World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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does have some positive attributes to it, but I have never been the type to want to grind out dungeons repeatedly in the hope of the one item I needed from there would drop, and like I said unless you plan to spend every seven days a week, 5hrs a day raiding you will never see the end game content, or have the best items for your class.

So to sum up, you pay for a game that you can never complete do to the hard core raiding atmosphere, the pvp system with the institution of resilence makes any button clicker able to kill you, and be prepared to enjoy the grind fest either in dungeons or in battlegrounds to get any items that may be helpful to your character.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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led to alot of people standing around waiting to get their merits, alot of name-calling, people railing on each other about their equipment...pretty much an elementary school playground. I rarely found the community friendly or helpful and guilds were pretty much the same. If you want to get an idea of the community, take a read on the WoW website forums. THOSE are the people you'll be playing with. Very sad that a really fun game was ruined by such a negative community.

You can solo from levels 1-70 if you'd rather not deal with the community or just prefer to adventure around on your own for a bit, though that does tend to get rather boring. Yes, many argue that you should play an MMORPG to group; well, the choice is yours in this game. If a game this large were available offline, I certainly would enjoy it.

Having taken a 6-month break from the game, I was missing it a bit, so I went back to the forums. Then I remembered why I'd left.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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cannot be soloed. Thus, if you want to experience instance content, you must form a group of 4 to 5 players (at a minimum). Sometimes -- usually, in fact -- groups of players are great, but sometimes they are just awful. I enjoy multiplayer questing occasionally, but I do not want to be dependent on it to enjoy and experience game content.

(4) WoW instances take too damn long. Sorry, but they just do. Often, by the time you find a full group, you've run out of time to run the instance. Or you might get halfway through an instance, someone will drop out, and your group may well just fall apart or you have to wait again to find a player to fill in the missing slot. It's ridiculous and highly aggravating.

(5) WoW's Looking-for-Group mechanism is really lame for a game of this scope and with this many subscribers. The current Looking-for-Group tool is nonsensical, unecessarily complex, and not at all user friendly. As a result, only a small proportion of players even use it.

(6) WoW's next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, looks completely unappealing to me, just more of the same for levels 70 to 80. It'll be a "must-have" for the dedicated WoW gamers, but for the rest of us? Meh. Not interested.

The Burning Crusade does nothing to rectify the basic problems with a game of this type. It added higher-level quests and instances of the same sort and variety as the original game, of course, but that's about it. I got approximately halfway through the new regions of the Burning Crusade and just got ... tired ... of it. And I was paying $15 a month ... for this?

I have played both WoW and Guild Wars extensively and, in my opinion, Guild Wars is clearly the better game: better story, better graphics, better and more varied options for various styles of play (solo/casual, group, guild, etc.), better combat system, sleeker armor, better (simpler) crafting system, better weapons acquisition, less grinding, more creative quests, no monthly fee, etc. And with the Eye of the North expansion pack coming out soon, well, this jaded ex-warcrafter will be headed for the new regions of Tyria with nary a look back.

If Blizzard wants to draw me and other casual/solo-oriented gamers back into the WoW universe, then they need to introduce summonable non-player characters (NPCs -- like the henchman or heroes you have in Guild Wars), allowing groups and/or individuals to fill the gaps in their teams as needed or form a complete team of their own and so have a reasonable chance of success for completing the various group quests and dungeons in WoW. But, hey, Guild Wars has that *now* ... :-)

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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cannot be soloed. Thus, if you want to experience instance content, you must form a group of 4 to 5 players (at a minimum). Sometimes -- usually, in fact -- groups of players are great, but sometimes they are just awful. I enjoy multiplayer questing occasionally, but I do not want to be dependent on it to enjoy and experience game content.



(4) WoW instances take too damn long. Sorry, but they just do. Often, by the time you find a full group, you've run out of time to run the instance. Or you might get halfway through an instance, someone will drop out, and your group may well just fall apart or you have to wait again to find a player to fill in the missing slot. It's ridiculous and highly aggravating.



(5) WoW's Looking-for-Group mechanism is really lame for a game of this scope and with this many subscribers. The current Looking-for-Group tool is nonsensical, unecessarily complex, and not at all user friendly. As a result, only a small proportion of players even use it.



(6) WoW's next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, looks completely unappealing to me, just more of the same for levels 70 to 80. It'll be a "must-have" for the dedicated WoW gamers, but for the rest of us? Meh. Not interested.



The Burning Crusade does nothing to rectify the basic problems with a game of this type. It added higher-level quests and instances of the same sort and variety as the original game, of course, but that's about it. I got approximately halfway through the new regions of the Burning Crusade and just got ... tired ... of it. And I was paying $15 a month ... for this?



I have played both WoW and Guild Wars extensively and, in my opinion, Guild Wars is clearly the better game: better story, better graphics, better and more varied options for various styles of play (solo/casual, group, guild, etc.), better combat system, sleeker armor, better (simpler) crafting system, better weapons acquisition, less grinding, more creative quests, no monthly fee, etc. And with the Eye of the North expansion pack coming out soon, well, this jaded ex-warcrafter will be headed for the new regions of Tyria with nary a look back.



If Blizzard wants to draw me and other casual/solo-oriented gamers back into the WoW universe, then they need to introduce summonable non-player characters (NPCs -- like the henchman or heroes you have in Guild Wars), allowing groups and/or individuals to fill the gaps in their teams as needed or form a complete team of their own and so have a reasonable chance of success for completing the various group quests and dungeons in WoW. But, hey, Guild Wars has that *now* ... :-)

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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up on WoW. The WoW interface is easy to learn, work with, and customize. The WoW worlds are large and provide enough variety to keep things fun. One week into the game, I have a Level-20 Blood Elf Rogue and have cancelled my LOTRO account.

Another good thing about WoW is that it works well for high-end and low-end systems. I play on my desktop, which is a high-end 8800GTX-based system and it plays great. I also play on my notebook, which is just an ok system with integrated graphics. It works well on my notebook as well.

Bottom line, if you are thinking about starting to play WoW, stop thinking and do it. The Burning Crusade expansion pack is a good way to start. You don't need a Level-60 character to enjoy the expansion pack, you can start one of the new races and still play in the new environment.

It's never too late to start playing WoW

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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to say I am having a lot more to do at 70. Very good trinkets and weapons are easily obtainable by dungeon runs, and endgame content is fairly easy (with the exception of Serpentshrine Cavern, The Eye, and Black Temple). However, it is now fair competition between epic'd players and blue'd players. Gladiator PVP gear is amazingly powerful and the weapons are on-par with most of the weapons from Karazhan and Serpentshrine. If you have a team of skilled players, it wont be long to obtain these crazy Gladiator sets.

~ DUNGEONS ~
Pre-BC: After getting your attunements done, you had 2 options in terms of dungeons: do UBRS, scholomance, or stratholme for sub-par gear, or spend 4 hours a night raiding MC, BWL, AQ40, Naxx, ZG, and AQ20 for epic gear that is nearly 2x as powerful as non-epic gear. The dungeons were boring and got old quickly.
BC: As soon as you enter the outlands, you are greeted by 4 dungeon hubs of ~4 dungeons of different levels. The gear from these dungeons will most definitely replace your level 60 gear. Every level you gain you will be able to do another dungeon to get shiny new gear. And as soon as you hit 70, over 5 dungeons open up for you (all hosting INCREDIBLY powerful gear). There are plenty of quests for these dungeons, and they are all very interesting and look different from one another. They are all very straight forward and dont really get old.

~ RAID CONTENT ~
Pre-BC: Most people finished with content very quickly and ended up waiting for a new dungeon to come out. Yes, I was there when Blackwing Lair came out and it was BUGGY as hell and no one got ANYWHERE. Yes, I endured through the horribly designed pre-C'Thun trash in AQ40, and yes I was there when the C'Thun encounter was terribly buggy and no one could do anything in phase 2. Then Naxxramas came out and raiders rejoiced because it was the best dungeon made and I couldnt agree more.
BC: The new dungeons and bosses (which I will get into later) are amazing to say. The environments and atmosphere of each raid dungeon is different and they all have a certain feel to them. A Karazhan run feels like an adventure through an old abandoned run-down castle full of monsters and the undead. Gruuls lair feels like an epic journey through the cave of an incredibly powerful monster. Magtheridon's Lair (whom you are teased by in Blood Furnace) feels like a prison holding an ancient, wise, and destructive monster...and it is! These dungeons are all these things, they are alive, they are vibrant, and they are FUN.

~ BOSS DESIGN ~
Pre-BC: Ragnaros was the introduction of the horrible resistance checks in WoW. I can think of around 8-10 encounters that were resist checks and stupid gear checks (Vael/huhuran and twin emps/patchwerk, respectively) that prevented progression in the 4 40 mans. With the exception of Naxxramas and Blackwing Lair, all these dungeons were filled with trash mobs and you spent more time clearing trash than doing bosses. The bosses just were NOT fun.
BC: The boss encounters in the Burning Crusade are a HUGE improvement over their predecessors. New, different encounters such as netherspite and shade of aran, and just plain fun ones like the chess event are just a few to name. They are all very fun, and are definitely worth wiping on, the pleasure and burst of excitement when you down these challenging bosses after nights of wiping are awesome. Also, with the 10/25 man caps, it is much easier to start/join a raiding guild that gets somewhere. The content isnt as crazy as Naxxramas was at 60, but they still require the same level of organization, skill, and teamwork.

~ QUEST DESIGN ~
Pre-BC: Not much to say besides that the quests in Azeroth are stupid, annoying, and the rewards are HORRIBLE and USELESS. They are all very similar and they are very repetitive.
BC: All the quests are awesome and different. While you still have those grind + kill + get x of this quests, you have an assortment of new quests as well. You can summon bosses, and do bombing missions, they are all new, and they are all pure fun. I even love questing at 70, the money and even some of the loot are great to have. I am working on the Netherdrake questline at the moment, and I cant wait to have my own transparent giant dragon to fly around the outlands on. There are loads of quests leftover at 70, and they all have very good rewards at the end of each chain.

Why doesn't the Burning Crusade get a 5/5 overall? For one reason: they did not revamp Azeroth. Revisiting Azeroth at 70 is like attending a funeral, its stupid, and its pathetic how useless anything from Azeroth is at 70. The quests leading up to level 58 (when you can enter outlands)still have sub par rewards, and besides the opening of Karazhan and Caverns of Time, they have done absolutely NOTHING with the world outside of BC. I believe they really need to revamp the questlines and the rewards to make it more rewarding for people to go back to Azeroth to do the old quests and content.

Other than that, The Burning Crusade is the most extensive expansion to a game I have seen, and it is definitely worth the $40 to jump on the ship. I tip my hat to Blizzard for making an incredibly fun and rewarding game even better.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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to say I am having a lot more to do at 70. Very good trinkets and weapons are easily obtainable by dungeon runs, and endgame content is fairly easy (with the exception of Serpentshrine Cavern, The Eye, and Black Temple). However, it is now fair competition between epic'd players and blue'd players. Gladiator PVP gear is amazingly powerful and the weapons are on-par with most of the weapons from Karazhan and Serpentshrine. If you have a team of skilled players, it wont be long to obtain these crazy Gladiator sets.



~ DUNGEONS ~

Pre-BC: After getting your attunements done, you had 2 options in terms of dungeons: do UBRS, scholomance, or stratholme for sub-par gear, or spend 4 hours a night raiding MC, BWL, AQ40, Naxx, ZG, and AQ20 for epic gear that is nearly 2x as powerful as non-epic gear. The dungeons were boring and got old quickly.

BC: As soon as you enter the outlands, you are greeted by 4 dungeon hubs of ~4 dungeons of different levels. The gear from these dungeons will most definitely replace your level 60 gear. Every level you gain you will be able to do another dungeon to get shiny new gear. And as soon as you hit 70, over 5 dungeons open up for you (all hosting INCREDIBLY powerful gear). There are plenty of quests for these dungeons, and they are all very interesting and look different from one another. They are all very straight forward and dont really get old.



~ RAID CONTENT ~

Pre-BC: Most people finished with content very quickly and ended up waiting for a new dungeon to come out. Yes, I was there when Blackwing Lair came out and it was BUGGY as hell and no one got ANYWHERE. Yes, I endured through the horribly designed pre-C'Thun trash in AQ40, and yes I was there when the C'Thun encounter was terribly buggy and no one could do anything in phase 2. Then Naxxramas came out and raiders rejoiced because it was the best dungeon made and I couldnt agree more.

BC: The new dungeons and bosses (which I will get into later) are amazing to say. The environments and atmosphere of each raid dungeon is different and they all have a certain feel to them. A Karazhan run feels like an adventure through an old abandoned run-down castle full of monsters and the undead. Gruuls lair feels like an epic journey through the cave of an incredibly powerful monster. Magtheridon's Lair (whom you are teased by in Blood Furnace) feels like a prison holding an ancient, wise, and destructive monster...and it is! These dungeons are all these things, they are alive, they are vibrant, and they are FUN.



~ BOSS DESIGN ~

Pre-BC: Ragnaros was the introduction of the horrible resistance checks in WoW. I can think of around 8-10 encounters that were resist checks and stupid gear checks (Vael/huhuran and twin emps/patchwerk, respectively) that prevented progression in the 4 40 mans. With the exception of Naxxramas and Blackwing Lair, all these dungeons were filled with trash mobs and you spent more time clearing trash than doing bosses. The bosses just were NOT fun.

BC: The boss encounters in the Burning Crusade are a HUGE improvement over their predecessors. New, different encounters such as netherspite and shade of aran, and just plain fun ones like the chess event are just a few to name. They are all very fun, and are definitely worth wiping on, the pleasure and burst of excitement when you down these challenging bosses after nights of wiping are awesome. Also, with the 10/25 man caps, it is much easier to start/join a raiding guild that gets somewhere. The content isnt as crazy as Naxxramas was at 60, but they still require the same level of organization, skill, and teamwork.



~ QUEST DESIGN ~

Pre-BC: Not much to say besides that the quests in Azeroth are stupid, annoying, and the rewards are HORRIBLE and USELESS. They are all very similar and they are very repetitive.

BC: All the quests are awesome and different. While you still have those grind + kill + get x of this quests, you have an assortment of new quests as well. You can summon bosses, and do bombing missions, they are all new, and they are all pure fun. I even love questing at 70, the money and even some of the loot are great to have. I am working on the Netherdrake questline at the moment, and I cant wait to have my own transparent giant dragon to fly around the outlands on. There are loads of quests leftover at 70, and they all have very good rewards at the end of each chain.



Why doesn't the Burning Crusade get a 5/5 overall? For one reason: they did not revamp Azeroth. Revisiting Azeroth at 70 is like attending a funeral, its stupid, and its pathetic how useless anything from Azeroth is at 70. The quests leading up to level 58 (when you can enter outlands)still have sub par rewards, and besides the opening of Karazhan and Caverns of Time, they have done absolutely NOTHING with the world outside of BC. I believe they really need to revamp the questlines and the rewards to make it more rewarding for people to go back to Azeroth to do the old quests and content.



Other than that, The Burning Crusade is the most extensive expansion to a game I have seen, and it is definitely worth the $40 to jump on the ship. I tip my hat to Blizzard for making an incredibly fun and rewarding game even better.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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You must mouse over it too see it.

3) Expansion pack quests are annoyingly vague. Strongly recommend Thottbot and Allakhazam for clarifications. Either that or your toon will be killing a lot of unnecessary mobs and doing a lot of unnecessary dying.

Now some of its many positives...

Visually and musically the expansion pack is outstanding! Zones have a strong Myst influence, i.e. Teledahn inspired Zangarmarsh. That's an excellent influence. After entering each new zone, your initial reaction will be an invariable, "Oh, wow!"

Expansion game play is precisely the same as pre expansion game play. WoW has the best game play in the MMORPG genre. Game play is intuitive; you don't need to read the game manual to begin playing.

There's an abundance of challenging quests. Blizzard has increased quest log size from 20 to 25 quests (It should be increased more, say 75 quests). The vast majority of quests do not require grouping. If you wish, you can easily solo your way to level 70.

Don't want to give away any spoilers, but here's a hint:

Get to Shattrath City (Terokkar Forest) ASAP. You'll find its banks and portals useful. Moreover, Shattrath City is yet another example of, "Oh, wow!"

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade: Mac/Windows

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but come on, there are 40 players runnin around killin the same stuff. Good job on Blizzard's part to increase spawn rates this time for the starting quests in Hellfire Peninsula.

There are so many more items added to this expansion to drown you in. Some greens/blues are better than the lvl 60 epic set items that were in the original game. Now people who couldn't raid before can actually get very nice gear from the new dungeons. Another good job from Blizzard to help the casual gamer.

I haven't played either of the 2 new races so I won't comment on those.

The last couple things are the music and the scenery. The music is fantastic, from the opening title screen to every zone track in Outland. The voice acting of the bosses is pretty cool too. I hear the Blood Elf jokes are extremely gay though. The scenery of every zone of Outland is so colorful it looks 10 times better then anything in Azeroth. Even the new mobs all around are more detailed and have more color and thought put into them. From armored voidwalkers in Hellfire Peninsula to nasty creatures that look like that came out of War of the Worlds or something, this game has it all.

This expansion has everything we could have ever wanted in one from Blizzard. I'm sure this one will last another 2 years before the next expansion. Go get your copy NOW. You won't regret it.