World of Warcraft Preview

AllRPG has put together a one-page preview of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. A snippet:
Another concern of Blizzard making not only a MMORPG, but RPG in general, was that it would follow too closely with the (hack n' slash) method of Diablo II/Lord of Destruction. Blizzard has said that it will be very unlike D2, in fact it will be an MMORPG (nothing like anyone has ever seen before), which is potentially good news since it ousts the idea of a (hack n' slash potion fest) immediately prevalent in D2. The combat system offers more of a traditional RPG in a sense that when you run into an enemy, your characters will enter a (battle mode) where characters will automatically attack the enemy while responsibility falls upon the player to heal the character and use offensive/defensive spells to create a maximum efficiency on the battle field.

Speaking of enemies, PvP (Player versus Player) was another hot topic that was up until now, undecided on how to handle in game. Therefore, Blizzard has assured players that PvP will be completely consensual, meaning that players who don't want to fight, won't have to. We've heard rumors that on each server there will be a given landmass dedicated to PvP. Since we can't give you the go ahead (given it is a rumor), legitimacy is not necessarily our friend. On a related note, character death in the game is handled much differently than in any other MMORPG. Players have a certain amount of time to (retrieve) their corpse (ala Diablo 2) in the area where he/she died, or players can also choose to have the corpse (released) where the character will regain consciousness at a bind point.