This is a straight copy and paste job from the Blizz site and just thought a few people here might be interested in this. If the collectors edition is easy to get here I think I'll grab that. Mainly for the DVD and soundtrack. The behind-the-scenes DVD for WOW was pretty cool and had a heap of commentary by the development and art guys. Shows how much work has gone into the game and even if you're a fan or not it's still pretty impressive to watch.

Also, this months HYPER mag has a huge interview with Blizzard about the expansion if you're still into buying mags like me. One thing I still haven't found out is where do the new races start? Still havent found out where about's on the map they'll be.

Anyway on with the show...

We're happy to announce that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will ship in standard as well as Collector's Edition packages. The Collector's Edition will come in a special box that contains many exclusive extras to enhance your adventure into Outland, including:

* World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade on both CD and DVD
* World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Behind-the-Scenes DVD
* The Art of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Hardcover Art Book
* Exclusive In-Game Pet: Netherwhelp
* Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game Starter Packs, plus Exclusive Cards
* Map of Outland Mouse Pad
* World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Soundtrack CD

The behind-the-scenes DVD will offer more than two hours worth of developer interviews and commentary on all aspects of the creation of The Burning Crusade, as well as trailers and cinematics from the game, and even footage of panel discussions from BlizzCon.

Collector's Edition owners will also be able to take their adventures from the computer to the tabletop, with two starter packs for the new World of Warcraft Trading Card Game -- one for themselves and one to share with a friend. In addition, Collector's Edition owners will receive three exclusive tournament-legal World of Warcraft Trading Card Game cards to incorporate in their decks or trade with other World of Warcraft TCG players.

With the Collector's Edition-exclusive in-game pet, the netherwhelp, you'll be the envy of your guildmates and other players as you roam the expanses of Outland and Azeroth. We'll post an image of the netherwhelp, offspring of the nether drake flying mount, in the near future.

A soundtrack CD with stirring music from the expansion pack, a beautiful coffee table book with exclusive concept art, and an Outland-themed mouse pad round out the wealth of bonus items available in the Collector's Edition of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Further details on the contents, as well as pricing and availability info, will be announced at a later date.

http://www.members.optushome.com.au/gpahl/wow3.jpg

So what did they add on with the expansion?

So what did they add on with the expansion?

* Extra price tag
* Community fragmentation

/cue trog

There's a new continent which is accessable thru the Dark Portal in the Burning Lands. Is that the place near Duskwood? Been so long since I've been there. Anyway, the new map has about 5 to 6 new zones which range from level 60-70. Plus there's an assload of new dungeons and they've made the raid limit 25 man instead of those big 40 ones which I think is a pretty cool idea. Easier to get 25 people together than 40. And heaps of other little things as well like new weapons, armor etc...

8-)

* Community fragmentation

That's wrong actually.

Everyone can still play as normal even if you dont have the expansion. If you don't buy it you cant go into the new area however items found in the new zones can still be traded to everyone in the game which is an awesome idea. And if you wanna play the new races you'll need the expansion also.

Dark Portal in the Burning Lands

Blasted Lands

corrected someone who plays the game by someone who doesn't itt

Haha

Yes, I meant Blasted Lands. I've been playing a horde shammy for a while and there's a few places I don't go compared to when I was on the alliance team.

EDIT: My apologies. I said there were 5-6 zones when there are actually 7. There's also instances in all those zones except Nagrand. Very exciting!!

http://www.members.optushome.com.au/gpahl/portal.jpg


last edited by Reverend Evil at 00:32:52 11/Oct/06

yawn

I've played world of Snorecarft and it's a lot less boring than this.

I just hope they can meet the demands for the CE this time. I was kinda pissed that I couldn't get a WoW CE back in the day. It's really unfair on all those players who are willing to pay a little more for the extras but are unable to due to bad luck and Blizzard treating Australians like s***.

last edited by Crizane Tribal at 01:49:21 11/Oct/06

Features of the Expansion:

• Level your tradeskills and have them later rendered useless by high-end content
  
• Go kill 100 boars
  
• Collect 63 Azyrith fragments
  
• Spend 5 hours listening to a bunch of socially stunted nerds drone over a ventrillo channel while you punch buttons for a 1/40 chance of receiving a new hat
  
• Go kill 101 dire boars
  
• Have your legendary gear and tier3 epics rendered absolutely useless by blue gear obtainable in the level 64 instances (no f***ing joke)

Blasted Lands

corrected someone who plays the game by someone who doesn't itt

This is the guy who came on here with a level ~60 paladin and didn't know what MC and BWL stood for remember

last edited by Hashy at 09:11:15 11/Oct/06

So can you still get a level 70 charactor without buying the expansion?

World of Warcraft: The healthier alternative to suicide.

From what I have heard, if you don't purchase the expansion you won't have access to outland and you won't be able to level past 60. You can still interact with all the 1-60 content without any problems.

I think there are much more interesting things that blizzard are doing to the game that extend past the level cap increase and content. They are making a number of core changes to items stats and building upon talent trees/skills to make up for a number of shortcomings with the raid content and the PvP content (and lets face it, there are a large number of shortcomings in both areas).

Rev scratched the surface by mentioning the 25 man cap on raid content, but it goes much further than this. Bliz are making an effort (how well they deliver is yet to be seen) to ensure that hybrid classes will not get pigeon-holed into a single role, as many people would have experienced with the 40 man raid content (feral druid lol). Introduction of socketed items means that you have greater control over what stats are getting boosted. Bliz also now have a clue about what stats help what class, so you will see a lot more +Attack power for melee, mana per 5 sec for casters. Introduction of more talents allow for more raid utilisation for the "off-spec". So now shadow priests might be wanted, as well as elemental shamans and feral (or even oomkin) druids.

PvP is moving away from the s***ty battleground/honor grind that is currently implemented and are introducing arenas which have seasonal ladders, so people are rewarded for skill, not time played. Stamina stats are being increased on all expansion items to (hopefully) make a move to PvP where is doesn't take 2-5 shots to kill someone. There will be a number of items that reduce the chance that someone can crit you, which you won't see on many PvE items.

The game is going to change a lot more that just some extra content.

That's wrong actually.

Everyone can still play as normal even if you dont have the expansion. If you don't buy it you cant go into the new area however items found in the new zones can still be traded to everyone in the game which is an awesome idea. And if you wanna play the new races you'll need the expansion also.

My bad, but considering people's lack of WoW self-control it would seem like they're almost forced to buy the expansion to keep 'socialising' with their regular 'friends' who upgrade :)

This is a joke. Why the f*** would you pay another $xx.xx to buy an "expansion" where all its doing is increasing the amount of grinding you need to do. Grind from 60-70 now, grind new raids, grind new instances, grind to get new gear because your t3 gear is s***, grind new rep, grind grind grind.

The repeatitve monotany of *clickity clack* for hours upon hours that is World of Warcraft has gotten to the point of retarded.

I for one will not be welcoming the new expansion pack with my cold hard money.

So was there a point where 1-60 wasn't hours upon hours of paid *clickity clack* time? Somebody out there seems to like this enough to warrant more of the same...?

1-40 wasn't too bad, it was a new game and I enjoyed playing. 40-50 started feeling like a grind but then 50-60 had some decent high end raids.

Once you hit 60 though the game just turns into repeating MC/BWL/ZG/AQ20/AQ40/NAXX and to some extend SCHOLO/STRAT week-in and week-out. And when your not doing those instances you can be sure your grinding out rep in AV/AB/WSG.

In summary, the game is OK until you hit 60 where it turns into Groundhog Day.

If you don't like it... why do you care ?

Or is it that you feel left out ?

ps DAOC >> WOW

Why would you buy a CS upgrade, or a Halflife upgrade, or a Doom upgrade? For a chance to do something differant.

If you don't like it... why do you care ?

Or is it that you feel left out ?

ps DAOC >> WOW

I care because the world needs people to care - if noone cared then where would we be then?

It'd be great if what you did in WoW actually mattered in the game world. Here you have this perpetual war between two sides, a war about, when it comes down to it, nothing.

If 1 side of the war compleatly stopped doing anything, what would it change? Very, very little, not really a war is it :/

Why would you buy a CS upgrade, or a Halflife upgrade, or a Doom upgrade? For a chance to do something differant.

I've never bought an expansion pack in my life.

A sequel with a new (or updated) engine on of the other hand is more appealing as there's more potential for 'new stuff' than merely the same engine and same gameplay with new content (textures, levels).

^^ Expansion is new content, no matter if it's code or art. A new engine could take just as many man hours as new art, I really don't see any difference.

Obes are you still going on about DAOC??

I'm looking forward to mythic releasing warhammer online. Pity its only in the very early stages of development.

last edited by Thundercracker at 10:52:03 11/Oct/06

so where's trog raffling off X-pack beta invites? ;)

Oh and Eve (best MMORPG for content, playability and something more than just *clickity clack*) releas the client for free and the 3 content/expansion packs over the past 3 years for free.

All you pay is your monthly fee.

Eve (best MMORPG for content, playability and something more than just *clickity clack*)

You'd better be f***ing joking. Eve is mind boglingly more tedious than wow.

"Click train, log off for two weeks while your 'skill' that involves no more skill than waiting for paint to dry is trained and you're paying them for nothing, then go mine some more (clickity clack ... without the click) and train the next skill (cue more waiting and nothing), then wait 5 hours to get to the next place to buy something new"

Gotta give them credit for the content though, they sure do have some pretty looking blank areas of space and planets that you can fly straight through while you're waiting for the next retarded sounding waypoint reached message.

last edited by eXemplar at 12:11:21 11/Oct/06

MINING ASTEROIDS IS FAR INFERIOR TO MINING ARCANITE VEINS HOW DARE YOU TAINT THIS WOW THREAD WITH YOUR SEARCH FOR AN INTERESTING ALTERNATIVE

Clearly you didn't give it enough time. What other game is out there where you can conquer lands as a team (of thousands of players), defend it by building massive defenses, have PvP fights where its 100vs100, have a choice of hundreds of ships with different roles for each, etc?

Sure the first few months are painfully boring as your learning new skills but after that it's a completly different game.

Eve is the only MMO I've played that allows you to actually achieve something, ie: claiming land as your own, and then fighting for it. Unlike WoW where "World PvP" extends to ganking some guy while he's picking herbs and doesn't impact on the world scene at all. Blizz should have given WoW players the ability to conquer areas or towns or whatever for themselves so that people have a reason to PvP.

I was just wondering about some of the issues this will create as I was reading the thread at work. How I wonder will they roll out the new content onto the servers, given blizzards track record of running the wow servers it seems to me that they will completely bork the migration, or stagger it so that they avoid borking it, either way players that have purchased the new content - or worse, all players will get screwed during the migration.

Either all servers will be down for days then keep falling over for weeks due to server side bugs, or you'll have the new content and wont be able to use it because your character will be on a server thats 'pending update in x weeks time'

Look forward to it....

Sure the first few months are painfully boring as your learning new skills but after that it's a completly different game.

Of course, how silly of me. I should have forked out money for a few months first just so I could start playing the game!

I'm going to quote myself just because i can.

yawn

And I for one welcome our new Outland overlords

Even though I'm just playing end game stuff for the first time and there's heaps of it, I'm looking forward to not having to stay at this level for too long.

Also smaller raids ftw

rev, i thought we discussed this and decided it was best for you, not to keep playing teh wow

Sure the first few months are painfully boring as your learning new skills but after that it's a completly different game.

This pretty much sums up Eve.

emptier than ever \_/

ps i bought bf2 sf ahahahahah


last edited by infi at 14:39:56 11/Oct/06

what does that mean infi?

One thing I still haven't found out is where do the new races start? Still havent found out where about's on the map they'll be.

http://wowwiki.com/Draenei#Playable_Race
http://wowwiki.com/Blood_Elf#Blood_Elves_in_The_Burning_Crusade

it means that expansion packs are the most f***ed idea ever but i am just as big an rtard as all of those wow f*****s because i bought bf2 special forces.

now go back to mining your bush pigs.

think of all the pimpley faced teens giving there parents so much stress over this expansion and then there parents having to go on ACA and cry. now stop playing it.

So I should quickly sell my account before the expansion comes out? I assume after the expansion, having a 60 in all epix won't mean that much?

haha those ppl playing bf2 trying to pay out wow


bf2 was the biggest fukin flop

bf42 s***s all over it, bf2 is spammy as hell, prone jumping, exploit city

and this is coming from someone who played bf2 to death trying to luv it as much as 42 but knowing that it could never be.

wow is at least made well and isnt pretty much still in its beta stage like bf2 is.

go back to grinding to your level 6 sergent so u can get that medic unlock

you sure know the score cool guy. keep up the good work.