World of Warcraft Beta Journal #10
Dialogue, 2004-05-13

Kat on the new Talent System -

As you may know, we are in the process of redesigning the Talent System. It is being redesigned with two primary functions in mind. First, it will be one of the methods used to allow players to differentiate their characters from others of the same class. Secondly, it will now allow players several options to choose from when upgrading their character's combat effectiveness.

Each character will earn one talent point per level, which they can then spend on a variety of Talents designed specifically for their class. Talents will be categorized into three different varieties as listed below:

General Talents: These are talents that will increase many, or possibly all, spells/abilities that a character has. An example of a General Talent might be: +1 to all Shadow damage.

Spell/Ability Specific Talents: These are talents that will increase one specific spell/ability that a character has. An example of a Spell/Ability Specific Talent might be: +5 to Holy Strike damage.

Exceptional Talents: These are talents that will add a new spell/ability to your character. This will be a spell/ability not available in any other way.

Additionally, we are planning to add a mechanism that will allow players to remove talents from their characters, for situations where a mistake was made. This will not be done freely, as with the Skill Point removal system. There will be a very meaningful cost, or penalty, associated with removing them, to prohibit situational Talent removal abuse.

~Kat :)

Kat on upcoming content additions -

As for content... The dungeon team is currently working on Uldaman (level 35-45 dungeon in the Badlands). Next, we move on to Gnomeregan (25-32 dungeon in Dun Morogh). The quest designers are working on more class quests. They are also in the process of filling out Tanaris, Feralas, Hinterlands, Blasted Lands, Aszhara, and Burning Steppes. The level designers are completing the rest of the world and the content guys will hit the zones once level design wraps up. There are a lot of cool new features incoming with the next beta push. We're iterating on those. I don't want to announce anything just yet. But rest assured, many of the changes and new features are a direct result of Beta tester feedback. We read every single /suggest you guys input. And trust me there's a ton of them =P

~Kat :)

Kat on new Ambient Sound -

While I was conversing with our Lead Sound Designer, I found out that we will be adding all new environmental sounds to World of Warcraft in our next push. The next push will feature wav files that will replace the current midi files. This will allow the zones to come to life, and should correct most problems, such as piano notes playing repetitively or having distortion problems associated with Direct Music Producer. Once this change goes into effect, you will hear environmental sounds in all outdoor zones along with most cities. (All cities will eventually have this added as well.) Be sure to keep your sound on once the next patch is launched!

~Kat :)

Official Blizzard e3 Site

Gamespot's WoW Gamespace

Gamespy's e3 preview

Screens from the Blizzard E3 Press CD (new mounts!)-