World of Warcraft EXPANSION!!!
 

The WoW expansion was announced today. Blood Elves are the new playable class for the horde. :) The Alliance race hasn't been released yet. A whole new continent, the Outworld, is gonna be playable through the Dark Portal. Level cap 70!!! More info can be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/

Wow. Watch the trailer. Some of those sights are amazing. I can't wait!!!

-Lasereth

mostly looks good, but im concerned about the whole level cap raise, that will unbalance many things, such as high level raids, but they may tweak them(which would make them impossible for people without expansion).

And Ive been burned before in MMO's that release a new continent, the old one gets abandoned, Blizzard seems to be dealing with this possibility, but we'll see.

Hopefully by the time it comes out I'll actually have some money to buy it.

Man I am so juiced about this. Granted it will create some problems but I mean come on there are problems now, and I doubt that this is coming out anytime soon. Seems like blizzard has a good waiting period before releasing things. Hopefully they balance all the classes before they throw in a whole nother race and 10 more levels. But hey we will just have to wait and see. At least now some of the little kids playing elf/human female chars just cause there hormones are out of control will be able to go and throw the horde side off a bit.

I'm a little stoked about the expansion :) being about to level to 70 and take just 20 people to Molten Core is a nice prospect! At least for me!

Sounds interesting, lets hope WoW does not follow EQ in their expansion methods.

I have been reading a lot about WoW, can't believe how big it is and how good it looks. I must say that i'm tempted to join in. How quickly can you move up the ranks and build up your position in the game?

The level cap increase is going to be really wierd. Are they going to increase the power of equipment? I would think so (i.e. lvl 70 equipment like we have lvl 60 equipment now) but if they do that what of all the preexisting PvP type rewards? So, will they increase the preexisting rep rewards for BGs? What about the pvp (warlord) rewards? Cause if not, then people have wasted a lot of time so to speak in getting what they thought was (nearly) the best equipment. And if they do increase those weapons, then people won't have to work for better equipment.

Personally I hope they don't take EQs philosohpy of a focus on better and better equipment. I'll probably quit if they do that, that's why I quit EQ, the equipment grind never seems to stop.

Ranks or levels? There are PvP rankings which are extremely hard to rank up past rank 6 (up to 14) because only a limited amount of peope are aloud to be at a rank at a time. As far as leveling goes, it takes about 4-5 hours to get to level 10, 18-24 hours to level 20, and so on. Obviously it varies, but lets say it takes about 240-264 hours total to get to 60.

God, I can't wait.

Finally, a Horde race I can stand to look at.

I'm guessing by "flying mounts" they actually mean hovering. I gotta say, being forced to pay for an expansion on a game I'm already paying a subscription for is pretty damn lame. This may very well be the thing that gets me to kick the habit. The new alliance race better be pandaren, OR ELSE!!!! Jewelcrafting? Seriously? Looks really weak.

Seems cool. I'm concerned that the level cap raise would unbalance the whole game though. And I know that if I had been spending 8 hours a day grinding for my endgame set and then Blizzard raised the level cap making a 70 green better than my endgame gear, I'd be pretty pissed. But flying mounts? Cool. And a new profession is definitely nice.

Doesn't matter though, I probably won't be playing. I just can't devote the time to 4 and 5 hour instance runs anymore. Cancelling the account after this paycycle.

I don't see why people think level 70 gear will unbalance the game. I went on dozens of instance runs to get my blue set and now I go to molten core where the loot totally outclasses the blue set. Even before the expansion comes out, new epics and probably blues as well will be introduced making older gear obsolete. It's the way of the mmorpg, I put the gear to good use while I had it so I don't feel ripped off or anything. Also, I believe the new mounts will actually fly because supposedly they're the only way to get from one floating island to another.

So I was hanging out with four of my good friends who I haven't seen in a while last night.. they're all avid WoW players. This morning, when we woke up and were recovering from hangovers, they created a player for me under one guy's account and decided that I need to buy WoW and they'll all start over at Level 1 with me and have a great time.

Please god, let me have the power to say no. I played the beta and didn't enjoy it (but then, I didn't know anyone in the beta). I need to pass my classes!

Well, you can definitely get addicted to it if you let yourself, especially if you tend to get addicted to things. I have a friend who's managed to basically isolate himself because all he does is play WoW all day everyday. I'm trying to wean him off of it, we'll see how that goes. Me on the other hand? I always got too bored to really get addicted. I'd play a good bit for a week, then get bored and hardly play at all for a week, then play again for a week, then not play again... It really just depends on you and how much you like it and if you let yourself get addicted.

Why the hell are people saying 70 greens are gonna be better than 60 epics? That is just absurdity. It's simple math, really. Right now, a level 40 epic is the equivalent of a level 60 green. 20 levels difference between epic and green. In other words, a level 80 green might be as good as level 60 epics, but still probably not as good as tier 2 MC sets. It's just 10 levels guys...damn. Those who have full MC sets are the lucky ones here. Those without those sets will probably be completely owned by the expansion Outland.

-Lasereth

It's all about perspective, some people grind for equipment because they find it fun (to aquire, to get, to use, or whatever), but others only grind for it because they want to be able to compete and have a fair chance at PvP. For the first group the level cap will be a good thing because they will have more game to play, for the second group it will be bad because it's just one more time sink until they can play freely again.

This conflict comes about because the two modes of gameplay are intertwined (PvE and PvP). A real life example would be paintball, some players who have lots of money can afford automatics...with a little skill these players can dominate players who have less accurate and crappy rate of fire guns. If you don't know anything about paintball just think of fighting a war with muskets versus machine guns. For paintball players who just want a fair competitive match, it's bad news when some new expensive toy is invented/put on the market, but good news for those who just like cool equipment and/or can afford it.

Just like in paintball, not everyone in WoW can "afford" (either through time or fun factor) more grinding/raiding more for levels/equipment.

It's not that level 70 greens will be better than level 60 epics. It's that there are so many level 60 dungeons that it'll be impossible to get the stuff you want from them before you move on to higher dungeons. Also there's no reason to spend all that time getting Valor/Lightforge when there'll be better and easier to acquire blues at level 65.

Yeah, that's more what I was getting at. Sure, those tier 2 epics are still gonna rock many 70s, no one has any incentive to get them anymore--they just move on. There are easier 70s to get that will likely be better.

It just seems like this has a huge potential to unbalance the game--that could be a good thing, give it a shakeup, but it could also go pretty horribly awry.