Hey guys! First, I want to apologize for the increasing time intervals between my news posts. School is picking up, I am working full time, and I am flying to a conference in Denver next week.
THAT SAID,
Beta is looking better then ever. I must admit I was (and in some cases *cough*Draenei Males*cough* still am) unimpressed with the physical characteristics of the new races. The Blood Elves stand at awkward angles, the female models are jokingly referred to as broke-necks due to their ninety degree head-tilt idle animation. However, with the last couple of content patches a lot has been smoothed out, features toned down or accentuated in a much more appealing manner resulting in a more realistic look. Draenei still have a lot of work in my humble opinion, their chests are ridiculously out of proportion with their bodies and their all around physique leaves a lot to desire.
Enough of the negative, lets focus on the positive – something which is in abundance throughout the Burning Crusade.
As you have seen there are a bunch of new creature models, new skins, and whole new zone colors.
The Blood Elf zones also have a new “spring-look” which involves floating pollen (similar to the leaves currently in the game) and a spring color pallet. In addition, pretty much everything which can be magically enhanced is. There are floating mops and brooms cleaning up around the houses, levitating vials mixing various concoctions, fountains which warp water from the bottom to the top, and levitating building parts reminiscent of Dalaran.
Additionally, fans of Tides of Darkness and Reign of Chaos will recognize the Ballista?s and Elven Destroyers rampant throughout these precursors of WoW.
Obviously the Blood Elves have a much more ingrained lore associated with their race then the Daenei. You find many quests explaining both their current situation and alliance with the Forsaken with whom you have a Friendly relationship but only Neutral with every other race. In addition, there are some flavor quests which are punctuated with history from the original games. For example, you find a necklace on a banshee corpse who was sister of Lady Sylvanas Windrunner starting a quest to introduce you as a Blood Elf to the Undercity.
Speaking of factions, there is quite a dialogue in Silvermoon, the capitol city of the Blood Elves, between ambassadors for every Horde faction as they are paraded through the streets by a Blood Elf diplomat.
Additionally, a new interface system has been implemented in the game. Replacing the traditional Question Mark interface, a new menu allows you to type in keywords which will bring up existing topics which you can search. As you can see in my screen I entered “Brood of Nozdormu”.
Finally, a couple shots of the new Blood Elf mounts – what are they called now? Hawkstriders? I’m not even going to comment on their last name 
It is disappointing though that there is such a lack of color variety, most choices are pink-purple, pinks, or reds that look pink.
Now, after this short update, I am off to have a relaxing beer after work. If you have any questions you would like to ask, please feel free to post them over here.
