Nethaera made some clarifications on how Death Knights will be unlocked and the creation of such today in the official forums. You can read the full thread here.
Neth replied with the following:
To me this seems interesting and we could see a lot more Death Knights running around then I originally thought as people start creating characters on other servers to play with friends that they might have elsewhere where as before they wouldn't because it takes too long to level to catch up with said friends. Very interesting indeed.
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"You will be able to create a new death knight. You do not replace one character for another."
"I thought I'd try to clear up a few things in this thread.
At one point, we did say that there was a possibility of
players needing to get to 80 to create a Death Knight, but we decided
that making such a requirement would only cause players to level up a
character to 80 that they didn't intend to play. This seemed to go
against the idea of playing to have fun.
We also said there would be a quest line to become a death
knight. This is still true but perhaps not in the way people took it to
be. You will be able to create a death knight which starts at level 55,
but you will still be taken through a quest line that teaches you a
little about how to play a death knight as well as gets you your spells
and talent points in bite sizes rather than overwhelming you from the
start. The quest line also gives you a bit more insight about your
story as a death knight, sets the stage, and sends you on your way once
it completes.
At this point in time, we are not planning to give players an
additional character slot. I've been advocating selective deletion if
you don't have the room on a particular realm. Could this change? Yes,
but currently, this is the plan.
You will not need to convert a character into a death knight. It is a separate character from any of your other ones.
You will be able to create a death knight as long as you have a
level 55 character on a realm. You will be able to create a death
knight of either faction no matter what faction your 55 character is,
however, if you are on a PvP realm, you can expect the usual rules to
apply as far as creating cross-faction characters."
And last but not least a user asked if you have a level 55 on one server if you can create one on another?At one point, we did say that there was a possibility of
players needing to get to 80 to create a Death Knight, but we decided
that making such a requirement would only cause players to level up a
character to 80 that they didn't intend to play. This seemed to go
against the idea of playing to have fun.
We also said there would be a quest line to become a death
knight. This is still true but perhaps not in the way people took it to
be. You will be able to create a death knight which starts at level 55,
but you will still be taken through a quest line that teaches you a
little about how to play a death knight as well as gets you your spells
and talent points in bite sizes rather than overwhelming you from the
start. The quest line also gives you a bit more insight about your
story as a death knight, sets the stage, and sends you on your way once
it completes.
At this point in time, we are not planning to give players an
additional character slot. I've been advocating selective deletion if
you don't have the room on a particular realm. Could this change? Yes,
but currently, this is the plan.
You will not need to convert a character into a death knight. It is a separate character from any of your other ones.
You will be able to create a death knight as long as you have a
level 55 character on a realm. You will be able to create a death
knight of either faction no matter what faction your 55 character is,
however, if you are on a PvP realm, you can expect the usual rules to
apply as far as creating cross-faction characters."
Neth replied with the following:
"At this point in time, you just need a 55 on a realm
and you can create a death knight on any other realm. We'll let you
know if there is any change to this thinking. "
This bit is what I find very interesting and here's why. In the past Blizzard has stated that you can have ONE Death Knight PER REALM. According to Netharea here all you need to unlock a Death Knight creation slot is simply by having a level 55 character on one single realm. So it doesn't matter where you have your level 55 character located, nor does it matter what faction your level 55 character is. I can now easily create a level 55 Horde Death Knight on another server (several in fact on various servers) without the trouble of having to level up 55 levels. Heck, since I'm playing on a PVE realm I could essentially create a level 55 Horde Death Knight on the same server.and you can create a death knight on any other realm. We'll let you
know if there is any change to this thinking. "
To me this seems interesting and we could see a lot more Death Knights running around then I originally thought as people start creating characters on other servers to play with friends that they might have elsewhere where as before they wouldn't because it takes too long to level to catch up with said friends. Very interesting indeed.
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