Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #275 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Released on: 2007-01-16
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platforms: Mac OS X, Windows XP
• Dimensions: .44 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
There are currently over eight million people playing World of WarCraft worldwide, a staggering number which makes it not only the most popular massively multiplayer online game but also the best selling PC game ever, beating even The Sims. It’s easy to imagine then why this expansion has been so keenly awaited by so many people. At first, the additions may seem relatively minor to anyone that hasn’t played the game before, but for fans that have been exploring and battling through every inch of the game world for the last two years, the chance to open up a whole new continent is like all your virtual Christmases come at once.

The other obvious new addition to the expansion is two new races for you to play as, each inverting the normal abilities and appearances of the opposing Alliance and Horde factions: the Blood Elves are bad guys and the Minotaur-like Draenei are goodies. Importantly all characters using the expansion pack can now rise to level 70 instead of 60, the access this gives to new weapons, armour and dungeons being of great importance to long time players. There’s also the prospect of flying animal mounts to get around the newly enlarged world more quickly.

Admittedly none of these features, including the new spells, talents and hundreds of new monsters, quests and items makes any real change to the basic gameplay or the now slightly dated looking graphics, but clearly there’s a very large number of people who don’t believe that needs changing.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description:
Blizzard Entertainment took online role playing by storm with their hit title, World of Warcraft. With mind-boggling improvements in graphics, gameplay networking, and interface -- really every category -- this game became the crown prince of the genre. World of Warcraft players will be excited by the release of the new expansion pack: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. This pack expands the already massive, award-winning multiplayer online role-playing game by tremendous bounds, adding new races, lands, battlegrounds, professions and items, and much, much more.

The Burning Crusade is the hugely popular expansion pack for Blizzard's "World of Warcraft."

What lies in Medivh's tower? View larger.

Blood Elves emerge as a new race in The Burning Crusade. View larger.

The Blood Elves seek the golden destiny that has been promised to them. View larger.

Warcraft's newest continent: Outland. View larger.

Once a beautiful land, Outland has been ravaged by war. View larger.

Outland is a vital strategic location. View larger.

The expansion pack features an increase in the level cap to 70. There are two new playable races, including the magical Blood Elves that you can read more about below. There will be new starting zones in Quel'Thalas and beyond. Another eye-opening addition is the entirely new, unexplored continent of Outland that is reachable through the Dark Portal. Plus, you'll find many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth, Outland, and elsewhere that will substantially boost gameplay. There are new flying mounts in Outland; tons of new and dangerous monsters (including epic world bosses); hundreds of new quests and items; and even a new profession: Jewelcrafting. Of course this isn't the end of the list -- this is just a glimpse of what Blizzard has crammed into this expansion pack.

The New Story
Several years have passed since the Burning Legion's defeat at Mount Hyjal and the races of Azeroth have continued to rebuild their once shattered lives. With renewed strength, the heroes of the Horde and Alliance have begun to explore new lands, and have broken through the Dark Portal to investigate the realms beyond the known world. In this expansion pack, The Burning Crusade refers to the Burning Legion's ongoing efforts to destroy life on Azeroth. To date, the Burning Legion's exploits have been documented in Warcraft III and in the War of the Ancients novel trilogy. As part of the expansion pack, players will now be able to travel through the Dark Portal to confront the Legion on otherworldly battlefields.

Blood Elves: The New Race
Thousands of years ago, the exiled Highborne landed on the shores of Lordaeron and founded the enchanted kingdom of Quel'Thas. These high elves, as they called themselves, created a fountain of vast, magical energies within the heart of their land -- the Sunwell. Over time, they grew dependant on the Sunwell's unstable energies, regardless of the bitter lessons they'd learned in ages past.

During the Third War, the villainous Prince Arthas invaded Quel'Thalas and reduced the once-mighty realm to rubble and ashes. His undead army decimated nearly all of the high elven population. In addition, he used the Sunwell's energies to resurrect a powerful undead Lich, Kel'thuzad, thereby fouling the Sunwell's mystical waters. The few elven survivors, realizing that they had been cut off from the source of their arcane power, grew increasingly volatile and desperate.

In the midst of the elves' darkest hour came Kael'thas Sunstrider, the last of Quel'Thalas' royal bloodline. Kael, as he was commonly known, knew that the remnant of his people would not long survive without the nourishing magic that once empowered them. Renaming his people "blood elves" in honor of their fallen countrymen, Kael taught the survivors how to tap into ambient mystical energies -- even demonic energies -- in order to sate their terrible thirst for magic. In search of a new destiny for his people, Kael'thas ventured to the remote world of Outland where he encountered the fallen night elf, Illidan. Under Illidan's watchful eye, Kael and his blood elves regained much of their former power.

Unfortunately, the blood elves practice of embracing demonic energies caused their former comrades in the Alliance to shun them. Thus, the remaining blood elves on Azeroth look desperately to the Horde to help them reach Outland where they can reunite with Kael'thas and achieve the golden destiny he has promised them.

Outland: The New Continent
Once the beautiful homeworld of the orcs, all that remains of Draenor is the scattered wastes of Outland. Following the Second War, the Alliance invaded Draenor by crossing through the Dark Portal. To their horror, they discovered that Ner'zhul -- the dark warlord of Horde -- had constructed a series of new gateways that could lead the beaten Horde to newer, unspoiled worlds. As the Alliance forces closed in around him, Ner'zhul opened his gateways as a means of escape. However, his plan backfired and the gateway's clashing energies resulted in a massive catastrophic explosion that ultimately ripped the world of Draenor to pieces.

Nearly thirteen years later -- towards the end of the Third War -- the fallen night elf, Illidan, discovered that huge chunks of Draenor still existed, floating upon the astral winds of the Twisting Nether. After his defeat at the hands of the evil Prince Arthas, Illidan fled to the remnants of Draenor and dubbed them "Outland." He quickly seized control of the chaotic region and sealed the last of Ner'zhul's gateways.

Though he is the undisputed ruler of the ravaged land, Illidan lives in fear that he will be discovered by his powerful enemies -- most notably Arthas, the new Lich King, and the remaining Lords of the Burning Legion. For now, Outland is home to a number of scattered draenei tribes, primitive orcs, and powerful, arcane creatures of the Nether itself. Agents of the Burning Legion have also targeted the region as a vital strategic location in their unending Burning Crusade to scour all life from the universe.

Customer Reviews

So is the expansion any good?
So, is the expansion any good? Well, I'll give you my answer at the end, but first I'll give you some of the things you might want to know to see if you join the game to find out for yourself.

TBC (The Burning Crusade) is the expansion to the orginal game hit of WoW (World of Warcraft), which has stood up to its accronym and has been "wowing" people since its launch in 2004 with it's huge world of expansive content, that has made it one of the most addictive games played to date by myself and nearly all 7 million others that have put the tiny silver disc into their PC drive tray.

TBC takes the work of WoW and as you expect "expands" on it. Obviously they had to make new additions to perk peoples interest, and 2 of those changes are two new races. These races are the Draenei (Alliance side) and the Blood Elves (Horde Side), and while I could go into more detail on who and what they are, its not that important to the average player other than to note that there is more option on what you can play.

This leads on to the fact that in addition to the two new races you will now be able to play a Paladin if you are Horde, and Shaman if you are Alliance, where as before these two classes were not available to both sides. This has been met with mixed responses. Some have said they hate it due to it not maybe keeping to the world of warcraft storyline, and others have liked the idea due to the fact it adds some game balance and more options for the dungeon designers. Personally I think the horde don't like it because the shaman was very good for them in PvP (player vs player), but time will tell how it shapes up overall as an addition. Personally, more choice is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

The new areas that have been added with TBC are great from what I have seen so far, which is about 5 areas, 3 cities, and 6 different instances/dungeons as I got to level 66 at time of writing this. I should note that the new starting cities/areas for the two new races are really beautiful, and many of my friends have set them as their hearth stone homes (places they can teleport back to), so that they can enjoy walking around them some more. You will get to see lots of variety in the areas, as you saw in the orginal wow game, with desert type areas, swamps, lush forest, and of course your dark and demented type ones. The only slight odd thing I've noticed so far is that the random weather effects of rain/snow/sandstorm that were added to the orginal seem oddly lacking from the expansion so far. There is a fairly constant drizzle (light rain) in the swamp, but while the areas and their lighting and other overall content is really eye pleasing I did find this an odd oversight that may well soon be amended by Blizzard. I hope so at any rate.

The new instances that I have been to so far are far shorter in time to complete than you had in wow orginal and the bosses loot tables (items they can drop) are certainly not as expansive as they were in orginal. This maybe because they are early instances in the case of the loot tables, but the shorter length of course also lend itself to the theory that you don't need to spend days/weeks farming them just to get one item you are set on getting for your character, which is a good thing really.

The Dungeons themselves start off pretty easy to be honest, and any half decent group with master them first or second time through. This does however change a little in some of the mid 60 level instances. I had a friend that went with a PUG (Pickup Group/random players) that died on the trash packs (creature groups before dungeon bosses) in the Mana Tombs instance/dungeon before they got to the first boss, and I should note that many tier 2 (armour set of epic gear) teams found this place kicked their butts a fair bit before doing it. Certainly the tactics for some of the battles, even on trash needs to be worked at more than you may have seen in wow original, and leads me to think it won't be easy for many groups that enter instances at times.

This kind of leads on to the idea of raiding. Many that played wow orginal did dungeon raids of 40 players, but that will not be an option for TBC due to Blizzard scraping the idea of 40 man raids. WHile existing 40 player instances will remain, no new ones will be added, or have been in TBC. The current instances will be for 5, 10 or a max of 25 players. This has been done mainly to help the casual player have a bash at end game content that often was restricted to the hard core player that got a group of 40 people to raid places on a regular basis. This may kind of suck for many, as it will be hard on communities that were set of for 40 man raiding (myself included) and personally I believe be hard on the casual player, because in my personal opinion with the level of difficulty I expect blizzard will add to the 25 man instances 25 man PUG's will just get royally pwned as soon as they step through the instance portals. This remains to be tested however, and time will tell.

Other new content include. New proffession of "Jewel Crafting", which will also used in connection to the new items that have "Socketted Slots" that allow jewels to be added. These jewels can be used to customise items you gain from dungeons, or are crafted by the other proffessions in the game. This is a good thing to my eyes, and allows people to be quite flexible in how they make their gear work for them, and will make for large differences at end game where everyone was lookign a little similar in orginal game.

Flying mounts. You will at level 70 be able to buy normal and epic flying mounts. That about says it all, other than to say that unfortunately the flying mounts currently and maybe for all time will only be able to be used in outlands, but hey it will be fun none the less. I had a 70 warlock fly down and help some of his mates that we were busy killing in pvp, and it does come as a surprise, as you aren't used to having to look UP!

Player Vs Player. This has had a revamp, and till it goes live this week coming it will be hard to access if it really works. However, it looks like it could. The same current battle grounds are going to be there, but the honour system has been changed to allow both hardcore and casual players to get good rewards from it. Also they have included a new arena style battle ground for teams of 2vs2, 3vs3, or 5vs5 to compete in. WHen this goes fully live you will be able to compete in a ladder competition that lasts for a full 3 months with the winners at the end of that time getting some pretty cool rewards, including the rare armoured nether mount (epic flying mount).

In short, and in answer to the topic title. Yes, so far the expansion is good, and fun. Buy it and you'll still be just as addicticted to TBC as you were to the orginal.

Enough Already
I would like to start by saying that I love World of Warcraft, I have many memories of fun times had while playing the game, and I have met and adventured with many nice people. Some of the new zones are very nice and the flying mounts are a great idea. World Pvp objectives have also been added into some zones.

However, I have stopped playing, my characters have been deleted and my account has been cancelled. I completely agree with the reviewer below who said the game has been designed as a time sink, you may have to run a certain dungeon numerous times in order to get the required reputation to get a key you need to access another dungeon, I began to find this extremely boring and repetative and it is clearly designed to make the content last longer, lazy and money saving game design in my opinion.

I think I decided to stop when I realised I was playing not to have fun but for the slight chance I might get a new piece of equipment, and I am sure this is the same for many players.

Another point to make is that almost all of the end game content is group based so don't even expect to get there unless you have managed to find a place in a half decent guild, which is an epic quest in itself.

I would say if you enjoyed the original World of Warcraft it is definitely worth playing, just don't expect it to hold your attention for as long.

Great fun at first but beware of where your time goes!
As far as MMORPG's go this is definatley one of, if not the, most popular. The graphics may be slightly outdated and cartoony bu this just means that more people can access the game without having top of the range PC's (or Macs) and creates a more diverse population online. The game itself revolves around a simple premise - kill things, do quests and level up. The xpansion pack add new content and areas while allowing a higher maximum level and introducing new races and a new proffession which is great news for hardened veterans who had played and done just about everything they could in the previous incantation, but not so good to those just starting out as it means you have to play even longer to get to the end game content that is the real crux of this game.

While the general game is nice and easy to pick up and play and provides some good entertainment and comeraderie if you pick the right guild it does start to fall into what a previous reviewer has said - a time sink. While I concentrate on guild activities and questing for my enjoyment I would spare a word of warning - unless you want no life at all or take this far too seriously then don't spend long on non-essential areas of the game such as Battlegrounds etc...they will suck up a lot of time and you will have little need for the items you worked so hard for in another few levels and you will have to do it all again. Fine if you have nothing better to do but if you just play for a bit of escape and enjoyment then leave this part alone!

There also seems to be a great emphasis of the game on what stuff you have and how much gold you have rather than what you actually do. This has led to the masses of sites selling online gold for real money, effectively people who want to compete at the highest level in the game either need lots and lots of time to play (and i'm talking 18+hours a day) or they buy gold and can then buy all that nice armour and weapons they needed to compete. If you are just playing for your own enjoyments, again you don't need to worry about this and save yourself real life money inthe process. If you do need money then there are lots of people offering advice (for free - again dont pay for it) on how to maximise your cash flow.

The game play itself can get a little rpetitive but if you find a few friendly people to play with online then you will no doubt have a better experience for it all. What i would suggest is reading up first before you plow horus (well days) into making a character only to find out that its not the easiest one to play and you will get bored....

All in all a good enjoyable game if played in the right way. If you are an addictive personality then be warned you will lose your life in theis game. Play it casually and in the light it was meant to be and you will enjoy the game. If the low age average in this becomes a problem then you may need to try something liek Vanguard, LOTRO or something a little mroe high spec and geared to the slightly mroe diserning user.

Happy gaming in you choice though!