These new zones are gigantic, especially Hellfire Peninsula, and are designed to accommodate huge populations of characters with minimal latency issues (little lag, yay!). Because of Outland's size, new flying mounts will be made available for use within the zone, though how players acquire these mounts is still being discussed (it'll probably be some combination of paying gold and completing special quests). We got a chance to see the enormous Netherdrake, a black dragon with glowing wings that case themselves when the beast lands.
Traveling at approximately the speed of an epic mount when grounded, taking to the air yields a much faster velocity, and some higher-level areas will actually require the use of flight in order to reach them. Still, you can't just fly anywhere, if you journey too far from the edges of Outland, you'll be blocked by the shearing turbulence of the netherstorm. While you cannot attack from your Netherdrake, others can attack you, and can cause you to dismount and fall to the earth (and, yes, you'll take fall damage, but not a lot).
Blizzard has about three more content patches planned before the holiday 2006 release of The Burning Crusade, but that could change at any time. In addition to the content updates of Patch 1.11 and the outdoor PvP upgrades of Patch 1.12, Blizzard is planning a brief world event that will focus more on the build-up to the opening of the Dark Portal than the actual opening itself for Patch 1.13.
May 12, 2006
