WoW: The Burning Crusade
We burn through the closed beta to see what's new.
A tip of the cap
For those who have level-capped, and didn't have the time or nature to dedicate themselves to the world of raiding guilds, this is where Burning Crusade will really matter. The Outland, accessible through the Dark Portal you might remember from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, begins with an operatic roar in the Hellfire Peninsula. Emerging through the green swirl you're greeted by monolithic beasts like never before, engaged in huge battle. These are the forces of the Burning Legion, attempting to break through from this other-worldly region into Azeroth, locked in permanent NPC conflict. It's a set-piece rather than a piece of game, but you can wade in and offer your 1300 hit points.
The main new areas lie beyond, in regions like Zangarmarsh - an incredible land of building-sized toadstools and fungi, with a town, Telredor, built high in some of the caps. The surface is more water than land, small clusters of islands linked by wooden bridges, the streams stalked by the beautiful Fen Striders - fifteen-foot-high creatures that look half War of the Worlds aliens, and half jellyfish. South of here lies Nagrand, the prettiest area the game has ever offered, with incredible green rolling hills, inhabited by wonderful new giant beasts, and magical floating rocks in the sky from which waterfalls cascade. Back to the east is Terokkar Forest, a miserable, ghostly place of greys, but also home to the capital city, Shattrath, kept safe by its focal Temple of Light, and the naaru, A'dal, within.
Each region of the Outland contains a number of spirit towers - the multiplayer feature introduced to previous higher-level areas a couple of patches ago. These will encourage conflict between the Horde and Alliance forces, who'll find respective allied areas at either side of each map, from where control of each tower (and indeed graveyard) is to be contested. This looks like it could become incredibly cool once it's up and running properly, with the ability to create defences for held buildings, and the opportunities for mass tactical attacks.
Of course, Outland is also the place for achieving the new upper target, level 70. The whole area, while accessible from level 55 and upward, is pretty lethal for anyone below level 60. Essentially, it's more WoW. More gathering quests, many more dungeons, and many new raiding opportunities, as well as all-important new 60+ abilities and skills being added in, so characters will get all the more powerful. Anyone who is a regular WoW player is both not going to have had time to read this article, and has already pre-ordered the game. Anyone who stopped at level 60 might now have a reason to head back in, and dedicate a few dozen more hours to taking their character further forward.
Raids are being downsized, with the endgame focus shifting from 40 man encounters to 25 - slightly easing the organisational nightmares of the large raiding guilds. It will also be slightly easier for smaller groups to receive better loot, with 5 man dungeons receiving a 'hard mode' - rewarding brave adventurers with more powerful items. For those more interested in raising their PvP honour, new arenas are to be opened, where much smaller teams can battle it out, gangs of two, three or five, in some as-yet unseen sporting events. And the last thing to get excited about in this little round-up, are the... flying mounts. Oh yes, baby. And they'll be necessary for accessing some of the highest-level dungeons. As well as making people with only rubbish horses want to cry as they save up.
Early impressions indicate that Blizzard have no intention of massively changing a formula that clearly works. The new races are cunningly woven into the over-arching story, and logically connect to the access to the Outland (the Blood Elves achingly desire to move there, while the Dranei had to escape it). With no new class to play, the experience is familiar to those who've ground through each before, but of course with new threads, new folklore, and new creatures to kill or befriend. And the Outland is obviously going to be essential, no matter what it does, to anyone who MUST HAVE MORE WORLD OF WARCRAFT MUST HAVE MORE NEEEEEEED MORE DROPS NOW. Which is, well, rather a lot of people.
The Burning Crusade closed beta has only recently begun, with tidying to be done, and some areas still inaccessible while Blizzard puts in the finishing touches. We'll have more details about the Outland, and the level 60 to 70 features, in the future.