Blizzard Doesn't Mess With a Winning Formula

So........ Where have I been? I... uh, Well there was this game you see. It came out a couple of years ago and I have been.. erm.... devoting a considerable amount of my life to it ever since.

Likely any of the plethora of hopeless WoW addicts the world over could sing you the same tune. Blizzard's MMO mega-hit World of Warcraft sucked us in and kept us there, but everything, no matter how enjoyable, needs fresh content injected if it is going to keep the punters coming back for more.

In a few short years I went from MMO noob, to a veteran with a stable of maxed-out, decked out characters, tens of thousands of gold, and with exhausting leadership duties of a major raid guild, so the approach of the inevitible expansion for WoW, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade was something I had more complex feelings about than my giddy eagerness upon discovering the original game.

Initially I was a little concerned. I had worked hard to become one of the premier crafters on my server, in all trades across the board, and I was rather enjoying progressing through the level 60 content which I wasn't entirely keen to see thrown into redundancy. The thought of levelling my Epic=clad Hunter, Warlock, Priest and Mage from 60 to 70 had me feeling like a massive rug had been pulled from under me and after all my hard work id be tossed back in with the masses.

At the end of the day, despite my misgivings, like most people I was keen for more content. A look at the lovely new areas in the closed beta sealed the deal and I made sure my copy was reserved for the day of release.

Basically the Burning Crusade expansion is an extension of the existing game. Instead of the previous level cap of 60, a player can now reach level 70 and a new area known as Outland has been created in which to level.

Outland is basically a shattered extra-dimensional planet which can be reached through the dark portal in the blasted lands. There are far less areas in outland than on either Azeroth or Kalimdor, but they are massive with many more quests than in your average pre-expansion area, and the world is dotted with regular instance dungeons for party-play.

Graphically the game has been tweaked a little, so don't be surprised if your machine which ran the thing fine suddenly chugs a little. The new areas are well designed and range from stark and desolate like Hellfire Peninsula, to weirdly wonderful, like the unstable region of Netherstorm or the stunning Zangarmarsh.

The expansion is filled with a nice array of new mobs, skills and spells, factions to gain reputation with and items. This is all pretty much as I would have expected. Pleasing without being anything to totally blow my socks off. Par for the course.

Now let me get down to the nitty gritty of the expansion pack, rather than harp on about the tech specs.

As I already mentioned, the graphics have been tweaked and the areas are huge, filled with a variety of quests. These range from inventively different, to more of the same "Go here, kill 10 [insert creature here]." As I said before, the new areas are visually stunning, theres a particular place called Auchindoun in Terrokar forest which has to be seen to be believed, so I can't complain there. Having said that, BC areas do tend to feel a little like levelling factories. The feel of levelling is much more mechanical in the expansion and the replay value for alts isn't quite as high. I had a ball on my first character, but there just isn't the variety of areas to level at each level range this time around, so alts find themselves repeating the same process.

The game has also geared itself strongly towards a "reputation grindfest" for progression. Faction has always been an integral part of the WoW experience, but the sheer amount of grinds you have to undertake is quite daunting for the player who doesn't want to be running instances 18 hours of the day. Similarly, raiding has, in my opinion, become even more the domain of the super hardcore player at the expense of semi casual and casual players. Raid instances have had party size reduced from 20 or 40 man, to 10 or 25 man. This is great as it makes it much easier to form a group, but at the same time, there is no room for the semi casual raider.

To offset this problem, there is the excellent Heroic Mode option for all outland 5 man instances. This basically allows people of a certain reputation to set the dungeons to a level 70 difficulty level - sort of like 5 man raid difficulty, with different drops and different strategies required. This really was a great idea to add some more options outside of guild organised raid events.

Trades, I feel, have been a little homogenized in the expansion, with high end patterns rather more easy to obtain, and almost all requiring a rare bind on pickup instance drop to craft. No longer can you get a rare pattern and rule the auction-house.

The Jewelcrafting trade is a nice addition, but at this time most of the crafted items, other than low level rings, are fairly useless. The real boon from jewelcrafting comes from the prospecting of ore for gems and the cutting of the new "socket gems", which can be added to items to increase their power.

Overall, burning crusade is more of the same, like a megapatch for World of Warcraft. It is excellent fun, but doesn't quite capture the magic of the original game. Nothing can bring back the wonder of exploring the brand new world, goggling at the sheer size and complexity of the place.

Personally I didn't find much to grab me in the raid encounters (Karazhan and Gruul's Lair) I encountered before I quit raiding - deciding Id had enough of my daily movements being ruled by raid times.

WoW is still in my opinion the best thing out there, but if you have lost your addiction, don't expect more of the same to rekindle your interest for very long. This is an excellent expansion pack, but not a rebirth for the jaded populace of Azeroth.