Blizzard to Reveal the Alliance Race Tomorrow!

[castille]

Inadvertent leak about the playable classes. Looks like:

Priest
http://img422.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1...063992591yr.jpg

and...Paladin?
http://img506.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1...062531519sa.jpg

and my apologies to anyone getting tired of my obsessive updates. I guess I'm just a tad...excited  :w00t:
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Actually, those look like the PvP warrior shoulders.

[Tal]

Actually, those look like the PvP warrior shoulders.
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That paladins can wear... ;)

[Monkey]

Actually, those look like the PvP warrior shoulders.
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The Alliance PvP Warrior and Paladin shoulders are near-identical. However, our friend in the picture has a book with a cross on a chain. It's a well-documented fact that warriors can't read, so that's obviously a paladin.

[Tal]

The Alliance PvP Warrior and Paladin shoulders are near-identical. However, our friend in the picture has a book with a cross on a chain. It's a well-documented fact that warriors can't read, so that's obviously a paladin.
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Excerpt from the book:

Step one: Cast "bubble"
Step two: Cast "hearthstone"
Step three: "..."
Step four: Profit!

Edit: How do we know a paladin didn't sell the book on a chain as a "1337 new shield" to the warrior?

[castille]

The Alliance PvP Warrior and Paladin shoulders are near-identical. However, our friend in the picture has a book with a cross on a chain. It's a well-documented fact that warriors can't read, so that's obviously a paladin.
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I guess he -is- wielding a mace.

Wonder if that means Blood Elves will become Shamans..

[Kevin]

I guess he -is- wielding a mace.

Wonder if that means Blood Elves will become Shamans..
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Horde already had 3 races that could be shaman and I believe they said blood elves were going to have priests so I doubt it.

[Monkey]

I guess he -is- wielding a mace.

Wonder if that means Blood Elves will become Shamans..
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Actually, the alliance needs an additional paladin race to balance out that Horde have 3 shaman races currently. I'm less certain about the Priest because the Alliance already has 3 priest options.


Also, Tal: DON'T GIEV AWAY TEH SEKR1TZ!!1

[Monkey]

NYTimes is reporting Draenei as the new race: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/technolo...rcraft.web.html

Edit: And that wraps the MonkeySpamCoverage of E3 WoW Hype 2006. Thanks for reading. Back up into the tree with me, now.

[lemekim]

For those who cannot login to read the article:

Today, as the video game industry gathers here for E3, the top annual game convention, those players will start getting answers. In the biggest piece of news, Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind the game, plans to announce that in the expansion, to be called The Burning Crusade, players will be able to join an otherworldly species called the Draenei.

Much of the storyline in World of Warcraft, which now has more than 6 million paying subscribers worldwide, revolves around the strife between two competing factions, the Alliance and the Horde. Players can join either side of the fantasy conflict; the Alliance includes races like human, dwarves and gnomes, while the Horde includes orcs, trolls and the undead.

Blizzard announced last year that in the expansion it would add a new race called the Blood Elves to the Horde, but the identity of the new Alliance race has been a closely-guarded secret until today. On Web message boards, players have spilled hundreds of thousands of words debating what the new Alliance race would be.

In the Burning Crusade, much of the action will take place on a planet called Draenor. The Draenei are the remnants of a once-thriving culture there that was mostly destroyed by orcs after the orcs were corrupted by the demons of the Burning Legion — the big bad guys in the game, who oppose both the Alliance and the Horde.

In a twist, the Draenei are descended from the same demonic race, the Eredar, that produced some of Warcraft’s most fearsome foes, like the demon Archimonde.

“Lots of players have wanted to play demons, and Draenei are the closest you can get to looking like an Eredar,” Jeff Kaplan, one of the game’s top designers, said in an interview. “They have these cool forehead features, and one of the customization features is switching around these facial features and the tendrils hanging beneath the chin and so on.”

In addition to being able to test-play the Draenei, attendees at the convention this week, formally known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo, will get their first peek at the Nether Drakes, which are among several flying beasts that players will be able to mount in Burning Crusade.

Attendees will also be able to try out Naxxramas, the next big dungeon in the game, which is expected to be added free next month.

So it really is an uncorrupted version of Draenei, much like everyone expected.

[MongoJerry]

A cryptic message was left by someone who tends to be "in the know" after I linked the NY Times article:

Just wait few hours. let's see what will happen on E3.

:D i trust my source.

Ugh. Just get it over with!

[wundergore]

For those who cannot login to read the article:
So it really is an uncorrupted version of Draenei, much like everyone expected.
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A question for the wise Lurkers (or maybe just something to ponder). How does the addition of the Draenei help the current population imbalance? My personal opinion is the the addition of a "cool, playable demon-type race" to the Alliance really trumps the addition of some reskinned night elves to the Horde side. I don't see people moving to the Horde to play Blood Elves when they can stay Alliance and play Draenei. Heck, I'm a dedicated Horde player and I'm inclined to join the Alliance scum to check out the Draenei......

*Back to lurking now*

W<

[MongoJerry]

If you look through the images accompanying the NY Times article, there's definitely a priest and a paladin character there.

[MongoJerry]

Blizzard is pointing to the NY Times web site for E3 coverage and coverage of the new Burning Crusade trailer. I guess it's safe to reveal now that the new race is indeed the Draenei and that the classes will be Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Mage, and Hunter.

[lemekim]

If you look through the images accompanying the NY Times article, there's definitely a priest and a paladin character there.
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I've seen those screenshots, but, somehow, the idea of a Draenei Paladin does not sit well with me. How did Blizzard go from the Shamanistic nature of Draenei (as per description of The Broken), to the Holy Light/Paladin?

However, I do like this better than the whole "wisps reincarnated as demons" thing. Things that are dead, especially in such grand battle as the destruction of Archimonde, should really stay dead. Ugh, what a lore nightmare that would have been.

[Legedi]

I love how every time Blizzard points to another sight it crashes from all the traffic. I guess it's smarter than Blizzard hosting the info them self and crashing their sight ;).

[Artega]

Wonderful. As though WoW hasn't destroyed the great storyline laid out by War3 enough.

And since when has Blizzard posted anything with so many typos and grammatical errors?

[Artega]

I've seen those screenshots, but, somehow, the idea of a Draenei Paladin does not sit well with me. How did Blizzard go from the Shamanistic nature of Draenei (as per description of The Broken), to the Holy Light/Paladin?

However, I do like this better than the whole "wisps reincarnated as demons" thing. Things that are dead, especially in such grand battle as the destruction of Archimonde, should really stay dead. Ugh, what a lore nightmare that would have been.
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All races should be able to be Paladins and all races should be able to be Shamans.

It's not like Blizzard can't screw their lore anymore than they already have.

[MongoJerry]

Wonderful.&nbsp; As though WoW hasn't destroyed the great storyline laid out by War3 enough.

For those of us who haven't placed Warcraft III, care to elaborate? Keep in mind that we haven't heard the full story explanation, yet.

[Artega]

For those of us who haven't placed Warcraft III, care to elaborate?&nbsp; Keep in mind that we haven't heard the full story explanation, yet.
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They haven't actually messed with the War3 storyline overmuch; rather, they keep adding crap in that really makes no sense if you think about it enough. Posts related to this pop up in the General forum fairly often, particularly on maintenance days, and those people have spent a lot more time and energy writing about this subject :)

[teske]

In a twist, the Draenei are descended from the same demonic race, the Eredar, that produced some of Warcraft’s most fearsome foes, like the demon Archimonde.

What a total bull#$%& retcon.

Eredar the nomadic race, always on the hunt to defile new worlds. And rumurored to have destroyed their own home planet with demonic magic.

And Draenei, the home sick race, which have a bound so strong with their home planet, that the catalysm mutated them.

Eredar and Dranei, yeah right. The blue post was dead on, I went "huh" and now I'm suprised they could abuse their lore so much.