Two new screenshots have landed on the official Wrath of the Lich King page, and they look pretty different from anything we've seen about the next expansion so far. You can click on the pic above to see the first one full, and here's the second.

Now clearly both show a forested, lush area, and there is only one forest that we know of is Northrend so far: Grizzly Hills, supposedly a redwood type of forest home to the Northern Furbolgs. This forest, however, looks a little greener than that-- it may be the Sholazar Basin, which we haven't seen screenshots of yet. Obviously the creature above is some new kind of Dryad, so that means we may see traces of Cenarius in Northrend, and when you mention Cenarius, you have to mention the Emerald Dream. So we may find out more about that line of lore in Northrend as well. Very interesting.

The year is 2012. WoW fans are excitedly awaiting the game's 5th expansion, Revenge of the Gnomes, which brings two new races to the game (Sporeggar and Goblins, at last!), as well as a new class (the Tinker), and a slew of other features. As everyone knows, this is the expansion where the gnomes finally take back Gnomeregan from the troggs, pushing them back all the way into the "Undergloom," a vast and ancient network of caverns beneath Azeroth. Of course, the gnomes also accidentally stumble upon the long-buried prison of the Old Gods and unleash unbridled havoc on the World of Warcraft, but that's where the fun is, right?

I could go on and on about the new features included in Revenge of the Gnomes, but I'm sure you've heard about most of them already (like the subterranean hovercraft group-mounts and blue-pill, red-pill potions for alchemy). Suffice it to say that the feature everyone is most excited about is that the level cap is once again being raised another 10 levels, to a grand total of 110.

Like everyone else, you're probably wondering how in the world (of Warcraft) are you going to level your new Goblin Tinker character all the way through those tedious levels of 1 to 100? Everyone wants to try out the new content, but no one wants to slave away through Stranglethorn Vale for the 48th time. To complicate things further, Blizzard still doesn't want to add any more 1-60 quests in the lower-level zones (not to mention any of the Outland, Northrend, Emerald Dream, or Great Sea Expansion zones)!

Fortunately, though, Blizzard's got what you need! Are you prepared for the "/level" command?

Recently Blizzard's Rob Pardo sat down with Businessweek. He mostly talked about the future of the game, the success of The Burning Crusade, and the creative process. Since reading his interview, I have spent a lot of time mulling over what he said. The first thing that stuck out in my mind was his likening the MMO to a television series. "We're developing episodes just like Lost or Seinfeld," he commented, "We're always trying to come up with something that's true to the theory; that's true to the content that people love; but that is new."

I never had the chance to look at the development cycle like this. In some ways it explains the company's drive to constantly bring us new content rather than connecting old dots (Uldum anyone?). The designers are looking forward, and as they mentioned at Blizzcon in 2005, more portals will be opening, new worlds for us to explore. And we as gamers are ravenous for this new content. Our expectations are high, and the company is there to try and satiate our ever growing appetite. What this also means is that there is a story arch with which they are working. I know Lost is working on a seven-year story arch. Does this mean that we can expect a grander plotline connecting the expansions together? I for one am eager to find out.

I haven't really thought about the game in these terms. My previous experience with MMOs (*cough* Anarchy Online *cough*) has taught me that games are fairly linear. Yes, there might be a new world connected to the old one, but the story pretty much stays the same. Since playing World of Warcraft I have had to reinvent my view of the MMO, and now I, too am one of those ravenous players dying for new stories and new characters to love or hate. This interview has made me wonder where we are going with the next expansions. So I'd love to hear what you think. Beyond the proposed Northrend and Emerald Dream expansions, where would you like to go as the World of Warcraft universe expands into new worlds?

I know we've been pretty centered on Outland loot lately, just because all the stuff there is so, well, phat. But here's a cool little trinket you don't need the expansion to get, and it's just steeped in lore.

Name: Chained Essence of Eranikus
Type: Trinket
Damage / Speed: N/A
Abilities:

• On use, it'll poison all enemies in an 8 yard radius, giving them 50 Nature damage every 5 seconds for 45 seconds, on a 15 minute cooldown. Not great, but not too shabby for a level 55 trinket. I found this really helpful on my Warrior (at least until around level 60 or so), but YMMV, of course.
  
• Also, whenever you use this, you get a personal, only-you-can-hear-it whisper from non other than the tortured soul of Eranikus the dragon (he's the big green monster above). Yes, that is a voice in your head, and it's coming from this trinket. More on that in a second.

How to Get It: This is a long one. I'll leave the details for one of Elizabeth's great Know Your Lore posts, but all you need to know is that the Green Dragonflight is tied to a realm called the Emerald Dream, and that place is currently being corrupted into the Emerald Nightmare. Deep within Sunken Temple (on the same level as all the other dragons and Jammalan the Prophet), a Shade of the dragon Eranikus is sleeping. He was sent there by Ysera, leader of the Green Dragonflight, to take care of all the trolls messing about. But instead, corrupted by the Emerald Dream's troubles, he's sleeping on the job, which is when you come upon him.

After you take him down, everyone in the party can loot a gem from his body, called the Essence of Eranikus. You have to get a quest from that gem, and then take it to the font located in the back of the same room where you fight him. Instead of releasing Eranikus, however, it turns out the font itself is corrupted, and he becomes Chained inside the gem, creating this trinket as a quest reward from that quest.

Now, the trinket is actually a quest item in another series of quests that currently isn't done. You can take the gem to Itharius, an elf (some players say he's a green dragon in disguise) inside a cave in the Swamp of Sorrows, and give it to him to get a quest to meet up with someone else in Winterspring. But the questline ends right after that, with no final rewards or lore to show for it. It's widely assumed that this quest chain will eventually be where we have a chance, whenever Blizzard gets around to it, to actually enter the Emerald Dream, and confront whatever's causing the corruption in there.

Eranikus also makes a quick appearance in the questline to open up the Gates of Ahn Qiraj (along with Tyrande Whisperwind!), but that's a long story for another day...

Getting Rid of It: You can give it to Itharius if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it until Blizzard actually updates that quest chain. A vendor will give 64s 64c, or it will usually disenchant into Illusion Dust.