11/13/08 Release Date Announced for Wrath of the Lich King

Start saving your sick days, add Pizza Hut™ to your speed dial, kiss your loved ones good bye(your real life loved ones, anyway), and give your hamster a countdown calendar until it dies of starvation. The 2nd World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, finally has a release date: November 13th 2008.

Don’t believe it? Check out the front page of Wowhead. The regular version of the expansion will be priced at $39.99. If you want to impress all your schoolyard chums, a $69.99 Collector’s Edition is also scheduled, and includes a behind-the-scenes DVD, an art book(a 208 page one at that!), an exclusive in-game pet named Frostly the baby Frost Dragon, a soundtrack CD, a mousepad with a map of Northrend on it and two starter decks for the World of Warcraft trading card game.

WoW players can look forward to plenty of new features in the expansion. Including:

• Being Level 80!
• New class: Death Knight. C’mon. That just sounds cool.
• Access to a new continent: Northrend
• New items, quests, dungeons, creatures, spells and weapons
• New ways to customize your character. New dances and hairstyles are obviously the most exciting.

That’s all well and good, but the feature I’m most excited about? Getting to put that scum-bucket Arthas down for good. That guy has been asking for it since circa 2002, when the original Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos came out. I don’t know if there’s a video game character I hate more. He’s like a video game version of Dick Cheney. Except even Dick didn’t massacre a city of his own people then go Judas on us. As an added insult, just when I thought Arthas would get his comeuppance at the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, he pulls a Sarah Kerrigan and comes out on top. Damn Blizzard and their victorious expansion villains. Well, no more! Blizzard has already reported that there will be a new instance called “Icecrown Citadel” where players will have the chance to take on Arthas. He’ll rue the day he crossed over 10 Million Users.