The Burning Crusade is the first of probably many expansions for World of Warcraft. Below are the details of what this expansion will add to the game.
Increased level cap
Level cap will be increased to 70. 10 more talent points, expanded talent trees.
New Playable Races Introduced in The Burning Crusade
Blood Elves – a faction of former High Elves that wield demonic magic, join the Horde in the expansion. Their capital is Silvermoon City.
Draenei – a faction of uncorrupted Eredar led by Velen, join the Alliance. Their capital city is Exodar.
New Zones
Blood Elf starting zones in Quel’Thalas
* Eversong Forest
* Sunstrider Isle
* Ghostlands
Draenei starting zones in Kalimdor
* Azuremyst Isles
Outland – the entire new continent of Outland, reachable through the Dark Portal. Outland will be about half the size of one of the existing continents.
* Hellfire Peninsula
* Bone Wastes
* Netherstorm
* Zangarmarsh
* Blade’s Edge Mountains
* Nagrand
* Terokkar Forest
New High-Level Dungeons For World of Warcraft Burning Crusade
Karazhan in Deadwind Pass. Existing long before Medivh inhabited it, it is unknown who these original builders were. It is also unknown who now resides within its walls.
Caverns of Time, located in the eastern part of Tanaris, contain various portals to different key time periods and events in Warcraft history. The caverns act as a crossroads for the various timelines, and through them one can travel back and forth along the ebb and flow of time. The Caverns of Time are home to Nozdormu and the bronze dragonflight. It is their sacred charge to guard the caverns against the intrusion of mortals, whose interference would assuredly disrupt the flow of time. Opening each of these Portals will be World Events.
Thrall’s Escape from Durnholde Keep — In this wing of the instance you must assist Thrall in escaping from Durnholde Keep where he has been captured by Aedelas Blackmoore.
Opening of the Dark Portal — In this wing you must protect Medivh as he opens the Dark Portal in the Black Morass
The Battle of Mount Hyjal — In this Epic Raid wing players must band together to defend the World tree. Battling out with the Demon Lord Archimonde and his Burning
Legion Forces
The Battle of Hellfire Peninsula — While still in planning stages this is said to be a PvP Battleground where Horde and Alliance battle it out on Draenor.
Zul’Aman, a troll-controlled area, bordering Eversong Forest and Ghostlands
Hellfire Citadel located on the Hellfire Peninsula is a nearly impenetrable bastion that served as the Horde’s base of operations throughout the First and Second Wars. The citadel is now inhabited by Magtheridon.
Coilfang Reservoir in Zangarmarsh is home to Lady Vashj.
Auchindoun in Bone Wastes
Tempest Keep was the “Dimensional Ship” the Naaru provided for Draenei’s flight from Argus. The Keep was imbued with powerful arcane energies which allowed it to move from world to world. When the orcs were corrupted by Kil’jaeden, many draenei hid away in the Keep for many decades, until Prince Kael’thas and the other Blood Elves and Naga allied with Illidan Stormrage seized the Keep for themselves. Winged instance home to Prince Kael’thas.
Black Citadel in the Outland. Following his defeat at the hands of Arthas, Illidan returned to the Citadel where he resides to this day.
New Spells and Talents In Burning Crusade
New spells, not only to levels 60 and up, but starting from the 40s:
“Currently we’re not planning any new classes,” says Jeff Kaplan. The company is focused to, “Develop existing classes post-40.” In short, expect raid strategies to change – Kaplan says there will be “new gameplay mechanics for every class.” Source: Game Pro
They will be rounding out the existing classes better, by adding 4 or 5 completely new spells for the 50-60 level range for each character class.
Blizzard stated that Mages will be getting some form of invisibility back in the level 60 to level 70 spells.
The talent trees will be expanded. There will be a few more tiers in the talent trees, leading all the way up to 41 point talents.
They are looking to improve racial differentiation by carrying the concept they used in the Priest racial spells over to other classes.
Jewelcrafting Profession and Sockets
Jewelcrafting to make rings, trinkets, necklaces and gems to enchance Socketed items.
GameSpot 31st Mar 2006: The system will be fairly similar to that of Diablo II, along with some nuances that will make it unique to World of Warcraft. For example, we plan to introduce a new type of gem that grants bonuses that depend on the other types of gems your character is using. In addition, players will be able to overwrite gems, but at the cost of the gem they are replacing.
New Hunter Pets
“Someone asked if there will be new tameable creatures in the Outlands, and they responded ‘that’s a good question… yes’.” Source: BlizzCon Art Panel
Flying Mounts Introduced
Flying mounts will be useable in the Outland at level 70.
Tom Chilton: “We’ll put some high-level content in very hard to reach places – effectively places that you’ll need a flying mount to reach. It’s a dream for explorers, and you can draw lines to the Zelda-esque level construction where a new ability opens up aspects in a previously explored area.”
Due to the graphical composition of Azeroth not being suited for viewing from all angles, the flying mounts will only be available in the Outland, which has been specificially designed to avoid graphical issues associated with multiple viewpoints. Blizzard reps have stated that it would be possible to “rebuild” the existing continents to accomodate for flying mounts, but this would take enormous amounts of time as Kalimdor and the Eastern Continents combined are more than 4 times the size of Outland. It is unlikely they will ever support flying mounts in the near future.
Flying mounts are probally needed because of the fact that the Outland is the /Floating/ remains of Draenor. Flying mounts will be needed to reach other floating areas.
Portals to Other Worlds In World of Warcraft
Chris Metzen revealed in the Developer Panels that Illidan closed all the Dark Portals of Outland. Nevertheless, MagusRogue, a World of Warcraft RPG Game Designer from White-Wolf revealed the following: “The portals were shut down by Illidan, actually. However, some of the quests in the Burning Crusade Expansion have you re-opening these and going to new dimensions, fighting the legion in new worlds. Should be awesome.”
“One of the things we’re most excited about,” says Metzen, “is the chance to create environments unlike anything you’ve seen in previous games. We really want to ramp it up for the players now. We’re saying, ‘Hey, you’ve graduate, you’re over level 60 now, so let’s get crazy with some really alien worlds and creatures.” Even better, this is something that’s infinitely expandable for us in updates and expansions down the line. There can always be more portal worlds.”
