World of Warcraft Expansion details leaked
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Oct 20th 2005 at 4:00PM }
It looks as if the full details of the upcoming World of Warcraft Expansion might have been leaked. We won't know for sure until an official announcement is made at BlizzCon in ten days, but let's just say that certain insider sources have confirmed that the information revealed in Spy Bot's post on the WoWGuru forums was planned for the expansion—but the final build may reflect certain differences. Here are some of the highlights:
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Official title: "The Burning Crusade"
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2 new races: Blood Elves (Horde) & Draenei (Alliance)
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New class: Spell Breaker
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Max level increased (75)
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6 new areas
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9 new high-end instances
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Updated transportation
[via Gaming Steve]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Not Impressed (Dmitri) @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
Updated transportation? Maybe they will finally open up the airport that so many of us have found in Dun Morough.
I don't play WoW anymore, but this is pretty interesting.
1337Thespian @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
...wait- The Horde gets the Blood Elves?
/doesn't play WoW, never did
//Warcraft III was sweet
webrunner @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
It gets less and less reasonable as you read it...
- Why so much new level 60 content if you can get to 75?
- There's no way alliance or horde would go up against Alexstraza, that's just silly.
- New races only have one racial instead of 4?
- 50 player raid instance concept is completely silly, and the horde+alliance 100 player instance makes even less sense
- "Tower of Medivh"? It's got a name (Kharazan) and it's already got white portals, not green.
dork @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
blood elves has been proven fake
michael @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
"Why so much new level 60 content if you can get to 75?"
- well you would need new content to gain in level from 60-75.. that part makes perfect sense to me.
What doesnt make sense, as you stated the 100 cross faction raid. It's a pretty insane, though interesting, idea.
The new class is laughable.
Blood elves start out with an innate 10% resists to all schools of magic? That makes for quite a deadly racial ability.
The leak from edge mag was more interesting as it is far more believable (blizzard went to lengths to remove it). He stated that there would be new content for all level ranges, and that also we would be capped at level 70.
Also, this expansion is pulling out all the stops. Arthas the Lich king in a first expansion, never. Blizzard is planning on making money from WoW for years and years to come.
webrunner @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
If it was meant to bring you from 60-75 there'd be level 65-70 dungeons and stuff. It wouldn't be 'level 60' because the only reason there are 'level 60' dungeons at all (and not 60-62 or whatever) is that the cap is 60.
There are already enough level 60 dungeons to get you to the mid to late 60s, and after that having more level 60 dungeons isn't going to help, there isn't enough EXP for it.
There being more level 60 dungeons in the expansion only makes sense if the level cap is still 60.
boneyard @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
lol and posting wrong info again, really on a roll joystiq.
Jake Kessler @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
There are certain things here I find just plain silly, even if they do turn out to be true.
First - Draenei as a race? I suppose they make some sense for the Alliance, in that they wouldn't quickly side with the Orcs of the Horde, their oldest enemy. But they're only as fitting as part of the Alliance as they are fitting as a playable race at all. They're a dry, uninvolved race, and they've for good reason never had even a moderate piece of the WarCraft pie. Races like goblins, naga and ogres make significantly more sense as a playable addition - Draenei should be waaaaaay down the list, below creep races like murlocs and gnolls.
The Draenei first appeared as a footnote in the part of the War2 manual narrated by Gul'dan, in that they were crushed by the Horde back on Draenor before WarCraft 1. This puts them on par with the obscure "Draenor giants" whose bones were used to make Temples of the Damned in WarCraft two. Never heard of Draenor giants? There's a reason.
One other note on the Draenei - I don't like the idea of both Draenei AND Blood Elves as the two new races, simply because they shouldn't be in opposing factions. After all, they both fought for Illidan in TFT.
Second - Blood Elves for the Horde. This at least makes a modicum of sense, in that Blood Elves are more geared thematically to the sort of fire and raw power, etc that the big-and-bulky Horde races seem to favor. While not necessarily evil, they aren't squeamish about "unfavorable" sources of power, and their "bad because we have to be" attitude echoes the Forsaken. They also have reason to distrust the Alliance after the way they were treated by Garithos and company in TFT.
That being said, High/Blood elves should have a much larger bone to pick with the Horde than the Alliance. Some humans might be racist against elves, but no Alliance race ever made war on the elves and completely destroyed their homeland. Member races of the Horde did that TWICE - the orcs in War2, and the undead in War3. Though perhaps Thrall and Sylvanas would never do that, I think the Blood Elves would have more ease joining the Alliance than the Horde for this reason.
Third - These leaks so far focus, IMO, way too much on endgame material. Yes, there needs to be new endgame stuff to give expansion players excitement and closure, especially if the level cap is indeed raised to 70 or more. But as was said above, there already is plenty of level 60 content, which up to this point has been endgame - so Blizz has been adding more or less solid endgame content for awhile in its patches.
What the expansion needs more of than endgame stuff is content for varying level ranges. The expansion needs to be more than just a Blood Elf in the same old Westfall, Hillsbrad and Stranglethorn before the new endgame material. The first 58 levels need to feel new, too.
Of course, just because I think something's a dumb idea doesn't mean Blizzard won't do it. After all, Blizzard doesn't always do what we fans might beforehand consider "for the best". (Illidan still alive?)
I could honestly install my expansion disc next year and boot it up to find murlocs as a playable race outside the Horde or Alliance, with seven unique-to-them all-new classes, with a revamped Black Rock Spire as their starting location, and not be in the least bit surprised. That's my Blizzard.
mike @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
This is a fake ... I am 90% certain about it.
Scott @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
Considering blizzard rewards level gains every EVEN level, having a cap of lvl 75 makes NO sense.
Also, Tigole has stated *multiple* times that Tower of Medivh will be a 5 man instance like DM. Having "wings" and the like.
Guido Gloor @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
Well, I've seen 3 expansion note writeups that looked about equally valid each. So I'm entirely and utterly sure 2 of them are completely wrong, since they didn't agree in most things. And since none of the 3 stood really out, I guess the 3rd one must be a fake as well :)
Nice anyway to see that people invest so much time into something. Must be rewarding to have everybody think your false patch notes are the real ones :)
Guest @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
Lol - good ole joystiq. DUPED.
This is a total joke. GG
Tankenstein @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
SpyBot was the same guy who posted the fake 1.8 notes, and these sure look a lot like this random guy's suggestion in the WoW forums:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-suggestions&t=368414&p=1&tmp=1
Jestor Rodo @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
MUHAHAHAHA! SOE is SOE Screwed! WoW , you gotta love it!
Merus @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
It's almost certainly fake - there was a leak by 'Spybot' on the official WoW forums regarding the 1.8 patch notes just before 1.7 was released, which was almost completely wrong.
Blizzard made the cap so low for a reason. Most likely, what we'll see in the expansion is some sort of mechanism to 'restart' your character at level 1, with a good deal more power than level 1 characters normally have.
Mike B @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
michael wrote: "Blood elves start out with an innate 10% resists to all schools of magic? That makes for quite a deadly racial ability."
It would be, but we all know what Blizzard does when they say things like that. Not, a level 1 Blood Elf will have 10% magic resist, but a blood elf will get a 10% bonus to whatever his resist is. So 10% of 0 is still... 0.
It's how they did the Orc hardness and the talent points for a warrior, so why would they change it for this?
Um @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
WOW, you guys *really* dropped the ball on this one. I know the exact source you used for this. If you couldn't tell that it was fake by reading it you are either retarded or you know nothing about the way Blizzard operates. If you got this information through an intermediary then you might want to re-think his reliability.
The person who made the fake notes was a copy cat of the person who created the fake 1.8 patch notes. The difference is that the fake 1.8 notes were done believably while this guy sounded like he was drunk while he was writing. The fact you guys just accepted it as true is shameful. Spellbreaker?? A 100 person Icecrown Raid???
Guilible.
SubSidal @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
Being a WarCraft lore fanatic, I was shocked when the Forsaken joined the horde! Worse... The horde had Warlocks! Really shocking if you're familiar with the history of warcraft! And now... BLOOD ELVES?!?!?! What?!?! It cant be.... It just cant... Thrall abolished demon magic and now he's calling these corrupted and cursed beings (Undead and Blood Elves) his allies?!?! And with so many good races to join the alliance... The Dranei?!?! And yes... There's NO WAY the horde and the Alliance would go against Alexztraza! No way!!
DrinkFloridaOJ @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
I have one question, and I may be consitered a "noob" for asking it, but, who the f**k is this "Alextraza" I keep hearing about??? When I google it, it shows no results!
/slap
/cry
Renegade @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
enough kids lets just wait and see the good results stop complaning
Doncan @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
You people are all wrapped up in the fiction of it all and seem to be forgetting that there is an imbalance between Horde and Alliance characters in the Game. There are far more Alliance characters than Horde. One reason for this is the eye candy factor. The alliance all have the pretty people. Blizzard broke in to a new market with World of Warcraft in that they have been able to attract people that do not typical play MMORPGs if they even played video games at all. Husbands have been able to convince their spouses to play and these people do not care about what happened in TFT or WC1. All they care about is do I look hot in this plate thong? The horde all have ugly races which do not appeal to this new market. So what other race in Warcraft do they have that is hot and has a dark side hmmm Oh! I know! Blood Elves! I bet money if blood elves are introduced as a Horde Race there will be a baby boom in the horde faction. They need to do this to achieve balance between the factions. I am sure that there will be an intro and quests that explain how and why they grouped with the horde.
You must remember that thru history, including warcraft history, alliances between civilizations grow, change, get torn down, and rebuild. Even though these races have had issues in the past fiction, it doesnt mean that it must be so in the new fiction. And after all it is still Fiction someone made it up, and there for they can change it
IH8U @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
Alexstraza was the Aspect of Life, Queen of red dragons.
And yes, you are , in fact, a n00b.
jordo123 @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
It was realeased today the alliance race hasent been revealed yet but the horde does infact get blood elves and illidan is alive you can go to outland level cap is 70 theyve opened op caverns of time in tanaris desert quel thelas is the blood elf home but for alexstraza and icecrown didnt read anything about it.
Learn2play @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM
No offence, but this sorta makes sense... Half of you were saying Blood Elves would never come into the game, now recently Blizzard has shown they would... I can see Draenei siding with the alliance, as it would be a much better choice then standing up with Orcs etc... BTW, Thrall did NOT abolish all demonic magic... smell the flowers and go down in Ogrimmar to the Cleft of Shadow.... What do you see? A bunch of dead bodies because Thrall "ABOLISHED" demonic magic, or a couple of demons and perfectly Alive shady Orcs?....
Look at the other possibilities, there is NO way Naga would go along side with the Alliance, they're tied to the Blood Elves and Illidan... btw before the Notes came out, this did Mention the Caverns of Time, and Nozdormu himself... At first you'd think that would be complete bullshit, but they realeased it in the Burning Crusade preview that you would be able to travel back in time... as for the whole Northrend thing, thats really hard to believe it'll open up, and DEFINITELY even if you could go in you would not be able to get anywhere near Arthas quote from Blizzcon: "Are you for real? It's gonna take a lot more than a raid group of lvl 70's to take Arthas out!"
GG nubs, don't question.. have patience... and learn 2 play.