Eurogamer writes: "It probably wouldn't be fair to say that Blizzard is worried. But with two determined attempts on its hegemony of fantasy MMOs coming this year (Age of Conan and Warhammer Online), last week's Wrath of the Lich King showcase at the company's Californian HQ was, at the very least, a firm reminder of why you might want to keep playing World of Warcraft. The timing, two weeks before Conan's launch, could hardly have been a coincidence. And the reminder was effective - the next WOW expansion impressed us deeply.
Blizzard has a reverential and protective attitude to its talent though, and there wasn't a sense that lead designers Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton, or producer J. Allen Brack, were feeling the pressure when we spoke to them. They are well insulated from it, on a roomy campus plastered with WOW art and crowded with fantasy figurines, piles of comics and Rock Band units.
Kaplan, a slight, unassuming man with a ruffled hair and a charming, far-off air, is responsible for questing, dungeon, environment and story design. Chilton, round-headed, close-cropped and thoughtful, a veteran of Ultima Online, has the unenviable task of managing player-versus-player balance and character class design. The towering, pony-tailed Brack is the man who organises their efforts and those of the rest of the WOW team: he came to Blizzard from Sony Online Entertainment and Star Wars Galaxies."
Blizzard may have accidentally revealed the release date for Wrath of the Lich King Classic with an edit to the expansion's product page.
The random dungeon finder existed in the original Wrath of the Lich King. It needs to exist in Classic Wrath as well.
BLG writes: "To celebrate the announcement of Dragonflight, the latest World of Warcraft expansion, we decided to rewatch all the game’s cinematics and rank them from worst to best. Including the latest one, of course. In fact, we purposely waited until the new expansion got announced before putting together this list because we wanted to see how the Dragonflight trailer stacked up against all the other WoW cinematics. Spoiler alert: it’s not amazing, but it's not the worst one either."
