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WarCry Network has posted a new interview with Blizzard Entertainment's Jeff Kaplan, lead designer for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for the successful World of Warcraft. The Q&A focuses on the new expansion's reputation rewards, dungeon content, and the Death Knight hero class.

WarCry: The death knight is being billed as a tank/dps (damage per second) hybrid. How do you see them fitting into raids alongside protection warriors, feral druids, and protection paladins?
Jeffrey Kaplan: We made some really good strides in The Burning Crusade to improve the feral druid as a hybrid tank/dps class. That will be the general direction we'll be looking to go with the death knight. Obviously, the protection warrior is in a good place in terms of dungeon and raid tanking. And the protection paladin is hands-down the best multi-target tank. Of course, there's always room for improvement, but you can see the general direction the tanking classes are headed. While all of these classes are capable of fulfilling similar roles, they offer very different abilities and playstyles.

WarCry: In late vanilla World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade there has been a heavy emphasis on reputation grinding and rewards, which has proven to be a great incentive for more casual players. Is this trend going to continue with Wrath of the Lich King? Any lessons you've learned about such a system from Burning Crusade?
Jeffrey Kaplan: Reputation is a great progression system for all types of players ranging from casual to hardcore. We're not necessarily looking to make reputation a grind; our goal is to identify who the target audience is for each reputation and then tune things accordingly. One thing we'll be doing more of in Wrath of the Lich King (and even before that) is incorporating daily quests into reputations. We feel that if a reputation has significant daily quests with enough variety and perhaps some random elements, it will help keep the process of accumulating reputation fresh and interesting

Warcry Network: Lich King Interview

Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

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