New Alliance Race Announced for WoW, plus extra BC Info
Taken from IGN, and it also includes all other WoW E3 Announcments.
May 10, 2006 - For those of you who've been vacationing on the far side of the moon for the past year or so, Blizzard has had a World of Warcraft expansion pack in the works for some time now. We unveiled the Blood Elf race on the Horde side back in October, but Blizzard has been mum on the Alliance's addition, up until now. Rumors persisted regarding pandas, murlocs, and demons, but they managed to keep a tight lid on the Draenei. Now, before you go jump off a cliff, these are not the Lost One variety you see shuffling around the Blasted Lands; they are in fact completely different in appearance and demeanor. In fact, so noble are the Draenei (rhymes with "man eye," or at least Jeffrey Kaplan, the lead designer, AKA Tigole, pronounces it that way) that they can be Paladins; in their quest to find a good home, they encountered Naaru, who blessed the Draenei with holy power.
These Draenei, according to the lore, were driven from their home of Argus to Draenor and lived uncomfortably among the orcs their before that planet was blown to bits and became the Outland, featured in the expansion. From the Outland, they fled to Azeroth and their ship crash landed on a small island called Azuremist. Details of how they came to Azeroth are revealed during their level 1-10 quest phase, and their allegiance to the Alliance is revealed from levels 1-20. Other items of note: They have their own capital city, named, Exedar, as do the Blood Elves. Although the male Dreanei resemble Taurens in size and physiology, the females are far more humanoid and feminine.
Speaking of Blood Elves, Kaplan was our guide through Silvermoon, their capital city in the section of Azeroth northeast of the Plaguelands. It's split in half by Arthas' path of destruction en route to the Sunwell (covered in Warcraft III). The eastern section is populated while the western section is for questing. From there, we headed south (with Kaplan darting about with administrator commands -- if you happened to be playing the game at the booth downstairs, around 5:00 PM, and noticed that night suddenly to day, well, he has the powah!). Here he mentioned Deathholme, a Scourge stronghold, and Tranquillian, a Blood Elf town. Then we ported to Zul'Aman, a forest troll raid dungeon for level 70 characters (the expansion pack increases the cap by 10). Since the Blood Elves are cut off from the rest of civilization, the Undercity (headed by a former Blood Elf) created a two-way permanent portal to Silvermoon, allowing quick access to the rest of the world.
But the Outland was what he was perhaps the most excited about, the land beyond the Dark Portal where players level 54 and above can try their hand at the new lands, beasts, loot, and flying mounts. Kaplan tells us that the Outlands are bigger than the Eastern Plaguelands -- as will be all new zones in the expansion pack (minus the miniature starting areas for level 1-5 players). The flying mount will be at least as fast as the current airborne transportation, with the only thing holding it back from higher speeds being client/server performance. He wouldn't put a price tag on this epic beast, but he said that its cost would be defrayed to a certain extent by the value of level 60-70 items, and he said there would be a little questing involved anyway.
The Outland also contains Hellfire Citadel, a multi-winged dungeon like Scarlet Monastery and populated by corrupted Orcs. Wing 1 will be 57-59; Wing 2 is 60-62; Wing 3 is level 7; all of these 3 are 5-man instances. The fourth, however, will be an Onyxia-length raid ending with a nice little tea party hosted by Magtheridon, a mean SOB you may remember from WC3. Nearby, the Horde has Thrallmar and the Alliance has Honor Hold. Hellfire will be the first major dungeon visitors to the Outlands will encounter.
Kaplan gave us a peek inside a part of one wing populated by grunts and officers. You have to kill the officer to prevent him from calling for a constant stream of reinforcements. Kaplan then worked his admin magic and gave us a close-up look at Grand Warlock Nethkurse, another corrupted orc and the boss of this wing at level 71. The zones in the expansion aren't all jagged and war-torn, however. Kaplan gave us glimpses of Nagrand and Terakkar, which were rolling hills and apparently tropical, respectively.
From there, we segued to jewelcrafting, the new skill for the expansion. It both allows a player to craft rings and necklaces but also cut gems recovered from mineral nodes (copper, iron, mithril, et cetera). The results are gems that add stats to a slottable item, and they can also be pretty powerful. Five points to defense, eight to agility, 1% increased chance to hit -- that sort of thing. Kaplan says that this skill will stay distinct from enchanting, however, and that one craft would have perks that another could not provide, like the riding glove enchant. The example weapon, with three slots, was en epic 1-handed mace called The Hammer of the Sun. 74.5 DPS, 2.0 second swing, 80 additional armor, and four points each to strength, agility, and stamina. And ten points each to fire and shadow resistance. And +1% chance to crit. The stat bonuses might not seem impressive for an epic, but keep in mind that they can be boosted impressively with gems. And that DPS ain't too shabby either. The most powerful weapon currently in the game does 80.0 DPS, is Legendary level, and is two-handed. Gems can be removed if you find something better, but that will destroy them. There are also gems that grant a bonus if you add others of different colors, and yet other gems that add bonuses when you slot ones of the same color.
Kaplan mentioned that even he had a mule, which brought us to the 20-slot bag I noticed in his inventory. He said that would be available in the expansion, but the much-requested keyring would be available in the upcoming 1.11 patch. In practice, this ring is a 16-slot space that does not take up a bag slot but appears as soon as you get your first key. I think that's pretty nifty. Also coming up in the patch is something tentatively called "Leadership UI," a raid and Battlegrounds feature available to the leader. Right-click on any mob and a drop-down menu will pop up. Here, the leader selects icons that will appear above the mobs' heads and be visible to all group members. This way, you can prioritize targets without having to type or say anything, and it's better than other communication because (1) people sometimes forget the plan and (2) things can get hectic really fast. There's also a "raid warning" channel. When you chat in this channel, the text will show up in a bold white font in the middle of the screen for all people in the group. In a BG, this is great for coordinating rapidly to respond to things like flag capturing, base protection, and other things. Lastly, the leader can initiate a "ready check" from the raid group window. When this is triggered, all players in the group will have a prompt pop up that will ask them if they're ready to go.
Last but not least, the Tier 3 dungeon sets will have a ninth item -- rings. These do not count towards set item bonuses, so you can actually swap out one piece of gear without losing your 8-piece bonus. And their will be an epic set for each class with frost resistance, designed to combat Sapphiron, a frost wyrm boss in Naxxramas, the upcoming, gigantic dungeon coming soon to an Eastern Plaguelands near you. Those of you who've seen the 1.11 trailer will have noticed ziggyrats floating all over Azeroth -- these are part of that whole deal, and they will be defended on the ground by Scourge that nearby players can fight.
As far as release dates, Burning Crusade is still slated for "late this year" and 1.11 is planned for June, with a Public Test Realm release at the end of this month. So stay tuned as we get our grubby little hands on that.
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