About 2 weeks ago, I received my invite to Burning Crusade. For the first week or so, I didn’t play too much, and for the first 2 days, I was waiting for Aeigelus and Korgg to be transferred to the PvE server Hellfire (I am starting to think PvE is the way to go, actually). When I finally sat down to play, I can say I was thoroughly impressed. The atmosphere in Outland is amazing. Blizzard has successfully created a true expansion to the game.
Scenery, Creatures, etc
The scenery is amazing. From new creatures, to new class pets, to new skylines, it truely feels massive. I really enjoyed just walking around the first couple days, and exploring new areas like I did when I was first leveling. Although, EVERYTHING in Outland dazes about 5x more than anything in Azeroth, so getting Dazed, Dismounted, then having Feign Death resisted is not a fun thing. Running back to your body, the scenery seems less fun :). The enemies seem just as difficult as Azeroth mobs. My cat has seemed to gain about 3k armor due to pets now scaling with my gear. He is around 7.5k armor, and 4.5k health. I found myself accidentally aggroing way too many mobs yesterday, and my cat tanked 7 non elite 61’s, and had half health at the end of the battle.
None of the scenery I saw could prepare me for this though. I would have to say this town has to be my new favorite. While on my way to Netherstorm, I was riding through Blades Edge Mountains, and came across this odd disco looking town. It literally stopped me in my tracks. I then walked up to it, and noticed it was hostile to me. Being 60 in a 65+ zone, I had to be careful. Upon closer inspection, the town was filled with half naked gnomes. Who knows what the purpose of this place is, or if there even IS a purpose, but it had the bells and whistles of Gadgetzan times 10. I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off.
Questing, Questing, Questing
One of the great things about the expansion, is the amount of quests you will find. I literally filled my entire 25 limit Quest Log with quests from Hellfire Peninsula alone. Along with that, each quest is pretty fun. I can’t tell if this is just because I haven’t done them or not, but the Bombing Run quests alone make the expansion worth every penny. Also, each quest provides some really good rewards as far as gear goes. There seems to be a selection for each type of class (caster, melee, ranged) with each quest, with some getting left out each time. I do think that Tier 2 will be lasting me well into the late 60’s though. None of the gear is even half as good as Dragonstalker’s.
Oh, another thing. Gold shouldn’t be a problem anymore in BC. I made over 100g just questing for 2 hours on Saturday. And I didn’t even do it in a fashioned manner. I was running across the map half the time, being lost. I was worried about the 5k gold cost of the flying mounts, but I don’t think it will be much of an issue now.
I ended up dinging 61 with Aeig on Saturday afternoon. You would think the fact that the xp is nearly doubled to gain a level would hinder your process, but it seemed to only take as long as it did to level 59-60. I still have about 10 of the original 25 quest chains in my quest log, so I think I will probably hit 62 in Hellfire Peninsula, then head over to Zangarmarsh to work on 63. I still need to hit up a lot of the Hellfire Citadel insances. I went on a run with another friend’s character the other day, and the XP gain is HUGE in instances. The instance we ran, was Blood Furnace. There were 3 bosses, and about as much trash as the first 20 minutes of UD Strat. It took us an hour to run, and I ended up with about 1/3 a level of XP. This means, that instancing is probably just as viable as grinding/questing is. Truthfully, I could easily see grinding becoming the slower way to level in BC. There are just way too many quests, and way too much XP to be had.
Misc. Screenshots
Just commenting on how easy the damn PvE servers have it.
Awesome post. I’m going to work overtime specifically earmarked for the expansion. I have only been using one of the tips from the gold guide that I did a blurb about, so maybe it’s time to use some more of them to get a head start on the money.
PvE IS the way to go, but you’re not allowed to say that now that I got Deadr over to YOUR server.
Feel free to get going on Kargath where Gitr is waiting at 60, and I’ll keep leveling Grimr to 40 to help you out. I have 6 other alts on there under level 25.