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World of Warcraft Expansion Playable at BlizzCon! - Ordinn on 10/5/05
The World of Warcraft development team has confirmed that BlizzCon attendees will be able to go hands-on with a playable sneak peek of the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. For those who won't be able to attend BlizzCon, please note that gaming magazines hitting newsstands in different regions of the world around the time of the event will feature in-depth previews on the new content we have in store. Click here to learn more about BlizzCon.
We have recently placed some exhibit-only BlizzCon tickets on sale, for those of you who are interested in attending BlizzCon and trying out the World of Warcraft expansion set. See the recent announcement for more information about this limited supply of exhibit-only tickets.

Nobody has any information beyond "it will be shown at Blizzcon." (OMG Blizzard how dare you charge for entry into a convention!)  They're being very very tight-lipped about revealing anything prior to the official unveiling at the end of the month.   The only rumors I've heard are that 1) it won't be released for another year (q3-2006) and 2) There will be no new races or classes.   I haven't even seen those from official sources, just repeated by the unknown masses on various boards.

1) it won't be released for another year (q3-2006) and 2) There will be no new races or classes.   

Although we have no solid info (Even my two friends who work at Blizzard on WoW dont have any info), they said they had the "feeling" around the office that the expansion is a lot closer to done than people think.

PS.  Someone in my guild was dropping hints and rumors that there ARE new races coming.  Blood Elves for the Horde and Pandaran for the Alliance.  We all told him he was insane, but he seemed to believe his sources were highly credable.

Is my post invisible?

Perhaps the expansion will be done for Christmas this year.

And perhaps they are actively developing a second expansion for '06 as well.

One of the images might have been from Diablo. Which would add:

4. Diablo 3 in development. Which means nothing since Blizzard North no longer exists.

The .9999 ~ 1 thing is an old and stupid battle.net forum in-joke. (using the term 'joke' loosely, here :p) No, I don't get it either.


-- Z.

Sargeras is gonna crash for a month, I just know it.

(http://www.battle.net/war3/images/orc/units/animations/blademaster.gif)

Blademaster please (and they better be Warriors, not Rogues).

Don't be retarded. They go invisible and "backstab." They're the closest thing to rogues that game will ever get.

You play Sargeras? Faction, name?

Horde, Mareen 57 mage, Rorden 53 rogue.

Horde, Mareen 57 mage, Rorden 53 rogue.

Yes, but they use 2 handed swords. Either the Rogue would get 2 handed Hero ability, or the Warrior gets an Invis Hero ability. It's not such a "retarded" suggestion.

we got tired of their catass uber must raid 24/7 bullshit attitude

Pandarians?  Giant panda-people???  Robot-ninja-elftastic!

I feel sorry for people that believe in stuff like Hero classes.

It's obvious what Hero classes are. Just vaporware promises to keep people's hopes up after they hit 60. If they had any real idea what Hero Classes would be they would have released information on them already.

The reason why hero classes are brought up from time to time is because they're in the Strategy games. That's all.

[edit] No need for anyone to tell me that I lack originality. I'm sure this complaint has been brought up before.

I feel sorry for people that believe in stuff like Hero classes.

Most of those "idjits" from EQ are playing WoW, I thought. Not EQ2.

I know one thing at least: Very few are playing because it's "Warcraft".

(http://www.battle.net/war3/images/orc/units/animations/blademaster.gif)

Blademaster please (and they better be Warriors, not Rogues).

Well, according to Schild all 4 million of them are playing because its "Blizzard"   :-D

I know 3 million (or more) people are going to disagree with me, but I'm starting to think that Blizzard dropped the ball here! There shouldn't have been any premade towns (small ones at least) or large zones of Alliance/Horde territory; Goldmines and lumber should have definitely been a BIG factor, etc., etc..

Blizzard cares not for the wacky "Shadowbane done right" ideas of the MMO kook fringe that frequents boards of this nature.  They're doing EQ 2.0 and dancing naked in piles of money.  This is like suggesting that McDonalds should have been a chain of exclusive high-class eateries, or that Britney Spears should try to sound more like Bjork.

As for dancing in piles of money: Either way, they would have been successful. Even it was completely broken and had zero content. The question was would they have been just as successful?.

pray not like those of DAoC, which I presume are still broken (or, never fixed?)?

The law of SWG says no.  Sure, inital box sales would have been good, but a crappy game is still a crappy game.

Perhaps you misunderstood. I'm simply speaking in terms of a war game with strategic and base building elements.

Shadowbane 2.0 with Peons is just an easier way to describe it (but at the very least, you'd have to play SB to even understand what I'm even talking about....So why comment?). If they didn't truly "care" (in the sense that you're thinking) THEN THEY WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MAKING WARCRAFT GAMES FOR A DECADE NOW.

I don't think it's that they don't care. They've done a lot of a work in making a PvP system (one that would make YOU cry at that....Your ideas of what is "fringe" is way off). I just think that they made the mistake of looking at only one side (the mmorpg side) for inspiration, and didn't draw enough ideas from their own games. It could have been both. As it is, it just doesn't "feel" like any Warcraft game before it, except in atmosphere. If I'm a kook for wanting a Warcraft to be a Warcraft game, then so be it.

As for dancing in piles of money: Either way, they would have been successful. Even it was completely broken and had zero content. The question was would they have been just as successful?.

They're not about to risk poisoning their cash cow by trying to turn it into an experimental MMORTS.

Hell, just having something like this in the Battlegrounds, if not the rest of the game, would be a good start.

Yeah, Savage pretty much played out like that.

[edit] And speaking of teamwork, I'd have to say that WoW PvP doesn't even encourage winning a battle, let alone being organized. It's all about personal honor farming and loot acquisition..

It's just, I don't know...Repulsive (overly dramatic word?). It's fucking shite. That just encourages people to be even more disorganized and caught up in their little selfish game.

WoW should do the same.  Make the rewards of actually winning the battles mean WAY more than the thrill of the kill and the returns for body counts.

I dunno what you could give outside of gear or faction with a new group that you can only get faction with by winning...and all that means is more gear.

The upcoming expansion might actually feature new races.

I just found this post (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5276362&s=blizzard&tmp=1#blizzard) from the US community manager Caydiem. Maybe she was just yanking the chains of the blizzard fanbois however.

Whelp.. there will be new races. That, or the CGW editor (http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=5849261&publicUserId=5380367) is using his blog to help Bliz spread misinformation. Let the speculation commence.

I knew nobody read my posts.

The WoW Expansion!

Yay! I can almost start talking about it. Yeah, sorry, that was a bit of a tease, wasn't it? Well, the issue is due out in about two weeks. Blizzard would probably rip me a new one, and, even worse, disable my WoW account, if I started leaking information here. The only other person who knows anything is my daughter, who also plays WoW and can't keep a secret. So, if you can figure out which of the millions of players she is online and hit her up, I'm sure she's spill. happy

I got to see pretty much everything---except for whatever the new race for the Alliance will be. That one they're either keeping a secret or, more quite possibly, haven't figured out themselves yet. But everything else I know. And while, like I said, I can't spill details yet, I can tell you it is *huge*--tons of new content for all levels. It definitely got me motivated to get Eggbert, my gnome warlock, up to 60 ASAP. So I have many nights of serious "work" ahead of me. Yay!

So, as soon as Blizzard gives me the okay, I will replace my desktop picture with our December cover, which pictures an awesome painting from one of the Blizzard artist's of the new Horde race. I hate being a tease (well, okay, it's a little fun), but I just can't tell ya yet. But soon!

Posted at Sun, 09 Oct 2005 22:04:16 EDT

I knew nobody read my posts.

Oh Gods.  Blood Elves.

Which means we probably get the naga or something equally shit.

 :roll:

That's a very pretty area for such an evil race to start in.  I forget the lore, where are the blood elves supposed to be?

With the type of people who would want to play blonde elves I can feel the IQ of the horde dropping already.  I can see it now:
[1. Ogrimar General] [Thalion]: LFM for UBRS - no elves please.

I smell a fake, but can any of you photoshop geeks confirm?

http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2037127257gq.jpg

That's a very pretty area for such an evil race to start in.  I forget the lore, where are the blood elves supposed to be?

With the type of people who would want to play blonde elves I can feel the IQ of the horde dropping already.  I can see it now:
[1. Ogrimar General] [Thalion]: LFM for UBRS - no elves please.

I'm not sure why the Horde accepts them, though.  Doesn't seem like the Horde really needs them much.

On a side note,

No race is "evil", save the Burning Legion races.


Miasma, do you play Alliance?  :-D

Right there behind the trees is where the Commander rune drops.

If Pandaren is a race and I can play a brewmaster, I'd resub for at least one month.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Funny +5.

Back to Elves:

The Blood Elves are just Elves who long ago rejected Malfurion's leadership and philosophy of Druidism. He changed the entire society of Elves against magic/sorcery (and for good reason). The High Elves/Blood Elves were the part of the population that still embraced Magic, and decided to go their own way -- Across the sea, and into the Eastern Continent.

Unless I misunderstood, the Blood Elves are the remnants of the High Elves that were slaughtered by Arthas in WC3, angry and bitter.

I don't know that they could be classified as evil, though, they may have started on that path by embracing demon power, which is also what happened to the Naga.  In any sane world, demon power=evil, but Bliz likes to blur the lines.

Found this linked over on the FoH boards.  Damn good photoshop if it's fake. (http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=10/29003263277.jpg&s=x2)

 :cry:

That looks quite real.  The only thing I find odd is that they have all three melee classes available, seems to go against all this "completely focused on arcane magic" lore I'm hearing.

Found this linked over on the FoH boards.  Damn good photoshop if it's fake. (http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=10/29003263277.jpg&s=x2)

No one bitched about them fitting in the lore. We were just talking about their lore....Period. Or are you talking about another website?

The blood elf text has a misspelling in it. They have an "it's" where it should be "its".

I don't know if you can claim fakery over one of the more common grammatical errors out there. If Everquest taught us nothing else it taught us that most programmers can't spell.

Speculation!

(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5310/speculation3oz.jpg)

Speculation!

Why aren't Blizzard denying anything ?

Because you fuckers are rabid. Who gives a fuck about speculation. It's an expansion. More bugs, less filling. W00t. Of all the things Blizzard may prove us wrong on - this isn't one of them.

Because of your English ?  That's terrible !


Edited :  Read your site.  Things that make you go hmmm.

hehe man with jewel crafting maybe I could get rid of the 40 or 50 random gems I have in the inventory of my engineer
I hate to throw them out or sell them but they just keep accumulating.

kaid

World of Warcraft - THE BURNING CRUSADE

The "Burning Crusade"

Illidan has gone insane, and already the alliance between the Draenei, Naga, and Blood Elves has began to crumble. The Naga once again wish to return to the sea, and the Blood Elves' hunger for demonic energies increases day by day... Illidan was tortured by Kil'jaeden after he failed to defeat Arthas - but finally, Kil'jaeden saw another task for Illidan. One that, if he failed, he would be sent into the twisted nether to be consumed by demons... Kil'jaeden then told him everything that had happened since his defeat.

As unexpected as it was, Illidan returned to his three allies and told them of this new plan to destroy not only the Scourge, but all other enemies that would ever oppose them.

Kael'thas and his Blood Elves were to go to the Forsaken for aid. Though they were undead, Illidan explained that their leader was a High Elf - Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, General of Quel'Thalas... or, used to be, anyways. Kael'thas saw this as a great advantage, as he had personally known her in the past. Though their hatred of the Trolls and Orcs was strong, Illidan told them of the new plague they were creating - to kill not only the Alliance, but the Horde as well.

Illidan told the Draenei of the pact with the Alliance they would have to make. He told them that this Alliance would aid in the slaying of the remaining orcs, the Draenei's most hated enemy. Reluctantly, Akama, leader of the Draenei, agreed to this, though only because they were in debt to Illidan for saving them from being destroyed by orcs years ago.

The Naga were to go into the sea of Azeroth, and cripple the Scourge of Northerend by sneaking in, killing groups of Scourge, and fleeing back to the sea before the Scourge's main forces could catch them. Eager to return to the oceans of Azeroth, Lady Vashj and the Naga agreed to this almost immediately.

Blood Elves have made an alliance with the horde by becoming Allies of Sylvanas. The Blood Elves also have claimed to the orcs to want to be rid of the demonic powers corrupting them, and that they wanted to be redeemed of the dark powers they once tried to harness. The orcs, though slowly and unsure, finally accepted the Blood Elves. In turn, the Tauren and Trolls also followed the example of the Undead and the Orcs, and accepted the Blood Elves as part of the new Horde.

Akama went to the Night Elves to plead. They told them of the demonic orcs that had forced them from their homeland, Draenor, and that they wish for an alliance against the Horde. The Alliance, though suspicious of the Draenei true intentions, has accepted the Draenei plead for an alliance.

Soon after Kael, leader of the Blood Elves, Lady Vashj, leader of the Naga, and Akama, leader of the Draenei, had left Outlands, Kil'Jaeden once again imprisoned Illidan within the Black Citadel and closed the Dark Portal to Azeroth... The Blood Elves, Naga and Draenei were meant to never return.

In the Royal Throne Room of Undercity, Sylvanas entered with many of her most powerful guards at her side. She had found out of the betrayal of Varmithras, and that the natherizim Balnazzar still lived. To her surprise, many undeads had already been slaughtered in the Throne Room... and Varmithras was nowhere to be found.

A dark Nightmare has enveloped the Emerald Dream, slowly corrupting it. Rumors have emerged that Archimonde has found his way into the Emerald Dream by using the powers of the World Tree before he died...

Max Level Increased

The max level players may now reach has been increased to 75, and many new max-level raid instances have been added to the game world.

New Races

Horde
Five races compromise the Horde, the brutal orcs, the shadowy undead, the spiritual tauren, the quick-witted trolls, and the reckless blood elves. Beset by enemies on all sides, these outcasts have forged a union tey hope will ensure their mutual survival.

Blood Elves
Serving Illidan to satiate their magical addiction, the blood elves have grown stronger than they ever imagined. But even now, with demonic magic in constant supply, many of the blood elves are hungering for even more magic.

Racial Traits:
Demonic Corruption - Due to their corrupted blood and their hunger for magic, the Blood Elves begin the game with +10 resistances to all types of magic. In Addition, all of their resistances to magical spells and effects, excluding Nature, are increased by 8%.

Available Classes: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Priest, Warlock, Spellbreaker

Alliance
The Alliance consists of five races: the noble humans, the adventurous dwarves, the enigmatic night elves, the ingenious gnomes, and the mysterious draenei. Bound by a loathing for all things demonic, they fight to restore order in this war-torn world.

Draenei
Nearly wiped out by the Orcs during the early days of the Horde and then faced with the destruction of their entire world, the Draenei have become adept at survival and avoiding danger. Even knowing that the Burning Legion is the ultimate cause for their suffering, the Draenei survivors hope that their pact with the Alliance, and Illidan, will someday grant them a new homeland and, most importantly, help them in the eradication of their most hated enemy, the Orcs.

Racial Traits:
Unseen - Once every ten minutes, the Draenei may go invisible for fifteen seconds. This effect may not be cancelled, and the Draenei cannot attack or cast any spells, and they are also considered to be "in combat" for the entire time of this effect.

Available Classes: Warrior, Rogue, Hunter, Spellbreaker

New Class: Spell Breaker

Spell Breaker - Among the Blood Elves, there are those who show such an amazing aptitude for magic that they can become almost immune to it's effects and can even twist the spells of others to benefit themselves. Called Spellbreakers, they were the elite, holding mastery over all forms of magic. Now, with demonic blood flowing through their veins, these Spellbreakers and their allies among the Naga and Draenei have begun to evolve into demons themselves, with the most powerful able to manipulate the fabric of the Twisting Nether.

Spell breakers begin the game with leather armor but are able to use mail once they reach level fourty.

Examples of Specific Abilities:

Shadow Orbs: Summons several shadowy spheres to circle the caster's body. This spell will increase the player's parry/block rate, with each parry or block causing shadow damage to the attacker. Each attack blocked/parried in this fashion will cause an orb to violently explode, causing minor arcane damage to the attacker and decreasing the number of orbs surrounding the player until all orbs are gone and the effect ends. 30 second cooldown.

Demon Fangs: Fangs are often the first demonic trait evolved by Spellbreaker characters. Using this ability will cause you to attempt to bite your enemy, causing shadow damage and causing a Damage over Time debuff on the opponent, unless resisted. 3 minute cooldown.

Fel Strike: The Spellbreaker's weapon is charged with demonic energy, causing extra shadow damage every hit. Lasts five minutes.

Dark Whispers: Has a 75% chance to temporarily lower nearby enemies' attack power by 10%, lower their hit points by 5%, or lower their mana by 5%. Has a 25% chance to buff nearby enemies' attack power by 10%, hit points by 10%, or mana by 10%. Effect is random on every target. 1 Minute Cooldown.

Fel Concentration: Has a 50% chance to either slow casting time of the target by 10%, or making it 10% faster. May be used on Party Members or enemies. Lasts 5 seconds. 15 second cooldown.

Talent Trees:

Fel Protection - Centered around defensive abilities that allow the Spellbreaker a chance to survive when up against melee classes.

Fel Combat - Talents used to improve offensive spells and abilities used by the Spellbreaker.

Spellbreaking - Talents used to attempt to increase spell the spell resistances of the Spellbreaker.

Example Talents:

Spell Alignment: The caster attempts to align his body with the next spell cast upon him. Once hit by the spell, his body 'aligns' to that spell's school, making him immune to that spell school for 20 seconds. Lasts until a hostile spell is cast on the Spellbreaker. 15 minute cooldown. LEVEL 40 TALENT - Fel Protection.

Spell Reflection: For 20 seconds, all positive and negative spells used on the Spellbreaker are reflected at the caster. 15 minute cooldown. LEVEL 40 TALENT - Fel Combat.

Spell Absorbtion: For 20 seconds, all spells used on the Spellbreaker will cause normal damage, but the mana cost of the spell is added to the Spellbreaker's mana. LEVEL 40 TALENT - Spellbreaking.

Improved Demon Fangs: Damage caused by the bite of the demon fangs does 5%/10%/15% more damage and has its cooldown reduced by 15/30/60 seconds. 3 ranks. FEL COMBAT.

Melee Specialization: Chance to cause shadow damage on hit with a melee weapon is increased by 10%/20%. 2 ranks. FEL COMBAT.Improved Shadow Orbs: Damage caused by the shadow orbs is increased by 10%/20%/30%. 3 ranks. FEL PROTECTION.

Shadow Shield: Increases your chance to block with a shield by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. Also gives a chance to cause shadow damage equal to the amount of damage that had been blocked to the attacker by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%. 5 ranks. FEL PROTECTION.

Fire Resistance: Increases your resistance to fire spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

Frost Resistance: Increases your resistance to frost spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

Shadow Resistance: Increases your resistance to shadow spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

Arcane Resistance: Increases your resistance to arcane spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

New Areas

Undermine:
The Goblins have finally accepted to allow the other civilized races of Azeroth onto their home of Undermine.

This is a level 60-65 zone, and is now the main hub of neutral transportation.

Quel'Thalas:
With the aid of the Horde and Argent Dawn, the Blood Elves drove some of the remaining Scourge out of Quel'thalas. The Blood Elves have started to rebuild their cities, and have unexpectedly found that some cities were untouched.

Gnomeregan:
After a long struggle, the Gnomeregan Exiles were finally able to retake their home, with the aid of both, Horde and Alliance adventurers. The Clean Zone is the new starting area for gnomes. Gnomeregan can take the player to about level 12 afterwhich they have to go to other areas.

The New Echo Islands:
Farther south of the Echo Islands was a large chain of many islands, which ended up also being named the "Echo Islands".

Nothing but beasts had lived on these islands when the trolls found them. It is the new starting area for Trolls. These islands can take the player to about level 12.

Northrend:
The Horde and Alliance are now able to reach the continent of Northerend, thanks to the aid of the Goblins of Undermine. A zeppelin will take the players to the town of Valgarde in Northerend, where they will begin many quests to oppose the Scourge. Northerend is a massive level 65-75 zone, and contains many new max-level instances.

The Emerald Dream:
The Emerald Dream is the primal heart of Azeroth. It is an echo of what the world would be like if intelligent beings had not altered its surface. The ethereal layer of the Emerald Dream shares the same space of the Physical layer one on top of the other - a parallel realm overlapping the physical world like an invisible and intangible layer. It is characterized by its green hue and verdant forests. The Emerald Dream, though, is like a perpetual time-frame of creation, back when the Titans reshaped the planet to bring order to chaos. Yet both realms share the same time. Time passes normally within the Emerald Dream as in the Physical world. The Emerald Dream is ruled by Ysera the Dragon Aspect of the Dream, empowered by Eonar the Titan to watch over the Emerald Dream realm. Lately, the Emerald Dream has been affected by the Nightmare. It is not a place. It is an effect that roams the Emerald Dream randomly affecting other dreamers and attacks them during their sleep. The nightmare twists and reshape the dreams corrupting the sleeping dream-form. Those trapped within the Nightmare are known as the Unwaking. Their physical form may die of starvation, not able to wake up as the affected can't escape the Emerald Dream. There are many magical and planar ways to reach the Emerald Dream. Sometimes, Ysera can't detect intruders that enter the Emerald Dream by means of magic plane-shifting. There are rumors that somehow Archimonde was able to affect the Emerald Dream through the World Tree. Since the World Tree was bound to the Emerald Dream, Archimonde might have found a way to infiltrate the Emerald Dream before dying. Only time will tell... The Emerald Dream is a level 70-75 zone which will have players attempt to cleanse the Emerald Dream of the Nightmare - and, if the rumors that are told are true, Archimonde will once again need to be defeated by mortals...

Transportation

All boats from neutral cities, such as Ratchet, and Booty Bay now connect to Undermine. New boats have been added to Steamwheedle Port, Menethil Harbor, and Theramore which will take anyone on it to Undermine. In addition, there is a new zeppelin which will take the player to Undermine. There is also a zeppelin on Undermine which will take the player to the shores of Northerend, to a town called Valgarde. All goblin-owned transportations now have atleast four level 62 Undermine Bruisers on them. Alliance-owned and Horde-owned transportation now force any members of the opposite faction on them into PVP, and are also now guarded by atleast four level 60 guards.

New High-End Instances

Naxxaramas Necropolis:
Within Stratholme, near the Slaughterhouse of Baron Rivendare, is the Naxxaramas Necropolis. Kel'Thuzad reigns the Undead Scourge from the Naxxramas Necropolis. This new 40-player, level sixty raid instance is equal in difficulty to Blackwing Lair, and will send the player to assault the Tower of Medivh.

The Tower of Medivh:
This tower was described by Medivh as an Hourglass. As the sand particles flow slowly through the hourglass clock, time flows in different places of the glass, allowing one to see the past - and future - of Azeroth. This is a 40-player max-level raid instance, much more difficult than Naxxaramas Necropolis.

Caverns of Time:
This is the lair of Nozdormu, one of the five great dragon aspects. Nozdormu, unlike most other dragons in the game, requires the aid of mortals. To repair damage done to the timeline, Nozdormu will send players on large raids into two 40-player, level sixty raid instances, and one 40-player max-level raid instance, the first two being equal in difficulty to Naxxaramas Necropolis, and the final being equal in difficulty to The Tower of Medivh.

Outlands:
The desolate place of Outland emits flashes of light and streams of energy. Outland is currently a way station. Many portals are still active within some of the floating asteroids, leading to other worlds. This new zone is for groups of five or more max level players. Among the creatures that inhabit Outland are Felboars, Phase spiders, Draeni, Fire Elementals, Fungal Horrors, Succubi, Nether Dragons(composed of nether energy, and not related to real dragons).

THE BLACK CITADEL:
Beneath the Black Citadel, there is a very large prison. Rumors have been created that heroes from past wars are still being held within this prison, and that even now the ruler of the Black Citadel tortures these heroes. Other rumors are that Kil'jaeden, the most powerful entity of the Burning Legion, dwells withing this Citadel, plotting the destruction of Azeroth. This is a large, 50-player raid instance.

GRIM BATOL:
Rumors have emerged that Alexstrasza and her dragonflight are keeping anyone from getting near Grim Batol. They are protecting something deep within its walls, a secret power. Some say they are protecting a powerful artifact or creature.

Some have gone as far as to speculate that Deathwing has been held captive and imprisoned within Grim Batol, though, others believe in the possibility that the creature that now holds the essence of the Sunwell might be under protection of the Red Dragonflight. Anyone who dares to venture into this max level 50-player raid instance will find themselves standing against the power of the Red Dragonflight, Alexstasza, herself. This is equal in difficulty to The Black Citadel.

THE LAIR OF MALYGOS:
Malygos lives in Northrend in a deep and complex cavern. He is known to gather relics of arcane power, keeping them locked away from mortals. Frozen Orcs, Nagas, Trolls and Wendigos are many of the victims of the horror of Malygos' power, and to display what happens to those who venture into the Lair of Malygos. This is a 50-player max level raid instance, equal in difficulty to Grim Batol.


ICECROWN MOUNTAIN:
Icecrown mountain is the most difficult instance to ever be in Azeroth, and will challenge anyone to stand against the power of not only the Lich King's armies, and his most trusted lieutenant, Anub'arak, but also the Immortal Lich King himself.

This is a 100-player max level raid instance, and will challenge the Horde and Alliance to work together to defeat the Immortal Lich King. To have the full 100 players, 50 players of max level on Horde and 50 players of max level on Alliance must work together, merging both groups of 50 into one large raid party. Upon Icecrown, Horde and Alliance may not attack eachother at any time, but are instead able to aid eachother. Leaders of the Argent Dawn have also worked together to teach the Alliance and Horde to understand both, Common and Orcish, so they may communicate as they work together to defeat the Immortal Lich King.

THE EYE OF YSERA:
Deep within the Emerald Dream is the Eye of Ysera. The Eye of Ysera is a large golden dome that randomly appears in the Emerald Dream, and the dome in which Ysera dwells. No one has ever been able to enter or penetrate the golden dome. That is, until the Nightmare came... And once again, if the rumors were true, this is where Archimonde will most likely be...

YES !!!

(http://kr.img.dc.yahoo.com/b12/data/wow/mmurloc.jpg)

For being a "Spellbreaker", they sure seem to have a lot of melee-related stuff listed there. Don't buy it.

The cunning blood elf spell breakers have mastered the arts of spellcraft to such a degree that they have become immune to the effects of even the most powerful magics. Coupled with their fierce combat skills, their spell immunity makes them implacable foes when facing magic-wielding enemies. However, the spell breakers' most astonishing ability is to actually steal their enemies' beneficial enchantments and grant them to their own comrades. This uncanny ability has turned the tide of more than one battle in the blood elves' favor.

I'm not saying this is a true class, but I would have thought Spellbreakers would be mage killers and as such would be melee types.  Melee types that are very resistant to magic, but vulnerable to physical attack perhaps?  If they are just mages that are really resistant to magic, why would anyone be a mage?

Why would anyone be a tank then with Spellbreakers being able to resist magic and doing "fierce" melee damage?

Manginic mudflation 4tw?

Hrenglish

I liked the version that gave me a choice between Vin Diesel/Alliance and Bruce Willis/Horde... ;)

Now, instead, what will be a surprise: the maximum level for the characters will be upped to 70. As he heard about this, ToSo (an editor) started immediately to weep that he wanted back the all exp he wasted doing quests when already 60 ("and of course! I'm not going to clean cat ass forever!" -ToSo), so if you had the same reaction you are going to take it in the booty. Although the Hero classes haven't been announced (Rob Pardo, Vice President of Game Design, said: "if we screw the hero classes we risk to fuck up the whole game") Blizzard didn't deny they'll be in the expansion but also didn't promise it. So we cannot really say much more.

Well, the caption for the bottom left picture on the first page starts off "Lo scudo di questa guardia sembra sia state rubate a un qualche Gundam."  Which tells me that since the Horde is getting Blood Elves, the Alliance will be getting Gundams.

Level cap to 70? Helloooo, soloing Onyxia!

kek



-- Z.

  Spellbreakers just doesent work for one simple reason: It makes no sense to give a new class to only ONE race.  every class in the game has at bare minimum 2 races that can use it in each faction.  Limiting spellbreakers to a single race is asking for imbalance trouble.
 

Yeah, but Spellbreakers would ONLY be available to the Blood Elves. 

Hence, shite.

And raising the level cap to level 70 seems just idiotic to me.

First, if there are normal talent points for those post-60 levels, there will be total game inbalance.  I know people will be quite pissed at mages running around with 33 fire/28 arcane or 31 arcane/30 fire.  PoM + combustion, or Arcane Power + Fire Power and critical mass is just ridiculous.  Think PvP is already too much about 2 shotting people?  It will just get worse.

Can I just say that the photoshopped fish creature on page 5 looks better than any model actually in the game?

As far as the expansion goes, why would an expansion add more low-level content. At this point people have played through the low levels, and even if they re-roll a character they most likely want to steamroll through those low levels as quickly as possible. This happens in basically every MMOPRG. Over time the player population ages (in terms of level) On day 1 the average age is level 1. Now the average age is probably 30-40 and rising. Adding content for level 5 players doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you either:

Expect players to re-roll and not race through the first levels. (Stop and enjoy the flowers - does not happen)
Or you expect to attract a significant number of new players. (The older a MMORPG gets, the less this happens)

It's my opinion that MMORPGs go into "retention mode" almost from day 1.

Actually, one of the things i have always wondered about is why there isnt more variations between the different class/race combinations.

I mean, look at priests for example.  All races priests have special abilities that only that race gets (Dwarf: Fear ward, Elves: starshards, Undead: Vampyric Embrace, Etc).  Why arent some of the other classes diversified in similar manners?  Why are all mages or wariors exactly the same? I would think that an Undead mage and a Gnome mage would have some differnt tricks up their sleaves.

Because unless they make all of them useless enough that they are inconsequential there is always going to be a "best" and all other races will be subpar *cough*fearward*cough*

Read it again.  Draenor's too.

Actually, one of the things i have always wondered about is why there isnt more variations between the different class/race combinations.

I mean, look at priests for example.  All races priests have special abilities that only that race gets (Dwarf: Fear ward, Elves: starshards, Undead: Vampyric Embrace, Etc).  Why arent some of the other classes diversified in similar manners?  Why are all mages or wariors exactly the same? I would think that an Undead mage and a Gnome mage would have some differnt tricks up their sleaves.

Spell breakers will be just as annoying as paladins.

And unthinkable mage destroyers.

So, probably not.

I'd play an Elf just because it's popular to hate them now.

Is that weapon supposed to do anything?

Played recently?  They're not nearly unpopular enough.  Of course, if doesn't help that they are the only Alliance Druid race and that humans can't be hunters. 

I mean popular "here".

I mean: I'd play an Elf just to piss some of YOU off.

Yeah give everyone spellbreakers. That won't be FOTM.

Elves are ghey, stop being a fucking mangina fanboi.

I imagine the Blood Elf starting area will be swamped to the point of slideshows on release.

It may be but honestly people seem to be horrible creatures of habbit. I would guess that it will be busy for a few days and then due to the over hunting people will migrate to where ever they leveled their last  6 toons.

Yup its the damndest thing though I know people who make brand new characters with new starting zones I KNOW they have never done before but sure enough turn around and bang they are back in goldshire again.

God, Valor STILL is going to be the best looking warrior set. What the fuck are the people designing the high end armor models smoking?

I imagine the Blood Elf starting area will be swamped to the point of slideshows on release.

That was my impression of playing a troll. Everyone was talking about backstory and how alive the world is and such. But trolls can be summed up like this:

They are displaced, and speak like Rastafarians. The end.

That's the entire Troll "lore" right there. Apparently it's better as other races. The trolls really did feel like "ok we need to add another race but we are shipping in 2 weeks...somebody re-skin an Orc asap!"

That was my impression of playing a troll. Everyone was talking about backstory and how alive the world is and such. But trolls can be summed up like this:

They are displaced, and speak like Rastafarians. The end.

That's the entire Troll "lore" right there. Apparently it's better as other races. The trolls really did feel like "ok we need to add another race but we are shipping in 2 weeks...somebody re-skin an Orc asap!"

They should have put them on the Eastern continent with the Undead. After all, that's where they originally come from, and the story could be more Troll centric there (instead of Orc centric in the barrens).

Another interesting thing that isn't really touched upon in game: Elves were originally Trolls (mutated by the Well or somethin'). There could be plenty of spin on that angle too, I think.

I'm confused.  Elves are trolls in WC ?  Doesn't that fly in the face of, well, everything ?

Flies in the face of any other Tolkien like mythos I meant.

A 20 hour instance? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Science, hurry up and invent a time machine so I can go back in time and grudge-rape Tigole and Furor's mothers until they're knocked up with my seed instead of whatever the fuck produced those two cunts who think shiting into a shoebox for a day is big fun.

Here's a couple of interesting second hand notes from people who went to BlizzCon.  Note that both are long reads, and the second one links to the official WoW boards, though it's a server forum link.

Link 1 (http://forums.curse-gaming.com/showthread.php?t=4296)

The 1% myth. They talked about how on the forums they are flamed for making “content” that only 1% of their player base is playing. According to blizzard, during the week… during peek hours… at any one time there is
500 Molten Core instances
1500 Onyxia instances
250 BWL instances
700 Zul’Gurub instances
All going at the same time. If you consider that this is all week long (for instance 800 MC on weeknights) that is far more than 1% of their gaming population.

Actually, the concept of Elves as twisted trolls or vice-versa is not uncommon in fantasy stuff.  I believe Shadowbane's lore had a similar thing.  As have several books I've read.  That Blizard should do the same thing, then, is not shocking.

Alkiera

Yeah, at 40 people per instance, that's about 118,000 people for that night. Which at 3.5 million accounts is actually 3% of the player base. So instead of designing asstons of content for 1%, they are designing it for 3%.

Corruption and Redemption assumes some sort of Good Vs Evil or other kind of morality framework to the world.  Tolkien had this, so the elves were 'corrupted'. Blizzard's story doesn't frame either side as good or evil, so no such distinction would exsist.  Yeah, it's different so it seems weird, but it's nice to not have ALL the followings of the traditional Tolkienesque world.

Mm, although this data is interesting, it doesn't give a very good picture of how many people actually raid, in total.  There are countless more on top of this figure who are waiting for their instance timer to reset, or who didn't log on that night, or are waiting for a spot to open, or whatever.  I can't even begin to guess how many extra people that represents. 

The only thing this figure actually demonstrates is that about 3% of the game's population is immediately raiding, at peak times.

You can juggle that figure by probably a good 10% or more and it still doesn't change the fact that the majority of the population does not raid.

It seems like much more than 17% of the new content that goes in is geared towards that 17% of raiders, though.  What about the 83% that makes up the rest of us?

Course, just about all trolls in the WoW world are actually evil.  The ones siding with the Horde are a splinter faction.

That's my point. Most of the new content being put in and worked on is raid content, which no matter how much you slice the numbers, isn't what the majority of players are doing. The numbers he threw out there about the number of instances being up each night are misleading. Think about how many asstons of servers there are and how many asstons of people at that. If each server has 2000-3000 people online every night, and only 500 people are raiding, that's a lot less than half or a third of the people playing. And yet most of the development time to new content is focused on those 500 people in exclusion of the other people.

I'd rather see them focusing on more 10 and 20 man raids if they have to raid, as well as making some raids for content between 30 and 55.

A 20 hour instance? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Science, hurry up and invent a time machine so I can go back in time and grudge-rape Tigole and Furor's mothers until they're knocked up with my seed instead of whatever the fuck produced those two cunts who think shiting into a shoebox for a day is big fun.

Corruption and Redemption assumes some sort of Good Vs Evil or other kind of morality framework to the world.  Tolkien had this, so the elves were 'corrupted'. Blizzard's story doesn't frame either side as good or evil, so no such distinction would exsist.  Yeah, it's different so it seems weird, but it's nice to not have ALL the followings of the traditional Tolkienesque world.

Where do you get that idea?  Primitive and Violent, with rather protective Tribal instincts maybe, but evil would be streatching it quite a bit.  About the only really "evil" trolls out there would be the ones who willing worship Hakkar as a god and are trying to bring him back.  The rest are just the lost and scattered Tribes of what used to be a mighty civilization that dominated the world way back in the days of yore.

I mean, to call the trolls evil would be to call the Aztecs or Mayans evil.

Maybe not EVIL, but these certainly aren't good guys.

The other thing (and I'm banking on this) is that the high-end content of today is the casual content of tommorrow.  Level 70 - 15 man raid through MC sounds a lot more appealing to me than mucking about in there with 39 of my closest friends right now.  The ubers can do all the bug testing and whatnot (and bitching too) for those zones right now and hopefully most of the kinks will be sorted out by the time my "family" guild or PUG group gets in there.

Didn't you quit the WoW forum or did the temptation of the new expansion drive you to resub?

Well, I think the seething hatred pertains to the invasive High Elves and Humans who, in the Trolls' minds, were the "evil" ones. They only fought for what they thought was theirs.

You can juggle that figure by probably a good 10% or more and it still doesn't change the fact that the majority of the population does not raid.

That's what the orcs are all about.  And even they look at most groups of trolls and go "Those guys are fucked up." 

It's already happening. Onyxia was 10-manned tonight on Mal'ganis, Kazzak has been downed with 12, Azurgos 10. Level 70s will be able to do those with single groups, and MC with 10. All the raid content filters down, and usually much faster than people suppose is possible.

(The raw statistics, for the curious: 2 warriors, 2 priests, 2 shamans, 2 druids, 2 hunters. A lot of consumables. No buffs from other classes -- no AI, no soulstones, nothing we couldn't obtain given our class composition. 42 minutes of combat. No out of combat rezzing. One hell of a rush. Size of raw uncompressed FRAPS'd avi: 31.2 gigabytes. Edited video coming soon.)

It seems like much more than 17% of the new content that goes in is geared towards that 17% of raiders, though.  What about the 83% that makes up the rest of us?

That's 17% of the online players on any given night, which is entirely different than 17% of the total playing population.  Are you being pendantic on purpose and just hoping people won't see the holes in your fallacy or are you really this bad at math?

That's 17% of the online players on any given night, which is entirely different than 17% of the total playing population.  Are you being pendantic on purpose and just hoping people won't see the holes in your fallacy or are you really this bad at math?

How the FUCK do you 12 man Kazzak when a moderately organised 40 man raid can WIPE on him without any outside interferance?.  I have been to kazzak, and unless he was bugged to hell and back there is absolutely no way a 12 man raid could even remotely approach the DPS nessicary to kill kazzak before he goes "supreme" and shadowbolts their ass into the ground.

This means that 33,500 players out of 150,000 are in raid instances at prime-time- 22% of the population.  Now, the harder part is figuring out exactly how many raiders this snapshot is leaving out.  My guild for instance, has about 130 unique accounts, and we never have more than 70 online.  Other raid guilds are much smaller though, and rely on a dedicated base- say, 50 or 60 unique accounts, though I really have no idea. 

How to generalize this to create an overall picture?  Not possible without more data; I'm not confident enough to make any claims about exactly how many people go to raid instances out of the total population.  It does seem, however, that a significant percentage of prime-time players do instance raids.  How to account for those players who aren't likely to be on at prime-time, who play irregularly?  I dunno, but you have to question how much any type of new content will appeal to them, when they're not likely to have progressed through the existing stuff.

But even if we take your 22% of the population figure, hell, even if we say another 10% on top of that could be raiding, for a whopping 32% of the player base raiding, that's still not a majority of the players. And if you look at the patch notes recently and the expansion content, well, most of the new content added is pure raid stuff, much of it either 20 or 40 man instances. That equals lots of development time for something 60% of your playerbase isn't doing.

But more relevant would be the numbers they aren't telling us, such as how many people have EVER raided, how many have raided less than 5 times, etc.

Well until they add in BG's of all servers being linked I dont see what other kind of content you want them to add?

Also, how many of all those people raiding would rather do non-raid content if given a choice?  Can't really be answered without some kind of poll.

They are locked into the same power creep as EQ, the raids will get bigger, and badder and you MUST participate because eventually everything that is non-raid orientated will be years old.  Power creep will be rampent, you better just hope Blizz comes up with a better system then flagging (which they will not, in fact I swear it sounded like you needed to beat some raids to get to the other better raids from the notes).  Soon players who join WoW will be completely fucked, you can't get into a good guild without being geared in top tier raid gear and you can't get top tier raid gear without a good guild.

I think WoW is well-equipped to handle mudflation while keeping the game accessable to newcomers.  They can keep the gear difference between hardcore raiders and freshly-minted max-level characters the same it is now by releasing new solo quests and 5-man dungeons that give loot equivalent to the 20/40-man raid zones 3 or so generations ago.  That way, newbs will be able to gear themselves enough to join a raid guild if they want.

EQ had that model for a while until Luclin and especially PoP came out and they fucked it up.  Flags were a big part of it, but I think the biggest culprit was AA points.  Now you need to have, what, probably 700 AA points to get into a top raiding guild.  That will take a year, and during that time those guys you are trying to catch up with are accumulating AA points as well.  It's essentially an unlimited levels system.

WoW's AA equivalent is the faction grind for the neat goodies from the latest quest faction.  The nice thing about that model is that mudflation makes all your old faction grinds irrelevant when the new faction grind comes in.  This way, a new player only has to do the latest and greatest faction grind -- NOT every previous faction grind and then the latest and greatest one --to be comparable to the l33t veterans.

Smaller raid sizes are planned in the future… they want to make more 10 and 20 man instances. They will still add 40… but the focus will be on 10 and 20 man instances for the raid team.

The dire Maul tribute idea they like a lot. It provides at least two ways to approach and experience the same raid. Expect them to do similar things in the future with multiple ways to play a dungeon besides just killing all that walks.

My question is, with the mudflation, will hitting Onyxia/MC/BWL be pretty much pointless due to newer 5-manners handing out nearly as good or better gear

Flags were a big part of it, but I think the biggest culprit was AA points.  Now you need to have, what, probably 700 AA points to get into a top raiding guild

Heh, this sucks for me. I guess I'm a bit TOO casual. My warrior is the only level cap character I have, and he's decked out in...uh, mostly greens (Imperial Plate).

My question is, with the mudflation, will hitting Onyxia/MC/BWL be pretty much pointless due to newer 5-manners handing out nearly as good or better gear? Hell, I've only ran Scholomance twice. I haven't even touched Strat or UBRS yet.

So friggin glad that game is irrelevant. Nothing like giving a shit about some uber guild to really narrow the scope of the game.

The thing is that I believe AAs were put in to satisfy people who didn't want to raid.  During Velious, there were a lot of people at the level cap with max single-group gear who didn't enjoy raiding.  Luclin AAs were tailored to give those people a means of advancement without raiding.  And they were a pretty painless and powerful means of casual advancement (by EQs standards).  Hell, hour-per-hour you arguably got more of a character power increase from AAing than most raiders did.  Of course, the AAs were useful for raiders, and eventually raids were balanced around everyone having a crapload of them, making it impossible for new players to ever raid.  Oops.