AfterTek

The time World of Warcraft players and enthusiasts have been awaiting has finally arrived. January 16 was the release of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, which is the first expansion for the widely popular online game. For those who have no idea, World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). A player creates a character to complete quests, obtain loot, and level-up, all the while being able to interact with friends.

There have been numerous entries into the MMORPG category, the most famous, up until now, being Everquest. While the Everquest collection of games has still survived the quickly changing landscape of games, World of Warcraft has made it to the forefront of the genre, having just announced 8 million subscribers worldwide.

You have to pay a monthly fee ($15, less if you buy several months at a time) for the ability to play these games. In return, you get relatively consistent updates and in-game customer support. While there are games out there that forgo the monthly subscription fee (see HTGamer’s Guild Wars: Factions review), the majority still require this fee.

So, what exactly do you get with The Burning Crusade that’s different? Namely, content, the sheer amount of which is impressive. The Burning Crusade brings you to Outland, a new landmass that was torn apart by magical energy. It contains seven new zones, loads of dungeons to explore, and new player-versus-player areas where you can fight your friends (and enemies).

Meanwhile, you gain experience to reach the new level cap of 70 (raised from 60). Your reward once you reach level 70, other than personal gratification, is the ability to purchase a flying mount. As with the land-bound mounts from the original game, the flying ones come in standard and epic varieties. The Druid class has the extra perk of being able to transform into a flying form at level 68.

The new content is not limited to Outland, though. The original land of Azeroth has four new zones and some dungeons, as well. The new Azeroth zones were designed as a homeland for two new races, the Blood Elves and the Draenei. The Blood Elves have aligned with the Horde, while the Draenei have sided with the Alliance. The new races also allow for Blizzard to make previously faction-specific classes available to the opposing faction. Blood Elves can be paladins, which were only open to the Alliance in the past and Draenei can be shamans, formerly a Horde class.

Another added choice for your character is the jewelcrafting profession. If you take on this new profession, you’ll get to cut gems and craft of rings, necklaces, and trinkets. You can place the gems in some new items’ sockets for an increase in stats, much like you can apply the with enchanting profession to weapons and armor.

So, what’s the catch? All this content is only accessible if you buy the expansion. You might see Blood Elves and Draenei running around, but you can only make your own if you buy the expansion. If you want to train jewelcrafting as a profession, you’ll need to head to one of the new zones, which again requires the purchase of the expansion. Does this take away from the original version of the game? Not really. There have been plenty of gameplay changes that affect anyone who ever logs in, not just those who have added the expansion to their account.

The crowning achievement of The Burning Crusade is by far its art design. Each of the new zones is so unique and interesting to look at. The most enjoyable part for me thus far has been the exploration. The two new starter zones for the Blood Elves and Draenei help to define the races and distinguish them from the eight starter zones that WoWers have grown to know and love.

There’s all this new content, but is it any good? In a word: yes. For years, Blizzard has known exactly what they needed to do to please and, more importantly, keep their player base. Are there problems with the expansion? The answer is also unfortunately yes, but, in this case, the problems are due to the game’s wild popularity. Lag and server restarts have become the norm in the days and weeks following the release, and, chances are, they will continue for a few more.

Blizzard is trying to alleviate the pressure on their more populated servers by offering realm transfers to brand-new servers. They have even threatened realm splits if the transfers do not sufficiently improve the problem. When the main problem with a game is its popularity, it must be doing something right. The new zones are also rather graphics intensive, causing some slowdowns on older computers.

While The Burning Crusade will definitely do its part to bring more gamers to World of Warcraft, the expansion is designed primarily to appease the players who had already reached the level cap of 60. It opens a whole new world to explore, but the content is mainly aimed toward the upper levels. Entry-level players do get a chance to experience The Burning Crusade with the new races and profession, but it’s mainly something to look forward to. And what an amazing experience it is to look forward to.