There are currently over eight million people playing World of WarCraft worldwide, a staggering number which makes it not only the most popular massively multiplayer online game but also the best selling PC game ever, beating even The Sims. It's easy to imagine then why this expansion has been so keenly awaited by so many people. At first, the additions may seem relatively minor to anyone that hasn't played the game before, but for fans that have been exploring and battling through every inch of the game world for the last two years, the chance to open up a whole new continent is like all your virtual Christmases come at once. The other obvious new addition to the expansion is two new races for you to play as, each inverting the normal abilities and appearances of the opposing Alliance and Horde factions: the Blood Elves are bad guys and the Minotaur-like Draenei are goodies. Importantly all characters using the expansion pack can now rise to level 70 instead of 60, the access this gives to new weapons, armour and dungeons being of great importance to long time players. There's also the prospect of flying animal mounts to get around the newly enlarged world more quickly. Admittedly none of these features, including the new spells, talents and hundreds of new monsters, quests and items makes any real change to the basic gameplay or the now slightly dated looking graphics, but clearly there's a very large number of people who don't believe that needs changing. HARRISON DENT