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So many of us long to live in a different kind of world. A world of simplicity, a world of honor, a world of giant dancing cow-women. A World of Warcraft. For over two years, like heroin pumped out over internet connections, the little land of Azeroth has captivated millions in a life wasting orgy of morrow-grain collection and moonstalker matriarch slaughter. And in doing so World of Warcraft earned its place as the top-premier-winningest-most-nominated mmorpg in the history of things people use to avoid personal intimacy.

But then you started wondering, do I want to be this immersed in a world like this? Am I content to spend my best years playing a game 16 hours a day? Shouldn’t I want more? And you should want more, such as a nice expansion pack like World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

Now, it’s not a whole new game to love. Earlier promises of a new class to play turned to rubble as quickly as an earth elemental at 5 % health. Oh, I kill me. And earth elementals. But though the changes may not be radical, they are extensive.

Burning Crusade presents two new races: the Draenei, healing-oriented satyrs who have joined the alliance, and the magically addicted Blood Elves. If only Anna Nicole had learned to chug mana potions instead of methodone, she might still be with us, and dealing quality dp’s against raid bosses today.

Sexy and 70

The game also raises the level cap from 60 to 70, and while climbing up 10 levels may not eat up too much time, it does a great job of returning World of Warcraft to what made it fun in the first place: climbing up levels, finding new lands, and getting new abilities. Well crafted and well balanced, these abilities - from druids gaining bird form to priests getting shadowy new pets - breathe new life into a game that was already full of fun to begin with.

To help you grind your way up to 70, they’ve introduced 8 new end-game territories which are challenging, highly playable and beautiful in an otherworldly way.  Several of the maps also incorporate player versus player elements smoothly into the regular player versus environment game.

Blizzard has also done brilliant work at undoing all the work it took for players to earn end-game equipment. Even the lamest of drops in outland gives you stats and powers no one dreamed of in the game before. By making all the gear people have earned in the original game irrelevant, the game puts everyone, from the most hard-core 20-hour-a-day wow addict to the first-time hobbyist on an even playing field.  And by even playing field I mean it makes you feel like a magnificent god.

Oh, did I mention flying mounts? In outland you can get a flying mount. While not quite as good as the pet baby panda that came with the original collector’s edition, it’s pretty damned spiffy.

Dungeon Cred

The game has also grown in a thousand tiny little ways, new profession levels, a new battleground set in outland, and slots in items where you can place magical jewels.  All of it looks a whole lot like things before, but they expand the game immensely. One minor change is the new importance of reputation. Previously your reputation with various factions didn’t mean much. A discount here, access to mana biscuits there. Now virtually every group you come across has magnificent items available only to their closest friends, and a willingness to let you earn their trust one sunfury signet at a time.  Simply an expansion of a pre-existing system, it actually creates a new way of earning end-game equipment. If you don’t have the time for raid dungeons or the killer instinct for pvp, you can just slowly grind nagas until the little mushroom people love you enough to give you a sweet cloak.

Burn Baby Burn

Burning Crusade isn’t perfect. It wusses out on making bold changes to the game like creating a new class, and one of the eight new high end territories, the Blade’s Edge mountains, kind of sucks. But it’s pretty. And it’s fun. And there are dragons. And my mace is plus 106 to healing and gives me five mana a tick.

Blizzard has done an amazing job, through 2 years of patches, of fixing problems, listening to the needs and complaints of their players, and allowing the game to evolve without unbalancing the game. Burning Crusade is the biggest change so far, but it’s not a particularly daring one. If Blizzard issues another expansion without creating a new class or two, I’ll complain. But the beauty, detail and attention to gameplay of the current release earns World of Warcraft: the Burning Crusade five slimy murloc scales out of five.
 
Article by: Guy Branum
Video produced by: Guy Branum