Published on November 1, 2005
By
Amitty
In
WoW
So, everyone who plays World of Warcraft held their breaths when Blizzard announced that they would be showing the new expansion for the wildly popular MMORPG. Instead of displaying it somewhere the consumer could get their hands on it, they showed it at their convention event, Blizzcon.
Friday, Oct 29th, the people at the event got to play hands on the lower grinding areas of the newest race to enter the frey, the Blood Elves.
Interestingly enough, a lot of people got a advanced look at what might be in the expansion thanks to Wikipedia.org. It seems that a Italian gaming magazine had a interview and a full spread after talking to Blizzard, and provided a lot of information for the readers. The Wikipedia article, which has changed since the offical release information has come out, even had a full translation of the article, including pictures of the Blood Elves, which netizens claim were fake.
Well, of course, they were wrong. A lot of the information that was included was accurate. The Horde side is getting a new race, the Blood Elves, and the article claimed that the alliance will be getting the Panderas. Other things included:
- Level cap raised to 70.
- A new continent called the Outlands.
- Flying mounts available to level 70s for the Outlands.
- A couple of huge new dungeons.
- hundreds of new quests and items.
Of course, this isn't all. This is what Blizzard felt like releasing to the public. Regardless, a playable expansion means that the full expansion can't be that far off, can it? Another thing that was introduced was a new profession, Jewelcraft. This is apparently where you are able to make trinkets and such and are able to upgrade them using other items.
Another rumor that came out in the Italian magazine was that the BattleGround servers would link across realms, no only to introduce new people from different realms and play in combat, but to eliminate server queues. While it is possible, I remember the mess that was Battleground when it first came out, especially Alterec Valley, and can forsee a lot of technical problems if they go through with it.
So, aside from these things, and a couple others, the rest, including a trailer, are available on the live site for The Burning Crusade. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/.
It will be interesting where it will go. Will WoW make some of the mistakes that they did for the first expansion of Final Fantasy XI? I guess time will tell.