Game On: How will this group play differ from dungeons?

Tom Chilton: What makes it feel different than traditional group content that we have in dungeons, is that we don't have a traditional tank/healer type of set-up for scenarios, so the combat tends to be a lot more frenetic. There are more different things for the players to do at any given moment, because there isn't the absolute control that players have when they have a tank holding all the aggro, and a healer pumping heals onto the tank to keep them alive, and the DPS just going through their DPS rotations.

Game On: How about the pet battles? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Tom Chilton: The pet battle systems are also really an interesting new concept for World of Warcraft. We've for many years now wanted to be able to do mini-games like poker or backgammon. In this case, we started to realize, players have had these little companion pets for years now. They've faithfully hopped alongside the players for many years now, but players have always had this desire to have a little bit of gameplay associated with those beyond just the collection aspect. Now players will be able to level up those pets by having them battle their critters out in the world, or NPCs with their collections of pets. They'll also be able to battle against each other to level up their pets and expand the number of abilities that their pets have available, customize what availabilities their pets use, name them, and that sort of thing.