With the BlizzCon 2007 underway, tons of new World of Warcraft-related information is swirling around. Here is a quick recap of all the WoW-related tidbits out of BlizzCon so far.
Yes, the next expansion is called The Wrath of the Lich King. A press release is out. No official word yet on release date - rumors say Q1 2008, Blizzard says "when it's done".
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Dungeons and Raids panel
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Expansion Demo panel
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Expansion Demo Panel
(more detailed coverage here, courtesy of WoWInsider)
"Been a great year for WoW-- Burning Crusade, Patch 2.1 with Black Temple and the Daily Quests 'to put Chinese gold farmers out of business'-- and it's working! VOIP coming ('Time to stop paying for Ventrilo and Teamspeak')"
The Panel confirms all the major features of the expansion:
- Northrend
- Level cap raised to 80
- Death Knight, first Hero class
- New profession: Inscription - "enchanting" existing spells and abilities
Other details from this panel:
- Ten new zones planned.
- Adding Siege Weapons and destructible buildings (currently limited to a new overland PvP zone and Battlegrounds, but designers plan on trying to work them into PvE gameplay as well)
- Dalaran is the "capital" of Northrend. Will be floating in the sky. Guess the big purple bubble will be moved. Accessible from the ground or by flying mounts, so, it would appear that flying mounts will work in Northrend - confusing, since there are still no plans to make them work in the old zones due to the problem of zone design not taking them into account.
- Plans to release more Hero classes in the future (after the expansion). Unlocked by questing at 80, starts out at high level.
- Changes coming to leveling, to speed up 1-60 and 60-70, so total time to 80 should not be much more than current 1-70.
- Plans to re-introduce Naxxramas in with the expansion, tuned to be a Molten Core-grade introductory dungeon, so more players would see the best raid dungeon ever created.
- There will be a new Caverns of Time Instance in the expansion.
- More daily quests coming in the next content patch with Zul'Aman - a Dungeon daily quest, a Battleground daily quest and a Cooking daily quest(!).
CLASS PANEL
(more detailed coverage here, courtesy of WoWInsider)
Not much news in this panel - mostly explaining Blizzard philosophies when designing classes.
"Q: FEAR WARD
A: Aggro. Gotta go. But we are expecting to spread it around in the expansion."
About time too. Fear-based encounters have been Alliance-biased long enough.
- Plans to extend Druid Tree Form abilities - decurse and depoison from tree form, lifting some of the restrictions.
- Maybe we'll see crowd control abilities added to Shamans after level 70.
- Changes incoming for silly Priest talents, namely Lightwell (LOLwell) and Circle of Healing. No word on Spirit of Redemption (the Improved Death) yet.
- Working on retribution Paladins, their DPS issues.
DUNGEONS AND RAIDS PANEL
(more detailed coverage here, courtesy of WoWInsider, with some unneccessary whining about high end raid content the author himself hasn't seen yet)
Contained lots stuff on how Blizzard designs dungeon and raid content. Also included some news:
"A: We are doing another 25 man raid dungeon, and there will be 6 bosses, and will have better than Tier 6 gear available in BT, so very nifty stuff. They are also considering another 5 man before Lich King"
- New Heroic Badge items coming already in next content patch with Zul'Aman.
- Working on bringing some more addon-related features to the client - Outfitter/Item Rack, extra space for resist gear sets, threat meter, maybe boss alerts (similar to Deadly Boss Mods).
- New 25-man raid instance, harder than Black Temple and with 6 new bosses, planned before expansion (Sunwell?). Will include better than Tier 6 items.
- New 5-man instance planned already before Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
Also had a fun take on how silly things would be, if players were allowed to design raid dungeons! :)
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