When World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King went live Wednesday night, players with freshly installed midnight copies rushed to do one of two things: head to Northrend to start leveling from 70 to 80 or start up a new Death Knight, the game's first Hero class. With our copies secured early, we were ready to go the moment the servers flipped, and over the next four hours we would gain three full levels and complete the entirety of the Death Knight opening content, climaxing with three epic battles throughout the Eastern Plaguelands.

For the Death Knight, Blizzard made the smart decision of not requiring players to grind through the entire 1-60 leveling curve. Instead, as long as you have a character level 55 or higher, you can create a level 55 Death Knight on that same server.

After a short intro movie you land on the balcony of Ebon Hold in Archerus, floating high above the Eastern Plaguelands, which acts as a home base for the Death Knight class. Here you'll find class trainers, and within the opening quest chains you'll acquire a spell that allows you to teleport back to Ebon Hold at any time.

Right off the bat you're introduced to some heavy hitters, starting off with none other than the Lich King himself. As a faithful servant, you're put to work right away, meeting a few familiar figures: Baron Rivendare (the main Undead boss in Stratholme) and Instructor Razuvious (one of the bosses from Naxxramas).

Razuvious' first task is training you in runeforging, which allows you to create a Runebladed sword (think of it as a special enchant that Death Knights can add to their weapons). You're also given a chance to test your sword in a quest where you cruelly chop down an "unworthy" initiate. These first few moments of combat can be a little disorienting, as you're basically playing a hybrid melee / spellcasting class, but it doesn't take long to get the hang of the different spells at your command.

The opening Death Knight quest chain features a number of unique events, and the first is a scouting mission where you control an eye of Acherus to scout new Scarlet Crusade fortifications in the town of New Avalon. The area may look overrun, but you'll be down here in person holding your own soon enough.
With these initial tasks completed you're shuttled off on a Scourge gryphon to Death's Breach, an outpost overlooking the town of Havenshire. Here you're given some very basic tasks, such as slaying both Scarlet Crusaders and Havenshire citizens. You're also sent out to steal one of the many horses roaming about a nearby farm, which is soon converted into a permanent deathcharger for you to use as a mount. (You'll also find a mailbox down here, in case you want to send your Death Knight some cash or items). These initial quests are pretty simple and offer huge XP, and it's pretty common to hit level 56 in under an hour.

If you're wondering where all these Death Knight quests take place, it's in a new area of the Eastern Plaguelands north of Tyr's Hand. In fact, near the end of the initial Death Knight quests, you're sent through a little tunnel at Death's Breach that spits you out into the Scourge area in the northeastern part of the Eastern Plaguelands, leading down to Browman's Mill and Light's Hope Chapel.

Not even an hour into the Death Knight quest chain is the first showstopper event: "Massacre at Light's Point." By hiding in a cart outside the Havenshire Mine, a miner drags you down to the harbor, where you're able to get on a boat and take control of the ship's cannons and open fire on the Scarlet forces amassed there. You're given two abilities while controlling the cannons: a super-destructive long-range volley and a short-range electroshock to zap the Scarlet forces who immediately storm the boat. This can get a little hairy, but once you've killed 100 Scarlet soldiers you can call in a Scourge gryphon to swoop down and carry you away to safety.

With the Scarlet Crusade driven out of Havenshire you begin the second phase of the Death Knight quests, moving to the Crypt of Remembrance just outside the Scarlet-controlled New Avalon. Here, you're started off with a few basic quests, such as killing more Scarlet Crusaders and New Avalon citizens, as well as slaying the leader of the town, Mayor Quimby (a nod to "Simpsons" fans).
Soon, you learn about a faction of the Scarlet Crusade, the Crimson Dawn, and you're sent to "persuade" one of their soldiers to tell you what he knows. This leads to a few quests behind the Scarlet lines where you try to steal information about what the Crusade is up to, including one event where you hide behind a cardboard tree, slay a Scarlet Courier, and disguise yourself as a member of the Crusade to intercept a journal. As you learn, with the Scourge overrunning Havenshire and New Avalon, the Scarlet Crusade is no more, with the Scarlet Onslaught taking its place!

You're eventually sent back to the Lich King, whose moved down to Death's Breach, who kicks off a series of epic events completing the initial Death Knight experience. The first is "An End to All Things," where you take to the skies to wipe out the remains of the Scarlet Crusade: You need to kill 150 Crusaders, and you can even swoop down where your mount will eat humanoids (!) to replenish health and mana.

After receiving a nice helm from the Lich King as a reward, you're given "The Lich King's Command," where you report to Highlord Darion Mograine just outside Light's Hope Chapel, about to launch an epic attack. Once the battle begins, you don't need to worry about taking damage; you take very little and can chop down the elite defenders without much trouble. Outnumbering the Forces of the Light 10000 to 300, a Scourge victory seems assured, but then Tirion Fordring arrives on the scene and Mograine's own Ashbringer fails him, and the Death Knights are forced to stand down. But then the Lich King shows up and... well, we're not going to spoil everything for you.

Although this might seem like the end of the special events, you've got a few more to go. When you return to Ebon Hold -- by this time, you have a "Death Gate" ability that allows you to portal there at any time -- you find that Acherus is under attack by none other than Patchwerk (another Naxxramas boss), up on the second floor. It's total chaos, but not unlike the Light's Hope battle, where you don't take much damage and a group of Death Knights can whittle down Patchwerk's health after some time.

Finally, you're teleported to Stormwind to deliver a message to King Varian Wrynn. As a Death Knight, you're not greeted warmly by the guards, who spit and throw things at you until you deliver the message in Stormwind Keep. But then the news comes, endorsed by Tirion Fordring himself: The Death Knights will be joining in the fight against the Scourge and the Lich King, making you a welcome member of the Alliance.
At this point, it's not uncommon to feel both exhilarated and let down. The final quests in the Death Knight's initial chain are some of the most entertaining we've seen in World of Warcraft, and, as it took less than four hours, we might delete our Death Knight just to play through them again. But once you've completed the chain, you'll find yourself at level 58 and staring at a lonely grind through Burning Crusade content before you can hit level 70 and set sail for Northrend. We imagine it'll be a few weeks before level 80 Death Knights are commonly seen, so it'll take some time to grasp how they fit into the overall scheme of endgame content. But for now it's at least been an entertaining start to the journey.

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