WoW E3 2003 notes

King_of_Dragons jotted down notes from sit-down at Blizzards WoW preview:

Features/Misc
hour and a half to go from bottom to top of Azeroth
2 continents, Azeroth and Kalimdor
PVP will be consensual, 90% of world is non-pvp, 10% is
the Stranglethorn Arena will be player pvp. Players can buy tickets to fight dragons, hyrdras, etc.
Multiple players can fight a monster at once, but there will be limits.
Team battles, either groups vs groups or groups vs monster(s)
Guild battles planned, will be advertise
Spectators can buy tickets, eventually be able to bet on games
There will be about 100 or more "micro-dungeons" (which are actually quite large) that players can spend a few hours in killing monsters, quests, etc. Will be located all throughout the world. Not instanced. No loading entrance, to get in you will actually walk in it, no "doors" or dark areas that you go next to and loading "warp" inside.
Entire game has no loading after initial load, except for certain areas (instanced areas, some buildings like the Monastary). This is because the game is streamed to the user (90% streamed).
Cathedral of Light in center of Stormwind. Blizzard doesn't want people to come to cities just to trade/buy stuff, wants cities to be a place where players can adventure, do quests, etc. In Stormwind there are large statues of the heroes from past Warcraft titles (including War3x) with plaques on the base of each one showing the hero's name.
Stormwind will have multiple manors/districts (mage, warrior, trading, etc) which will be told apart by roof colors (red for warrior, blue for mage, etc). It also has a canal system (not fully implemented yet in the E3 demo) which will allow players to travel quickly (not instantaneously) between these areas.
The cathedral might even be used for player weddings! Players will be able to rent the room and buy/send out invitations.
2000-4000 players per server
Blizzard wants quests, story, and history as a major part of the game, so players can get involved.
Languages will work like this: Orcs start out speaking only Orcish, any characters of another race's text will show up as converted text, and the same is true with another race seeing your text. You can learn other race's languages, but not easy.
Attribute (Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intelligence and Spirit) and skill points obtained on level up ONLY.
Bind stones: talk to guy standing next to each (binder) and he will bind you to that stone. When you die, you return there. Several of these located throughout the world, can only be bound to one at a time. Most are near major cities.
Beta: want servers to be packed. Will last 8 months or so. Will do beta in waves, starting with a few and eventually open beta.
Biggest hurdle is content. Game looks like a released game in terms of graphics and gameplay at this point (and it's still only in alpha)!
Health recovers slowly over time, will speed up if sit or lay down (/sit, /lay).
World Locations
Kalidar - NE starting location. It is a city located on the top of a HUGE tree. has wisps, moon wells, etc.
20+ big dungeons, Blackrock Spire is one of these.
Blackrock Spire was created by the Dwarves in ancient times. Some mishap happened (which will be learned) and the mountain was turned into a volcano. Orcs took over in Warcraft I but Humans ousted them. Since then it has been deserted, but lately evil forces have inhabited it, viler than the Orcs. There are 2 parts in it, the upper spire and lower spire. Upper spire will have Dragons in it.
Classes
Human/Orc can be Warlock. Dark magic, summoning demonic spirits, take/drain life from enemies. Casts sleep, can summon felhound pet. Right click on pet portrait to issue commands (like attack, heel, stay, follow, unsummon, etc). Can only have one pet out at a time.
When you kill something (you actually deliver the killing blow), there will be a magical effect on the corpse telling you you can loot it first. Different loot types.
Hunter (Dwarf can be this too): ranged weapon proficiency, can tame beats. Can only have one beast at a time, but can dismiss it to get another. This tamed beast will be name-able and will level up with you and grow stronger and larger. It can level to be up to 90% of your level.
Druids: can cast wards, shapeshift. When shifted, can only use that form's abilities. Can turn into bear, flying thing, and most interestingly, rabbit. Rabbit form can't do anything but move, good for scout (enemies see it as a neutral critter, even when clicking, monsters won't attack).
Items
5 slots for "bags". Each item will take up 1 slot. You can buy more/bigger bags with more slots. The more slots a bag can hold, the more expensive/harder to get it will be. You can put items in these bags and different bag types, like herb bags, arrow pouches, etc.
Skills/Spells
2 types of spells/skills: Core and Secondary. Shown as X/Max, where x is your current knowledge over its max, which goes up each level.
The more you use a skill, the higher it's level/effectiveness.
Gathering/herbalism: can extract ingredients from herb bushes, find herb spell that will show dots on minimap where herbs are. Can turn on/off, but when on you can only walk (not attack or run).
These bushes spawn randomly, can't camp. Specific types that give specific ingredients only spawn in specific areas, like in caves, coasts, etc.
Tradeskill window: Red spells are hardest to use (ingredients rarer), but make skill go up more. Grey is easy, but little skill uppage. All these will always be successful (no aggravation by having to do it again and again). Reagents shown as have/need.
Works the same for herbalism, first aid, smithing, mining, etc.
You can buy recipes for all these (which will have level and skill requirements), but rarer ones will be only obtained through quests or find off of monsters.
Higher level tradeskills might require the player to go to a lab/smithy/etc to make the item.
Core skills require a trainer/money to buy. No skill point required.
Secondary skills require a skill point to obtain the skill, then it works like a core (not like D2 where you pump points into one skill).
When you use a spell, it will grey out and have a clock thing like the spell cooldowns in warcraft III.
Transportation
Higher level char will get more and faster movement methods.
Gryphon taxis, go to gryphon masters which are located throughout the world in major cities and such. They can transport you to other gryphon master areas, but only the ones you have visited before (like waypoints). Once you purchase the trip, you will actually see the gryphon take off and fly to that area, all without any loading screens. Takes about 3 mins on the one I saw. You can't control the gryphon, but can look around. Players will be able to see you flying overhead. When entering a different zone, the sky/music changes (for example, entering Blackrock spire from Ironforge/Dun Morogh). The sky changed to a black/red and music changed. Good for scouting.
Boats will be same, can go places you have been. There will always be something to do on the boat, like quests (maybe attacked by pirates/harpies) or even gambling. Don't want people to be on the boat just being bored. It is NOT instantaneous transportation, you will actually see the boat travelling to the destination.
World map not implented yet, but when there is it will reveal terrain once you get there (like Morrowind). No annotation option yet, but is considered.
Humans: Horses. Orcs: Wolves. Dwarves: Rams. Others unknown.
Mounts will have to be bought, not given. There will be quests to get them as well.
Low levels will find it easy to get one of their race specific mounts, but won't be able to get other race's.
If you wanted a human to get a Wolf mount, you would have to raise your reputation with the Orcs and such. Then you would look really Uber :).
Primary purpose of mounts is transportation, cannot fight while on them. Don't want everyone on their mount all the time.
Come in different colors/types/sizes. Provide armor bonus.
For now, there are summoned by activating an item. You auto get on it. Same way to dismount (mount disappears). Good way so you don't lose track of it and it will be always with you. Cannot use mounts indoors.
Quests
Exclamation point above head of people who give you quests. Yellow if you can do the quest, blue if they won't give you yet but if you can get it later (when you are higher level).
Quests are shown when talking to them, and you can see description of the quest as well as the reward (which is sometimes a choice of up to 6 rewards). You can take multiple quests at a time, from the same person even.
Quest log shows all active quests, can change order by moving quests up/down. When you select a quest, you will see it's full description and reward(s) again, as well as your current status. Like if a quest is to obtain X items, it will say "X/7 items obtained."
There will be quests and tasks. Quests can only be done once and rewards are unique items you can't buy or find in that area. Tasks you can do multiple times and are simple things like deliver this item to this person.