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Gameplay: 'World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade'
As the 'World' burns
By Matthew Quane
mquane@mscd.edu

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Platform: PC / Mac Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment Cost: $39.99

In a world full of video games characterized by lack of movement, animation and progression, World of Warcraft is an epochal experience.

When the game was originally released in November 2004, World was chock-full of two continents for massively multiplayer online questing. Within a year, most characters had quested their way to level 60, the game’s level cap. The game that set millions of lives down the path of self-destruction was, in theory, over.

The Burning Crusade, Blizzard’s first expansion for the WoW series, is a rebirth of the game’s origins. Upping the level cap to 70 and sending players through the Dark Portal to the orc homeworld of the Outlands, the golden ! and ? icons that float above quest-givers have returned – and WoW addicts, like unsupervised pill-poppers with pharmacist girlfriends, are in heaven.
The expanse of new, outlandish content offered by The Burning Crusade, refines, reproaches and nullifies everything that came before it. Similarities to the original are in copious supply: inns, barracks and towers share the same blueprints as their predecessors, and quests follow the generic “kill 20 orcs, collect 20 medallions” template.

But the many quests that lead toward reaching level 70 give the player a reason to never have to mindlessly kill monsters solely for the purple experience points that pop out of their skulls. Each of the seven new areas comes complete with more than 40 quests.

The tagline for the game is “You are not prepared,” but maybe the cenobytes from Hellraiser said it best: “We have such sights to show you.”

The original WoW was a milestone in online gaming, proof that art direction and gameplay could trump realism and technical prowess by immersing a vast player base into a heavily interactive and imaginative realm. The Burning Crusade builds upon this theorem and pushes the limit of fantasy landscaping – 50-story mushrooms, insurmountable crags and floating islands are common sights.

For those looking to get into the game or long-time players who want to start over, the game also introduces two new races – the noble draenei of the Alliance and the magic-thirsty blood elves of the Horde – to the original selection.

Much of the deep content within The Burning Crusade is yet to be implemented into the game, but it matters little, as even the most hardcore of gamers are years away from its true endgame. Expect to see another expansion in a few years, when more of the game’s lore is ready to be revealed.