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Preview of: World of WarCraft: The Burning Crusade | By: Kristian Heggland |
05 Oct-2006 |
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World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade as presented at Frogner Kino in Oslo, Norway. |
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September 11th 2006, Oslo, Norway
I'm lucky enough to find myself outside Frogner Kino. Inside, staff from both Blizzard and Vivendi are working to make the the cinema look WoW'ish. It is the day of the first press conference that has ever been held in Norway by Blizzard, and they did not disappoint for their first visit.
Fran Pearce, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is given the floor after a few minutes of information about the NDA agreement and picture taking and so forth. Mr. Pearce looks a bit tired, but says that it's due to the long hours on the plane and that, according to his clock, it is around 5:30 in the morning.
As we get on with the presentation, you get a grasp of how huge this expansion will be. I don’t know how the non playing World of Warcraft people experienced it, but me as a player since the European release can really see the progress that has been made.
A lot of hardcore players has gotten a hold of the alpha version where you just run around and look at the different places, with no mobs, But I can assure you that those who played that version have not seen even half of what’s coming.
The focus of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, is definitely instances. With so many winged instances like Dire Maul and Scarlet Monastery, it looks like this will be the main focus on levelling up from 60 to 70. I wasn't able to get a full answer out of how much lore based quests there will be, when thinking about fel orcs, and naga, and Tempest Keep, which is the blood elf castle in Outland. But Mr. Pearce assured me that there will be lore behind why the blood Elves will kill their own kin in the expansion.
The first zone you get into as you go through the Dark Portal in Blasted lands, is Hellfire Peninsula; which is the region where the Fel Orcs are dominating. Just south of their keep, The Hellfire Citadel, a Minion of Kazzak walks around patrolling. Those familiar with Warcraft 3, probably remember Grom Hellscream and Magtheridon, and it is Magtheridon that will be the last boss of the raid Instance wing in Hellfire Citadel. In Hellfire Peninsula there are also 2 horde bases and 2 alliance bases, all 4 placed out so there is not too much running.
West of Hellfire Peninsula is Zangarmarsh. This looks like a huge marsh, but instead of trees, there are mushroom-like objects standing around. This is also the region where the Cenarion Hold are trying to reforest the shattered realm. Also here are 2 bases for each faction, and the zone will also introduce a new faction, called Sporeggar. Not much was said about any of the new factions in the press conference, but there will probably be more information later on. Zangarmarsh is also the region where Lady Vashj and her sinister naga are situated. Hidden in the Coilfang keep, they are enslaving Brokens, descendants of the same ancestors of the Dranei, to do their bidding. Coilfang keep looks like a mix between Zul'Gurub and Mauradon, and is defiantly, for me personally, the best looking instance so far in the expansion.
North of Zangarmarsh is the Blade's Edge Mountains; which includes one base for each faction and the Gruul's Lair instance. Unfortunately nothing was said about the instance at all during the presentation. Gronn'bor Shrine, another new faction, also holds their ground in this region.
East of the mountains is the Blood Elven Lands of Netherstorm, home of Tempest keep, the castle of Kael'thas and his blood elven kind. The reason for horde to go into this instance is not yet known, but it is said that there will be some lore behind this according to the new alliance with Lady Sylvanas and he rest of the horde. How it will look in the end however, I'm very excited to see. There are no bases are dedicated to neither horde, nor alliance, but the reason for that will be given further down in the article.
Naggrand was the outdoor zone that we saw the most from. It is the zone that looks most like Outland looked, before the portals ripped it apart. It is green and hilly and looks much healthier than arathi highlands, with more clean greens. There are no instances in this region, but yet another faction called Aeris is brought into the game. More info of the zone will come further down.
Terokkar forest, east of Naggrand and Shadowmoon Valley even further east, wasn't presented at all. Not even the Black Citadel was shown, which was a bit sad. There is a faction in Shadowmoon Valley, called Ancient Draenei base. Not 100% sure how this will work in the end either, but as mentioned earlier, the new factions has been kept very quiet.
The Future of PvP:
As most players know, the PvP system will be revamped, and the ranks removed. Blizzards dev team is not 100% sure how the transactions will be done, but what they do know, is that you will buy PvP items with the Honor you have earned. The prices have not been set yet, and if your going to pay 10,000 honor for 1 item or hand in honor for PvP Gold, is yet to be seen.
I can happily say though that the new Outland PvP mounts will be Armored Gryphons for Alliance and Armored Wyverns for Horde.
Another note that that might be either good or bad, depending on your style of PvP, is that there will be PvP objectives in all zones of Outland. Or that is at least the Idea. The coolest of these are the neutral cities, which can be found spread around in different zones. Whichever faction holds the base, will have access to quests and vendors exclusive to that city, which means that there will be a constant battle in keeping them.
Graphics and Visual:
It was clear to me, straight away that there had been some improvement in visuals. The graphics are still the same, but the zones and instances have been much more worked on than before. Every instance we were shown had a lot of details that you can only find in a few selected instances in WoW at this time, and this is a great improvement in my opinion, as many instances gets boring faster if the visuals are poorly made.
The negatives:
IS there anything negative about WoW? Well there are a few things as always, but nothing is perfect. There weren't a lot of things in the expansion that seem bad, but the fact that a lot of things weren’t done and that they have yet to give us a date for either the release or beta is a bit worrying. The dates set by sites that the game will be released in November is all false. The official answer is at the current time; "Hopefully before Christmas".
Instances were defiantly not complete. The Raid instance of Coilfang Reservoir was missing mobs. Caverns of Time and Black Citadel was not done, and there were a few zones we weren't shown, which can only mean one thing. If we are to see the expansion released before Christmas, they are either A: holding back a lot, or B: need to work like hell and maybe release the game too early, but as Mr Pearce said; "We will never, ever release a game we are not happy with."
Summary:
As 2006 moves into fall, a lot of WoW costumers are anticipating the expansion. Some say they will leave, some say they will try, and some just laugh at you if you ask if they are going to quit. I can say that I'm not leaving any time soon at least. The few things that has been shown from the expansion is really good, and Blizzard has really considered a lot of the feedback the players have given them in the 1.5-2 years it has been out in the market, and 6.5 million subscribers can verify that WoW is the biggest MMO of all times.
I truly believe that many that cancel their subscription when the expansion comes out, will miss out on the new generation of World of WarCraft.
Blizzard hasn't taken a step, but a leap. And it is not in the wrong Direction. |
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