WoW Burning Crusade Delayed until January 2007

Aaaaarrrrggghhhhh.....

Blizzard today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for World of Warcraft, is delayed until January 2007. From the article: 'By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.' While disappointing now, what will this mean for the yearly WoW expansions long term? As Blizzard COO Paul Sams revealed plans in August that 'Starting with The Burning Crusade, every year thereafter we plan on bringing out a new expansion set.' 2008, 2009, ad infinitum?

In somewhat related news (and offered as an explanation as to why the testers are dawdling so long), Slashdot reports that the Male Blood Elves, from the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Burning Crusade, have been made more masculine by their Blizzard overseers. Which totally makes sense, because when we all think elves we think of paragons of masculinity. From the article:

You changed it because your constituency is a bunch of capslock-riding asshats who are threatened by bishy player characters. The reason Blood Elves were Horde in the first place is because everyone was whining about all the Horde races being ugly juggernauts. The point of Blood Elves was to inject some swish into a very physically intimidating set of races. They're not exactly chunky now, and I do not begrudge a game company making prerelease aesthetic changes, but their reasons for doing so are pathetic.

Nice. Before and after photos are available in their post. Though I must admit, I about fell out of my chair after reading a comment, Dear Blizzard,

I feel that the female blood elves wear far too much clothing. This expresses an extreme imbalance in the WoW gameplay. It is completely unfair that male night elves may go topless, while female night elves cannot. This imbalance in gameplay must be addressed, or else i will cancel my subscription.

Sincerely,
Whiny Blizzard Customer