Prepare for all-out war in Battle for Azeroth, World of Warcraft's next expansion or go retro with Vanilla servers

It wouldn't be a Blizzcon without a World Of Warcraft expansion, and this year's packed in two. First, the reveal of WoW's next massive expansion Battle for Azeroth, and second, the arrival of official Vanilla World of Warcraft servers.

"Battle for Azeroth will make you prouder than ever to declare your allegiance to the noble Alliance," said Blizzard's senior vice president and executive producer J Allen Brack on stage. "Battle for Azeroth will call on you to rally in support of the mighty Horde. The stakes have never been higher. Now, more than ever, your faction matters."

Players will explore the Zandalar empire and the home of Jaina Proudmoore, Kul Tiras. There are new playable Allied Races too, the Highmountain tauren, Void elves, Dark Iron dwarves and more.

"Conflict is at the heart of the Warcraft saga, and in Battle for Azeroth, tensions that have been simmering for a long time escalate into all-out war,” added Mike Morhaime, Blizzard's bossman.  “World of Warcraft players are incredibly passionate about the characters and factions they identify with in the game, and this expansion will make them prouder than ever to declare their allegiance to the Horde or to the Alliance."

The announcement of Blizzard Vanilla servers got almost as manic a reaction as the expansion. The chance to experience retro flavors of WoW has been a hot topic in the community for a while now, especially since Blizzard shut down private Vanilla servers last year. 

"The original problem was that we would have to run two MMOs," Brack told PC Gamer. "We would have to run Classic WoW, and then current WoW [at the same time]. Classic WoW and current WoW really don’t work the same way any more."

"But now we think we have a way to have the old WoW version work on the modern infrastructure and feel really good."

We tried to predict the new World Of Warcraft expansion last month. Check out how we did here.