World of Warcraft: What's next live blog

Join us as we live blog what's next for World of Warcraft. Update: The live blog is over, but you can read the entire transcript below and check out the gallery of all the slides.

1:59PM Trial of the Gladiator is a new arena ladder which will have limited availability, be all about skill as you get the gear, and determine titles and mounts

1:56PM There is also a weekly quest to upgrade an item

1:56PM Battlegrounds will also award bonus random rewards, items, honor, BoE gear and more

1:54PM There is also the concept of battleground scoreb being added to the scoreboard. This
reveals the level of the item squish, potentially, with low numbers

1:53PM Various PvP UI improvements are being added, including timers for captures on bases, and better cues on captures.

1:52PM This can run for a long time, and there are siege vehicles etcfor you to commandeer. It sounds vaguely like an adaptation on a longer-running version of Wintergrasp

1:49PM Ashran will be more like a PvP sandbox, all objective-driven world PvP similar to the original AV

1:48PM There will be a World PvP Zone, Ashran, a staging area near the Dark Portal

1:47PM So now, LFR is the same, Flex becomes normal, Normal becomes heroic. All those are flexible, and then there is Mythic difficulty for 20-player sizes only

1:46PM It sounds like they are consolidating to a single 20-player raid size for heroic modes

1:45PM It sounds like normal mode and LFR will be flexible, while heroic modes will not

1:43PM So they are making big changes to raid modes... So they are expanding flex up

1:41PM New Raid philosophy... they love flex

1:41PM New World Bosses!

1:40PM 2 new raids, Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry. 16 bosses in total, 6 in Highmaul, 10 in Blackrock Foundry

1:39PM Blackrock Foundry, Auchindoun (remade), Arakkoa Spires, Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, Iron Barracks and more is the dungeon list

1:36PM Bloodmaul Slag Mines will be non0linear 4-boss layout and is playable at Blizzcon

1:35PM Normal, heroic and challenge mode difficulties, with max level normal modes

1:34PM Classic heroic remake of UBRS

1:34PM 7 new dungeons will be available at launch, 4 for levelling, 3 at max.

1:34PM Ion comes on for dungeons and raids

1:33PM Splitting tooltips up by spec

1:33PM there is playtime and talents for all the classes out for blizzcon, for testing. Far from final iteration.

1:33PM New talents at level 100

1:32PM It will also customize the guide according to professions

1:32PM Adventure guide will be added to help with progression advice, as well as path to gear upgrades. Has an AI that learns from your behavior.

1:31PM You will also be allowed to craft directly from the bank, stack sizes are going to 100 for many items

1:30PM Quest items will not be stored in bags!

1:30PM You'll also be able to sort bags, see new items, and item quality glowb will go in. More addons being incorporated into the game

1:29PM They'll also add in things like summon random mount

1:29PM There's also the toybox!

1:28PM Inventory updates! Account-wide heirlooms and possibly tabards! New Heirloom UI looks amazing

1:27PM When you purchase Warlords of Draenor you will get a free L90. They'll clean up your bags and quest log, and the like, so you can jump in.

1:26PM Ghostcrawler gets the hard job of dealing with the 90 boost

1:25PM You will need to specialize your followers to missions, there is a pet-like UI to look at followers and pick and choose

1:23PM Followers do missions, and level up, and can be geared, allowing them a higher ilvl

1:22PM There is completely separate art for alliance and horde

1:22PM The plots are in a whole new UI, allowing you to create within limits similar to the farm

1:20PM Inns allow you cooking access, let you earn followers of specific styles. The building art upgrades over time

1:19PM This is more like player villages than player houses!

1:19PM Specialization will allow you to focus on certain things for your garrison, such as allowing infirmaries to get you a daily self-res

1:18PM Buildings award bonuses: they can give you things in your garrison as well as giving your character things like buffs. Or it can improve your followers. Buildings are upgradeable.

1:17PM You might be able to earn monuments for completing achievements

1:16PM Different buildings offer different rewards

1:16PM You can expand the garrison over 3 tiers. You can select buildings, and also move your garrison from location to location.

1:15PM You get limited access to profs you don't have via the Garrison. You can build mines inj your base, for example. Your followers can mine for you!

1:14PM Garrisons give you epic gear for your character... is this more required for raiding optional content?

1:13PM Followers allow offline progression, Tom's saying they can do raids and dungeons?!

1:13PM you will be able to invite friends into your base. You will collect followers, send them on missions to do my dirty work. You can pick any zone on Draenor for your garrison, and customize your base

1:12PM Garrisons! You can build your own base on Draenor. This is player housing!

1:11PM Chilton steps up on features!

1:11PM Gnomes specifically look so much better, no clipping, looks way less blocky. Art Panel later on will elucidate models

1:10PM Not sure whether this means only those models are done so far

1:09PM New orc looks even better, and the gnomes, male again, look fantastic Just looks way smoother

1:09PM Showing the male dwarf. You can really see what they mean, it is all just higher quality

1:08PM A big focus on maintaining the look of the characters, while massively increasing fidelity, as well as adding facial expression. Emphasis on the work done.

1:07PM New player models!

1:02PM Shadowmoon looks very pretty from the video

12:59PM Or, for the Alliance, Shadowmoon Valley, where it's always night-time. They are saving Karabor from the Iron Horde

12:56PM You'll be zoned into either Frostfire Ridge for Horde, where you will recapture the city from ogres -- Bladespire Fortress

12:54PM Return to the Dark Portal, introductory experience, will feel similar to the DK experence. Launch event will set this up in Blasted Lands

12:53PM Sabreon, cat-like race, and dragonflies will be mounts!

12:53PM They're going for big creatures it seems

12:52PM Cory steps in on creatures and races, concept art for the Gronn looks amazing

12:50PM Grommash as the head of the Warsong Clan, will be important in story

12:48PM Frostwolf clan, Shadowmoon clan, Shattered Hand clan are listed as the groups running the various zones, as part of the iron horde. Blackrock too!

12:44PM some hidden zones still on the map for future patches

12:42PM Talador will be an alliance city, the horde will go to frost fire ridge

12:40PM A map! You can tell it's an older version of Outland.

12:39PM Seems like another orc-heavy expansion

12:39PM Seven new zones, definitely not the Outland we know. Draenor before it was shattered into Outland. There to defeat the iron horde.

12:36PM hooray! we don't have another orc as an end boss

12:36PM this is not an Outland rework

12:35PM We're going to a new world called old Draenor

12:35PM He plans to stop the orcs drinking the blood of Mannoroth. He plans to create 'the iron horde'

12:33PM Garrosh goes back in time, and intends to get orcs back how he feels they should be.

12:33PM So Garrosh gets away, and makes a new friend who can bend time...