In the newest print issue of gaming magazine Games for Windows lead producer Shane Dabiri is quoted "And it's no secret we're working on the next expansion." Now, I'm not totally surprised by this as WoW is an MMO and essentially needs new expansions to keep itself going. The exclusive story in GFW reveals some new little tidbits coming into our game after 2.1.

Guild Banks
Some of the key features of guild banks will be the ability to allow some of your members to use the money put in the bank for repairs (from NPC's and bots, which will have a new option) and reportedly will have hundreds of slots for items and such. The potential is ripe for abuse but Blizzard will have it set up so that transactions are documented on their website and abusers can be reported and Customer Service would then get involved.

In-game VoIP
Good-bye Ventrilo and Teamspeak! Blizzard is gearing up to add VoIP straight into the game for players that will help the problem of players not knowing or recognizing someone's voice and missing a critical heal or other critical game play needs. A players name will be highlighted when they are talking and you are able to click on their name then to select them and give them their buff/heal/etc.

There will also be the option to separate the voice chat from the game music sound to different sound channels. So you could (in theory) have the music and sound effects going through your regular speakers and the voice chat going through just your headset. To begin with, the VoIP will only be available to Parties and Raids but there may be room for expanding on that with custom channels (presumably for guilds).

The new issue (June 2007) should be hitting newsstands in the U.S. shorty, and you'll be able to read up on all this and read about a lot of the developers favorite boss encounters and zones, and other miscellaneous trivia.

Oui, mais bon, LOTRO le fait, alors que tout le monde attendais ça de Blibli. Donc ils se sentent un peu obligé de réagir =)