I know all of you WoW-heads have been waiting for this news for awhile, so here it is!
Blizzard Entertainment announced today that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the highly anticipated expansion to the world's leading subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, will be in stores on January 16th in North America and Europe. The expansion will be available in a similar time frame in Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore as well, and availability for mainland China and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau will be announced in the near future. In addition, Blizzard today announced that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft has reached a new milestone, with 7.5 million players worldwide.
In World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, players will be able to advance their characters up to level 70, unlocking a world of power and possibilities along the way. Additional features coming in The Burning Crusade include two new playable races (the Blood Elves and the Draenei), flying mounts, new talents and abilities for all character classes, the new jewelcrafting profession, new magical weapons and armour, and many enhancements to player-vs.-player action. The expansion will also lead veteran players through the fabled Dark Portal and into Outland, former homeworld of the Orcs and site of a series of cataclysmic events that helped shape the history of the Warcraft universe. In this shattered world, players will encounter new challenges and dangers in the form of new outdoor zones, quests, dungeons, never-before-seen monsters, and much more. Over the course of their new adventures in The Burning Crusade, players will grow in experience and power as they uncover the rich lore and mysteries of Outland and do battle with the demonic forces of The Burning Legion.
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will be available at retail stores for Windows 2000/XP and Macintosh. A special Collector's Edition of the expansion will also be available. This limited-edition package will include the expansion on both CD-ROM and DVD, the Art of the Burning Crusade coffee table book, an exclusive in-game pet, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a World of Warcraft Trading Card Game starter deck and exclusive cards, a map of Outland mouse pad and the official soundtrack CD. The World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion requires the original World of Warcraft game. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade has received a 12+ rating by PEGI.
In World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, players will be able to advance their characters up to level 70, unlocking a world of power and possibilities along the way. Additional features coming in The Burning Crusade include two new playable races (the Blood Elves and the Draenei), flying mounts, new talents and abilities for all character classes, the new jewelcrafting profession, new magical weapons and armour, and many enhancements to player-vs.-player action. The expansion will also lead veteran players through the fabled Dark Portal and into Outland, former homeworld of the Orcs and site of a series of cataclysmic events that helped shape the history of the Warcraft universe. In this shattered world, players will encounter new challenges and dangers in the form of new outdoor zones, quests, dungeons, never-before-seen monsters, and much more. Over the course of their new adventures in The Burning Crusade, players will grow in experience and power as they uncover the rich lore and mysteries of Outland and do battle with the demonic forces of The Burning Legion.
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will be available at retail stores for Windows 2000/XP and Macintosh. A special Collector's Edition of the expansion will also be available. This limited-edition package will include the expansion on both CD-ROM and DVD, the Art of the Burning Crusade coffee table book, an exclusive in-game pet, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a World of Warcraft Trading Card Game starter deck and exclusive cards, a map of Outland mouse pad and the official soundtrack CD. The World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion requires the original World of Warcraft game. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade has received a 12+ rating by PEGI.
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I don't know the exact price of WoW, but assuming it is around $9.99 a month, thats a little under 75 million dollars they generate each and every month. That is simply mind boggling. The could probably afford to double or even triple their work force, and buy hundreds of new servers every month. Scary stuff.
That's a large RAW profit. When you factor in the costs of salaries for all the staff at Blizzard, the cost of deploying and maintaining the servers, and all those other costs associated with running a business, it wouldn't be nearly as impressive.
you have a break from school and you wanna spend it getting a lvl70 anything? wow im glad i havent hit that level of nerd.
It's rather scary to be brutally honest that something as simplistic as a 'game' can have this much pull and power, even so much that real life crime prevention teams are putting task forces together to cease the trading of "WoW" currency (weapons etc..) across the net for hard cash.
Crazy!
Don't get me wrong though. Playing on the test server is fantastic fun! All the content I've 'tested' up to now is unmissable. You get that buzz which you got when you first started all over again!
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