World of Warcraft Gold,WOW Gold
After countless raids on Molten Core, Zul Gurub, and Ahn Qiraj, it's no surprise that some folks were growing tired of playing World of Warcraft at the level cap. Despite small content additions made to the game through patches, many people have several level 60 characters and there just wasn't much left to explore, with the possible exception of the game's most difficult instances. World of Warcraft has been nothing short of a sensation for last two years, but it was evident that fans were ready for a major expansion, and Blizzard has answered their call with The Burning Crusade.

Outland Awaits
The Burning Crusade is a large expansion by any measure. The new persistent continent, Outland, consists of 7 zones, some of which are comparable in size to The Barrens. Hellfire Penninsula, the first area you encounter on the other side of the Dark Portal, is literally crawling with level 60 characters questing and pummelling each other over the PvP objectives in the middle of the map. Raid schedules have been abandoned, at least temporarily, and people seem genuinely thrilled to have their experience bars back as they anxiously pursue the increased level cap of 70.

New dungeons in the Outland are being conquered, although they do represent a significant challenge for characters in their early 60s that don't have top tier equipment from the "old world." The last boss in the 5-man Ramparts dungeon has certainly inflicted serious damage on groups with low fire resistance. No doubt these will get a lot more routine as people accumulate experience and loot in the expansion, but they now have difficulty settings which will make them more replayable, and there are numerous more difficult dungeons further into Outland, each of which deserves a review of its own.

When you first enter Hellfire Pennisula you witness a huge NPC battle at The Stair of Destiny. You're quickly given a flight further into the zone, where enormous level 70 elite Fel Reavers roam about crushing unsuspecting players that get caught in their path. While there are heaps of quests to tackle, only a few have really stood out so far. The bombing runs, which have you dropping explosives on mobs from the back of a Windrider, are very memorable, and they do a wonderful job of forshadowing things that could be done with the new flying mounts which can be purchased at level 70.

These flying mounts don't come cheap, and they only work in the Outland, so your trusty ground steed will still come in handy in the old world. There are, however, certain areas in the new zones that you can't reach on foot, so saving some gold is a good idea.

Altogether the Outland is rather like launch day all over again, except everyone is 60+, and there are far fewer server outages. Server queues during peak hours have been quite common, but I suspect that will gradually subside as the initial thrill wears off. Overcrowding is a bit of an issue, as the mobs in first couple zones have barely been able to spawn fast enough for the rush of players.

There's a lot of new content I haven't explored yet, and being a relatively casual player, I suspect it will take me quite a while to see it all. A few of the highly dedicated types in our guild pretty much gave up sleep and raced to level 70 in less than a week. Of course, that's not possible for the average person who actually has a life. If you're one the latter, expect to spend weeks or even months reaching the new level cap.

At the end of the day, The Burning Crusade will be judged on how much there is to keep level 70 characters busy. Raid content in the expansion is 25-man rather than 40-man, probably due to complaints about how difficult 40-man raids are to organize. As you can imagine, there are a number of additional factions to grind as well, but sooner or later players will likely end up running the same instances over and over again.

Obsolete Equipment
One common concern is that the additional content is bound to undermine items many people spent months persevering 40-man raids to get their hands on. As people approach level 70, it's inevitable that most of those hard-earned, soulbound items are going to get vendored. Halfway to 63, however, I can't say I've come across anything yet worth giving up tier 2 armor for. There are some very nice drops in the new areas, but taking set bonuses into consideration, I don't expect to be replacing most of my old gear for a few levels yet.

Another small issue is that the old world raids are in danger of being completely neglected by players, because it's relatively easy to get comparable equipment in the Outland. The old dungeons and raids may need revisions to get people interested in them again.

New Playable Races
Two races have been added to the game: Blood Elves for the Horde and Draenei for the Alliance, each of which comes with a new starting area. Class restrictions for the game's factions have been loosened up, because Blood Elves can play as Paladins, a class formerly only available to Alliance, and Draenei can play as Shaman. It's an understandable move from a balance point of view, but it leaves us with "evil paladins," which seems a little absurd no matter how much lore you throw at it.

I rolled a Blood Elf Hunter to check in on the budding Horde Paladins, and the starting grounds were very lively. What I've seen of the Blood Elf zones is impressive. The high standard of artistry has been maintained, even if they don't have the funniest joke emotes. My biggest problem with Blood Elves is that they look and feel like an Alliance race. The Horde was an evil army of orcs, skeletons, and other ugly creatures until these preposterously cute Blood Elves came along. Personally, I'd have gone with something foul like ogres, gargoyles, or goblins.

If there's a downside to the new races, it's that you outgrow the starting areas quite quickly. People with veteran characters will find themselves back in familiar stomping grounds by level 20, because there's very little in The Burning Crusade for mid-level characters.

Broadening PvP
The player vs. player combat system has seen significant changes since Battlegrounds were introduced back in 2005. WoW now has PvP servers, PvP Battlegrounds, PvP arenas, and persistent world PvP objectives. The Honor system, which was once ranked, has been changed to offer linear progression similar to standard experience except that you spend the points earned on items. Players seem much happier with this, as it allows them to work toward certain goals more gradually, without losing rank on weeks that they don't play. Under the old system, reaching the top ranks was extremely difficult because you were, in effect, competing with everyone in your faction for the most Honor Kills each week. Ranked competition has been moved into the new arenas, which feature 2 on 2, 3 on 3, and 5 on 5 matches.

World PvP objectives were added to a couple of the old zones well before The Burning Crusade, but every zone in the new expansion has PvP objectives. When they first came along, I expected them to be quite popular, but the rewards weren't that great, and MMORPG players are an incredibly rewards-driven bunch. In Outland zones, they've increased the rewards for world PvP considerably, granting players tokens that can be exchanged for some decent items. They've also put the objectives closer together in most of the new zones, which makes the battle a lot more lively. This has resulted in a big increase in participation. Currently there is almost always at least one raid group fighting for control of the towers in Hellfire Pennisula on my server.

It's interesting to note that, although I'm on a PvP server, a sort of unspoken truce has broken out between the two factions, simply because people want to get some questing done. Of course, ganking is still common, but most of the PvP is concentrated around the objectives. As skeptical as I was about persistent world objectives after they fell flat in Western Plaguelands and Silithus, they have so far gone over quite well in the Outland zones.

The Burning Crusade also includes a new Battleground called Eye of the Storm. It's built for 2 teams of 15 and features a combination of base capturing and flag capturing. Although I haven't spent any time with it yet, I wish they had made one for teams of 20 or 30 players, since we already have 15 vs. 15 in an earlier Battleground, Arathi Basin.

PvP in World of Warcraft has evolved a great deal since the game was released, and in most cases Blizzard has made the right decisions. Right now there is pretty good balance of persistent world zergs, instanced competition for teams of limited sizes, and last-man-standing arena matches for small groups of players. Even town raids have made a bit of a resurgence since the elimination of Dishonorable Kills.

Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafting is another profession that has been added to the game, allowing characters with sufficient skill to craft gems that can be placed in special weapon and armor sockets, giving the item various stat bonuses. While this is not entirely unlike the enchanting profession, it's always nice to see more options of this kind, even though crafting has never been one of WoW's strongest features. In keeping with the new level cap, other professions have all been given new recipes and had their limits raised.

Bottom Line
In terms of gameplay, The Burning Crusade understandably stays close to its roots. It would be daft to make major deviations from a concept that has proven so successful. If you're one of the few that hated the game before, I doubt that anything in the expansion would change your mind. On the other hand, if you had a good time getting from 1 to 60, it's hard to imagine that you wouldn't enjoy the trip from 60 to 70. I also fully expect the game at level 70 to be similar to the game at level 60 - that is, raids, gold, PvP, and earning faction, not necessarily in that order. There is a tremendous amount of new content in The Burning Crusade for casual and hardcore players alike, and it's bringing scores of old players back into Azeroth. No MMORPG on the market right now can touch WoW in terms of accessibility, attention to detail, and the ability to appeal to gamers with different tastes. The Burning Crusade is a truly stellar addition to the package and, simply put, no World of Warcraft fan should be without it.