World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Preview

Hellfire Peninsula is the first zone after entering through the portal, and is the main 60+ zone for questing. There are 4 flight points in this area alone. There are enough quests in here to keep you busy until at least level 62. As for the quest rewards, well - they are very good. Most items are better than decent blues, and some rate higher than Molten Core epics. Questing from level 60-61 didnt take as long as I first thought, even though the 581,700 EXP needed looked daunting. Once we hit the big 61 we decied to step it up a gear and go to the new instance in Hellfire Peninsula which is called 'Hellfire Citadel', the instance has three different wings (Ramparts, Blood Furnace and Magtheridon (which is a level 70 instance)). We of course could not test Magtheridon but we did test Ramparts and Blood Furnace - both instances that are much shorter than Scholomance or Stratholme. The drops in Ramparts and Blood Furnace consist of very good blues, and some socketed items (more on that later).

The trash mobs in the instance have a lot of health, and hit for quite a lot, while the bosses have a moderate amount of difficulty requiring a little more team-work than usual. Apart from that it's pretty much the same as a normal boss fight in ubrs/strat/scholo etc. One thing we noticed was that a lot of the dropped greens/blues have huge amounts of stamina compared to standard items. The quest rewards and instance drops were very appealing to our group, and we consisted of an AQ / Naxx geared rogue and priest among other things. As well as normal quests there are also PVP towers similar to the ones found in Eastern Plaguelands and Silithus. These towers are right next to each other in a small cluster though and it proved good fun trying to control them all - right up until a level 70 came along and slaughtered us all. As always, controlling these towers gives your faction a buff.

After we explored the areas of Hellfire Peninsula we decided to move on to the next area which is called Zangarmarsh.

Zangarmarsh is a swamp area which is quite dark and is surrounded by giant mushroom trees. The area has quests from about Level 62+, you can also ride across the water making getting around much easier. There's a Neutral base there called 'Cenarion Refuge' and along side of that each faction has their own base. There are plenty of quests in each town - certainly much more than my quest log could hold, even with the increased capacity to hold 25 quests instead of 20. The monsters in Zangarmarsh consisted of some floating stringrays and some very tall insect creatures as well as some familiar mobs, Naga's and of course a lot more. There is an instance located in Zangramarsh called 'The Underbog.' We didn't get to experience this instance since it was level 63 and upwards, but the main theme is flying sting rays and Lurkers (which look like Loatheb in Naxxrammas). There are 2 Stadiums and 1 graveyard which are in close proximity to each other; a PVP quest is also included where you have to capture each point. Once you have captured each point you can hand your quest in and you will get 5x Mark Of Honour, which are of course used to buy items from your faction vendor. The PVP vendor item rewards are all very good with their stat allocations, and of course you get some fun along the way.

Each of the other 5 areas has a similar theme; containing both world PVP and arena PVP battles, plus instances. These zones range from open fields (much like those that can be found in Mulgore) and contain huge wildebeest and elephant type creatures that dwarf the players in comparison, to dark forests and desert areas. All of these areas are absolutely huge and much more detailed than the areas found in the main game. We spent hours just running around exploring in the Outlands, and still haven't managed to see it all. One thing we found fun was a little quest were you are taken up onto a flying mount and guided around the zone, while being given the task of dropping bombs on guards down below. Of course with flying mounts featuring so prominently in Outlands there are plenty of areas that are only reachable by flying up to them. Numerous floating islands in the sky will no doubt hold many exclusive high level quests and places to take a break from the action down below.

The Burning Crusade beta also gave us a chance to see the new revamped PVP system that will be introduced in the upcoming patch. Instead of your honour points going towards a rank (which gives access to the different weapons and armour sets in exchange for gold), all honour points accumulated in Battlegrounds and world PVP can be used as currency towards these. As well as honour points, some PVP related items will require you to spend Marks of Honour gained by winning or losing in a Battleground. The amount needed varies from item to item, but these can now be retained in stacks of 100 as opposed to 20.

There will also be the introduction of Arena based combat, where teams of players (2v2, 3v3 and 5v5) can enter a Gladiator style death-match from the numerous Battle masters posted around the world. It's not until players reach level 70 that this offers rewards for winning - apart from the satisfaction of ripping your opponents to shreds obviously. In order to obtain anything from your victories you have to participate in Rated Matches, which require a Team Charter and some friends to sign up with. The Team Charter works in the same principal as the guild system to register. The points and rewards earned from these battles are separate from the normal honour related rewards.

As well as the new PVP system and Arena battles, a new Battleground will be included in the expansion called 'Eye of the Storm'. This can be entered by alliance and horde, from level 61 upwards, and is for teams of 15v15. The map is set in the Outworld and consists of two giant floating islands and a smaller island in the middle connected by three bridges. There are four towers located around the map which can be controlled by either team. When a tower is captured it contributes a small amount of points. The game is won by the first team to reach 2000 points. As well as controlling the towers, points can be earned by returning a flag which spawns on the smaller central island to one of the captured bases.

With the new patch coming soon to the main game you will have access to the new talent tree specs for each class. This means that although Burning Crusade isn't coming out for quite a while, you will be able to see the talents up to level 70 and re-spec to different talent trees early. Some of these new talents are really impressive and great fun. Especially "Tree of Life" form for the Druids. New changes also include the ability for rejuvenations and renews to be stacked on a target which proves quite useful in instances.

As you'd expect with such a mammoth expansion pack, there's also a new trade skill. Called Jewel Crafting, this enables you to make rings, necklaces and trinkets. As well as crafting actual items they can craft jewels that can be inserted into the new socketed armour sets that exist. Only new content gear will have sockets added, and not every piece will have this capability. Some higher levelled items 60+ have sockets in them which means you can add socketed Gems to items, adding stats from the Gems. Gems can be obtained by drops or, as we've mostly seen, from vendor rewards. You can get uncommon, rare and epic quality gems which can be added to sockets on your item. example;

Sun-Touched Raiments

Chest

16 Stamina
+21 Intellect
+18 Spirit
*Red Socket
*Yellow Socket
*Blue Socket
Socket Bonus +6 Stamina

Requires Level 61

Equip: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up to 46.

So, say I wanted to get my socket bonus of +6 Stamina - I would have to get Gems in each socket (Red,Yellow and blue), and it needs to be that particular colour to unlock that bonus. The great thing about it is you could have the following;

Runed Ornate Ruby

BoP
+12 Spell Damage
"Matches a Red Socket."

Gleaming Ornate Dawnstone

BoP
+10 Spell Critical Strike Rating
"Matches a Yellow Socket."

Potent Ornate Topaz

BoP
+6 Spell Damage, +5 Spell Crit Rating
"Matches a Blue Socket."

So, if I put each of those above Gems in my Sun-Touched Raiments I would get the juicy +spell stats from the Gems, and because I have all the Gems it has now unlocked my Set-Bonus of +6 Stamina as well. This will no doubt lead to much customization of items, and with enchanting thrown in on top you'll have quite a few ways to change your armour to suit your play style. Something which I feel the current armour sets leave some classes screwed over in certain respects.

Another change with armour sets is that all of the stats are moving to different rating systems, for example Critical Chance becoming Critical Chance rating. This applies across all the stats, but it is still unclear just how this new system works in relation to the old one in terms of what numbers are better than others.

Final Thoughts

Over the last couple of weeks of playing, we've experienced what looks like only a fraction of what Burning Crusade will have to offer this coming January. Even so, we've still seen enough to know that this expansion is going to change a huge number of things for both factions, and still manage to draw the players in like ever before. I know for sure that we are all very much looking forward to experiencing these changes on a larger scale than the beta servers. I for one can't wait to get a flying mount and see how that changes world PVP in the Outlands. I can just envisage people flying above and dropping in on towers in the world PVP. Any worries about the futuristic introductions seemed to disappear very quickly and to be honest it's been like starting WoW all over again. Exploring the new zones is a task that will obviously eat up all your spare time again as you'll want to experience everything new that's been introduced. The only 'problem' that we can think of is that once you hit level 20 with the Draenei and Blood Elf races you'll just be questing in the normal areas again up until level 60. Overall, it's pretty obvious that any expansion has to cater for end-game players rather than new ones - the fact that this caters to both in some ways is just another bonus.

This article was compiled from the combined efforts of;

Grant Wilson (Abunai), Brian Rae (Superbri), David Wilson (Gratious) and Nick Hooper (Neeka). You can catch them all questing on Twilight's Hammer.