1UP Previews Wrath of the Lich King

1UP has a glut of new World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King news on their site today. First, they report that the expansion's dungeons will offer two different simultaneous versions: 10 and 25 woman. The key difference, the 25 woman instance having tougher encounters, but better loot. This is a win-win decision on Blizzard's part. Offering a loot-poorer version of all their end-game content allows everyone a chance to partake of the experience. The hardcore raiding community still gets the latest and greatest gear.

It looks like Blizzard has scrapped plans to make players unlock the new class, Death Knight. Instead, everyone who has at least leveled a 55 toon gets to create a level 55 Death Knight. There will be some preliminary quests to explain how you came to be such a complete bad-ass. The new class seems to be a hybrid tank of some kind.

Finally, coming as a complete surprise, WotLK will offer true aerial combat! 1UP has some video footage posted within the article that show a diving gnome copter shooting up some rabble gargoyles. Apparently there's also some mounted combat too. The article mentions something about taming a mastodon-type critter and then using it to trample foes. I've longed for the opporunity to use my mount to run over beasties and it seems that soon enough, my yearning will be fulfilled.

Check out the last video for a sit-down between Jeff Green and company and two lead designers for WotLK J. Allen Brack and Jeff Kaplan. Of great interest to me: mounts won't immediately work in Northrend. Allen says they want players grounded when they first experience the new expansion and that around level 77 the option to fly will be granted. Game mechanically, that makes perfect sense. Lore-wise, not so much. Here's the interview video embedded: