

A very important aspect of the game is that players will start with a personal small ship, but despite being in charge of it they have not the official rank of “Capitan”; this title will be earned through the game. The ship is fully customizable and upgradable.

Players will not be able to nominate other players as crew, but they can recruit NPCs for the various position; these NPCs can be trained and they will advance in skills while the player progress through the game. Other players can actually come on board the ship, visit it, and be transported to other places.

The content will be spread on both the planets, where players can teleport and do quests, and in space, where players can engage battles with various enemies. During the panel, it has been said that there may be special space events, for example various Borg invasion.

Regarding the release date, Emmert refused to specify any actual day, but he explicitly admitted that he actually know it and it is not that far since the developers already have a working engine and therefore they just have to work on the content.

During the webcast, Cryptic showed a brief video about the gameplay; I have to admit that the quality of the graphic is extremely good considering that the game has not been finished yet.

Now, these are just some of the details announced on “Star Trek Online”, so stay tuned for more informations.

A last note: if you are Italian and you are planning to play Star Trek Online, my friend Artanis is already starting to collect applications for “cadets”; you can find all the information on this page.

Links

Star Trek Online Official Site: http://www.startrekonline.com/;

Artanis’ Report (in Italian): http://artanis.myblog.it/archive/2008/08/10/star-trek-online-panel-resoconto-completo.html.

The Star Trek Online logo is copyrighted by CBS Studios Inc.

According to the announcement (link) Cryptic will unveil more details and the first gameplay footage at the annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas on Sunday, August 10, 2008.

While we still have to wait months for the release of the game, the official site (link) is allowing people to register. Most probably the registration will give absolutely no privileges when the game is released, but still it allows the fans to participate to the community.

Links

Star Trek Online Official Site: http://www.startrekonline.com/;

Star Trek Online announcement: http://www.startrekonline.com/node/62.

The Star Trek Online logo is copyrighted by CBS Studios Inc.