World of Warcraft Previews

Both Eurogamer and Ferrago bring us updated previews of Blizzard's highly anticipated MMORPG, World of Warcraft. Here's a snip from Eurogamer's article:
Once there you're expected to take on quests, establish yourself by learning a pair of professions (previously known as 'trade-skills'), mix with your fellow adventurers, level-up your character by earning experience from plundering and experimentation, and even just plain old exploring - find a new area and it'll be marked on your map forever more and you'll earn experience points for discovering it. Eventually, you'll also invest in the talents system, which helps define your character's individuality - the idea being that by placing the customisation largely in the hands of the talents system, you can pick virtually any combination of race and class to start with and not find yourself hamstrung by your choices at a later date when you decide to branch out. You'll be able to unlearn professions pretty easily should you want to try your hand at something else, but unlearning talents will be a bit harder. Blizzard views these as the defining characteristics of your adventurer, so there will probably be a specific quest or cost associated with unlearning talents, and any time you might try to reacquire that talent at a later date you'll have to go through the process of becoming proficient at it all over again.

And an excerpt from the article at Ferrago:
Getting about is very easy, and the control system is solid, either mouse or keyboard can be used to easily manoeuvre through the world. Although the best combination that suited me was, a la FPS mode, using a bit of both. Mr. Mouse Cursor is your friend, and moving him over any object will show you what the object is, and the form that the cursor takes reflects what you can do with it, and whether or not you are in range to do it. If you're out of range, the icon is greyed out. For example, if you can talk to it, a speech bubble appears, if you can use it or open it, a Gearwheel. NPCs will show a coin if you can purchase from them, or a book if you can learn from them. If you move the cursor over an NPC it will also show you what they do, i.e. Weapons Merchant, Priest Trainer, etc.