http://home.comcast.net/~moxie_eggs/expansion/bloodelffemaleindigo8am.jpg (http://home.comcast.net/%7Emoxie_eggs/expansion/bloodelffemaleindigo8am.jpg)
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Name is obviously Burning Crusade

New territory: Outland.

New instance: Karazhan, a 5-man instance in Deadwind Pass.

Level cap raised to lvl 70

New profession: Jewelcrafting, gives ability to craft gems, to be used on armor and weapons, similar to enchanting.

Two new races:

Blood Elves for the Horde.
Alliance race still unknown. I personally speculate either Furbolg or Draenai. I hear a lot of Pandarian but I hope not.

Atmospheric effects:

Rain and snow added to the world.

All of the above info came from an Italian Gaming Magazine that released a little too early!

Well, there goes the Horde ;) (not to mention the lore; the Blood Elves were allied with Illidan). We'll be bracing ourselves for the mangina invasion as all the people who could only play a 'pretty' race come rushing over to roll up their oh-so-hot Blood Elf Mages etc...

Maybe this is Blizzard's attempt to balance population numbers on PvE servers, but I wish they'd just let the Alliance have yet another built-for-cyber race. We're still holding out hope for our 2-headed Ogre Warlocks for the win here... :)

Seriously, at least there's a precedent for having Ogres re-join the Horde, and we even have an entirely Ogre-run outpost (Brackenwall Village). Blood Elves are an even poorer fit for the Horde than the Forsaken were. They might as well go ahead and create a third faction and realign the races if they are going to do that...

Also, it seems highly unlikely that the next expansion is going to raise the cap all the way to 70, considering how much they just invested into 60 and PvP content, no to mention that it would completely trivialize the current top end raid zones. I'd have to think that a raise to 70 would occur gradually, and not entirely for a year or so, even given the pace at which people are *capable* of levelling/progressing.

I'm hoping that most of what you posted was FUD, but the Blood Elves look pretty convincing. Color me skeptical at this point...

Regards,
Nydia

They WERE allied with Illidian, but he got his ass kicked and crumbled. They had to fend for themselves.

Maybe this is Blizzard's attempt to balance population numbers on PvE servers

I'm willing to bet thats exactly what they're trying to do, and its a good idea.

Most of what was said is almost surely true. Here's a translated article from an italian gaming magazine about the expansion:

One year since its release on the US market, many World of Warcraft players seek information on the first, inevitable expansion. To answer these questions, the Californian software house is preparing an event for their fans on the 28th and 29th of October -- “Blizzcon”, where Blizzard will reveal the details on World of Warcraft’s future. But the TGM readers already know...

We were kindly invited by Vivendi to visit Blizzard offices, where we had the chance to preview “The Burning Crusade”, the first World of Warcraft expansion that will somehow revolutionize this bestseller game.

First of all, the background: Sargeras, the corrupted Titan that represents the worst evil in the WoW universe, a being that has always intended to destroy all the universe, ever since beginning his work has never encountered any obstacle and has not stopped except for the resistance on Azeroth(that is both the region, the continent, and the planet). His actual plan for now is to ignore this place, and concentrate on the Outland. This is the name given to the remains of the planet Draenor, the original planet of the Orcs, which floats in an endless emptiness and grant access to the Twisting Nether, a sort of parallel dimension that allow access to every plane of existance in the universe. It’s clear that a resource like this, a “node” for invading all worlds ia extremely appealing to Sargeras' demonic forces, and it is here that Azeroth's forces will be called upon, the only ones that have shown the ability to combat the Titan and his followers, Archimonde and Kil’Jaeden.

All the expansion will be centered on the Outland, Medivh and the Dark Portal, to expand on the most important story of World of Warcraft. Beyond Outlands, two new dungeons will be introduced on Azeroth(the planet), strictly tied to characters and events encountered in the expansion. The first will be presented in detail at Blizzcon (it will be possible to play with it) and it will be probably be a 5 character instance – but it’s still being decided – situated in Kharazan, Medivh’s tower, found in Deadwind Pass (between Duskwood and the Swamp of Sorrows). From the descriptions received and the short tour that we have observed we know that it will quickly evolve from the “classic undead instance” to something stranger, where players will encounter the numeous results of Medivh's magical experiments.

Much more unusual will be the Caverns of Time, a raid instance in Tanaris that will allow players to travel in time and participate in the most important events in the history of Azeroth, from the opening of the Dark Portal by Medivh, Thrall's liberation from slavery and the mythologic battle of Mount Hyal (seen in Warcraft III) when the forces of humans, orcs and elves united in battle to defeat Archimonde. All this is possible because the Caverns of Time is the place where bronze dragons, headed by Nordozmu, control the stream of time.

Tecnically the dungeon can be expanded in the future to allow players to visit other important moment of the WoW story.

This news is expected: the surprise comes with the levelcap being raised to 70. (Here is a little editor's comment about the exp lost at lvl 60 for quest done and experience not earned).

Although Hero Classes are not yet announced (in the words of Rob Pardo, Vice President of Game Design “if we make a mistake with Hero Classes we can definitely ruin the game”), Blizzard has not denied that they could be included in the expansion but they have not promised it. Other game like Everquest, with Alternate Advancement muffin, and Daoc with Master Level has shown how this player evolution can be very complicated.

The second great news is that both the factions will have a new race (though no new class). Because one of the reasons Alliance have more player than Horde seems to be tied to an aesthetic reason(Horde races are “ugly”): Orcs, Trolls, Taurens and the Forsaken will be joined by the Blood Elves -- a little smaller than their cousin, they are dedicated to magic in its darker form and dependent on it. The Blood Elves will probably be Mages, Warlocks and Warriors, though it’s not certain if they can be Rogues or Hunters. At the moment they have a racial trait called Mana Tap that slowly drains mana from enemies, this can be applied multiple times, like sunder armor. This will power a second ability called “Arcane Torrent”(but the head of development, Kaplan, continued to call it “Arcane Torment") that works like an area of affect silence spell. This left us a little surprised because it seems a little unbalanced, even against a warrior, but it's too early to speak about it, because the release date next year is still far off and many things will surely be changed.

The characterization of the race is most interesting, with a starting area that is very light and sunny but also frightful with many signs of magic used for frivolous purposes -- deformed plants, palaces floating in the air, and strange crystals containing demons imprisoned to take advantage of their energies. The actual “home” of Blood Elves is what remains of Quel’Thalas, found north of the Eastern Plaguelands, beyond a valley currently sealed by a stack of logs. It will be composed of 3 zones: Eversong Woods with the capital city Silvermoon, Ghostland, and Zul’Aman, a region inhabited by trolls that could host or become a new thematic dungeon like Zul’Farrak and Zul’Gurub.

The new Alliance race has not been announced and will probably be announced a short time after Blizzcon, but we can always make a hypothesis: thinking the “beautiful race” is going to the Horde and looking at all chances, nothing can prevent us from thinking about Pandaren, introduced originally as “april fools” and then incorporated truly in Warcraft III (this can be more than a supposition, but it's better to stop here..).

There's more: there will be a new profession called Jewelcrafting, we don’t know if this will make it possible to forge ring, amulets or trinkets, but for sure it will be possible to craft gems to insert in “sockets” found in armor and weapons, like in Diablo2. Blacksmiths, tailors and leatherworkers can craft items with sockets in them to hold gems made with this profession.

Here Toso(a TGM reviewer) still complains of the inability to craft staves: but it is possible that Jewelcrafting is not the only profession added in the expansion and things can still change before release.

Continuing with the news about Outlands, they will be divided in many regions, from rocky and devasted Hellfire Peninsula to the forests of Zenga Marsh, one of the few zones of Draenor saved from destruction. The most interesting news for the lore freaks out there is that in one of these regions, Shadowmoon Valley, players will find the Black Citadel where Illidan resides, the true “boss" of the zone.

Even though only Arthas is capable of stopping the ex demon hunter(seen in Warcraft III and expansion) players who reach level 70 still have hard trials to face. However, they can count on many new resources, including the long-awaited flying mounts: responding to thousands of player requests, Blizzard has decided that players that reach level 70 can put their hands, at the end of a long and hard quest, on a flying mount that can be used only in Outland, using the “floating islands” found in the region.

There is no news about the engine, although it seems the Blood Elf models will have 20% more polygons compared to “old” race models. The graphics should be redone in the following months with the introduction of atmospheric effects but the rest should remain the same. Blizzard is also experimenting with various tricks (like Specular Environment Mapping) to improve the look in general. They are concentrating more on the content though -- the graphic engine always has time to be changed. Additionally, players can expect to be able to play "cross-server" Battlegrounds, that can be participated in by players from all realms, a thing that theoretically will bring the end of the queue system.

Anticipate more information in the coming month, especially regarding the new Alliance race (we've given our idea).

And a picture of the article:

http://wow.azzor.com/images/wow16pe4xw.jpg

Anyone able to read italian to see if thats the right translation? I've heard lots of things in there from various other sources though, so things seem to be coming together.

I'll try and find the explination of why the blood elves are with the horde, it makes sense...

I'll try and find the explination of why the blood elves are with the horde, it makes sense...I would love to read that, because as far as my Azeroth lore knowlegde goes, I can't start to think of one single reason for blood elves to be accepted by any races.
Not like they aren't the reason of burning legion noticing their world.

Go go DiscW! :)

Allowe me.

http://www.wowguru.com/forums/showthread.php?p=55141

All still speculation of course, but some potentially exciting things to think of.

I'm fairly certain a lot of that "Spy Bot" shit is simply bullshit. They just read the italian magazine and put in a lot of the stuff they heard was gonna be released soon.

For one, there will be NO new classes in the expansion. Blizzard stated that a while back. The Troll / Gnomeregan thing is probably bullshit too, no way they'd move all those quests out of where they were.

Northrend is definately bullshit here, we know the main boss of the expansion is Illidian.

Emerald Dream I expect prior to the expansion, along with Hyjal.

The Caverns of Time thing is made up too. We already know that CoT is going to send players back in time to participate in major shaping events in Warcraft History.

It just spews trash from that point on.

The Blood Elves would not make a lot of sense as a new horde class. If I remember right, in The Frozen Throne they did ally with Illidan yes, at the behest of the Naga queen and Illidan after Kael helped free Illidan. Also remember, there aren't a lot of them at all. The Blood Elves are what remain of the living High Elves from their city that was crushed by Arthas, so they wouldn't want to ally with the Forsaken anyway, and by nature of that, the horde. Though they're basically cut loose at this point because Illidian -is- dead (he gets cut in half by Arthas, and the only reason he had any sort of demonic power in the first place was because he shattered the skull of ner'zul I think it was, earlier in the chronology and it corrupted him. It didn't give him any sort of link that they mentioned). The blood elves use more demonic magic, fire etc., but that doesn't make them evil. As far as I remember in any of the missions where they showed up near the 'Alliance' races, they didn't have any sorts of conflicts with them, and I think they worked with the Humans on occasion as well.

Having not played WoW at all, I can't speak to the state of things, but it seems like they just want to get the bnet kiddies spread out on both sides of the conflict, by adding in a race thats going to be all females and manfemales, and males cyboring the aforementioned. I'd think that would be a bad move, since it would drive away the customers who played Horde simply to get away from the childishness on the Alliance side of things.

Pandarens wouldn't really be a good choice for an Alliance only race either, because in the games they appear in they barely show up. In fact also, the Pandarens were available to any of the races, which would in theory imply that they could swing either way. There's next to nothing about them in the lore, beyond that they're good at fighting drunk, and are exceptional martial artists. (Their ultimate technique in Warcraft 3 lets them transform into 3 different incarnations that are totally badass, heh)

In the lore I read, the Alliance basically sold out the Blood Elves and screwed them over, which they only managed to survive due to the Naga helping them out. Plus, Illidian is all crazy or corrupted or whatever now, so it's not like he's any kind of anchor either way.

I think they could probably sell it easy enough, and it would make lots of sense outside of the lore since the Horde has no "pretty" class.

Hm, I don't really remember that in the game. Must be something they tacked on to try and make it fit. Illidan at the end of frozen throne got sliced in half by Arthas. He had previously destroyed the skull of ner'zul and by doing so took a piece of it's power into himself, which transformed him into a semi-demon. This did not however give him any sort of link to the demons that is mentioned at all, so I doubt they could have pulled him away from the edge of death or anything. Unless thats something they made to make the blood elves fit.

If they want an aesthetically pleasing race for the Horde, put in those succubii that you run into in the demonic realm. -_- They make even less sense than the Blood Elves do, and on top of that, they're even less dressed. :p

On the subject of succubi, probably my favorite enemy in the whole game was that one orcish warlock in Jaedanenar or whatever that demon place in Felwood is.

I mean, if I ever get to be an evil mastermind, I can't think of a better setup than having all my immediate guards and servants be barely-clothed succubi. He even had two of them with him when you fought him. I think in his heart every man aspires to such an arrangement. I hated to kill him, he was all that is pimp.


Also, banishing means never having to listen to them nag.

This is from the lore section of the WoW site. It's not really definitive either way, but they're going to be against the Alliance at this point and Illidan is outcast in demonville. So, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Rise of the Blood Elves

At this time, the undead Scourge had essentially transformed Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas into the toxic Plaguelands. There were only a few pockets of Alliance resistance forces left. One such group, consisting primarily of high elves, was led by the last of the Sunstrider dynasty: Prince Kael'thas. Kael, an accomplished wizard himself, grew wary of the failing Alliance. The high elves grieved for the loss of their homeland and decided to call themselves blood elves in honor of their fallen people. Yet as they worked to keep the Scourge at bay, they suffered greatly at being cut off from the Sunwell that had empowered them. Desperate to find a cure for his people's racial addiction to magic, Kael did the unthinkable: he embraced his people's Highborne ancestry and joined with Illidan and his naga in hopes of finding a new magical power source upon which to feed. The remaining Alliance commanders condemned the blood elves as traitors and cast them out for good.

With no place left to go, Kael and his blood elves followed Lady Vashj to Outland to help contest the warden, Maiev, who had recaptured Illidan. With the combined naga and blood elf forces, they managed to defeat Maiev and free Illidan from her grasp. Based in Outland, Illidan gathered his forces for a second strike against the Lich King and his fortress of Icecrown.


Civil War in the Plaguelands

Ner'zhul, the Lich King, knew that his time was short. Imprisoned within the Frozen Throne, he suspected that Kil'jaeden would send his agents to destroy him. The damage caused by Illidan's spell had ruptured the Frozen Throne; thus, the Lich King was losing his power daily. Desperate to save himself, he called his greatest mortal servant to his side: the death knight Prince Arthas.

Though his powers were drained by the Lich King's weakness, Arthas had been involved in a civil war in Lordaeron. Half of the standing undead forces, led by the banshee Sylvanas Windrunner, staged a coup for control over the undead empire. Arthas, called by the Lich King, was forced to leave the Scourge in the hands of his lieutenant, Kel'Thuzad, as the war escalated throughout the Plaguelands.

Ultimately, Sylvanas and her rebel undead (known as the Forsaken) claimed the ruined capital city of Lordaeron as their own. Constructing their own bastion beneath the wrecked city, the Forsaken vowed to defeat the Scourge and drive Kel'Thuzad and his minions from the land.

Weakened, but determined to save his master, Arthas reached Northrend only to find Illidan's naga and blood elves waiting for him. He and his nerubian allies raced against Illidan's forces to reach the Icecrown Glacier and defend the Frozen Throne.


The Lich King Triumphant

Even weakened as he was, Arthas ultimately outmaneuvered Illidan and reached the Frozen Throne first. Using his runeblade, Frostmourne, Arthas shattered the Lich King's icy prison and thereby released Ner'zhul's enchanted helm and breastplate. Arthas placed the unimaginably powerful helm on his head and became the new Lich King. Ner'zhul and Arthas' spirits fused into a single mighty being, just as Ner'zhul had always planned. Illidan and his troops were forced to flee back to Outland in disgrace, while Arthas became one of the most powerful entities the world had ever known.

Currently Arthas, the new and immortal Lich King, resides in Northrend; he is rumored to be rebuilding the citadel of Icecrown. His trusted lieutenant, Kel'Thuzad, commands the Scourge in the Plaguelands. Sylvanas and her rebel Forsaken hold only the Tirisfal Glades, a small portion of the war-torn kingdom.

a Blizzard endorsed article and Blizzard made screenshots are probably fairly definate :)

Blizzard just is the leakiest damn game company ever though (Valve a close ass second), when have they ever had a feature that wasn't leaked out beforehand?

Sigh.

They just took the Night Elf models and just changed their skin tones and eye color/light emission. Ah well

This from the article in that quote of the french magazine seems ridiculous:
"At the moment they have a racial trait called Mana Tap that slowly drains mana from enemies, this can be applied multiple times, like sunder armor. This will power a second ability called “Arcane Torrent”(but the head of development, Kaplan, continued to call it “Arcane Torment") that works like an area of affect silence spell. This left us a little surprised because it seems a little unbalanced, even against a warrior, but it's too early to speak about it, because the release date next year is still far off and many things will surely be changed."

That being said, I'm 90% convinced the reason most servers have AT LEAST a 3:1 Alliance:Horde ratio is due to the aethetics of the characters. By adding these elves to the horde, they are going to capture a lot more of the female population as well as just about every prepubesent teenage boy that played Warcraft. Expect to see a massive spike in horde populations...yay

I'm about to go to sleep so I haven't read much of these, but just found em. Here ya go.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/richterscale54/WoWExpansion1stpage.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/richterscale54/WoWExpansion2ndpage.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/richterscale54/WoWExpansion3rdpage.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/richterscale54/WoWExpansion4thpage.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/richterscale54/WoWExpansion5thpage.jpg