New WOW dungeon system detailed

By Robert Purchese Published 29 October, 2009

As race-change feature goes live.

Blizzard has detailed its ambitious new dungeon system for World of Warcraft and launched the Race Change service.

The dungeon system, arriving in an upcoming patch, replaces the Looking For Group feature with a Dungeon button. Key features include added rewards for PUGs (pick-up groups), teleports directly inside and out of an instance anywhere in the world, and being able to fill groups with players from other servers.

A full description of Dungeon System updates can be found on the World of Warcraft community site.

The Race Change service, available now, lets characters change race, name and appearance for £15/€20. This is a one-time use, so changing back requires forking out again.

"Details are not available at this time" as to whether players can use this system to change to one of the new Cataclysm expansion races.

All characters over level 10 are eligible, and Blizzard will hold your original name for 90 days should you wish to revert. Changing your name is not mandatory.

The full Race Change FAQ can be found on the World of Warcraft website.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (30) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Wyrm #1 2 years ago

    Sounds good to me.

  • Eraysor #2 2 years ago

    Cross-server pugging is probably the coolest feature they've added to WoW for years.

  • EmiliasHorse #3 2 years ago

    No wish to change race, cannot for the life of me see why anyone would wish to change a lvl80's race. If you wanted to be horde you should roll a new character, these days lvling is painless.

    Love the idea of a dungeon button, however will wait to see if that helps the current trend of "LFM whisper stats and achievements"...... instant hate.

    Edited by 1 at 29/10/09 @ 11:26

  • Pirotic #4 2 years ago

    I for one welcome our new transgender blood elfs.

  • actionfitz #5 2 years ago

    looking forward to it.
    though last nights 25 man pug to Onyxia nearly broke my heart. 1st wipe 10 secs into the fight. second wipe, due to ranged not bothering to help out on the big adds, then 5 people leave, raid falls apart.
    I generally prefer 10 man content, but cant get saved in pugs or i lose my guild raid spot for the week.
    heh.
    wonder how cross-server ninjas will be handled :)

  • Drpwnage #6 2 years ago

    £15, this is money for nothing.

    Undead characters do have far and away the best casting animations, which is why my Gnome Mage has 10 stacks of Noggenfogger in her inventory at all times!

  • Lionheart #7 2 years ago

    I adore this game and played it for 3 years solid. But honestly. Are people still playing it now?

  • sneetch #8 2 years ago

    Yes Lionheart, millions of us still are.

  • VicViper #9 2 years ago

    @Lionheart

    I think the answer to that is yes, yes they are and in droves. Me included

  • butler` #10 2 years ago

    i hear there's no cure :(

  • EmiliasHorse #11 2 years ago

    Yes we are all still playing and and I would say as many people play today as there was 2 years ago.

  • stevetuck #12 2 years ago

    Can i change my dorf priest into a gnome yet?

  • RedSparrows #13 2 years ago

    Irrespective how good the changes are etc, my WoW bones hanker for the days of 60. Silly, I know, but still... :(

  • Slipstream #14 2 years ago

    Cross server PuG, nice. Getting fed up of my guild.

  • spudsbuckley #15 2 years ago

    @Lionheart

    The game has just gotten better as time has gone by to the point were it sees of most new competition with zero effort. It's arguable whether that's a good or bad thing but as long as WoW is a good as it is it doesn't matter.

  • curtlikesmeat #16 2 years ago

    I'd like to echo the hate for "whisper ach and epic" style people.... what a shower. Is there any 'Eurogamer guild' active at all?

  • jiveguy #17 2 years ago

    There used to be when I was last playing. Check out the official WoW thread in the forums, someone there might know.

  • masterson #18 2 years ago

    "No wish to change race, cannot for the life of me see why anyone would wish to change a lvl80's race. If you wanted to be horde you should roll a new character, these days lvling is painless. "

    Painless if you don't have a job perhaps....

  • butler` #19 2 years ago

    it's pretty painless with a job... they've casual-ified the game to the ground.

    but then again, who would pay to play a game they don't have time for

  • EmiliasHorse #20 2 years ago

    @Masterson

    Install Quest Helper, slip your alt a couple of Heirloom items and Bob's your uncle. I work long hours and have a wife and still find lvling new characters a pleasure.

  • anomagnus #21 2 years ago

    @Lionheart

    20 hours a week and more, working on 25 man algalon, 25 man anub hc, and yogg 0 - three brilliant, unique encounters.

  • Rack #22 2 years ago

    Anything that makes it easier to play the instances is a big deal, but I can't help but think 1000 players looking for 250 healers is pretty damn near identical to 12 players looking for 3 healers.

  • Sharzam #23 2 years ago

    Thats where having a druid with Feral and Resto spec comes in, if i want a group to X dungeon i can get it however when i play my DPS classes i can see the problems. Also i guess they will use the battleground groups due to server locations (the groups are the way they are for a reason) but i hope they dont do mixed language you can just imagine the problems if you PUG with people that dont speak english its bad enourgh as it is.

  • sneetch #24 2 years ago

    @Emilia'sHorse
    No wish to change race, cannot for the life of me see why anyone would wish to change a lvl80's race. If you wanted to be horde you should roll a new character, these days lvling is painless.

    It's a good option to have. I want a gnome priest (whenever they come in), I'd rather be spending €20 than deleting my night elf priest and spending days levelling up another. :)

    Not to mention the days it would take to re-acquire the rep, equipment, honour and so on.

  • Xensor #25 2 years ago

    @ anomagnus

    Nice :) My guild has finally done Yoggy 10 after many stupid wipes and we've started on ToC10 hc - beasts down and would have have jaraxsis if people weren't stoopid :p Obviously miles behind your guild but at least we've cleared all the 10 man content before 3.3 which was bugging me :) We've only recently split from our long term raid partner to do our own 25 man raids and making good prgress there too, gonna finish up the watchers tonight and hopefully get a shot a yoggy if the fail levels can be kept to a minimum!

  • WantOn #26 2 years ago

    I have to echo the guy with fond memories for vanilla WoW and the raids at level 60. It all actually meant something then; people required a certain level of skill and game knowledge to do them. As time has gone on, the game has gotten stupidly easy.

    Is it too much to ask for an MMO that isn't rendered trivial by add-ons (Quest helpers, threat meters etc) and the wowheads/thottbots of this world?

  • FortysixterUK #27 2 years ago

    WOW is certainly getting most things right, now if only they can:-

    1) Cut Warsong Gulch down to 10 mins and make it so the people with the most flag caps /kills win
    2) Put the Wintergrasp quests back as daily
    3) Stop nerfing pally's.
    4) Make it so people can't discriminiate against you when you want to do a dungeon if you haven't got the required achievement etc. Elitist cnuts the lot of 'em

  • Henrik_se #28 2 years ago

    No mentions of the new weekly raid quests?

    It's an absolutely fantastic feature, it means if you're a raiding guild, you'll occasionally do old raids, which gives you the chance of picking up achievements you missed.

    It also focuses the pickup raids so that you'll have an easier time gearing your alts, in the same way that the daily heroic really focused the PUGs.

  • Nephirion #29 2 years ago

    replaces the Looking For Group feature with a Dungeon button

    LFG is hardly used in my experience, people spam for others in the trade channels in Dalaran. I wonder if WoW can hold back the tide of players that will move to Star Wars the Old Republic when it hits?

  • megamanshawn1999 #30 2 years ago

    you want a mmo that isn't bothered by a bunch of different crap WantOn? go play some final fantasy 11 then trust me it is what your looking for