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World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Preview

DanaDana Member Posts: 2,415

Garrett Fuller spoke to Technical Game Designer Wyatt Chang on the floor of E3. During a private demonstration, Chang showed off the Burning Crusade, the new races (pictures included) and let us in on some new information.

image Well as all of you know by now the new Alliance Race is the Draenei. More importantly we were able to learn a lot about both new races and some of the upcoming content to level seventy. Wyatt Cheng from Blizzard, a producer on World of Warcraft, met with Dana and me for a good thirty minute demo. It seems that Blizzard is starting to move the game into a better direction from the stagnant end game we are all playing now. First, let me go through the races and their abilities, classes, and professions. Then I will try to go through what is coming from level sixty to seventy. There were many questions asked, not all were answered, but the ones that were will have the answers here. The Burning Crusade is a highly anticipated expansion and looks to put Blizzard back on track from the level sixty end game.

Let us start with the Blood Elves. We have seen the pictures of the “pretty” Horde race, but what about the stats? The racial traits of the Blood Elves being with: a +15 to Enchanting, +5% resist to all magic, a mana tap ability, and something called Arcane Torrent which allows Blood Elves to AOE silence enemies for two seconds with a two minute cool down. The Arcane Torrent seems to be the most important ability which will frustrate players in PvP. The small boost in mana will be great for casters, but will also boost warrior Rage and rogue Energy. Speaking of classes, the Blood Elves will have: Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Mage, and Warlock. Those are the character statistics; let’s look at the starting area.

You can read the article here.

Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios

Comments

  • ::blank::::blank:: Member Posts: 154

    you said the drainei or whatever was for the horde.. thought id let you know.

    i sure hope the out door pvp comes soon, also the BE are broken. I mean really does any other race have those kind of racial skills? its just bs...

  • drumboydrumboy Member CommonPosts: 2
    Dont know if you may know the answer to this, But seeing as you cant have more then one enchant on an Item at anytime, How will Jewels Affect this.  Will you be able to have the sockets plus get enchants on your weapons and armor or is it either/or?
  • GFullsGFulls Member Posts: 478

    Blank thanks for the tip, we finally got the fix up.

    socketed items are totally separate from enchantments.

    thanks guys!

  • ZderzaqZderzaq Member Posts: 11

    I really hope all those changes will put fresh air into WoW ... ::::09::

  • gnappagnappa Member Posts: 81

    Thanks for the upate my friend.  But sadly it sounds like more of the same for WoW.   They had nothing to say about PvP except "we will see".  That tune hasn't changed since Beta.  Bad news for those of us wanting more World PvP.

  • FaemusFaemus Member Posts: 321

    What did the nether drake look like? Did you see it being flown, or hanging out at a hitchin post?

    -- I need a nerf --

  • GFullsGFulls Member Posts: 478
    saw it flown, looks cool, almost like a shadow dragon. there will be colors and rare mounts as well, but the nether drake is the only one we saw, they didnt say if there were others.
  • wowkrazywowkrazy Member Posts: 59
    Whatever sounds Good 2 me...

    411 W1LL F34R JBUNNY!

  • damian7damian7 Member Posts: 4,449
    doesn't sound like there's going to be much "end game" content for solo or small group players still.  i really thought that games like wow would've learned from eq's mistakes.  but i guess there's enough kids playing that want to be in the 5 bazillion person guild that they'll just keep on ignoring the small group and solo players.

    unfortunately, this doesn't sound like any of the dynamic reactionary environments like what's coming down the pipes for games like eve-online and ryzom.  a changing world dictated by the actions of the players (which would be a good way for some outdoor pvp to get going), is the sort of thing we need to see more in the mmo world.

    since it's a wow expansion, i'm sure it'll look pretty.  as for the multi server pvp.  that might make the queues for bg NOT take an hour+ for a 15 minute fight.  which would be nice, and is just a jacked up work around to a still broken pvp environment.  but oh well, put a spin on it and *poof* it's a bold new feature, not a half-assed fix.




    could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?

  • SpinecrawlerSpinecrawler Member Posts: 1
    Wow...wow...aoe silence racial...wow...that's well that's the most overpowered racial I've ever heard of. Darn and I thought the game would be worth coming back to...
  • wowkrazywowkrazy Member Posts: 59
    Yea it would be there r 2 new races and new weapons and a bigger world then it already is... it would be worth coming back 2 because of burning crusade...peace!

    411 W1LL F34R JBUNNY!

  • GluexXxEaterGluexXxEater Member Posts: 35

    I can't get the thing to play in Wimamp, I jsut get audio no video. Is it beccause it's in .avi format? If so how do I change this?

  • Its sounding cool so far.
    I got level 60 and then unsubscribed but I am considering coming back to WoW to get to level 70 and see what it has to offer, but I do have a few questions:

    1)  How is the flying mount system going to work?
        a) Is there normal and epic flying mounts?
        b) Will they go any faster than normal land mounts?
        c) Do you know if the flying mounts will actually "fly" as in beinging able to easily fly over a mountain?

    2)  All the secret areas in WoW now, will they all be utilized?  Hyjal and other areas that havent really gone live yet, will they all be open in the Burning Crusade?

    3)  Are there going to be level 70+ 20-40 man raiding instances?  Or will they just buff up some of the current dungeons?

    4)  Tier 0 is blue and Tier 1 and 2 are purple, Tier 3 will be purple as well?

    5)  Do you know how many new legendary items (orange items) there will be and/or artifacts (Red items)?

    6)  Will there be any editing to the content that is already there and for level 60 and under?

    Thats it so far, thank you!
        -Nathan

    P.S -Good article!


  • RilixRilix Member Posts: 21
    I'm really curious to know if there are going to be any limits to where you can take your flying mounts. Do you know if its just in the new zones we can use the flying mounts? Or can we fly them in the old zones too? I been really wanting to know how this is gonna work! That would suck if they we're restricted to the new areas only.
  • _Seeker_Seeker Member Posts: 175

    $10 bucks says they will, patch it within 4 weeks of release.

    Overpowered abilities, 2 more races, elves in the horde and daemons in the alliance WTF. Wow they added more content. The game still sux.

  • SendenSenden Member UncommonPosts: 602

    Sorry but how biased can the article get? "It seems that Blizzard is starting to move the game into a better direction from the stagnant end game we are all playing now." So you grind an extra 10 levels and then redo the same boring endgame all over again? What a load of bollocks!!! It will always be stagnant because blizzard believe everybody loves 40 man raids and keeps forcing everyone to do them to compete for gear.

    The article has shown nothing but the same level of ignorance i've came to expect from this new blizzard... horde class having overpowered pvp talents while the alliance race has pve talents which are next to useless... do they even read the forums from alliance people complaining about pvp? Talk about generalising or what expecting every pvper to go horde.

    The pvp news is just more of a load of BS we have also came to expect from blizzard, blah blah blah, we are looking to enhance world pvp blah blah blah.. yeah we frigging heard this in December last year and what new things have we had? Two new 40 man raid instances (like we don't already have enough of them) and a "casual" epic set which is about as casual friendly as the honor system.

    For me, the expansion offers two new races (which does sound cool,) flying mounts which will probably take an amazingly stupid amount of time to grind for as i've also come to expect from blizzard and some more wait for it... wait for it... instances WHOOPDEEDOO... well I for one, won't be getting the expansion as it does anything but breath new life in an already stale game and instead, offers more of the same, just at higher levels. Blizzard really have gone down hill since there days of Starcraft and Warcraft 3 and if they had any decency left in them, they would sack that everquest bumming piece of crap for the lead designer... I mean if it wasn't for that instance jerkoff, we would probably have a game where proper warcraft fans could have enjoyed with would have bought out the WAR in Warcraft.. o well, time to wait for warhammer onilne where we can hopefully play the game everyone expected WoW to be.

  • ShoalShoal Member Posts: 1,156

    This was a great Preview!   Lots of good info and details.  Actually answered  a question I have had for a while (Classes For Blood Elves).

    Well Done!

  • dagonwebdagonweb Member Posts: 17

    There is going to be a torrent of online games. A lot of WoW players are close to collapsing wihn exhaustion and a WoW burnout is just around the corner. When better graphic / better gameplay / bigger MMO's come online, my estimate is late 2006 early 2007, WoW may very well see a huge drop-off of subscribers.

    Nonetheless there will be WoW for years to come. I can see like 5-10 servers in the various regions in 2015, which is way in the future. However by then there will be a hell more content than now, most bugs ironed out and a game with a brand familiarity and sentimental fan base big enough to make people swoon. We may see a WoW2, with higher resolution, better gameplay, a bigger world and many original features as soon as, what, 2010?

    I am enamored with aspects not usually covered in the game. I'd love to see some development. What if someone big offers 10 million $ to hire a virtual area in the entrance square of, say, the Undercity? Imagine those big doors opening up and beyond is an online store that sells fantasy stuff, WoW memorabilia, clothes? How much would such a virtual environment worth? How much profit would it generate?

    Even if there wont be a virtual store in the UC I am bloody curious to learn what is beyond those doors.

    That brings me to a new speculation. What if Blizzard created a standard format for new content approval? An editor anyone can use? That would allow people outside the company creating instances, parts of a city or even land areas. If blizzard sets up a screening process, a testing phase, players could generate new content, be reimbursed in a decent manner, and contribute to the growth of the game a whole lot faster than it does now.

    Right now Blizzard adds an instance once a month or less and a major upgrade less a year. If they keep that up that'll be 5 continents and maybe 50 instances over the effective (revenue generating) lifetime of WoW. But what if you could create an infrastructure, linked to a good forum-based testing system, for creating such new content? I bet WoW could see as much as 25 new continents and hundreds of original instances before 2010. That is a whole lot steeper playing field for the competition and would make WoW damn more addictive to the regulars.

    This could be expanded laterally. Create a ratings system for magic items; Players could be allowed to design items, create the 3D graphics and create the bonuses and qualities. A +25 str bonus would have a distinct, discrete value; Right now as a Rogue I will have to muddle through the aquisition of Shadowcraft... but what if I could opt for maybe 10 player created variants, each with their own unique features?

    The same could be done with spells or even character classes or eventually with abilities. Allow programmers to tangle with those aspects and who knows what'll come up. The end quality control would rest with Blizzard, so no worries about sillyness creeping into the game.

    I design stuff in Second Life. I can create a texture, add a few primitives and before you know it you have a nice looking T shirt. It's great fun to see people walk around with stuff you created months ago. It gives you a way to contribute which feels extremely rewarding. I bet Blizzard could create such a system, with solid checks and balances, that would allow the game to grow a lot faster, with good looking, theme-compatible content.

    What would my first ideas be?

    A new class: probably named "soldier", a variant of the warrior. He doesn't focus as much on agro but more on DPS. Plus he gets choice of a load of "pets" which we call henchmen. I could envision a high level Soldier adventuring with an entourage of 2 NPC crossbowmen, a pikeman, a sapper and a team of ballistamen. 6 man? could be done. Each would inflict way less damage than regular 60, but if positioned just right they'd be a bloody effective and fun choice for class.

    Instances? Loads. Undersea instances with air pockets. Cave instances with nothing but suspension bridges. An instance in a world tree. Instances on floating islands. An instance composed of two gigantic levitating battle ships. An instance game composed off steering a huge pirate ship up to another vessel, ramming it and then boarding it. The same with 5+ ships like a BG between factions.

    Factions? Neutral ofcourse, led by goblins, with ogers and succubi/incubi as player race. They could be designated as enemy by either side (betrayal !)  on the spur of a moment, but could join with either side in instances.

    Loads more ideas: email me dagonweb(at)hotmail(dot)com for job offers !

  • ste3vunste3vun Member UncommonPosts: 24
    yep really beautifull 

    image

  • Fenrir767Fenrir767 Member Posts: 595
    I was hoping for something to make me come back to pvp heck being a Blood Elf sounds fun because of the overpowered abilities but other than that pfft. Its more raids more 5 man instances with lvl 70 items and stuff. Sure I may get it but until a small guild can get some good gear. I don't care if it takes twice as long for us to get good stuff or at least make good pvp gear accesible by not doing 40 man raids and a long ass grind. I'm sure most players would like pvp to be skill based rather than gear based. Anyhow with that said I ay come back to wow when the expansion hits but other than that warhammer online has my attention.

  • Synyster777Synyster777 Member Posts: 301
    those classes are extremely unbalanced, it's really obvious that blizzard does not give a crap about the game and the people playing because as much as it sucks they have more then enough kids to keep the game going for a long time

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