ActionTrip cornered WoW Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan and Art Director Chris Robinson today at the Leipzig Game Convention in Germany (E3 for Europe.) And boy, did they get a lot out of those two about Blizzard's plans for the future. Here are the highlights:

• The art for the expansion will look more like classic Warcraft (gothic fantasy), and less like Outlands art (high fantasy)
• Sunwell Plateau will be coming in a patch before the WotLK launch. It will include both a 25-main raid and a 5-main instance with both normal and heroic mode.
• WotLK will have "just as much" 5-man instances as TBC and more 10-main instances due to the popularity of Karazhan
• A new PvP area called Lake Wintergrass will combine world PvP (non-instanced) with the new siege weapons and destructible buildings. The faction that controls this zone may receive an effect that not only applies to the zone, but to the whole continent
  
• When asked about class balance, they said they had no plans for any major changes to classes
• The Death Knight unlocking quest will start at level 55-60

If I'm not mistaken, the Sunwell Plateau is north east of Silvermoon city, the Blood Elf capital. I hope Blizzard is planning some kind of Alliance friendly transportation into the area with the introduction of the Zul'Aman raid zone in Patch 2.3. If not, they are definitely going to need it for these new zones.

Full interview can be read here.

Via WorldOfWar.Net

EDIT: In regards to #14's comment: Stratholme is the new CoT instance according to this interview with Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan aka "Tigole." It is a 5-man, Level 80 instance. You will travel to the past before Arthas was corrupted and help him rid the city of demons and burn it down. As far as we can tell, the Sunwell Plateau will only be accessible by traveling there physically.

That same article also mentioned that future Hero Classes could be Demon Hunter, Archmage or Blademaster.

He also talked about the Death Knight rune system. What runes the Death Knight carves into his blade will determine what role he plays in the group (i.e tank, dps, a mix of the two, etc.)

In this separate interview, Kaplan revealed another new WotLK instance, Nexus, located in the Borean Tundra zone. It will be split into several wings, one of them for a 25-man raid that must defeat Malygyos, the blue dragon.

Last time we checked in on our rogue friend Gweedo, he was stealthing around Thunder Bluff, looking for likely assassination targets. I asked, at the time, when we might be seeing the inside of Silvermoon City from a rogue's perspective -- and Gweedo does not disappoint. While Silvermoon apparently has better security than Thunder Bluff or the Undercity -- including patrols that can see through stealth as well as a special anti-rogue patrol that spawns behind Lor'thermar when a stealthed player is detected in the area -- but apparently a well-trained rogue can still work their way into the heart of the city. But, really, my description doesn't do the trip justice -- for a full accounting of a dwarf's day in Silvermoon City, you really need to read Gweedo's story yourself.

Everyone's trying to get a jump-start on preparing for the Burning Crusade, whether it's by getting new PVP gear, finding a leveling guild or gathering all your jewelcrafting mats. Some people take the phrase "getting a jump-start" a bit farther than others, though -- like the members of the Exalted with Exodar Club.

Yes, these brave souls have gotten exalted with the Draenei faction so they can get the Draenei elekk mounts as soon as Burning Crusade hits. And since you can't get Exodar faction by doing runecloth turn-ins, they did it the hard way, by grinding turn-ins in AV that raised their rep with all Alliance cities. Warla, a warlock from the Dragonmaw server, got Exodar as her twentieth exalted faction. Holy magoley, Batman! I can't even imagine the /played it takes to get that.

There are a couple Horde who have posted about being exalted with Silvermoon City, but not nearly as many as on Alliance. Maybe the Horde are all busy PVPing, or the hawkstriders are just uglier than the elekks, or (my theory) the Horde generally can't win at AV enough to do this.

Whether you consider getting exalted with the new factions on live to be genius or crazy, you've got to admit it's an interesting way to pass the time until the expansion.