They let us into the conference room at about 10:40 am and everyone calmly took their seats, Bill Roper and Gil Shif were already seated behind a desk with a large projector screen behind them. On the screen was the start-up screen for Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Bill Roper and Gil Shif were introduced before the word was given to Mr. Roper. He told us that they'd start by showing us some of the single player part of the Frozen Throne and that there would be a little bit about World of Warcraft at the end. So we watched and waited.

I won't go into detail about what was shown about Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne except just to mention that we were introduced to the race of the Naga; an amphibious race that has returned to the surface. They are a new enemy and have an unexplained hatred for the Night Elves. A special type of items, called Runes were also shown and the reason for mentioning these two is that Mr. Roper mentioned that what they put into the Warcraft games immediately becomes a part of the Warcraft Universe and are available for other games in the Warcraft theme, such as World of Warcraft. So don't look surprised if the Naga are found in WoW or if Runes are.

World of Warcraft in Action

And now on to the real deal; seeing the World of Warcraft in action! Mr. Roper started up the game and we soon came to the character selection screen where 10 slots were available. By what Roper said, there will probably be 10 characters per -account-.

The first character he loaded was Dabu the Orc Shaman, who appeared near a field with Harvest Golems wandering about. It was broad daylight and Dabu was not very far from the bridge that leads on to the Duskwood. The graphics really made the game look alive with the small details of how the orc character move when standing idle, rolling his shoulders and straightening his back and the smooth, natural surroundings that only added to the atmosphere.

We saw Dabu run around a little, as well as seeing him change attires with just a few simple clicks with the mouse. I'll bring up more about the interface later. After showing the surroundings quickly, Mr. Roper moved on to attack a Harvest Golem after having buffed the orc character with some spells. And with a few spells and a couple of strikes with the mighty steel mace of his, Dabu had put the Harvest Golem out of order. With the fighting done, Dabu then turned his steps towards the bridge, to show us how easy and smoothly one could move between areas. And it was smooth, very smooth. From the bright and sunny weather in one side, it slowly got darker and darker and our brave orc ran over the bridge until he was finally on the other side. It had smoothly become so dark and spooky that Dabu had to take out his torch and when he looked behind him the bridge was cold and dark as well, nothing that tells that beyond the bridge is a much more open and more lighted area.

Dabu was then logged off, though we weren't disappointed as the next race in line was the great Tauren standing in the view of a scout tower. Mr. Roper explained that only now in World of Warcraft is the dev team able to really portrait the actual scale of the characters and buildings and that we would now see how they had imagined the sizes of structures to be. He took us closer to the scout tower, on the way showing us how easy one could zoom in and out with the mouse wheel all the way out and then all the way into first person perspective. The scout tower itself was massive, it was huge. The Tauren ran all the way up to the top, where we cold get a nice view of the surroundings; from the mountain ranges (which were not painted there, Mr. Roper assured, but places you could actually reach) to the lumber mill just below the tower. As fall damage wasn't implemented yet, Mr. Roper took that advantage and simply jumped down from the tower before logging this character off as well to show us the human city of Stormwind and a human character.

Jaina stood just outside of Stormwind, the scenery looking as beautiful as the others had been (there were cute little bunnies here too, though to my knowledge none were attacked). Mr. Roper showed us again how easy it was to change clothes and clothed Jaina with proper attire for her visit in the city. The road near the city was between a handful of large statues of heroes of warcraft, the Mountain King was clearly identified. The city itself looked much like the game play video had shown. Shops have signs outside their buildings to make it easier to find them. With Jaina, Mr. Roper also showed us some of the emotes they had built in as well as some mouse functions such as being able to turn the screen around with ease to see the characters from all angles. When the mouse is held over objects or characters, Jainas head moved slowly to face whatever the mouse pointer was over. Another neat detail is that, when speaking, the characters will make gestures and those gestures vary; if you ask a question the gesture shows exactly that and when you shout, the gestures reacts to that. Conversations promises to look natural and interesting, even if you can't see what is said.

Again, even the contours of buildings far away were from actual buildings, the huge cathedral rose high over the city and promises to be quite a sight.

Mr. Roper then logged the human woman off to instead show us another part of the world. He logged on the dwarf Blazebeard, perhaps a mage by the looks of his robes and staff. We were quickly shown the outpost of Anvilmar, the dwarven starting location; a small camp with some wagons and tents set up inhabited by a handful of NPCs. Two of the NPC dwarves had exclamation marks over their heads and Bill Roper explained to us that when an NPC had something to say to us, that was show we would know.

Blazebeard didn't linger long in the outpost and instead jogged outside (leaving footprints in the snow) to show us the surroundings; we saw Troggs, Frostmane Trolls and small little bunnies jumping around. Or jumping around until a wolf attacked the poor thing, at which Blazebeard got mad and beat up the wolf. Our dwarven guide then made his way back to the outpost and waved us off, that was all they had to show us.

Information

Now it was time for the questions from us to Bill Roper, and we found out titbits of info about different things in the game and I'll sum up the information we received from Bill Roper during the showing and the short Q&A afterwards. The information here is also taken from after the press conference when Bill Roper sat down with some of us from different news sites and answered some questions then as well.

Items

Of items we were told that anything picked up in the World of Warcraft was good for something. Either to you or to someone else, both NPCs and PCs in the game world. No items existed purely for the reason of selling them and getting coins even though you could do that. But if you wanted to find whoever did need the items, well there's another adventure. Bill Roper said that there wouldn't be any 'junk loot' in the game.

When asked if items would be so important that they actually make the character rather than just add to them like in Diablo 2, Mr. Roper said that even if items would have importance in World of Warcraft, it would be nowhere near the quantities of Diablo 2.

Dynamic NPCs

When the wolf attacked the rabbit, it already implied that monsters will be living their own lives instead of just waiting for a character to come and kill them. And when asked about how NPCs would react to different, Mr. Roper responded that even though friendly interracial activities will not be restricted, it'll be difficult as if you do get on the good side with for example orcs, your reputation among the humans would decrease.

Interface

We also saw that the interface had changed a lot from the early screenshots. Words were replaced by icons. There was a hot key bar at the bottom left side of the screen and the options icons to its right side with the characters paper doll among some other buttons. To the right side, the backpack and some space for money.

The mini map was also mentioned and shown, we were told that they didn't want the mini map to reveal too much but it would show you how to get to places you have already been to. The mini map also shows you the current time of day. And besides the mini map, which is still located at the top right corner of the screen is a small area where you can see which spells you are currently affected by.

Player Driven Storyline

The answer given when asked how they will be pulling off the feat of keeping the storyline really player driven, was that events would require players to decide the outcome. If perhaps a great villain attacks and isn't defeated then it would open up another line in the story than if it had been defeated. This way the storyline can also be different on different servers.

Combat

Combat looked really fun, even though Mr. Roper used a little too much spells for my taste. Though perhaps that's not so surprising since the character was a shaman. Spells are controlled very easily; you can simply put them on your hotkey bar. The magic effects look really nice and targeting seems easy as well. You can as mentioned previously by Blizzard, click through your character and throwing buffs on yourself is done simply by selecting your character by clicking on the character portrait, which is located at the top left corner with the HP and mana bars, and then use the spell you want.

When the orc unsheathed his mace from his back and started attacking, it didn't look too bad at all. The combat pace wasn't too slow and I saw at least two different animations of attacking during the short melee fight.

Misc

PvP was described by Bill Roper to occur in special designated areas and arenas and in that way will be consensual. PvP will have its own rewards and goals according to Mr. Roper.

Trade skills will be available for those who don't wish to fight continuously or at all, but Bill Roper did say that World of Warcraft is focused on combat.

Player housing still isn't a feature set in stone though Bill Roper did express their wish to have the feature implemented because of the success it has had in other games.

Bill Roper explained also some of the reasons for why they are doing a totally new server network for World of Warcraft. First it was because the architecture just wasn't suitable for an MMORPG and also because Blizzard wanted a clear distinction between the two services, the free Battle Net and the subscription and fee based World of Warcraft.

On the beta question, Bill Roper said that it would be held sometime this year and that they do not want to say for how long they intend to hold the beta but rather take the time it needs, be it 2 months or 9 months.

When I asked which part of the development that was the hardest, he [Bill Roper] said that it was the part where they had to choose the features that was NOT to be in the game or that would have to be implemented later. He also said that it was one of the great things about having a live team for the game so that feature that would have taken longer to implement can be put into the game after release.

But all things come to an end and so did this press meeting and the interview afterwards. But I didn't leave empty handed, my notebook filled with sloppy jots written down without me looking at what I'm writing as I couldn't take my eyes off of the screen when the game was shown. I really can't wait for the beta, this game looks to be very promising indeed.

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