After a long day of work at E3 when 4:00 rolls around you're generally ready to head off. Wednesday for OGaming was different – we had an appointment to see World of Warcraft's next expansion and patch. Judging by the surreal number of people crowding around Blizzard's E3 outpost in the West Hall we have to say it's likely the most popular software booth in the entire show, second only to the giants at Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony.
Once we got situated in a private screening room we met up with Lee Sparks, a Producer at Blizzard tasked on the upcoming World of WarCraft Burning Crusade expansion. Our tour started with the biggest news that has come out of E3 – the new race. The Draenei were the long-rumored Alliance race for The Burning Crusade, but it was only just confirmed today. The first thing longtime players of WoW will notice is the completely new and much more human-like Draenei models. Gone are the models currently in the game, replaced by models that look similar to Night Elves in many ways. Their new home area is Azuremyst Isles, just south of Teldrassil, complete with a new, semi-futuristic forest theme, which revolves around the Draenei trying to escape Draenor and crash landing on this island. Next we saw a few features everyone had already seen from Blizzcon, including the Blood Elves, their starting areas and playing area (with newly created maps), and a quick look through the lands.
One of the more intriguing areas we saw was the Hellfire Peninsula, the first area after crossing the Dark Portal. This zone is for players of about level 55-62, basically to get used to the new feel of the expansion. The zone is very red, similar to Badlands, but also has huge chunks of earth floating above. Level 56 monsters roam at the entrance of the zone, and increase further in – past both Horde and Alliance bases. While running through Hellfire Peninsula we had the opportunity to see the new flying epic mount. This mount requires level 70, will be faster than the Epic Mount, and will allow the player to reach areas that normally would be inaccessible on foot. Flight works similar to swimming, and one very cool feature is if you run off a cliff while on the ground, you'll automatically take flight. Another new feature with the expansion will be socketed items. If you've played Diablo 2 these items are very similar. Each "gem" can be socketed into an item, which has free sockets – the weapon we saw had 3 different slots. Each gem adds a small bonus. In addition to the small bonus, you'll be able to create a set – gems will be different colors. One example we saw was if the player had 4 blue gems socketed into items equipped on the player, they would receive +12 strength.
Finally, we saw some of the instances in the expansion. First we saw the very first instance players will encounter in the expansion, Hellfire Citadel. Inside is scattered with hordes of fel orcs, enemies of both Alliance and Human races. This instance will feature 4 different wings, 3 of which are 5 men wings, and one raid wing. Each wing will be quite long, and will save a parties process. The dungeon ranges from level 60-70. The final instance we saw was the Cavern of Time. This instance, designed for level 60-70, allows players to travel back to important times in Warcraft history and relive them. One example we saw was the final fight from Warcraft 3, Mount Hyjal. This instance will allow players to take part in the fight – and is extremely visually impressive, with huge cliffs and epic paths. This zone is being aimed at level 60-70.
Our time at Blizzard sated our appetite for more information, and while many of our questions where met with a swift "This has not been decided upon yet", it's obvious the expansion is making fantastic progress. Stay tuned on the new Zam Network for the latest news and information surrounding World of Warcraft and the Burning Crusade expansion!
-Ryan "Draknorr" Bohmann