11:13 AM: Faction. Want to make it not feel like a grind. Championing -- Earn faction outside of your current dungeon. Choose a specific faction to earn rep with, system will use tabards, put tabard on in any heroic and every kill will give rep towards the faction whose tabard you're wearing as well as dungeon faction. Small bonus if you wear the tabard of the dungeon faction too. Details not final but this is the direction. Don't want you to feel you have to grind certain dungeons mindlessly.

11:15 AM: Remove faction requirements for heroics. Don't want people to feel like there are so many barriers.

11:16 AM: PvP rewards will show up in faction too. Similar to current lowlevel pvp faction sets. Will continue this trend. Greater variety of faction rewards full stop. Only a certain amount of items they can make in the time they have. Items that fit different specs and classes. More recipe plans, something done in TBC but not all trade skills were represented in factions. More rewards in general from faction.

11:17 AM: How does the Death Knight fit in? Will be able to tank both raids and dungeons. Not intended to be 'the new tank' but is a unique tank and want to make sure they can tank raids and 5-mans, heroics, as well as DPS. Just going to do it in a different way, keeping classes unique. Looked at what players need -- people always need a tank. More tanks = more dungeon runs.
11:19 AM: Sneak Peek: The Occulus. Level 80 dungeon located in Borean Tundra (Coldarra). Unique; first dungeon players can fly in. Get a drake partway through the dungeon and do mounted combat as if it were a vehicle, individual spells on different drakes. Tank drakes, heal drakes etc. Nonlinear; started as a high fantasy pitch and has become a high concept design.

Occulus is a series of rings floating in the sky, can pick and choose bosses. Concept art shows circular and frozen themes. Dungeon design shown, they design on paper and try to feel how big the space is, is it big enough to fight the boss, the trash. Layouts turn into concept art and 'blockout' phase, turning 2D image into 3D so they can run around it in 3D. Dungeon is complete, internal playtesting at the moment.

11:24 AM: Halls of Stone. Part of Ulduar, located in Storm Peaks. Tied to Titan lore. Level 77-79. Will need a flying mount to access. Nonlinear. Want to make you feel like you're infiltrating Titan area, feel like it's something new even though scope is very different. Epic scale. Level 80 dungeon in Ulduar (Halls of Lightning) and raid dungeon too, but Halls of Stone is first dungeon players will experience

Wanted the scale to be big but not annoying (to the level of wanting a mount to travel through it). Showed blockout, walked 5 players through game to see if there's basic things like enough room to pull mobs, enough room for cameras etc. Platinum Discs quests from Uldaman -- this is the next evolution, continuing the story. Location where we can read the discs and maybe find out information about how Azeroth was created, deliver lore to players.

The WoTLK Bestiary has been updated today with the next monster in the series: the Iron Dwarf. These fearsome creatures, uncovered by the Dwarven Explorer's League in the Howling Fjord, are apparently a missing link between the Earthen and the Dwarves, an Iron-skinned race with runes of power etched on their skin. Unfortunately, they appear to be nearly as surly and destructive as the Troggs, not only fighting against the Explorer's League, but outright destroying any artifacts that the Explorer's League could find useful.

There's not too much info on them yet, only a few paragraphs and a sketch, but it's certainly exciting to see a new chapter in the storyline of the Dwarves. The Iron Dwarves look like they may be the next step in the storyline that began at Uldaman, another piece of the puzzle of the Titans, so that could have reprecussions for all races, and give us more insight into the origin of Azeroth itself. Perhaps we'll encounter more of them at Ulduar, or at the ancient Dwarven citadel of Thor Modan, or find out that they have their own copy of the Plates of Uldum or other such historical artifacts.

It seems like the possibilities of Uldum, in Southern Tanaris, have sparked the imagination of lore fans and adventurers ever since the first person turned in the Discs of Norgannon out of Uldaman. The wealth of Information we recieve from the quest about the intentions of the Titans (those whom the disc calls "The Creators") and the origin of not only the Dwarves, but possibly every sentient race on Azeroth, is tremendous, and Uldum only promises to bring more of it, revealing incredible secrets about the origin of life on this and perhaps other worlds.

Unfortunately, since we apparently need the Plates of Uldum to access it, it remains closed for now, and we're stuck with speculation about what could lurk in its halls. However, today, Drysc commented on the possibilities himself in a forum thread. While all he really confirmed is that they DO plan to open it at some point, it's still more than enough of a bone to get the old speculation machine turning.

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Late this afternoon, Blizzard created an official forum for their next expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King. Both the U.S. Wrath forum and the European Wrath forum are just now filling up with the usual questions, and some are already getting blue responses.

From the U.S. forums:

• CM Nethaera confirms one new hero class is planned for each expansion
• CM Bornakk confirms the level restriction on using flying mounts in Northrend has not be set yet (maybe L78, maybe not)
• CM Bornakk implies that initial travel to Northrend will by boat and zeppelin

The European forums have plenty to offer as well:

• CM Vaneras has moved the all things announced about Northrend post to this forum and confirmed today that Ulduar is a dwarven instance that will be accessible by both Horde and Alliance
• CM Vaneras also moved the all things announced about Death Knights post to this forum
• Forum VIP Schwick has stickied his round up of all confirmed dev quotes about the Wrath expansion and put it at the top of the forum

Keep your eyes on those forums and on WoW Insider for future news about the expansion.

Monde Persistants, a French Warcraft site, has released their full interview with Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan and Art Director Chris Robinson from last week's Leipzig Games Convention. Some of this information we already know, but there's quite a bit that was new to us. You can read the entire interview (in English!) and see the video at MP. Here's the summary of the new items:

• Part of the lore behind the Wrath of the Lich King expansion has Arthas trying to seduce players to the dark side, both Alliance and Horde.

• Part of the Death Knight lore will have them "break away" from the Lich King influence to be free agents, the way the Forsaken have broken away from being mindless undead.

• Death Knights will "probably" be able to inscribe any weapon with their Runes that give them power.

• Ulduar is going to be a new raid instance. It's controlled by storm giants and is a fortress of the Titans like Uldaman and Maruadon according to WoW lore.

• The Nerubians (spider guys) will host a few instances at the underground Azjol'Nerub.

• The Nexus will have a L70 5-man instance.
  

• The main boss in the CoT: Stratholme instance will be Mal'ganis.

• Possibly new daily quests introduced with the Sunwell Plateau patch (2.4?)

Previous information gathered from Leipzig can be found here.

Via World of Raids