Master World of Warcraft

When World of Warcraft was released in November 2004 it raised the bar and perhaps set to beyond any would-be competitors in the MMO genre.  Even with the initial launch, gaming enthauists found it difficult to fault Blizzards first MMOG offering and with ongoing free updates and an immense amount of player feedback World of Warcraft has continued to grow and elvole into, not just a game but perhaps a life experience.  With the release of The Burning Crusade (TBC), World of Warcraft takes things to an even new level (no pun intended), while you don’t need The Burning Crusade to keep playing WoW, you get the sense you are missing out if you do not get this AND now Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Like with all great expansion packs, The Burning Crusade is not just more of the same from the original game and is not slanted just to experienced players.  It does have a lot more of the same AND adds a number of new enhancements that newcomers and level 60 veterans can both enjoy.

The obvious addition is the introduction of two new playable races, the Blood Elves and Draenei which have made the Paladin class available to Horde and the Shaman class available to the Alliance for the first time.  These two new races have massive backstories through intro movies, playable in-game quests and interaction with NPC’s.  Like all other playable races within WoW the Blood Elves and Draenei begin in specially designed starter areas where you can play in a buble not having to worry about high-level opposing players for the first 15-20 levels of your character.  This is of particular importance on PvP servers.  After this the new races join the rest of the races on one of Azeroth’s two new continents, now three if you get with WotLK.

One of the main reasons to get The Burning Crusade is that it is only possible to advance beyond the original WoW level 60 cap.  TBC also unlocks new player skills and talents for your characters as you move to level 70. It is of course possible to have TBC and advance post-60 without ever visiting the new Outland realm, but this would probably be a pure ‘grind’, a very time-consuming adventure, less profitable and without the joys of great epic gear.  This is becuase the quests in Outload offer increased experience points and gold.  Also, Outland is the only place that you can advance you professions beyond the previous skill cap of 300 and gather new resouces and craft up new items.  All the previous proffesions can now be pursued to the new maximum of 375 along with the new profession of Jewelcrafting.

The new Jewelcrafting profession, along with engineering, is perhaps one of the most useful professions to undertake in World of Warcraft.  While it is true that all professions serve some type of purpose, some items that can be made from professions like tailoring and weaponsmith are no more valuable then those in drops and then appera in auction houses.  As a jewelcrafter however you an opportunity to create unique items in the game.  Most of you initial time will be spent making simple rings and necklaces that provide wearers small attribute bonuses.  As your skill improves and you require less common and more expensive materials, you learn to make powerful trinkets, rings and necklaces that can be used to buff the attributes of other partiy members as well as your own, some weapons and gems that can be placed into new pieces of armour and jewelry to make them even more powerful.

Once you get the skill level you can craft items that have empty sockets for gems and you may also be offered them as a reward for completing quests.  Generally these items are quite hard to obtain and rarely drop from anything other then dungeon bosses.   Choosing gems for your socketed items provides an opportunity to set-up you gear to your characters talent spec and playing style.  Bonuses to attribute like strength, stamina and agility are now augmented by specific bonuses for areas like attack power, dodge and hit ratings.  Before The Burning Crusade it was obvious whether or not once item was better then another, but now in The Burning Crusade there are so many different factors to consider that choosing equipment to use often has as much to do with your own playing style as anything else.

An essential new enhancement in the Burning Crusade is flying mounts that can be used exclusively in Outlad, although it is not possible to do cool things like drop bombs or perform any other kind of attach when riding.  Level 70 players flying on these mounts still have a significant impact on all PvP as they are able to move between objectives and battles much more quickly then those that have to hoof it.  They can then simply drop down and join any fight in an instant.  While very, very expansive to buy they are worth every single piecve of gold, silver aad copper, not just becuase of the battle advantages, but also simply to take in the fantastic views while flying around Outland.

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While still quite stunning, the original World of Warcraft visuals are starting to show their age, and the Burning Crusade has no major visual improvements technically the expansion pack’s environment are amongst the the most impressive the game has to offer.  And when you are not to busy fighting battles and running through quests, just like in real life, stop and smell the roses, there is plenty to be had exploring and looking for rare enemies and simply just taking in the view.

The Burning Crusade caters to both the solo and grouped players alike, altough a number of the more challenging quests are impossible to beat alone.  This is certainly true of Outlands dungeons which have been specifically designed for groups of between 5 and 25 players.  The Burning Crusade has added more the 20 new dungeons to World of Warcraft, take note that not all of them are in Outland, ranging from hour runs to the truly epic undertakings that will take even the most experienced groups 10 or more hours to get through.

Many of these new dungeons can be played on a more difficult ‘heroic’ mode once you earn the right which pits you against bigger and harder enemies with bigger and better dropped items…if you manage to defeat them.

If you have already dedicated a serious amount of time to World of Warcraft then you should already have a pretty good idea of what to expect from The Burning Crusade.  While it is true that some of the new quests can feel somewhat of a grind and the arrival of the expansion rendered much of the original World of Warcraft content obsolete this is a superb example of what an expansion pack for any game should be.  What the Burning Crusade has done is make the gap between World of Warcraft and other MMO games even wider.

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