Here’s your rumors.
To begin with, Jeff Green’s post confirming the two new races in the expansion has been deleted. For reference I’ll mirror it here:
Yay! I can almost start talking about it. Yeah, sorry, that was a bit of a tease, wasn’t it? Well, the issue is due out in about two weeks. Blizzard would probably rip me a new one, and, even worse, disable my WoW account, if I started leaking information here. The only other person who knows anything is my daughter, who also plays WoW and can’t keep a secret. So, if you can figure out which of the millions of players she is online and hit her up, I’m sure she’s spill. :)
I got to see pretty much everything—except for whatever the new race for the Alliance will be. That one they’re either keeping a secret or, more quite possibly, haven’t figured out themselves yet. But everything else I know. And while, like I said, I can’t spill details yet, I can tell you it is *huge*–tons of new content for all levels. It definitely got me motivated to get Eggbert, my gnome warlock, up to 60 ASAP. So I have many nights of serious “work” ahead of me. Yay!
So, as soon as Blizzard gives me the okay, I will replace my desktop picture with our December cover, which pictures an awesome painting from one of the Blizzard artist’s of the new Horde race. I hate being a tease (well, okay, it’s a little fun), but I just can’t tell ya yet. But soon!
Here is, instead, the translation of the *official* explanation about the “leaked” cover of the magazine announcing the level cap to 70:
“During Monday, 17 October we have closed various topics about World of Warcraft. The cover of the upcoming “The Games Machine” in the preview section of this site was also modified. This happened to comply our agreement with Blizzard Entertainment. The omission isn’t representing the desire to censor or disinform, but just the respect of the set date to disclose informations. What happened won’t compromise the content of the next issue of “The Game Machine” that will be regularly out next week.”
Therefore we ask “The Game Machine” readers and the community of this forum to patently wait a few more days.
Thanks.”
Which basically means (my english is broken but my italian is not) that the cover of the magazine with the title of the expansion (The Burning Crusade) and the catchphrase hinting the cap to 70 were, indeed, reliable.
Again on the forum of the magazine some readers are claiming to own a copy of the preview and wrote down some of the features (and here we have an high probability of fake, but, still, they could make sense):
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New region:
Outlands
New Instances:
Kharazan – Inside Medivh’s tower in the Deadwing Pass zone (5-man instance evolving into raid)
Caverns of Time in Tanaris (unusual place where the players will be able to move back and forth in time to reenact the main events of the history of Warcraft)
Level cap raised to lvl 70 – There will be repetable quests to gain access to a flying epic mount usable only in the Outlands.
New profession: Jewelcrafting, it will be possible to create gems to apply to weapons and armors and add effects. Other professions will be able to craft objects with embedded slots for these gems.
New races:
Horde – Blood Elves with a new starting zone north of Eastern Plaguelands and a new dungeon.
Alliance – Undisclosed
Battlegrounds shared between servers.
Atmospherical effects.
Release: Not before May 2006.
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The new region isn’t Northrend but the Outlands, with the remains of the planet Dreanor, the world of the first orcs. The remains of this planet float in the air, this is why it will be formed like separated “isles”.
Same for Tanaris. There will be a brand new instance working like a temporal breach that will allow the players to time travel (hence the name: Caverns of Time) and reenact past events. The war at mount Hyal is one.
The level 70 is real, but no hero classes.
The new race for the horde is the blood elf. The racial traits will be a “Mana Tap” to slowly leech the mana of the target (it will be applicable more than once like the Sunder Armor) and that will then directly load the second trait: “Arcane Torment (or Torrent)” which will work like an area silence. The starting zone will probably be near Quel’thalas.
The Alliance race is still not available but it seems it will be Pandarens.
The new profession will be Jewelcrafting that works in a similar way to how the gems worked in Diablo 2.
And btw, the main boss will be Illidian.
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Finally, yet another creation screen appeared on the internet (LOL!).
Some of what is written here is true. Some isn’t. It’s like a game. Enjoy.
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As anticipated in the other article, here more juicy details:
Excerpt:
Now, instead, what will be a surprise: the maximum level for the characters will be upped to 70. As he heard about this, ToSo (an editor) started immediately to weep that he wanted back the all exp he wasted doing quests when already 60 (“and of course! I’m not going to clean cat ass forever!” -ToSo), so if you had the same reaction you are going to take it in the booty. Although the Hero classes haven’t been announced (Rob Pardo, Vice President of Game Design, said: “if we screw the hero classes we risk to fuck up the whole game”) Blizzard didn’t deny they’ll be in the expansion but also didn’t promise it. So we cannot really say much more.
– The new Alliance race WON’T be revealed at BlizzCon and there are more than just rumors confirming it will be the Pandarens.
– Kharazan should be playable at BlizzCon but it’s still undefined how it will be shaped out (could probably start as a 5-man with a second part for a raid of 20 or 40 players).
– The Blood Elves will be Mages, Warlocks and Warriors but it’s undecided if either hunters or rogues.
– Their starting zone will be Quel’Thalas (what is left of it), north of the Eastern Plaguelands and with a three-zones valley inbetween (Eversong Woods with the capital Silvermoon, Ghostland and a troll themed zone called Zul’Aman).
– About the live content, the opening of Silithus will be introduced by a live event that will require the collaboration of everyone and that will only happen once for each server. Behind the gates there will be a open zone tailored for 20 players (defined by Blizzard “casual hardcore”) with a temple at the center with an instance that will be the biggest to date (two-three times Molten Core). The players will also get access to special mounts (insects) that will be only usable in the dungeon.
– The Outlands will be divided into differently themed regions (like the rock valleys of the Hellfire Peninsula and the luxuriant forests of Zanga Marsh, part of what is left of Dreanor). While within Shadowmoon Valley there will be the Black Temple with the Illidian guy.
– The flying mount will be for level 70 players and after an epic quest chain. But only usable in the Outlands (floating isles).
– No new engine changes or features. The Blood Elves models seem to use 20% more polygons. Blizzard is also sperimenting with Specular Environmental Mapping.
– The atmospherical effects should arrive soon(TM) as a live patch.
– Also, by the time the expansion is out, the BGs should be finally linked between the servers to kill the queues.
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Hopefully last edit ever:
I refused to make public my translation of the expansion preview, this is why I gathered only this sort of feature list. But if you want to read a more fluent translation of the article you can look here. Besides a few minor imprecisations and omissions it’s a decent translation of the whole thing (I could read only 80% of it, myself, so there are parts missing here).
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Last update as explained here (I also slightly edited some details above to avoid contradictions):
– The whole expansion will be centered around the Outlands, Medivh and the Dark Portal to make the main storyline progress.
– Background: Sargeras, the Titan representing the “evil” in the game, still wants to destroy the universe. His last plan is to ignore Azeroth, where he ecountered an unexpected resistence, to focus on the Outland. The realm with the remains of the planet of Dreanor, homeland of the orcs. What is left of this place grants access to the Twisting Nether, a portal that can be used to access every other plane of the existence. Here is where the battle between the forces of Azeroth and the demonic forces of Sargeras and his two lieutenants, Archimonde and Kil’Jaeden, will take place.
– The orcs were brought on Azeroth by Medivh through the Dark Portal. Still through the same portal the humans invaded Dreanor and damaged the portal, producing devastations on both sides. Destroying Dreanor from one and creating the Blasted Lands from the other.
– Through the Caverns of Time (located in Tanaris) the players will be able to see the zone surrounding the portal before the disaster and, in particular reenact the invasion of the orcs through the portal. The Caverns of Time are the place where the bronze dragons lead by Nordozmu “supervise” the flow of time.
– The Caverns of Time will allow the players to reenact three events. The invasion of the orcs as written above, the release of Thrall from enslavement and the battle of Mount Hyal, where the humans, orc and elves defeated Arthas and his army.
– The Deadwind Pass zone should get a restyle with the new year to be ready for the release of the expansion and the Kharazan instance.
– At least these two big instances are confirmed. Kharazan and the Caverns of Time.