Curse has an interview up with Kaplan and Chilton that talks about Wrath. A lot of it is covered in the Gamespy articles, but there was some new tidbits:

• Naxx is going to be tuned down into an entry level raid. That means some of the encounters will be a bit more forgiving.


• Well, we knew they were going to need to tune it down from 40-man to some degree. What this tells me is that they’ll also be dumbing down some of the encounters to make the fights a bit more basic. That’s understandable if they want it to be entry level.


• All classes will get 10 new talent points, they’ll also be adding core abilities, additional tiers of talents and retuning old abilities.


• Nothing shocking. This was expected. This response was really more of a way to say – well, DKs may sound overpowered but wait till you see how we changed other stuff.


• There will be a World event to open Northrend similar to Sunwell.


• Yawn. That’s neat, but again pretty much expected at this point.


• Legacy items that are bound to an account not just to a character as a way to hand powerful items to your alts.


• I like this idea. It’s kinda like your big brother handing down his baseball glove to you. It also might be easier to get someone to do something they don’t need if there is something tangible in it for their alt. The downside would be unexpected competition for an item. Oh, can I roll on that too for my character that’s not here and didn’t help you? It’s worth pointing out that this seemed more like a tentative, not fully baked idea by Tom Chilton.


• What I really like about this is that they are starting to think about ACCOUNT specific things and not CHARACTER specific. If you ran through it once already, you should be able to have an advantage. I’d like to see this concept extended to things like attunements that only need to be done once per account.


• New battleground in an attack-defend scenario featuring siege weapons and destructible building components.


• This reminded me of Starsiege: Tribes. I’m a huge fan of any PvP that is more tactical and objective based than simply kill the other guy, so this could be very very cool. Although I worry about too many bus drivers and not enough students….


• In response to the question about 8 Million DKs running around, Tom Chilton said “8 million level 55 Death Knights; there won't be 8 million level 80 Death Knights”


• I think they are betting the whole DK hero class on this idea that people will simply tire of DKs before they ever level them to 80. It’s a good thought. The description of the combat system for DKs seemed more difficult than any of the existing melee classes. Warrior stances with Rogue-like finishers is not what I would describe as simple combat. I’m also kinda interested about what they’ll be doing to address itemization from 55-70 for DKs. Will they just use Warrior gear?


• They created the DK as a Tank class to fill a need in group activity.


• As we all suspected, but at least this confirms that the DK is intended to help fill the tanking void felt at the 5-man level.


• There will be “leveling” dailies in some zones that will be worth doing if you are in the area.


• That’s a nice change. A repeatable quest that yields XP. I always felt those water bags in Tanaris should continue to yield XP.


• Different vehicles. One-man, fast-moving catapults versus lumbering Demolisher that packs a big punch. Two man flyers where one person flies and another drops bombs.


• OK. Maybe that does deserve some hype. Very very cool if well implemented.


• Some classes will be given knockback abilities and others will pull players to you (Death Grip for DK).


• That’s neat, but the knockback thing seems ripe for abuse in certain PvP environments. In particular, that’s nasty in Alterac Valley. Imagine getting bumped off the bridge or a tower. That’s seems more unfair than fun to me. Could one or two people chain knockback you off a cliff?


• The 10-man and 25-man loot will have the same art, but different color variations. They will also work together for set bonuses (like Arena gear). So if you have the 10-man legs and the 25-man chest, you’ll get the 2 piece set bonus.


• I think this is a great thing. It will be like having some S1 pieces and some S2 pieces. A person could even drop down from a 25-man to do some 10-man to get the piece he was missing in the lesser set (while waiting for it to drop in the 25-man).


• They are discussing not unlocking 10-man content until someone on the server has beat the 25-man content.


• This is not final, but it shows they are thinking about ways to keep the bleeding edge guilds from just doing the 10-mans to learn the encounters before trying the 25-mans. I hate that the bleeding edge crowd consumes such attention, but I agree with the strategy. Let them blow through the content too quickly and they’ll all be telling us how much the game sucks while I am level 73.


• Arthas will be patched in as a killable NPC after the Wrath release


• Well, I guess that’s one way to ensure people don’t blow through your story arc.