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Frozen Throne, the upcoming expansion pack for Blizzard Entertainment's popular RTS Warcraft III, has been beta testing for a short time now. Filling in the information gaps that are undoubtedly driving those not in the testing crazy, several gaming sites have published information that should be of interest to those eagerly awaiting the expansion.

GameSpy notes some of the general changes spread across all the races, including two new regular units and one new hero for each. In addition, unit and building costs have seen widespread reductions, and each race also has the ability to build their own shops, which are stocked with race-specific items as well as general ones.

One of the new Human units, the Spellbreaker, should prove to be of great use to fans of the race:

Slightly tougher than a standard human footman, the spellbreaker is meant to fight side-by-side with human tier one and tier three melee units; Immune to magic, spellbreakers have an extra layer of defense that keep them alive longer to cast spell-steal, a clever ability that recasts positive enemy spells onto your own units and negative spells back onto you opponent.

These types of changes include things like Night Elf ancients all being able to attack while rooted, various cost and build time changes so that buildings not used as much would be seen as more worth it, mana cost changes, new upgrades for units like the Rocket Tank ability for the Steam Tank so it can fire at air units, the Troll Berserk ability to give them better speed, the Crypt Fiend's ability to burrow, and the Necromancer's ability to raise skeletal mages. It's pretty evident that there's a lot going into this expansion.

Both previews note that, if anything, the sheer addictive quality of WC3 has been boosted by the expansion. While we don't have a solid release date for this one as of yet, rest assured we'll let readers know as soon as we hear word.

IGN PC - Warcraft III: Frozen Throne

GameSpy - Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Beta Report

Blizzard Entertainment (add to watch list)

WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne (add to watch list)

Buy WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne

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