But to put that in perspective, it’s important to understand just how different the landscape has become. A future blog entry in this series will deal specifically with the new quests and leveling experience for new characters.

So it’s something of a shock when you see, first-hand, how much the upcoming expansion pack will change everything those players take for granted as a normal, natural part of the world before them. They’ve seen the lower level areas, know the history of the world’s factions, and have become so familiar with low-level quests that some are the butt of longstanding jokes. It’s a safe bet that the majority of heavy Warcraft players have successfully taken a character from level 1 to the maximum level by now. But more importantly, it also gives the game’s developers a chance to both literally and figuratively reinvent history.

The “Cataclysm” expansion pack for World of Warcraft, expected at the earliest sometime this fall and in testing now, has to offer the game’s 11 million subscribers something new, and it does: two new races to play, a whole new storyline to follow, new zones to experience and new dungeons to conquer. Future updates will deal with the level 80-plus areas in the new expansion, the new areas for level 10-60 characters, and professions. Previous blog entries dealt with the new worgen starting area, the new goblin starting area, and Blizzard Entertainment’s aborted attempt to require real life first and last names from the millions of posters on their official forums. It is based on the beta tests under way now and brought to you by the new book My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropologist’s Account of World of Warcraft, by Bonnie Nardi, available now from The University of Michigan Press. This is the latest in a series of blog posts regarding the upcoming “Cataclysm” update/expansion pack for the online game World of Warcraft.

Leader of the goblins wow