World of Warcraft expansion talk

By Tom Bramwell Published 31 August, 2005

Who it's for and what it is?

A senior staffer at World of Warcraft developer Blizzard has gone on record talking about the inevitable expansion pack for the ridiculously popular MMORPG.

According to Shawn Carnes, quest and overall game designer, it should be released "in late 2006 barring unforeseen chaos". Work is already underway, according to Carnes, and the new content will be "proportional to the population of the game, so it will tip to the high end of the game (as most veteran players will be of high level)".

Carnes was speaking to GamerGod.com at the GenCon Indy 2005 event in the US recently. The game expansion hasn't been officially announced - although well-informed rumours abound that it'll be the focal point of the inaugural Blizzard Convention (BlizzCon) in October - but in the absence of a PR minder Carnes went on to talk about the expansion in a certain amount of detail.

"Any new quest arcs will fit into existing areas and arcs. Since WoW takes players on a deliberate path through the levels in specific areas, any new quests need to take advantage of these areas and pair up with existing content instead of making new areas for the same level range and moving or splitting up the player population."

That last comment is interesting because it implies that the new content has nothing to do with the various 'uncharted areas' discovered by players in the recent past. As followers of the game may know, certain players have stepped into a portal and wound up in strange places seemingly still in development and unreachable by any in-game pathing.

Whatever Blizzard is planning, however, the only way we're going to hear about it until the developer's ready is through opportunistic interviews such as this one. Indeed, a spokesperson for owner Vivendi-Universal Games, speaking to us this afternoon, was unable to confirm any of the details and had no news on when we can expect to see the expansion unveiled.

And, just in case you're worried, there's no reason to think that the creation of a boxed expansion will prevent Blizzard from releasing new free content like the recent Battlegrounds element in future.

Expect to hear more about the ongoing development of World of Warcraft later in the year.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (14) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #1 7 years ago

    Cool, I'm still hopelessly addicted.

    Those strange portals littered accross the land will over time become instances of sorts, I'd wager. They've added battlegrounds, Blackwing Lair (the hardest dungeon), they're testing Zul Gurub (a 20man dungeon) and another PvP Arena at the moment ready to be added in the next couple of weeks. Oh, they added Dire Maul (a 5man instance) a few months ago too.

    So they're steadily adding more content as the patches roll in, with new items and places to explore. I'd wager that an expansion will feature more than just new areas to explore. My money's on Hero Classes in this expansion, perhaps a whole new area with some uber uber monsters in too.

  • Khanivor #2 7 years ago

    200 and fucking 6? Late 2006? I very much doubt that. Unless BLizzard plans on releasing new free content every month untill then their miracle game is going to go tits up.

    WoW is fantastic, but the game has no mechanims in place for retaining players other then harder and harder high-end instances and the loot they promise. It really is a single player game with internet co-op play, unlike all those other MMOs which last for years thanks largely to player run and influenced world events, towns, etc. WoW has none of these.

    From persoanl experience it's the people I play with that keep me paying my sub. Blizzard even out any work they do to keep my interest by meddling with the game and not fixing age-old issues. If for some reason my guild fell apart I would stop playing WoW as there's very little content I've yet to experience. Make people wait another year, making two years since release, for a major update, is a joke. Let's hope these comments were just that.

  • Khanivor #3 7 years ago

    It would appear I'm a little harder on Blizzard then you Clert :)

    Or as you shall now be none, Blizzy-lova!

  • Darkedge #4 7 years ago

    WoW who cares.. Guild Wars chapter 2 will be out well before then and I'd rather not pay a monthly fee

  • Phattso #5 7 years ago

    Late 2006 does seem an awfully long way away. I've been playing since the European release in February and have seen most of the content in the game.

    That said, I've been quite Alliance-centric with a 60 Dwarf Hunter and then a sprinkling of 20-something NE Rogues and Human Mages. So, from the horde side, there's still a lot of game for me to see and experience and I'm looking forward to that. Plus, a lot of the fun for me is just in the playing itself - I often replay games I like, and in this case I'm doing that with a good group of guild mates.

    But still.....2006? Let's just hope that the drip-feed of new content (like Zul'Gurub) lives up to its billing.

  • abigsmurf #6 7 years ago

    I gave up on WoW in the end. Too much focus on end game which you get to way too fast and a belief that balance = nerfing (except in the case of shamans). Not to mention the endgame is instance grinding so you can get armour sets to make you look exactly the same as everyone else in your class

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #7 7 years ago

    Blizzy-lova, PAH

  • Bumbuliuz #8 7 years ago

    I agree late 2006 is just rubbish. Winter 2005 or spring 2006 is better. Otherwise people that have been at 60 for a long time and done MC and Onyxia will get bored and leave. And they dont want that :)
    Edited by Bumbuliuz at 31/08/05 @ 18:19

  • masterson #9 7 years ago

    Anyone who mentions Guild Wars in relation to WoW is kinda missing the point. To my mind it's akin to making an argument for frequent masturbation over sex.
    I was not initially convinced any game would warrant a monthly fee, however being that I've barely touched any other game for the last 6 months I can't really grumble at the value for money. However with this kind of subscription based model I do not think it's fair to charge for an add-on pack. Blizzard get 12 bucks a month from me. If they wish for this to continue they must fuel my addiction with regular new goodies... :)
    Edited by masterson at 01/09/05 @ 07:05

  • Psi #10 7 years ago

    abigsmurf's spot on with that, the best way to keep wow going would be to introduce new playable characters and professions every year or half year, along with new zones to house them and quests to level them with.

    or do a swg method, award a player with some stupid status if they max level every profession, give them an in game lightsaber lol

    that will keep em grinding till their fingers bleed

  • Skeeve #11 7 years ago

    As long as blizzard keep giving people new dungeons, tradeskill recipes, items etc. then they will keep the vast majority of their current userbase and keep adding new people during that time as well.

    Personally, I feel sorry for other games publishers since the amount bought by people who bought WoW must have plummeted in the last 6 months.

  • Stachey #12 7 years ago

    2006 is bad news, so it all depends on how quickly we keep getting the new uber raid instances. If they can keep up new interesting encounters for a year (well tested in future too:/) then an expansion in late 2006 is ok.

    And 'abigsmurf' its complete rubbish to believe blizz think balance=nerf, how can you possibly say that? Look at patch 1.7 for starters....hunter changes are a HUGE buff to hunter class, so much infact that I'm hoping certain new beastmastery changes get a nerf before release its that overpowered. We get Pallies with new ranged attack.. warlock have had talent tree overhaul (they still need a bit more love with an escape spell of some kind) and the only nerfs introduced are ones that were needed.

    You may have a point with endgame being instance grinding but it depends to what level you play the game. If you're still running ubrs then yeah thats all you're gonna do but that isn't the endgame. The 40 man instances are the true endgame and they are alot more then just armour collecting. Of course it only works if we keep getting new 40man instances to learn as opposed to being stuck with molten core for months like we were, where any high-end guild had it on farm status and everything got a bit dull.

    Worst comes to the worst... roll a new char:p
    Edited by Stachey at 01/09/05 @ 10:17

  • Aga #13 7 years ago

    Or they could do with Molten Core like they did with Onyxia, change the behaviour of the bosses and make it harder/more random. The changes at Onyxia wiped us some times at first.

  • ekko #14 7 years ago

    I beat WoW, and I'm glad the expansion is so far off as it was the only thing which would tempted me back. Hopefully by then I'll be dancing though fields singing hymns loudly.