Burning Crusade Expansion Warcraft World

With Blizzards recent release of the "Burning Crusade Expansion Warcraft World" has been rejuvenated, veteran players interests have taken off again in the game. The Burning Crusades release has brought new zones, new levels, new character races, new spells and abilities, a new battleground and PVP system and much more.

I'll start off with the two new races that were recently added, the Alliance side received the Draenei. A extraterrestrial race that crash landed on Azeroth, they are the Alliance sides answer to the Tauren, being the biggest race in the Alliance now. Draenei can be Hunters, Mages, Paladins, Priests, Shamans and Warriors.

The Horde received the Blood Elves and magic addicted race of evil elves. Now the Horde has a beautiful race. Blood Elves can be Hunters, Mage, Paladins Priests, Rogues, or Warlocks.

Another cool feature that was added in the latest release was flying mounts, each faction has two flying mount types to choose from in assorted colors, there is a slow version and a fast version. The basic model appears to be a gryphon type creature or a wind rider depending if you are Horde or Alliance. Now you will need to have a certain riding skill to be able to take advantage of these mounts, and for the faster mount a pretty hefty riding skill is needed. You can only use these mounts in the Outland area.

Questing

Clear out your inventory before going questing in the 60+ range, make sure you store all of your unnecessary's. To make it easier for you on consumables - ie. bandages, scrolls or potions, mail yourself these items from a mule and don't fill your inventory with more than one stack of them.

Don't forget to move your Hearthstone, for the Outland area a convenient place is Honor Hold if you are Alliance and Thrallmar if you are Horde. The problem that you might encounter in some of the level 60-61 areas of Outland is the bottlenecks. With the new release 1000's of people are flooding these areas which are creating bottlenecks especially with the Quests where you have to kill a certain Mob, waiting for it to respawn can really take the fun out of the game at times. Blizzard is trying to deal with this time by regulating the spawn time by the number of people in the area at a given time. More characters in the area cause faster spawn rates.

Instances

The new instances in outland due to the popularity of the Scarlet Monastery and Dire Maul have been made shorter. All of the five man instances in Outland are made along the lines of the ones typically encountered in Azeroth. For the people who like to grind Blizzard has made the groups of mobs with similar abilities in different groups, for instance a priest type character might grind in an area with mobs that have a certain type of magical abilities, while a Fighter character would best grind in an area with mobs of different abilities.

Professions

Jewelcrafting is a new profession that was added in the expansion which allows you to craft rings, amulets and socketable gems, this should end up being a very profitable profession.

Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds are pretty much the same as they were before with a higher level cap and in addition a new Battleground has been added called Eye of the Storm. There are two levels in the new battle ground, 61-69 and level 70. There are 15 players per team and the first team to 2000 points is the winner.

If you are a diehard World of Warcraft fan like I am, The Burning Crusade expansion warcraft world only fans the flames of my obsession with the game.(which is a good thing) High quality content has always been a strong point from Blizzard and they have not failed in their delivery as usual.

Charles Hamel lives near Houston, TX with his wife and two sons. His hobbies include writing and Online Role Playing Games. To read more info about World of Warcraft and it's expansion Burning Crusade check out his website Amazing Players of World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Review (PC)

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.