World of Warcraft expansion announced.
- Thread starter KenM
- Start date
Dark Jezter
First Post
Here's a summary of what's been announced so far for the Expansion Pack:
Being the World of Warcraft addict that I am, I'm very excited for this expansion pack (even though I've known about it for a week due to reading a translation of an article from an Italian gaming magazine).
- Level cap raised to 70.
- 2 new races. The Horde gets Blood Elves, and the new Alliance race is yet unannounced.
- A new continent: Outland (accessable through the Dark Portal).
- Lots of new high-level dungeons both in Outland, Azeroth, and beyond.
- Flying mounts that you can actually control (but usable only in Outland).
- Lots of new monsters, including epic world bosses.
- Hundreds of new quests.
- Hundreds of new items.
- New Jewelcrafting Profession (used to make rings, amulets, and trinkets).
- Socketed items (think Diablo II)
Being the World of Warcraft addict that I am, I'm very excited for this expansion pack (even though I've known about it for a week due to reading a translation of an article from an Italian gaming magazine).
Last edited:
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Love that they're putting in socketed items! That was always one of my favorite features of Diablo II.
I just hit 60 on my Orc Warrior about two weeks back, so I've just gotten into the high end content. I can't wait for Outlands...finally, I get to go home.
As for the thing about Blood Elves...I'm neutral. Most people seem to either hate it or love it, but it could be worse. I just don't like that all those Alliance punks are now cheering that the Horde finally gets a hot female race. Why no love for the Troll women?!
I just hit 60 on my Orc Warrior about two weeks back, so I've just gotten into the high end content. I can't wait for Outlands...finally, I get to go home.
As for the thing about Blood Elves...I'm neutral. Most people seem to either hate it or love it, but it could be worse. I just don't like that all those Alliance punks are now cheering that the Horde finally gets a hot female race. Why no love for the Troll women?!
physicscarp
Explorer
Sweet!
Now, I don't know if I want to give City of Heroes a try or just wait for the expansion. :\
Now, I don't know if I want to give City of Heroes a try or just wait for the expansion. :\
Dark Jezter
First Post
Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
Yeah, I'm not too thrilled about Blood Elves joining the Horde either (me being the card-carrying elf-hater that I am). According to a Blizzard representitive, the reason that Blood Elves were included was because in MMORPGs, the "pretty" races (usually humans and elves) always have the most players, and since the Horde is currently made up of "ugly" races, the Alliance outnumbers the Horde on nearly every server. By giving the Blood Elves to the Horde, Blizzard is hoping to even out the imbalance a little.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
I completely understand their reasoning...heck, I play on Eonar, and I believe the last time I checked the Horde are outnumbered 5:1. It makes AV impossible and just makes town raids annoying after five minutes because we get ultra-zerged. I won't mind a little population increase, but the whole 'nude dancing in front of auction house' is something I could go without, thankyouverymuch.Dark Jezter said:
Brother Shatterstone
Dark Moderator of PbP
Ankh-Morpork Guard said:I just hit 60 on my Orc Warrior about two weeks back, so I've just gotten into the high end content. I can't wait for Outlands...finally, I get to go home.
Yeah, I must admit that it was nice to know you these last two weeks but I always knew it was a passing fancy…
Enjoy going home. Reporting from Blizzcon
As expansion info is now available on the WoW site, I'm not going to delve deeply into what is there, but rather share what comes from hands on time with the expansion, and a couple of panel discussions.
First, I'm about dead certain the alliance race is not the Pandaren. Chris Metzen wouldn't share what the race was, but indicated it is one we already know, but would not really be looking at for an ally, and that it was "really cool". Yes, pandaren can be really cool, but lots of people have been discussing them as a possibilty. I'm leading toward the Draenei, the "Lost Ones" from Swamp of Sorrows. After all, the Horde is getting a pretty race, why not suspect the Alliance might get an ugly one?
I was dubious about the Lore behind the Horde getting the Blood Elves. These folks fought violently against the orcs and the trolls for a long time. The logic is a bit two pronged here. First, Sylvanis, the Banshee Queen, is a former High Elf, and still feels a loyalty to them. Second, as with the Forsaken, there is an element of alliance of convenience. There are simply not enough Blood Elves for them not to seek allies, but they dare not go to the Alliance, because their Night Elf cousins will be able to detect the magics they continue to use and abuse.
The BE racials are mana tap and arcane torment. Mana tap steals 50 mana, and charges the air around the BE with arcance energy. It stacks up to three times. Arcane Torment is an AoE silence for 2-3 secons, which does damage if you have mana tap stacked. These will make the BE's formidable against casters.
Much of the expansion content takes place in Outland, which is through the Dark Portal. When the Alliance heroes (those statue folk outside SW) closed the portal from the Draenor side, they were not counting on the Blood Elves viewing the place as the promised land. The portal will be reopened, likely in a world event.
Those same heroes are currently alive and well and "Kicking ASS!" (Metzen's exact words) in Outland. Frustrated with their inability to destroy Azeroth (the only planet to ever defeat them), the Burning Legion have redoubled their efforts to destroy the rest of the universe. The Burning Crusade will take the battle from Azeroth, to the Legion, via the portals of Draenor/Outland. Flying mounts are a necessity in the zone, as what remains of Draenor is effectively large meteorites, held together within the twisting nether.
The new profession, Jewelcrafting, is the making of rings and necklaces, with the first ring being wearable by a level 5. It is +40 attack power. All I could see was the recipes at one trainer, so there may be drops that do something besides rings and necklaces. That trainer said a level 15 was required to learn the apprentice level of the skill, and did not offer a journeyman level. (This could easily be because they didn't want to deal with having the content available for the demo.)
Expect at least one patch yet this year, likely in mid-December. That's from a CM, but I'm not going to rat out who, just in case they weren't supposed to mention it. We will be seeing the instance at Karazhan, and the Caverns of Time soon, and the aim is to have the fee based character transfers available before the expansion as well.
The dungeon and raid developers are not working on making instances for groups larger than 40. In fact, they would like to get them all tuned better and get some lower level caps in place. (One of them told a story about being playing incognito on a realm and having people insist that UBRS couldn't be done with less than 15 - they think 10-11 is just fine, and only the top part is tuned for 15 (I'm guessing that's from maybe the balcony on, but definitely from the beast on).
By the way, things that are definitely not exploits - jumping off the balcony at UBRS, and mind controlling the mob with fire resistance (can't remember where this was, and haven't seen it myself). If a GM tries to say otherwise, send him to Jeff on the development team.
While I had originally suspected a pre-Christmas launch for the expansion, I am less sure now. That was based on my experiences in the software industry, and time tables for registration of copyrights etc.. The way they registered the title, they either need it on the shelves by May 2006, or to reregister, justifying the delay. They weren't coy about much in the panel discussions, and I didn't really pick up any of the body language that says they are hiding a release coming sooner rather than later.
By the way, the Devs lost in the BG's in the final match.
Edit: I forgot the dances! Silly me. The BE males do the twist, and the females do a combo of the NE female pole dance, and the twist. The "nifty" racial jump is a spin, rotates either 2 or 3x.
As expansion info is now available on the WoW site, I'm not going to delve deeply into what is there, but rather share what comes from hands on time with the expansion, and a couple of panel discussions.
First, I'm about dead certain the alliance race is not the Pandaren. Chris Metzen wouldn't share what the race was, but indicated it is one we already know, but would not really be looking at for an ally, and that it was "really cool". Yes, pandaren can be really cool, but lots of people have been discussing them as a possibilty. I'm leading toward the Draenei, the "Lost Ones" from Swamp of Sorrows. After all, the Horde is getting a pretty race, why not suspect the Alliance might get an ugly one?
I was dubious about the Lore behind the Horde getting the Blood Elves. These folks fought violently against the orcs and the trolls for a long time. The logic is a bit two pronged here. First, Sylvanis, the Banshee Queen, is a former High Elf, and still feels a loyalty to them. Second, as with the Forsaken, there is an element of alliance of convenience. There are simply not enough Blood Elves for them not to seek allies, but they dare not go to the Alliance, because their Night Elf cousins will be able to detect the magics they continue to use and abuse.
The BE racials are mana tap and arcane torment. Mana tap steals 50 mana, and charges the air around the BE with arcance energy. It stacks up to three times. Arcane Torment is an AoE silence for 2-3 secons, which does damage if you have mana tap stacked. These will make the BE's formidable against casters.
Much of the expansion content takes place in Outland, which is through the Dark Portal. When the Alliance heroes (those statue folk outside SW) closed the portal from the Draenor side, they were not counting on the Blood Elves viewing the place as the promised land. The portal will be reopened, likely in a world event.
Those same heroes are currently alive and well and "Kicking ASS!" (Metzen's exact words) in Outland. Frustrated with their inability to destroy Azeroth (the only planet to ever defeat them), the Burning Legion have redoubled their efforts to destroy the rest of the universe. The Burning Crusade will take the battle from Azeroth, to the Legion, via the portals of Draenor/Outland. Flying mounts are a necessity in the zone, as what remains of Draenor is effectively large meteorites, held together within the twisting nether.
The new profession, Jewelcrafting, is the making of rings and necklaces, with the first ring being wearable by a level 5. It is +40 attack power. All I could see was the recipes at one trainer, so there may be drops that do something besides rings and necklaces. That trainer said a level 15 was required to learn the apprentice level of the skill, and did not offer a journeyman level. (This could easily be because they didn't want to deal with having the content available for the demo.)
Expect at least one patch yet this year, likely in mid-December. That's from a CM, but I'm not going to rat out who, just in case they weren't supposed to mention it. We will be seeing the instance at Karazhan, and the Caverns of Time soon, and the aim is to have the fee based character transfers available before the expansion as well.
The dungeon and raid developers are not working on making instances for groups larger than 40. In fact, they would like to get them all tuned better and get some lower level caps in place. (One of them told a story about being playing incognito on a realm and having people insist that UBRS couldn't be done with less than 15 - they think 10-11 is just fine, and only the top part is tuned for 15 (I'm guessing that's from maybe the balcony on, but definitely from the beast on).
By the way, things that are definitely not exploits - jumping off the balcony at UBRS, and mind controlling the mob with fire resistance (can't remember where this was, and haven't seen it myself). If a GM tries to say otherwise, send him to Jeff on the development team
.While I had originally suspected a pre-Christmas launch for the expansion, I am less sure now. That was based on my experiences in the software industry, and time tables for registration of copyrights etc.. The way they registered the title, they either need it on the shelves by May 2006, or to reregister, justifying the delay. They weren't coy about much in the panel discussions, and I didn't really pick up any of the body language that says they are hiding a release coming sooner rather than later.
By the way, the Devs lost in the BG's in the final match
.Edit: I forgot the dances! Silly me. The BE males do the twist, and the females do a combo of the NE female pole dance, and the twist. The "nifty" racial jump is a spin, rotates either 2 or 3x.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Oh, don't worry, there's still at least 6 or so months until the Expansion.Brother Shatterstone said:Yeah, I must admit that it was nice to know you these last two weeks but I always knew it was a passing fancy…
On another note, the Caverns of Time has me VERY interested...mainly because it seems to be tied to the new Battlegrounds. I get the impression that these new BGs are essentially Alterac Valley style battles, but taking place in the 'classic' famous battles from the history of the world. Of course, I could be horribly, horribly wrong, but damn that would be cool.
