More World of Warcraft Content

The latest World of Warcraft beta coverage around the web includes two new previews and some more screenshots. The first preview is at eToyChest:

Some have had hopes that WoW would, given its appeal to fans of the series, be a bridge of sorts to players unversed in the ways of the MMORPG. And while it is sure to suck more than a few Blizzard fanatics into the mold, the game doesn’t do much to make that transition of sorts from traditional roleplaying to the massively multiplayer variety any easier. Those vehemently opposed to the whole concept will find no panacea here, at least if the beta is any indication. There’s still every bit as much wandering about fighting small creatures by your lonesome, as many silly (though, well conceptualized) fetch quests, and bizarre out-of-character interaction as any other game of this sort though it’s worth noting that, even in this early state, WoW executes the old formulas better than most. The interface is pretty much par the course for the genre. It’s fluid, it’s functional, and it works. I don’t doubt that, if one were so inclined of course, you could come up with a better scheme for giving easy access to spells, trade skills, and quests, but the ease of use in the Blizzard system would render such an effort terrifically moot.

And the second is over at Just RPG:
WoW will feature two main types of dungeons: (World) dungeons and (micro) dungeons. The (micro) dungeons are seamlessly integrated with the rest of the gameworld. There will be about a hundred (micro) dungeons at launch, and they will range in size from small to (quite big.) They will take the shape of tombs, mines, sunken ships, caves, and other dungeon layouts.

The (World) dungeons are more ambitious. Examples will include Medivh’s Tower, the Westfall Deadmines, and the Scarlet Monastery. They are bigger and more complex than the (micro) dungeons, and they feature their own stories. The deeper parts of these dungeons are (instanced,) meaning that the game will generate a copy of the dungeon for each group that ventures there. Instanced dungeons help guard against kill-stealing and other competitive behavior that can spoil a quest experience, and they ensure that everyone experiences the full challenge of the dungeon. It is no accident that instanced dungeons figure in almost every new MMORPG and in expansions of existing online games like EverQuest.

In addition to the screenshots you’ll find in those previews, GameSpy also has a new batch right here.