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World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Confirmed
The official site for the first World of Warcraft expansion: The Burning Crusade has been launched as BlizzCon kicks off. There you'll find screens, movies, and information about the upcoming expansion to one of the most popular MMOGs on the market. The site confirms several of the rumours currently on the internet about the game, including the fact that the Horde will be gaining the Blood Elves as a playable race. The new Alliance race is still up in the air. From the FAQ: "Q: What does the title of the World of Warcraft expansion refer to?
A: "The Burning Crusade" refers to the Burning Legion's ongoing efforts to destroy life on Azeroth. To date, the Burning Legion's exploits have been documented in Warcraft III and in our War of the Ancients novel trilogy. As part of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, players will now be able to travel through the Dark Portal to confront the Legion on otherworldly battlefields." ScuttleMonkey is on the ground at Blizzcon, and should have some firsthand info for us this weekend about the happenings in California. Update: 10/28 20:44 GMT by Z : IGN has a rundown on the features and screens. Good stuff.
Q: Do you need to own the expansion to play with friends who have it?
A: There will be many aspects of the expansion that are available to all players. However, in order to experience certain content, such as the Outlands, or be able to play as one of the new races, players will have to purchase the expansion.
RTFA?
...that all the experience you could have gotten after hitting 60 (especially doing high end quests and whatnot) might be able to put you at level 62 or 63 at this point (depending on how long you've been 60) instead of being wasted. It would be really cool though, if Blizzard had kept track of all the XP players got beyond 60 and awarded it. I doubt that will happen though.
Notice the date on this sketch of a female blood elf. Yeah, I know it could have been part of some back story for the original game but it makes me wonder if things were removed from the original game to provide content for an expansion pack.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
Possible candidates are:
- Draenei. The little misshapen "Lost Ones" you can find in Swamp of Sorrows, displaced from their homeworld of Draenor when it blew up into Outland. Oops. They hate orcs with a passion, making them contenders for a new alliance race.
- Pandaren. These big bears are actualy creatures in the Warcraft universe, although Pandaren Express may not exist
- Furbolgs. This is dubious as the only un-corrupted race of furbolgs, the Timbermaw, are wary of outsiders
- High elves. This is unlikely as there are few left, as most were killed or joined the Blood Elves. However, they have allied with the alliance before, but two types of elves in one faction would be a bit much.
- Naga. The amphibious former elves are loyal to their sea-witch queen, but that's not to say that they they won't defect from her tyranny. Unlikely to happen, but possible.
- Murlocs. Nnngrrgrlgrlgrrrllgh! (Translation: rather unintelligent amphibious pests, they swoon for Azshara and worship her, similar to the naga, but aren't likely to ally with anyone, much less learn to speak common).
- Keepers of the Grove/Dryads: offspring of Cenarion and the elves, they're pretty much night elves with a deer's body. Unlikely as they care more about nature than alliances with the mortal races.
- Ghosts. Killed in battle but unable to move to the next world, the tortured souls may seek to aid their allies of old. Highly unlikely.
We'll find out soon, but I'd wager it'd be one of those races.
The reason for the complaint is valid, and it has to do with their existing itemization system.
Currently, the best items in the game are required level 60 epic items. By being epic quality over superior quality, the amount of stats available on the item is increased by a certain amount. Up until 60, the "item level" is usually 5 levels above the "required level" to equip the item. After 60, however, you see item levels as high as 83 on drops from Nefarian, currently the hardest boss in the game. So logically, if you're level 70, Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, currently the hardest dungeons, will actually be extremely easy. Additionally, the rewards from this dungeon will be item level 76-83 epics. Your average blue drop from a level 70 5 man dungeon will be an item level 75 superior item. This means an easier, lower level dungeon, will have vastly more powerful rewards. This is why people like myself were confident that the level cap wouldn't be raised, and are disappointed it was.
Before WoW came out, Blizzard said they wanted to move away from the level grind treadmill. They wanted getting to level 60 to be the start of the game, not the end. Raising the level cap goes against this. It reintroduces the treadmill people thought they were done with. Additionally, it completely breaks the current balance of the talent point system (Presence of mind + Arcane power + Pyroblast anyone? Not to mention Deathwish + Mortal Strike + Flurry. Or for you shaman haters out there, nature's swiftness, improved windfury, clearcasting, and fully buffed shocks).
Let's not forget the thousands of level 60 characters who have killed million of mobs and done a hundred or so quests (with XP rewards as high as 10k) without getting even a nudge on their XP bar.
I'm not saying it won't work out, because if anyone can make it work it's probably Blizzard. It's just from where I'm standing now, raising the level cap goes against what they've implied in the past and looks like a mistake.
IGN preview
..they haven't started fixing the class they revamped two weeks before launch yet. The 'scripted world event' in 1.9 sounds cool though.
Pretty interesting stuff, yey for linked AH's. No mention of the paladin revamp in 1.9, sounds like
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I'm a bit disapointed, with all this info I see nothing that makes me happy as a pvp player. I'd like to hear about a FFA pvp server type, but I don't think we are getting it.
They add new content and patches to WoW all the time. They recently added new instances, a PvP arena system and competitive ranking system for PvP, for example.
After Bruce Schneier's revelations regarding Blizzard's new "the innocent have nothing to fear from our spyware" policies, I've completely hopped off the World of Warcraft bandwagon. I realize that Blizzard is just trying to help legitimate players avoid the hassles of dealing with cheats and farmers, but I'd rather worry about the cheats in a virtual world than worry that some company is scanning my computer for things it doesn't want me running. Blizzard can take their Burning Legion and cram it up their bums.