Blizzard Entertainment on Friday introduced The Burning Crusade, an expansion pack for its popular World of Warcraft massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The news came as the company wraps up the BlizzCon convention being held this week in Anaheim.

While Blizzard has continuously updated World of Warcraft with new content since its release a year ago, The Burning Crusade promises major changes, including the addition of two new races, the Blood Elves and another yet to be revealed. A new continent, Outland, is available for exploration, and characters will be able to go beyond the current 60-level cap to reach 70th level.

Outland offers not only new dungeons, battlefields, quests, monsters and NPCs but also new airborne mounts that enable players to more easily traverse inhospitable terrain. A new profession, jewelcrafting, ties into the advent of "socketable" items that can be customized, and all character classes will gain new spells and other abilities.

Blizzard did not announce a ship date for the game, nor did it offer pricing.

A mysterious location from The Burning Crusade