Those gamers lucky enough to get a ticket to BlizzCon had a lot of fun stuff to look forward to -- panels on various gaming topics, big tournaments to play in, and all sorts of information on their favorite games. The biggest draw, however, at least to judge by the huge line of people waiting on line, was the chance to be one of the first people outside of Blizzard's offices to get the chance to play with some of the new content from The Burning Crusade. It's in situations like this, though, that being a member of the press can come in pretty handy, as I managed to jump the line and spend a good hour playing as the first of the two new races being introduced in the expansion -- The Blood Elves.

The stations set up to play with already had several pre-made characters to choose from. As befits a race of "magic junkies," all of the major casting classes were represented including Mages, Priests and Warlocks, along with Warriors and Rogues. While they weren't playable, the Blood Elves do have a Hunter trainer in their starting area, so it seems reasonable to assume that they can also play as Hunters. Blizzard reps did say that the actual classes available had not yet been settled on, however. One of the things I found interesting, however, was that one particular class was suspiciously absent -- the Blood Elves have no Druids.

As I started up a Blood Elf Warlock named Paendra, however, I realized that, once again, Blizzard's ability to design the Hell out of a game and tie it into a consistent lore has not deserted them. The first few quests I recieved as a level one Warlock were pretty standard fare. Go here, kill ten of that, bring me back a few essences or collars. Even those first few quests, however, did a brilliant job of geting me into the mind-set of a Blood Elf, introducing me to their backstory and inducting me into their very different world view.

The Blood Elves, you see, are magic junkies. As befits their High Elf history, the Blood Elves are not a people that care about nature, or each other, or anything else. They care about one thing, and one thing alone -- their own power, specifically magic power. Indeed, one of the quests I went on had me slaughtering a group of lynxes, not because they were dangerous, or because they had to be culled, but rather because they had proved resistant to being controlled. What the Blood Elves can't control, they destroy. No wonder they have no Druids.

One of my first quests sent me over to one of the experimental stations that dot the landscape of Sunstrider Island, the Blood Elf starting area. The zone lies to the northwest of the Plaguelands and the Forsaken territory and it's just littered with a variety of magical experiments -- most of which are going rather badly. The Blood Elves, you see, are going crazy because their main source of magic, the Sunwell, was destroyed by Arthas in order to resurrect the Lich, Kel'Thuzad. As a result, they're desperately searching for something, anything, which which to fuel their incessant need for mana. They're experimenting with natural and magical crystals, alchemy, and even trying to tap into the demonic magic of the Burning Legion (hence the presence of Warlocks). My mission was to wipe out an infestation of Mana Wyrms, a bunch of floating beasties that will be introduced in the expansion pack.

Naturally, as an early quest, it wasn't all that difficult to wipe out the Mana Wyrms. Parallel to that quest, however, was a second one that asked me to use the Blood Elf racial abilities six times. This "Mana Tap" is an ability that allows a Blood Elf to drain mana from a magic using creature and store it in their own body. Once they do that, they gain access to a second ability, "Arcane Torrent" that lets them channel that energy back into their own mana pool. The abilities are available at level one, and the quest to use them serves a dual function.

First, it impresses on the player right away the tragic, albeit self-inflicted, circumstances of the Blood Elves. They've become "magic vampires," basically heroin junkies looking for their next fix. It also showed me as a player how remarkably powerful this ability is. In the course of my quest, I realized that Mana Tap allowed me to store the mana of up to three other creatures in my body, then release it when I needed it (Rogues and Warriors will turn mana into Energy or Rage, respectively). I had become a living mana battery, and it leads me to wonder whether or not this ability isn't somewhat overpowered. This was a very early version, though, so it's still undergoing balancing.

Finally, I was once again amazed at the abilities of Blizzard's art department to bring a world to life in a way that makes it feel like a living universe. The Blood Elf artwork is a testament to their ironic situation and how far they've fallen. As befits beings once referred to as "High Elves," Blood Elf cities are extraordinary fairylands filled with elegant swirling architecture that seems to float up toward the sky. In many cases, in fact, this floating is literal. Magic suffuses every aspect of Blood Elf life, and they use it to build cotton-candy palaces that literally float in the air. Indeed, one of the key elements in getting around a Blood Elf city is a network of short range teleport gates that zip players around otherwise inaccessible points in the high towers.

They're also incredibly vibrant and filled with bright colors. In fact, the difference Blood Elves and the Night Elf cousins is literally night and day. Everything about the Blood Elves' culture revolves around the Sun and bright light. There are few earth tones in a Blood Elf village, everything they do, they do in bright reds, oranges, whites, and golds. Despite this, though, there a sense of sadness in the Blood Elves' world. The bright colors aren't those of a living world, they're the autumnal shades of a forest heading toward winter. Despite the surface beauty of the Blood Elves, they're a dying people, and they know it -- hence their insane quest to acquire magical power by any means necessary. The great thing about Blizzard's artwork, though, is that the world around them seems to know it, too.

...and then it was over. My time had run out just as I had leveled my Warlock to level 4 and one of the Blizzard monitors came over and told my row that we had to leave. As for me, I was left with the delicious sense of anticipation I felt the first time I played World of Warcraft way back in the Alpha. After over a year of playing the game, it becomes easy to get jaded, to feel like you've seen everything Azeroth has to offer. If the Blood Elves are any indication, we ain't seen nothing yet!