WoW Week: Wrath of the Lich King, day 1

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Lead designer Jeff Kaplan reveals morsels that 10 million players are drooling for

From his early days as an EverQuest commentator, to the lofty heights of lead designer on World of Warcraft, Jeff Kaplan’s rise to power has been meteoric. In the flesh he’s polite, kindly spoken and passionate, often sporting- as most of Blizzard seem to- own-brand shirts with brightly coloured orcs on them. We cornered him recently and demanded details of our imminent journey into Northrend- and Jeff’s promises were exciting to say the least...

On geography...

“When people heard the expansion was going to be set in Northrend, they freaked out, saying ‘No, I can’t go to a continent that’s all snow!’ Just visually alone, we’ve made sure that all the zones are not full of ice. For example, the Howling Fjord is completely green, and it’s modeled after the Redwood Forest on the Pacific north-west.

“There’s another zone called the Borean Tundra that has typical autumn colours, and we’re really going out of our way to make sure the zones are visually distinct. Another cool part of Northrend is the big PvP zone. It’s about the size of Westfall, and will be all-PvP – in no way, shape or form will we support PvE players in it. It’ll be optional, but it’ll be completely non-instanced, have multiple objectives, siege weapons, and destructible buildings.”