General Discussion

Hasani Davis gives MMORPG.com our first peek inside the new World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade.

After months of hype, pushed back release dates, countless banner ads, and lots of forum hype, the Burning Crusade has finally come out. Boys and girls, I won't over romanticize this and make it long winded in the beginning. I am going to cut straight to the chase and then go into detail. Okay are you ready, here we go...Burning Crusade is ...the same World of Warcraft as before, just more of it. There, I said it. You can click the minimize button and stop reading, or follow along while I start my long winded comments.

I waited in line for The Burning Crusade at 12 am on January 16th. Yes, I was one of many gamer geeks to get their copy that night. I even had the next four days off work, so I had plenty of time to sit back and get into Outland. It is funny putting faces to the many types of people that play WOW. Most of the crowds at the store that night were typical gamers. You could even pick out the "hard core" players based on how similar they looked to the South Park incarnations. A few others in the crowd didn't fit the bill at all. There were a few older players, even one old enough to be my dad, a guy very much into hip-hop, and about five female gamers as well. After listening to various stories from the people I was in line with, I asked the crowd what they wanted out of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Answers came back varied, but after one person said "more fun" they all agreed they wanted more "fun" out of this expansion. Having myself played MMOs for the past 15 years wanted a little more "fun" out of the game as well. Here was my chance, I stepped up in line and got my copy and raced to my car to get home for the install.

Read the whole editorial here.

How shocking...a casual player whining about spending time to gain epic gear (at least it's in there this time, jackass).  The raiders will spend a lot of time in the high level 25 mans while the rest of the 'casual's have to grind for faction to get something epic. boo freaking hoo

The author of this article is extremely biased. Time for MMORPG to get some new editors.  In fact, I think I'll write the senior editors a little note since this is the third WoW article in a row that's been biased toward 'casuals'.

'Oh nos!! someone is not stating that WoW/TBC is the bestest ever, he/she is SO wrong, it HAS to be good!!!' *snort!!* 'Ahh.. give me more of that epicy Warcrack'..

Sorry for being rude, I'm not generally like that however the above posts are a tipically kneejerk reaction for any fanboi (or just general fan) for a game that gets a bad review. Sorry to brust the WoW bubble but whats been stated is 100% true TBC has made WoW a faction grind fest for the simle reason it's a way to keep players playing longer, don't get me wrong it's working so far, people are still playing WoW (I'm still dabbling with my hunter and new shammy) but what many of my friends and guildies have said about the general tone of TBC is the the content is casual...

Basically they've been doing the 5 mans in about an hour (which is shorter then the orginal did in some cases) so I'm guessing the new 'casual' 25 mans will take what? 2/3 hours tops? With the reset times in play once your done the handful of instances whats left to do? Rep grinding for the faction items!!! So basically for the 'hardcore' types you've gone from '40 man raiding' grinding to 'Solo rep' grinding, Blizzard's endgame solution hasn't changed it's still 'grinding' just with a new skin.

Another thing to point out most 'new' content isn't exclusive to TBC, the 'new' honer system is also avaible to the orginal owners, arenas are too, the new talents, 'outlands 'world pvp' is practally EPL (excluding the 'town' points which are currently no were near what the devs said it would be like), and as stated the quests and mobs are nothing new, it's the same dance just a different tune.. and with Blizzard adding content for 'classic' WoW in the near future, I wouldn't be surpised to find out that many players havn't got TBC at release, sorry but looking at it currently there is nothing in TBC that really would make a person look at it objectivly and say 'WoW! I gotta get me this it really improves the game!', sorry to be blunt but all people want TBC for is the shiny new epics at lvl70 so they can prance around IF/Ogg in them (come on you can't say people don't do that when you see people just sitting on their epic/rare mount outside any bank in the teir gear).

Don't get me wrong TBC has done it's job it's kept players wanting to play WoW and brought a lot of the 'bored of 40 mans' back, however come 2-3 months down the line it's gonna hit the same problem, players are going to end up with a 'lack' of content and Blizzard will have to relase new instances to cater for it, as like with the orginal WoW there IS a ton of content in TBC however most of it is during the leveling process and with people rushing toward 'endgame' for the teir stuff they are missing techically the best part of WoW the 'leveling experence'. So basically to all those with TBC slow down and enjoy the view and to all those without it don't rush out and get it go and enjoy the orginal content you havn't expored and wait a few months that content in TBC isn't going to go anywhere in fact it's going to grow.

TBC is a double egded sword for WoW for 'the masses' in the short term it's gonna keep them happy however due to the lack of innervation it's the final nail in the coffin for some players, it is just 'same old, same old'. WoW dosn't have that tight grip on the console style MMO market anymore and dispite the expantion it's starting to look old and 4-6 month down the line when fresh titles hit the market WoW will start to lose some of the playerbase the hoped to have kept with TBC. WoW isn't going to die, but it is starting to bleed.

A biased review? That covers very little of the expansion it self. Centered around what the writer has evidently allways disliked about the game. With little information on whats contained there in.  Like or dislike at least give a review that actualy details information.

for example like the one here

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/29701