Can anyone confirm that? If that's the case what will the new races be?

Thats all of the info i got, besides that i guess we can just keep guessing. My guess would be something like Half bird half human race for the alliance and Rebel Naga that are against their own kind for the horde.

.::Racial Abilities::.

In terms of racial abilities I think the Birdman race would get the ability to glide down from high areas. something like slow fall. For the Naga they would have a passive ability that allows them to breath underwater and Polearm specialization so they can start out with polearms since most naga have tridents which are polearms.

.::Classes::.

Naga: Mage, Priest, Warrior, Warlock, and Hunter

Birdman: Shaman, Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, and Mage

I have a feeling they'll introduce a new class before more playable races.

This makes sense, but what classes?

Palitard: the classes and racials of the guessed new races makes sense :)

I thought so too at first but now that i look back on it I'm begining to think that Naga wouldnt work. just try to imagine naga with boots on... It just doesnt quite work.

NEW INFO!!!!!

Race:
What a HUGE shock (cough* sarcasm *cough) the new race is supposed to be Wood Elves for the aliance (GAYNESS!!!) and so far there has been no plans for a new Horde race (EVEN MORE FREEKIN GAYNESS!!!!)

Release:
I have been informed that the expansion will be released sometime in the month of December

They could put the boots on the tail fins, but it would be kinda hard to walk with (the little mermaid on the shore, anyone? ^^)

maybe the new horde race could be deserters from the scourge ^^

• Racial - passive: Member of the scourge - Starting reputation with Undercity: Hated (0/10000) xD
  
• Racial - active: Bearer of the plague - Spreads the plague of rot to all party members, causing them to rot, and die within 5 minutes. After resurrection it grants a permanent resurrection sickness. This is a random cast, and non-dispellable party "buff". Reagents: 1% of the casters HP permanently and irreversibly removed for each cast.
  

Making them the ultimate party members xD

New classes (exclusive to this race, replacing the others): Ghoul, ghost, skeleton (no more need for Noggenfogger^^), shadow, slime (with the ability to morph into anything)

The undead are deserters from the scourge. It tells you in the begining of the game when you make an undead.

Deserters? I thought they were fleeing from the scourge, trying to get away :/
With deserters, I mean soldiers/members of the scourge who have decided to join Thrall's "rebellion"

Anyway, I just had to come up with something to make sense why they joined the horde. The main focus was on making the racials ^^

lol id think maelstrom wud be sweet...arthas is WAY out of our league...lvl 80 udn be able to touch him

wat else can they add...they need to add more professions...more pvp tons more instances....make up new areas ....i doubt blizz would end a franchise with northrend b/c once pple ended arthas theyd say "oh well im done" and end thier wow career..pvp/arenas wont last forever.

Warcraft will finally end with King Koopa appearing and turning everybody and everything into pretty polka dotted mushrooms. Then driving off on a big go kart.  :-)

That would be great. Especially if it meant FFA PvP

Next expansion? More than likely Northrend, theres been a screenshot of a few props from a folder named expansion2 that appeared after a TBC patch, theres still alot of content left in WoW, Maelstorm, Goblin city, Naga city, areas of the map not yet used (Gilenas, Grim Batol etc)

Will they stick to their one expansion a year "promise"?

Lets hope so!

I haven't read the entirety of this thread, so I'm hoping someone hasn't already mentioned this, but if you go all the way back on the world map to show Azeroth and Outland, you can see Northrend on the Azeroth picture, but no other changes were made. I always loved snowy areas of games :).

EDIT: I'd also like to add this information quoted from wowwiki for the people talking about emerald dream (some people may already know this, but I'm not a big lore nerd.)
"It is a fact that five Great Trees already exist in Azeroth, with swirling green portals in front which are believed to be entrances to the Emerald Dream. These portals are in Duskwood (Twilight Grove), Feralas (Dream Bough), The Hinterlands (Seradane), Ashenvale (Bough Shadow) and Crystalsong Forest in Northrend."

Soapie wrote:

I haven't read the entirety of this thread, so I'm hoping someone hasn't already mentioned this, but if you go all the way back on the world map to show Azeroth and Outland, you can see Northrend on the Azeroth picture, but no other changes were made. I always loved snowy areas of games :).

EDIT: I'd also like to add this information quoted from wowwiki for the people talking about emerald dream (some people may already know this, but I'm not a big lore nerd.)
"It is a fact that five Great Trees already exist in Azeroth, with swirling green portals in front which are believed to be entrances to the Emerald Dream. These portals are in Duskwood (Twilight Grove), Feralas (Dream Bough), The Hinterlands (Seradane), Ashenvale (Bough Shadow) and Crystalsong Forest in Northrend."

Nice find Soapie. I'm really anxious for BlizzCon to see what all Blizzard has in store - hopefully they'll announce the next expansion. :)

From what I can tell Blizzard are setting up the Emerald dream and Northrend at the same time so we can hazard an educated guess that the next two expansions will be set in Emerald Dream and Northrend.

Which order they will come in is anyones guess.

Furthermore, I have a feeling we will see two more classes in the next expansion. My reasoning for beleiving this is down to Blizzards behaviour towards class balance atm. If we look at the way classes have been balanced, we can make one of two guesses.
1) Blizzard have no idea how to balance the classes. I don't beleive this is the case because Blizzard managed it pretty well up until recently and now they seem to be being very careful and artistic with the changes.
2) Blizzard are trying to leave noticable gaps in class balance to fit in another two classes without having to make passive class changes in the next pre-expansion set up patch (like 2.1). We can clearly see these noticable gaps and my guess is another healer and another DPS (possibly barabrian/caster hybrid). The reason I say 2 classes is simply an uneucated guess and it may be moore or less.

At the end of the day however no body knows what Blizzard are going to do until they tell you they are going ot do it. They kept Starcraft 2 uiet for years...I don't think they are going to be leaking any info in the near future.

 I guess not many read the new, but it has already been confirmed that the next game that blizzard is in development with, will not be WoW related, here is the articall, and link to follow

July 13, 2007

E3 Exclusive: Blizzard Establishes Third Team, New Game Expected

E3 Exclusive: Blizzard Establishes Third Team, New Game Expected Talking to Gamasutra, Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard revealed that the company has a third team hard at work on a new title, separate from World of Warcraft and StarCraft II.

The comment came amid discussion of the company's current workforce. "Our global headcount is 2,700," said Pearce, "And most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing."

When pressed for details regarding the new project, Pearce was cagey. "Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome."

All attempts to extract additional information were understandably met with looks of shock and horror from Blizzard's director of global public relations, who also attended the meeting.

Gamasutra was able to confirm that, in spite of Rob Pardo's comments at Hollywood and Games that they weren't giving up on StarCraft Ghost, this Blizzard project remains something different. With Blizzcon coming up in mere weeks, it's possible that additional information could be revealed at that time.

  Link:http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14691

This would directly imply that they are working on "A new title" therefore the 3rd game to be announced it NOT a WoW exapnsion, "thank god" 

Im not saying that the WoW expansion is the next project, im just saying that its one of them. in an in the last WoW issue of Games for Windows magazine it even said that its no secret they are working on the next expansion. (And this was after black temple came out)

As i recall many magazines toss many lies to stir thing up, i know gamestop is extremly popular for such things, i cant say iv heard anything from blizzard officially that any such thing were in development, all i can say , that if it were, i could already see at least 35-45% population loss, as wow is the biggest mmorpg, doesnt mean that every expansion will change what it has already become.

Not to mention an expansion isn't, in the strictest sense, a new game, so much as an addition to a current game. That might have been their reasoning behind saying that the next game from Blizzard would not be WoW related.

I personally would love to see the idea of Hero classes finally implemented. They were on the "In Development" page for a long time. This would give new life to the classes we've been playing for the past 2 years. New classes would also be nice.

Agreed. I'm itching for either a new class(which they said they'd like to do before adding new races in a recent interview), or Hero classes finally coming to fruition. Hero classes aren't very likely though since Rob Pardo all but dismissed them recently.

Well, maybe he was being sly. *shrugs* One can dream, can't he? =D

That's true. I guess we'll have to wait and see Friday. :)

Well, as someone mentioned there were 5 portals at the great trees., four of which are guarded by the corrupted green dragons...only 4. We find the 5th unguarded portal in Northrend (which will probably ave lots of above-cap elites guarding it, akin to the dark portal before they announced TBC). After we secure the issues in Northrend we then purify the portal with the help of Malfurion on the other side and go the the Emerald Dream in expansion number 3. Well thats just my take on it anyway.

Hrm... interesting thoughts. So do you think that the Lich King is the one behind the Emerald Dream's corruption? Sounds like it could be if the last portal lies in Northrend - especially since right now all lore has hinted at an unknown being, not giving real specifics.

well i guess theres no need for this forum anymore. lol

I just hope they dont make create such a big imbalance between the Bc weapons and the WLC weapons like they did when the BC came out, epics became obsolete overnight, and all my hard work in ZG was for nothing..