World of Warcraft’s new Legion expansion enters beta testing later this year

World of Warcraft players, get ready to play the expansion pack Legion, which goes into beta testing later this year.

GamesBeat is covering Blizzard Entertainment’s announcement of the new World of Warcraft expansion pack live on this page during this morning’s presentation at Gamescom 2015 in Cologne, Germany.

10:42 a.m.

Your official HD trailer:

10:25 a.m.

The broadcast is over — it’s archived here. We’ll run back through this story and update with everything our flying fingers couldn’t squeeze in the first time, so check back!

10:21 a.m.

Beta test is coming later this year.

Prestige ranks in PvP will award players cosmetic rewards if they are willing to drop their honor rank to 1 and start over again. They’ll include portrait badges, exclusive mounts, and artifact weapon variants.

10:16 a.m.

The broadcast now focuses on the new PvP Honor System (version 3). Version 1 came with the original game and The Burning Crusade expansion, where players took to battlegrounds endlessly for their prized High Warlord titles. Groups of players abused the system by all playing the same character to keep at the top of the heap.

Version 2 replaced it as a currency system: Points from killing other players allowed gamers to buy gear. This made PvP too gear-focused, some players felt, lead game designer Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas said in the broadcast.

“It’s not that fun to have players running around with that huge of a power disparity,” he said.

PvP will now lead you through a talent system, which only affects additional PvP.

It will allow PvP to be balanced independently of the PvE game, something that has been a player complaint for some time.

Gear will no longer affect player power so markedly. “I’m sure we’ll never do a version four,” he said, a little tongue-in-cheek.

10:09 a.m.

Demon hunter abilities will create and spend rage, rather like Warcraft’s warrior class. If you’re going to retreat, do it vengefully. Also, demon hunters get double jump. Super Smash Bros., meet Warcraft?

10:08 a.m.

Demon hunter specializations are Havoc and Vengeance. Havoc deals melee damage; Vengeance tanks. They will only have two specs. The Havoc model shown has wings, while the Vengeance form has the large, hulking metamorph shape.

10:05 a.m.

And now the Demon Hunter class. You can have horns or not, and different styles. Tattoos are a must, of course, as is lots of skin. Skin variations and eyewear round out player customizations. They will be a hero class like the Death Knight, with its own starting experience. While most models appear to be based on night elves, there is a large hulking metamorph form that is new.

10:00 a.m.

On to large-group raid dungeons: It has two, as with the Warlords of Draenor expansion. First is the Emerald Nightmare. The second is Suramar Palace, a 10-boss raid which will be a Black Temple-like dungeon facing off against an ultimate boss, the Orc Warlock Gul’Dan.

A concept drawing of that raid:

9:57 a.m.

Dungeons include Eye of Azshara, Darkheart Thicket, Neltharion’s Lair, Hellheim, Suramar City and Violet Hold, which is familiar to players of Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

9:54 a.m.

On to the description of dungeons. Players face a god-king Vrykul in a Norse-inspired zone called Halls of Valor.

9:50 a.m.

Followers are less numerous, but they are more important. They are called champions, and they unlock objectives, give player enhancements, and offer new opportunities for players instead of acting as a stuff-and-currency collection device.

9:47 a.m.

Class orders give players the chance to band together with others of their orders and oversee NPCs. They’re a “private clubhouse” where all members of your class on a server can gather. Each class will have a different location.

9:45 a.m.

Druids can customize the look of their forms. (Finally.)

9:43 a.m.

Players can make weapons look different as they work through enhancing artifacts with raids, PvP, and the like. The models are vary.

9:36 a.m.

Players may build an artifact weapon to change its look and power and add to their own character power. Each artifact has its own skill tree. The death knight version (Soul Reaper and Ice Bringer) allows the player to self-resurrect, for example.

9:34 a.m.

Players have different quests for artifact weapons depending on their own class and specialization.

Artifact weapons include 36 variations, one for each player class and specialization.

Prominent characters Alleria and Turalyon return.

9:32 a.m.

Evil blood elves guard the last Titan relic.

Bull-like Highmountain Tauren with giant elk horns flood that mountainous zone, filled with tough creatures. Players visit Neltharion, who became the evil dragon boss Deathwing, the final boss of the Cataclysm expansion.

Players battle Queen Azshara in Azsuna.

The presentation now focuses on zones:

Val’Sharah is a home for Night Elf and druid lore, as players fight against massive satyr armies that attempt to launch the Emerald Nightmare into the game world. Players meet demigods here.

Players enter the Emerald Nightmare and get glimpses of the Emerald Dream.

9:26 a.m.

Players search the Broken Isles for the Pillars of Creation and Titan relics. Titans played a role as end bosses or key NPC characters for several World of Warcraft large-group raid dungeons.

Dalaran returns as part of the Broken Isles.

9:24 a.m.

Players are sent back as elite demon hunters, sent by Illidan in their starting area.

9:23 a.m.

Demon hunters appear. Your photo:

9:22 a.m.

Players wield two of the most important weapons in-game, formerly restricted to NPC leaders: Ashbringer and Doomhammer.

Class orders include old ones that included NPCs, like the Silver Hand (a collection of paladins.)

9:20 a.m.

Players explore “the Broken Shore” experience before the expansion launches.

9:19 a.m.

The new expansion takes place on the new continent of the Broken Isles, the bones of a Night Elf civilization with eight zones. Players combat the legion at The Tomb of Sargeras, a gateway to the demon hordes. The expansion features the biggest demonic invasion of Warcraft’s continents ever, writers promised.

Tom Chilton from Blizzard said work on the expansion has been underway for some time. A new video showed evil Orc Warlock Gul’dan touching what appeared to be a green block with the demon lord Illidan inside, followed by the launch trailer, featuring demons. There is a new continent: Broken Isles; a new level cap: 110; new raids, a new PvP honor system; artifact weapons, including a variation on the famous sword Ashbringer; new class order halls, and a whole new class: demon hunter.

The popular — but slipping — massively multiplayer online RPG appears to be speeding up the pace of its expansion packs, which used to take from 18 months to two years to appear. Warcraft has led paid-subscription MMORPGs since the fantasy game launched more than 10 years ago.

Typically, a subscriber bump appears before each new pack, which then slowly levels off over the lifespan of the content. The most recent expansion pack, the orcs-and-time-traveling Warlords of Draenor, spurred one of the highest spikes ever, returning the game to near-heyday levels, but it then suffered an equally dramatic drop as players drifted away. (Read more from our interview with World of Warcraft lead designer Ion “Watcher” Hazzikostas on that.)

That was followed by a slow decline that appears to be accelerating, as Activision’s recent earnings report put Warcraft subscribers at 5.6 million, its lowest point since 2005.

The new expansion may be out as soon as the end of this year, and speculation and leaks have exploded in the past few weeks. Even the game’s public representatives have fanned the flames, asking players to speculate on Twitter using the hashtag #blizzgc2015.

Possibly the best collection of inside jokes appeared before the broadcast on Twitter account @LurkingLurky this morning, featuring WoW developers:

See what we really have planned for the next WoW expansion at 18:00 CEST! #BlizzGC2015 http://t.co/P3cWbCaO3T pic.twitter.com/3E3L4wGEau

— Lurky (@LurkingLurky) August 6, 2015