Opposite ends of the spectrum of success in this week’s Rumor Killers as Jennifer takes a look at rumors sounding the phenomenon known as WoW, and those speculating on the demise of two struggling developers. 

New Races Coming to World of Warcraft?

If there’s one thing that World of Warcraft players love, besides loot, mounts, and loot on mounts, it’s rumors that suggest something new is on Azeroth’s horizon. With the forthcoming BlizzCon, and the leaked news of Sam Raimi directing the upcoming Warcraft film, WoW fans are pretty excited already. Blizzard isn’t known for leaking news, but that may have happened twice in quick succession if this rumor proves true, a mere week and a half before the convention. Wow.com has announced reveals from various sources about the next World of Warcraft expansion pack, supposedly called "Cataclysm". According to the sources, this expansion pack offers two new playable races, namely Worgen for the Alliance, and Goblin for the Horde. Both goblins and worgens already feature as non-playable characters in WoW.

The rumor does have substance. Last month there was speculation on why Blizzard had patented the term Cataclysm, ranging from it simply being a name for the online service Battle.Net 2.0 to being an expansion pack for World of Warcraft. Which rumor you wanted to believe at the time depended on your level of optimism. However, things became a bit more interesting when a set of four Halloween masks was discovered in the latest test patch, provoking plenty of debate as to whether new races were on the way. These masks quite clearly depicted male and female goblins and worgens.

But just like all the best Internet rumors, it is pretty much pure speculation at this time. It does seem pretty strange that a new Alliance race (the good guys) would be something as nasty and evil as Worgen, and I’d be very intrigued to see how Blizzard try to spin it. The idea of a new expansion pack makes a lot more sense though. World of Warcraft is four years old now and only has two expansion packs so far, and while all MMOs surely have a finite lifespan, another expansion at least to extend WoW’s longevity is a fairly safe bet. The latest expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, has been out long enough that most avid players would have seen everything there is to see.

So it seems extremely likely that next week Blizzard will be announcing a new expansion pack for World of Warcraft. However I’m not so sure about the choice of races for the Cataclysm expansion pack. Goblin for the Horde makes a lot of sense, it’s certainly evil enough, but I don’t quite see how Worgen would work for the Alliance.All the lore surrounding the game suggests that worgens are horrible creatures from another dimension that exist simply to terrorize and torture. Surely any creature that enjoys hearing the screams and suffering of others couldn’t be one of the good guys? It just doesn’t add up at all and would ruin the point of the two different sides if they began to overlap too much. But anyway, I’d certainly get ready to pre-order World of Warcraft: Cataclysm though.

TGR says: True to the expansion pack. False to the choice of new races.