User:Montagg/World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (shorter)

A press release confirmed that the release date will be January 16th, 2007. In order to give players some of the content developed for the expansion, including the new honor system and the new LFG system, patch 2.0.1 will be released December 5th, 2006[2]

Just as with the original release, a Collector's Edition will also be available.

For more information, see the Pre-Expansion patch FAQ.

The Burning Crusade expansion will contain two new playable races:

• Blood elves -- A faction of former high elves that wield demonic magic join the Horde in the expansion. Their capital is Silvermoon City. Their racial mount is the bird-like hawkstrider.
• Draenei -- A faction of uncorrupted eredar led by Velen join the Alliance. Their capital city is The Exodar. Their racial mount is the elephant-like creature elekk.

The expansion will also allow previously faction-exclusive classes to be played on the opposing faction, with the inclusion of Horde blood elf paladins and Alliance draenei shamans.[3]

Each new race will receive its own new mount:

• Blood elf -- a hawkstrider (Originally called a cockatrice, but changed due to complaints). Blood elf paladin mounts are the same as alliance though they are red instead of the alliance blue.
• Draenei -- an elekk ("a creature with a resemblance to a caparisoned war elephant" - GameSpot)

Flying mounts

Main article: Flying Mounts

Flying mounts will be useable in Outland at level 70. The Horde can get an armored wyvern and the Alliance can have armored gryphons as standard mounts, along with rare mounts such as the Nether Drake.[4].

Druids will have hawk looking shapeshift form[5] that has the ability to fly. It can be obtained at level 68.

Main article: Burning Crusade spells

Blizzard will add five to six new spells for the 50-60 level range to each class in order to round out the classes better. The talent trees will also be greatly expanded and revised. All classes will have talents leading up to a 41 talent point ability.[6]

Since the Paladin and Shaman classes are no longer unique to either faction, Blizzard intends to add abilities to each class to make them what they truly feel they should be: Paladins, a holy tank that heals, will receive a long-awaited spell Righteous Defense (a long range mass taunt like ability) and Shamans will receive the spell Bloodlust (a long-cooldown, powerful buff) to complement their DPS and utility roles. Information about changes and additions for several of the other classes is available from the official site.

Please see each class's respective page or Blizzard's Blizzard Burning Crusade Skills and Talents Preview for more specific information regarding new spells and talents.

Main article: Combat Rating System

With the upcoming release of the Burning Crusade, a new stat is introduced: Combat Ratings. Source. This will replace the critical rate, defense, hit rate, spell critical, and dodge stats as well as add the new resilience stat.[7]

The blood elves will have two new starting areas located in the Eastern Kingdom:

• Eversong Woods - Level 1-10
• Ghostlands - Level 10-20

Similarly, the draenei have two starting zones off the west coast of Kalimdor:

• Azuremyst Isle - Level 1-10
• Bloodmyst Isle - Level 10-20

The expansion heralds the addition of Outland, an entirely new continent/world, reachable through the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands and portals in several major cities. You may find an interactive map of Outland here.

Outland will contain the following zones:

• Hellfire Peninsula - Level 58-63
• Zangarmarsh - Level 60-64
• Terokkar Forest - Level 62-65
• Nagrand - Level 64-67
• Blade's Edge Mountains - Level 65-68
• Netherstorm - Level 67-70
• Shadowmoon Valley - Level 67-70

The expansion will add several dungeons, including many in Outland and Azeroth. The dungeons will contain a plethora of new equipment including Tier 4 armor pieces.

• Karazhan in Deadwind Pass
• Caverns of Time in Tanaris
• Zul'Aman in Quel'Thalas

• Hellfire Citadel, located on the Hellfire Peninsula
• Coilfang Reservoir in the Zangarmarsh
• Auchindoun in the Terokkar Forest
• Tempest Keep outside Netherstorm
• Gruul's Lair in the Blade's Edge Mountains
• Black Temple in the Shadowmoon Valley

All future raids will now have caps not exceeding 25 players (current raids will remain at a 40 player cap, at least for now). This was done to allow for a greater number of players to participate in epic raids, and to allow more flexibility in the design of encounters.

In addition, future instances will have a feature allowing players to have the option to run the instances at two different difficulty levels: Normal and Heroic. This would turn a level 60-62 instance into a level 70 instance. The final boss of every hard mode instance will drop epic items, and every boss in hard mode instances will drop tokens to get special gear available in Shatrath. These instances will be marked with a purple portal.[8]

Meeting Stones will also be useable as summoning points, allowing two members of a group to summon a third.[9]

Jewelcrafting is a new profession that allows the crafting of rings, trinkets, necklaces and special jewels called socketed items that can be used in specific weapons. See the main Jewelcrafting article for more details or you can check out the official page on the community site.

Profession levels will still increase by increments of 75, but the expansion will add a new level past Artisan (300) called Master (375). This can be maxed to 390 for gnomish engineers, draenei jewelcrafters, tauren herbalists and blood elf enchanters.

Characters will also be able to take advantage of new specializations within each profession as well as many new recipes, enchantments, patterns and schematics.

A new battleground called Eye of the Storm will be based in Outland. The battleground will feature a mix of holding territory and capture the flag styles of gameplay.

Each team will have 15 members ranging from levels 60-69, or 70.

Main article: Burning Crusade Honor System

The current honor system is being scrapped. In its place will be a new system where players earn honor points that do not decay and spend them as currency on rewards. This will allow players to earn honor rewards at their own pace, and the need for massive 6 month long honor grinds will be eliminated.

These changes will be included in the upcoming 2.0 patch released before Burning Crusade and will also affect those who do not buy the expansion. See Burning Crusade Honor System for more information. [10]

Main article: Arenas

Players will be able to form teams to compete in an arena located in a neutral area. The arena allows for 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5. Teams function similar to guilds with their own chat channel. A team may be up to twice as large as the number of participants. So a 2v2 team can have up to 4 players. The rewards for the arena will be on par with even the most powerful PvE rewards. [11] Currently 2 Arenas are known, Ring of Trials in Nagrand, Circle of Blood in Blade's Edge Mountains.

The expansion will contain a new LFG system. Players will be able to use a new interface panel to place themselves on up to 3 different LFG lists. You can look for a group for quests, instances, raids, zones, or battlegrounds. Players forming groups can then browse the lists of players to find members for their group. The system also has an auto-join feature that essentially works like the current meeting stones, automatically grouping players who are looking for groups for the same thing. You can preview the new Looking for Group interface here.

• Burning Crusade Summary -- Post questions about BC here.
• Offical Burning Crusade site
• Burning Crusade Bestiary
• Definition of the word Crusade
• Screenshots of Burning Crusade closed beta
• Official Beta Test Forums
• Category:Burning Crusade
• Beta Patch 2.0.2 (Release Notes) Beta patch notes

Official videos

• Movie of Blizzard's Burning Crusade presentation at E3

Online previews

• TenTonHammer FAQ
• GameAmp.com FAQ (Burning Crusade FAQ, updated often)
• Gamespy E3 2006
• MMOsite E3 2006
• TenTonHammer 11, Aug 2006 (Interview with Jeff Kaplan)
• GameSpot 31st Mar 2006 (Interview with Jeff Kaplan)
• CVG 12 Dec 2005 (Interview with Shane Dabiri)
• IGN BlizzCon 2005
• GameSpot BlizzCon 2005
• GameSpy BlizzCon 2005
• GamePro BlizzCon 2005

Community information

• Schwick's: Info About Expansion

Magazine articles

• Computer Gaming World Dec 2005