A Few Burning Crusade Tidbits

There's quite a few little bits of news regarding the upcoming expansion showing up lately - all unrelated, and none large enough for its own post, but all interesting nevertheless. So, here's the scoop on what else you can expect with the Burning Crusade:

• The higher level spell ranks, that are now learned via books dropped in dungeons, will simply be trainable in the expansion.

• We all know about the Nether Drake mounts, but these won't be the only new mounts in the Burning Crusade. While there may not be unique flying mounts for each race, this definitely suggests that there will be different types of flying mounts for the Alliance and Horde.

• Despite a lot of speculation to the contrary, raid group size will be staying the same in the expansion - you won't be able to make a raid group larger than 40.

• While there will be lots of new landmass in the expansion, you won't be able to adventure there without purchasing the expansion. Existing players (who don't own the expansion) will be able to play with Draenei and Blood Elves, but only in existing zones.

• There will be new and exotic varieties of beast within the expansion for hunters to tame.

• A number of people have been discussing gear in the expansion - and whether players wearing tier 2 or tier 3 armor will be surpassed by higher level greens and blues. Eyonix remains slippery in this answer, only saying that players wearing full tier 3 gear will find "some upgrades/sidegrades" in the new end-game dungeons.