"World of Warcraft" expansion coming January 16

By: Karl Schneider
Date: Monday, November 13, 2006
Source: Blizzard

Blizzard Entertainment announced that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the latest expansion in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, will hit stores on January 16, 2007, in North America and Europe. The expansion will be available in a similar time frame in South 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.

The subscriber base for World of Warcraft has reached a new milestone, with 7.5 million players worldwide, the company said.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will enable players to advance their characters up to level 70, unlocking a world of power and possibilities along the way. Additional features include two new playable races (the Blood Elves and the Draenei), flying mounts, new talents and abilities for all character classes, the new jewel-crafting profession, new magical weapons and armor 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.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will be available for Windows 2000/XP and Macintosh formats at a suggested retail price of $39.99. A special collectors' edition will also be available at a suggested retail price of $69.99 on both CD-ROM and DVD and will include the Art of the Burning Crusade coffee-table book, an exclusive in-game pet, a behind-the-scenes DVD, two World of Warcraft trading-card game starter decks and three exclusive cards, a map-of-Outland mouse pad and the official soundtrack CD.

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