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World of Warcraft Expansion News
I was waiting for more news on it before posting, so I imagine some of you are already aware of the screenshots and news of the first World of Warcraft expansion out there in the wild. Voodoo Extreme has the highlights, and Joystiq is carrying some beautiful screenshots. So far the three features that have my eyebrows raised are: Blood Elves as a new playable Horde race, a high level Flying Mount for the Outlands, and (most exciting) cross-server Battlegrounds. This last would be a huge boon for the currently questionable organized PvP play, and I really hope they swing it.
The "expansion notes" circulating the internets are just too unrealistic for any single expansion. Anyone with half a brain can see that.
It's just a fans wet dream made true by others believing in it.
The screenshots showing actual 3D models I can believe, there may be Spellbreakers there (the guys with 2-pronged swords really are Blood Elf Spellbreakers, just do a google image search on it - they were in WC3:TFT)
Adding new races is somewhat plausible, as they don't mix up the delicate class balance too much. New instances are highly plausible also.
The Outland is one of the new areas being added with the expansion. If you did some crafty exploring on the test server when they were up for the 1.8 test, some/all of the area was added. There are no monsters yet in these areas, but they are there. A few of my guild members took screenshots of the area, and it looks pretty cool. When he took a screenshot of where he was on the world map, he was south east of the western continent. And this was back on October 8th or so.
Its not what it is, its something else.
At least I can understand why the Blood Elves go to the Horde. The Horde is a collection of outcasts, and as such, that is where the Blood Elves would go.
Another elf race? Do we not have enough rogues as it is!
Glad I'm not playing WoW if those are considered "beautiful screenshots".
--Stupid Sig Here--
City of Villains is coming out soon, too. The original CoH saw a significant player loss when WoW came out, and I dare say they were banking on CoV to try to win some customers back. But given the choice of $50 for CoV or $30 for a WoW expansion, I know which I'd pick. Heck, even if they were released at the same price, I'd go with the WoW expansion.
-EvilMagnus
Giving horde pretty elves would totally destroy the balance in the game. As it is horde are overpowered as compared to aliance in no small part due to Shamen. The only thing the Aliance has going for it is that horde characters and lands are ugly and many people just don't like that. Give them nice pretty elves and all that changes. Unless they give us shamen, we in the aliance are screwed.
I think to properly balance, if they get Elves, we should get Tauren. Tauren are one of the most powerful races and from their back story they don't really belong with the horde. Since there are Tauren shamen, it stands to reason that the Aliance shoult get Tauren and with them, shamen. And on that day, I will create one and start power-leveling.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
For one, it's "shaman".
And for another, if you are on the right server, the horde are so outnumbered that they can barely move without getting slaughtered. While you're at it, Pally's aren't overpowered? They're damn near invincible one-on-one, and they don't do two bad when slightly outnumbered either.
It all depends on the player.
# The name is Burning Crusade. True
# Takes place in the Outlands. True
# Level cap raised to Level 70. False and if they do I quit wow right now
# 2 new races, Blood Elf (Horde) and TBA (Alliance). True
# No new classes. True
# New profession, Jewelcrafting, which will allow for slotting and modding items ala Diablo 2. - why not... true
# New BE starter area and zones north of the Eastern Plaguelands, Silvermoon (their Capital City), Ghostland, and Zul'Aman. - True
# Epic FLYING FREAKING MOUNT useable only in Outlands. - false
# Small upgrades to the graphics engine (BE will have 20% more polygons than original races for example). - true, kinda... the graphics engine won't be upraded, just used more extensively with these chars
# Weather effects added. - true
# Exploring how to add in cross server Battlegrounds. - true (dire need for this)
flying mounts are just stupid.
I cringe a bit seeing this modded 0, troll. Too bad my modpoints just expired.
I realize the link no longer makes any mention of a new class and a level 70 vs level 75 level increase. But, this morning, before this story was posted to slashdot, this exact link did claim the level cap would be raised to 75 and that there would be a new class (and at that time, there was no mention of a new profession). It has been changed since this morning, which should give you an idea of how much stock to put in this sort of information.
The parents' points are insightful and correct especially with regard to raising the level cap. I think this is very unlikely, and all the blue posts on the topic on the WoW forums corroborate - everything in the game is balanced around 51 talent points in a very, very intricate way, and you CANNOT raise the level cap beyond 60 without rebalancing every class at once. Given how slow they have been working on their current class revamps, it is insane to think they would do that.
Penny-Arcade was right about their new consultants!
I mean, really... raising the cap to 75? That's just asking the Warcrack powergamer addicts to redouble their efforts.
I've heard some sites mention that spellbreaker would be added as a new class, and am surprised more people aren't discussing the ramifications of that. I'm one to believe that spellbreaker might be included, just because it seems apparent blood elves are a new race and it would fit with warcraft lore. Not that you can play a sentinel either, but hey I'm just saying it's possible. =)
In general a melee class that's immune to and can redirect magical effects for their own benefit is a nice new monkeywrench to all casters. Being a mage i can't wait to play an anti-mage melee guy =) That's actually far more disruptive than creating a new race which can implement all the same classes. who cares?
I certainly hope the expansion just lets you go to outland and some of the locked sections. wowwiki has a list of unfinished areas on the current continents, and it would be a shame if we had to pay to go through a gate. Karazan's castle, for example, better be part of a patch, because a lot of us have been waiting for another undead instance to play through, and it's in the middle of the eastern kingdoms. I could imagine trying to gate and it would say "you didn't pay us $50, go away."
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!