World of Warcraft's player-versus-player system builds on the notion of opposing groups of races -- humans, dwarves, gnomes, and night elves on the Alliance side, orcs, trolls, tauren and undead on the Horde side. The new server will gradually introduce aspects of player-versus-player combat over the coming weeks, allowing Blizzard to fine-tune both the structure of that system and the capabilities of different races and classes.

To begin with, Blizzard is introducing territory states in areas with player-versus-player combat, showing which side controls a particular location and what threats a player might encounter. The mini-map will also color-code areas depending on the threat level -- green for friendly, yellow for disputed, and red for enemy-held locations.