Hmmm...

After getting off work last night I stopped off at Best Buy to grab the expansion. As expected, they had a full display right at the entrance so I didn't even have to go searching for it. I got home and installed while changing and getting ready for the hockey game. By the time I left it was fully installed and patched, although I ended up missing the first few minutes of the game because of it.

Fast forward to later that night, after the game, and I decided to load up WoW for a bit before bed so I could create my death knight and see what all the fuss is about. Logged in and went to configure a new undead death knight so I could wreak some havoc.

I finished messing with his appearance (I'm never completely satisfied, but now that I can change hairstyles if I want I'm not so picky), then clicked the button to create him, and to my surprise a message popped up saying "You must have a level 55 or higher character on this realm to create a death knight." Hmm...

Seems to me I was mislead at some point about the requirements here. I was under the impression that the level 55 character requirement applied to the account, not just the realm you are creating the death knight on. I have plenty of characters over 55 on my Alliance realm, but I wanted to make my death knight an undead. I was sorely disappointed.

Now the good news is I have a level 50 mage on the realm who was left there by a former roommate and he luckily just left her on there. It means I still need to go 5 more levels on her, but with the highest character I've leveled on that realm being only level 30 I think it's something I can live with.

It looks like he left off in Feralas, so I guess that's where I will be questing first, then probably moving on to Un'Goro or something where I can hopefully get to 55 without much trouble. I'd like to try to get there without having to travel all over the place.

It's kinda strange playing a level 50 that you didn't get there yourself. I ended up just traveling to Feralas, distributing talents, and then killing a few things before I got restless to make a death knight.

I logged out the mage and went over to my Alliance realm. I ended up deciding on creating a human death knight over there, and while he won't end up getting much past the starting quests, he will at least hold me over until I can get the mage to 55 and create the one I want, and then I can get that one through those starting quests even faster.

The first few death knight quests were pretty cool, and really make you feel the mentality of the death knights. All in competition with each other, and willing to kill any of the other initiates who could pose a threat.

The new rune system of fighting is a little different, but so far it seems to be pretty easy to pick up. It was a little crowded once I got out of the keep and I had some trouble searching for other death knight initiates to duel, and with this being pretty late at night, we'll just see how much worse it can get over the weekend.

I'm still trying to figure out why I thought I only need a level 55 on the account and that would allow me to create a death knight on any realm. Was the wording that Blizzard gave us misleading? Did other sites assume this and I blindly believed them?

How many of you thought this was the case too?

I guess at this point it doesn't matter much. What's done is done, and I'll just have to get through those 5 levels as quickly as I can. It will at least let the death knight starting zone calm down a bit so I don't have to deal with so many players. I should be able to get there by next week, so it's only a slight setback.

EDIT:

After some research I've found that the requirement was recently changed to require a 55+ on the same server, not just the account. Apparently they may change it back to just a 55+ on the account, but for now it has to be on the same server. Why, you may ask? I dunno, probably to mess up my plans at release, and then change it back once I've already done the extra work.