World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Previews

A couple more previews of Blizzard’s newly announced World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion pack have reached the web. The first is at 1Up:

Same as starting a character with any other race, many of the early quests are simply there to familiarize you with the area and introduce you to game mechanics. Hence, they tend to involve killing really basic creatures (lynx cubs, evil trees, and mana wyrms). In an earlier panel about WoW lore and quest design Blizzard Creative Director, Chris Metzen, commented about how the blood elves are completely addicted to magic. This mana/drug addiction extends into both their abilities and some of their quests. One such quest involves using a new blood elf-only ability, mana tap, on certain enemies. Not only does the quest teach you how to use mana tap (which sucks mana from the enemy and adds it to your own mana reserve, and additionally, charges up another blood elf ability, the arcane torrent, which silences all magic around you when you use it), it also gives an in-game demonstration of how blood elves constantly try to fulfill their bizarre little mana fix.

And the second is at GameSpy:

Weather is finally coming to Azeroth — which should make a nice change from the perpetual sunshine that rules over the world now. Or perhaps not, as Dabiri promises “rain, snow, and sandstorms like nothing you’ve ever seen.” There will also now be linked Auction Houses in every major city. This will definitely be welcome to players who have had to suffer through the lag that afflicts Ironforge and Orgrimmar during peak play hours and will finally give players a reason to travel to Darnassus and Thunder Bluff. The team is also considering a similar linked auction system that will hook up the major goblin towns, but that’s still under consideration. Apparently, there are some concerns that since the goblin auction houses are accessible to both Alliance and Horde, there may be more cross-trading of Alliance-only or Horde-only items than Blizzard feels confortable with.