Blizzard's Lead Designer for World Design in World of Warcraft Jeff Kaplan (otherwise known as Tigole at the official WoW Forums), recently spoke at the Leipzig Games Convention about what's going to be in the latest expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

Judging from what he said, it looks like happy times are coming to gamers everywhere. He gave word that there are quite a few things that weren't announced in BlizzCon regarding WotLK. Among them includes the five man level 80 raid Caverns of Time which will be in Stratholm.

Kaplan also gave word that they're looking into pursuing what the Bronze Dragon Flight is up to as well as give players a chance to fight beside Arthas before he was corrupted by the power of the Lich King.

A few details on the Death Knight were also clarified by Kaplan. First up is the fact that they haven't completely finalized the level requirements for the hero class.

He hinted that it might be unlockable with a level as low as 55 and 60. However, the quest to gain it will most likely be implemented as well as being able to keep your race. Yes, that means that we might actually be seeing Gnomish Death Knights rampaging the fields.

Finally, the designer gave word that more hero classes will be introduced in the future. The Demon Hunter, Archmage, and Blademaster will probably be coming. However, it has been confirmed that the Death Knight will be the only hero class available when Wrath of the Lich King debuts.

Good times are definitely in store for WoW players with all the new content in the new expansion. We're hoping that they start working on more hero classes. After all, (insert favorite race here) does not live on one class alone.

 

Many of us probably dream of being able to make our own quests for World of Warcraft. For others, the dream is to become a powerful character within the game to earn the admiration of your peers. For even more people, the dream is to go into the furthest depths of the game, seeing everything the game has to offer.

Well, for one young gamer, the Make-A-Wish Foundation made it all come true.

Ezra Chatterton, you see, has a brain tumor. For him, however, all he wanted to do while in the hospital was play WoW. The Make a Wish Foundation managed to help him out, and Blizzard made him part of their development team for one whole day.

What did he get to do? Besides getting his character bumped up to level 70 and stocked with the best armor and weapons in the game, he sat beside Jeff Kaplan and created a new weapon (a legendary flame-firing crossbow!) and a new quest line. He also immortalized his dog Kyle in the quest line he designed. Being turned into a temporary GM who can fly and death touch Black Temple bosses like Supremus was also a big plus.

Of course, his dream is to come back some day and work for Blizzard as a developer and play tester. As tiring as the day was for him, it filled him up with hope, and that's a BOP item that everyone deserves to have in their inventory. Hopefully, he'll be able to come back and fulfill his new dream as well.

The latest episode of Legendary Thread, 1UP's World of Warcraft podcast, is now up.

Check it out and learn a few tidbits of insider info. Here's one example: After every world first boss kill, WoW Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan gets an email which details who did what, what equipment they used, and the damage and healing meters for the encounter. Talk about info overload! And since he is the lead designer after all, one glance at the stat sheet and he'll know if cheating was involved.

The podcast also features the regular Legendary Thread crew discussing the 2.0.7 patch, the quest for in-game girlfriends, battleground exploits, and a lot more. You can listen to the podcast by downloading it right here.

Download: [1UP's Legendary Thread podcast (February 14)]

Everybody is abuzz with World of Warcraft's Burning Crusade expansion these days. And for guys like game designer Jeff Kaplan, it means a recently concluded interview with the MTV crew. In the conversation that took place, Jeff began by reiterating on some of the more interesting events that took place at the launch sites, such as the fans in Universal City asking for a "Tigole" autograph - his in-game name - instead of his real name.

Strange events aside, the crew interviewed Kaplan on his current "What's next?" itinerary, which included a look at what made Burning Crusade a step up from competing MMORPGs. "One of the core tenets of WoW design philosophy is to not design around super-long extended-play sessions," Kaplan said regarding TBC's revamped gameplay.

We really focused on the winged-dungeon approach. That means they've made areas designed for players to quickly get in and out, knocking through one 45-minute wing at a time. We felt that gave people the option of doing a bite-size chunk of content on their own time, and should they choose to take four or five bites in a night, that's kind of a personal decision.

Moving on with the interview, they also delved into the upcoming success of another MMO - Second Life. Instead of using a game developer-controlled atmosphere, Second Life literally puts a blank check in the player's hands with regards to creativity. What was Kaplan's outlook on this MMORPG, which followed a very different design philosophy from WoW?

Obviously some of the elements of Second Life at this point couldn't be integrated into a game like World of Warcraft. It's a very different system, and it would probably be a shock to that system. But should we ever work on a future project that was similar, there's a lot of lessons we could learn from that.

On a related note to this, Kaplan was also excited about other design concepts he picked from a personal favorite: Animal Crossing. As he reiterated:

I want to make sure that when we introduce player housing to World of Warcraft we do it right and give the feature the credit that it deserves, which is a massive amount of production time on the programming, design and art time. It's something we actually wanted to do for the original shipping game.

And what about the rumors of WoW hitting the console scene?, "We are not anywhere close to being on console," Kaplan said regarding the matter. You heard straight, Cartman. For the rest of the interview, which will be covering other hot matters like "The Sword of a Thousand Truths," view the read link.

If you're not busy preparing for the midnight launch party, or perhaps throwing your own Burning Crusade launch countdown happening in your own backyard, perhaps you can lend your ears to Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan for a moment as he talks to Firing Squad. See? Even in the middle of all the commotion that is the BC launch, he has time to sit down, have some tea, chew some fat. Or maybe that's because he's Game Designer, which means his job's been done long before, so he has nothing but time. At least until he's got to design something new again.

Now, some of what Kaplan said is old territory: we've been there, done that, such as playable race profiles, or them danged Fel Reavers. But we can draw a few new details from the Firing Squad Q&A, though. Here they are:

• Simply because people have described the Exodar as a "spaceship" doesn't mean that this game has gone sci-fi, Kaplan clarifies. The only thing which the Exodar travelled is the Twisting Nether, not the final frontier. Consider it an alternative to the Dark Portal - or being a Titan.
• Besides the Fel Reavers, the other Outlandish creatures to watch out for include the Arrakoa, Flesh Beasts, Elekks, and Ethereals. "Each new region of Outland has some creature or other that stands out."
• "We do intend to continue producing free content updates for World of Warcraft... A lot of (new content) will be realized in content updates, while others may find their way into new expansions in the future." New expansions? Not so soon, please - we still gotta buy the current one first!
• Finally, Kaplan reveals that there are some unnamed projects under Blizzard's ambit right now, but no details to reveal yet. Starcraft 2, perhaps? (Or World of Starcraft. --ed.)
  

You gotta love interviews, especially when they've got video for you to enjoy. Gametrailers has picked up a video interview of Jeff Kaplan, one of the Lead Game Designers for World of Warcraft.

In this interview, Kaplan talks about the changes The Burning Crusade expansion will bring in. While we've been talking about these issues for a while now, such as the opening of new portions of the world, as well as the enhancements to PVP, the LFG party-finding system (Barrens Chat Worldwide FTL.) and the race/class shift that will occur in the expansion, it's nice to actually hear and see someone talk about it, making it more or less official by any definition of the word.

What's more, interspersed in the video are snippets of action for the Burning Crusade. Some of it you may have seen before, such as the flying mounts of Outland, but the whole package ties it all in. The Burning Crusade will bring a lot of changes to the game, and we can only hope that they'll bring a ton of new blood into the game we know and love, Blood Elves notwithstanding.

Download: [The Burning Crusade: Jeff Kaplan Video Interview]

Lead designer Jeff Kaplan is our inside man when it comes to exclusive behind-the-scenes update on World of Warcraft's first game expansion, The Burning Crusade. He reveals very interesting points on the addition of Blood Elves to the Horde race, adding Paladin as a choice for the Horde and Shaman choice for the Alliance, a new profession, jewelcrafting plus other juicy details. Just to give you a taste of what we mean by "juicy details" here's an excerpt from Robert Summa's interview.

Tell me (Joystiq) something that hasn't already been announced that is planned for the expansion?
The PvP system is the first big change that our players have been waiting to hear about for a long time. Basically, we recognized the flaws with the existing honor system. Our goal was not to create a system that involved a massive amount of time investment, it's counter to all of WoW's designer philosophy. We've never been focused on trying to be a time sink. Our PvP system in its current incarnation is very much like that, so what we've done is design a new PvP system that will go live with The Burning Crusade. It has three core components to it.

The first is the arena combat system. You'll be able to join a team: 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5. There are two different modes you can play: One is called practice mode to hone your skills and the other is competitive mode, which is level 70 only.

The rest of the interview awaits after the jump!