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57 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
So is the expansion any good?, 24 Jan 2007
Fun:
So, is the expansion any good? Well, I'll give you my answer at the end, but first I'll give you some of the things you might want to know to see if you join the game to find out for yourself.
TBC (The Burning Crusade) is the expansion to the orginal game hit of WoW (World of Warcraft), which has stood up to its accronym and has been "wowing" people since its launch in 2004 with it's huge world of expansive content, that has made it one of the most addictive games played to date by myself and nearly all 7 million others that have put the tiny silver disc into their PC drive tray.
TBC takes the work of WoW and as you expect "expands" on it. Obviously they had to make new additions to perk peoples interest, and 2 of those changes are two new races. These races are the Draenei (Alliance side) and the Blood Elves (Horde Side), and while I could go into more detail on who and what they are, its not that important to the average player other than to note that there is more option on what you can play.
This leads on to the fact that in addition to the two new races you will now be able to play a Paladin if you are Horde, and Shaman if you are Alliance, where as before these two classes were not available to both sides. This has been met with mixed responses. Some have said they hate it due to it not maybe keeping to the world of warcraft storyline, and others have liked the idea due to the fact it adds some game balance and more options for the dungeon designers. Personally I think the horde don't like it because the shaman was very good for them in PvP (player vs player), but time will tell how it shapes up overall as an addition. Personally, more choice is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
The new areas that have been added with TBC are great from what I have seen so far, which is about 5 areas, 3 cities, and 6 different instances/dungeons as I got to level 66 at time of writing this. I should note that the new starting cities/areas for the two new races are really beautiful, and many of my friends have set them as their hearth stone homes (places they can teleport back to), so that they can enjoy walking around them some more. You will get to see lots of variety in the areas, as you saw in the orginal wow game, with desert type areas, swamps, lush forest, and of course your dark and demented type ones. The only slight odd thing I've noticed so far is that the random weather effects of rain/snow/sandstorm that were added to the orginal seem oddly lacking from the expansion so far. There is a fairly constant drizzle (light rain) in the swamp, but while the areas and their lighting and other overall content is really eye pleasing I did find this an odd oversight that may well soon be amended by Blizzard. I hope so at any rate.
The new instances that I have been to so far are far shorter in time to complete than you had in wow orginal and the bosses loot tables (items they can drop) are certainly not as expansive as they were in orginal. This maybe because they are early instances in the case of the loot tables, but the shorter length of course also lend itself to the theory that you don't need to spend days/weeks farming them just to get one item you are set on getting for your character, which is a good thing really.
The Dungeons themselves start off pretty easy to be honest, and any half decent group with master them first or second time through. This does however change a little in some of the mid 60 level instances. I had a friend that went with a PUG (Pickup Group/random players) that died on the trash packs (creature groups before dungeon bosses) in the Mana Tombs instance/dungeon before they got to the first boss, and I should note that many tier 2 (armour set of epic gear) teams found this place kicked their butts a fair bit before doing it. Certainly the tactics for some of the battles, even on trash needs to be worked at more than you may have seen in wow original, and leads me to think it won't be easy for many groups that enter instances at times.
This kind of leads on to the idea of raiding. Many that played wow orginal did dungeon raids of 40 players, but that will not be an option for TBC due to Blizzard scraping the idea of 40 man raids. WHile existing 40 player instances will remain, no new ones will be added, or have been in TBC. The current instances will be for 5, 10 or a max of 25 players. This has been done mainly to help the casual player have a bash at end game content that often was restricted to the hard core player that got a group of 40 people to raid places on a regular basis. This may kind of suck for many, as it will be hard on communities that were set of for 40 man raiding (myself included) and personally I believe be hard on the casual player, because in my personal opinion with the level of difficulty I expect blizzard will add to the 25 man instances 25 man PUG's will just get royally pwned as soon as they step through the instance portals. This remains to be tested however, and time will tell.
Other new content include. New proffession of "Jewel Crafting", which will also used in connection to the new items that have "Socketted Slots" that allow jewels to be added. These jewels can be used to customise items you gain from dungeons, or are crafted by the other proffessions in the game. This is a good thing to my eyes, and allows people to be quite flexible in how they make their gear work for them, and will make for large differences at end game where everyone was lookign a little similar in orginal game.
Flying mounts. You will at level 70 be able to buy normal and epic flying mounts. That about says it all, other than to say that unfortunately the flying mounts currently and maybe for all time will only be able to be used in outlands, but hey it will be fun none the less. I had a 70 warlock fly down and help some of his mates that we were busy killing in pvp, and it does come as a surprise, as you aren't used to having to look UP!
Player Vs Player. This has had a revamp, and till it goes live this week coming it will be hard to access if it really works. However, it looks like it could. The same current battle grounds are going to be there, but the honour system has been changed to allow both hardcore and casual players to get good rewards from it. Also they have included a new arena style battle ground for teams of 2vs2, 3vs3, or 5vs5 to compete in. WHen this goes fully live you will be able to compete in a ladder competition that lasts for a full 3 months with the winners at the end of that time getting some pretty cool rewards, including the rare armoured nether mount (epic flying mount).
In short, and in answer to the topic title. Yes, so far the expansion is good, and fun. Buy it and you'll still be just as addicticted to TBC as you were to the orginal.
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22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Enough Already, 14 May 2007
Fun:
I would like to start by saying that I love World of Warcraft, I have many memories of fun times had while playing the game, and I have met and adventured with many nice people. Some of the new zones are very nice and the flying mounts are a great idea. World Pvp objectives have also been added into some zones.
However, I have stopped playing, my characters have been deleted and my account has been cancelled. I completely agree with the reviewer below who said the game has been designed as a time sink, you may have to run a certain dungeon numerous times in order to get the required reputation to get a key you need to access another dungeon, I began to find this extremely boring and repetative and it is clearly designed to make the content last longer, lazy and money saving game design in my opinion.
I think I decided to stop when I realised I was playing not to have fun but for the slight chance I might get a new piece of equipment, and I am sure this is the same for many players.
Another point to make is that almost all of the end game content is group based so don't even expect to get there unless you have managed to find a place in a half decent guild, which is an epic quest in itself.
I would say if you enjoyed the original World of Warcraft it is definitely worth playing, just don't expect it to hold your attention for as long.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
Great fun at first but beware of where your time goes!, 4 Jun 2007
Fun:
As far as MMORPG's go this is definatley one of, if not the, most popular. The graphics may be slightly outdated and cartoony bu this just means that more people can access the game without having top of the range PC's (or Macs) and creates a more diverse population online. The game itself revolves around a simple premise - kill things, do quests and level up. The xpansion pack add new content and areas while allowing a higher maximum level and introducing new races and a new proffession which is great news for hardened veterans who had played and done just about everything they could in the previous incantation, but not so good to those just starting out as it means you have to play even longer to get to the end game content that is the real crux of this game.
While the general game is nice and easy to pick up and play and provides some good entertainment and comeraderie if you pick the right guild it does start to fall into what a previous reviewer has said - a time sink. While I concentrate on guild activities and questing for my enjoyment I would spare a word of warning - unless you want no life at all or take this far too seriously then don't spend long on non-essential areas of the game such as Battlegrounds etc...they will suck up a lot of time and you will have little need for the items you worked so hard for in another few levels and you will have to do it all again. Fine if you have nothing better to do but if you just play for a bit of escape and enjoyment then leave this part alone!
There also seems to be a great emphasis of the game on what stuff you have and how much gold you have rather than what you actually do. This has led to the masses of sites selling online gold for real money, effectively people who want to compete at the highest level in the game either need lots and lots of time to play (and i'm talking 18+hours a day) or they buy gold and can then buy all that nice armour and weapons they needed to compete. If you are just playing for your own enjoyments, again you don't need to worry about this and save yourself real life money inthe process. If you do need money then there are lots of people offering advice (for free - again dont pay for it) on how to maximise your cash flow.
The game play itself can get a little rpetitive but if you find a few friendly people to play with online then you will no doubt have a better experience for it all. What i would suggest is reading up first before you plow horus (well days) into making a character only to find out that its not the easiest one to play and you will get bored....
All in all a good enjoyable game if played in the right way. If you are an addictive personality then be warned you will lose your life in theis game. Play it casually and in the light it was meant to be and you will enjoy the game. If the low age average in this becomes a problem then you may need to try something liek Vanguard, LOTRO or something a little mroe high spec and geared to the slightly mroe diserning user.
Happy gaming in you choice though!
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
TBC - Thank you Blizzard and Congratulations!, 16 Jan 2007
Fun:
I started playing The Burning Crusade (TBC) the moment the portal opened last night. Had it on pre-order :-))
Let me just walk you through the first few minutes in Outland...
You come through the dark portal and are immediately witness to a battle for the portal itself. Your first quest is to go to the fronts lines, so you're sent on a griffon to Hellfire Keep. When you are handed your first quest you suddenly realise that all your gear, including any epics, are going to be made redundant very very quickly. For those of you without any epics, lets just say just your gonna wet your pants! A few easy quests later and you've got used to killing monsters your level again, you've got 3 new pieces of awesome new gear, and you're 50Gold better off than when you started!
TBC is: the end of gold farmers; allows people to solo or work in smaller parties and still attain good gear; HUGE!!! the monsters the landscape (get an epic mount!); really really good fun; fixes holes in some professions and adds to all of them.
So far everyone who's gone through that portal has loved every minute. It has become apparent to me that blizzard are getting everyone's gear upto the level it needs to be with these early, and easy, quests. I can only imagine what challenges await me over the road to level 70. TBC>Genius!
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Installed and loving it!, 17 Jan 2007
Fun:
True to form, Amazon delivered the goods on time and on the day specified meaning that this was waiting for me when I got home from work. Very excited, I started the install. Things did not go too swimmingly and I got strange error messages. After fiddling with my PC for a while, I did manage to get it installed so I guess it was my PC and nothing to do with the software. To play, you must have an existing World of Warcraft account and upgrade it to a Burning Crusade enabled account. This is free and a very painless process and took me about 5 seconds to complete.
Everything had gone relatively well and so I decided to log on. My normal high populated server was offline (probably due to peak time) so I decided to create a new character on one of the new servers. I decided on a Blood Elf warlock and very quickly got into the swing of things - the new Blood Elf area is absolutely stunning to look at and Blizzard have definitely got it right with looks and layout.
After a couple of hours just levelling, I decided to go onto my normal character and look at the new high level area. I was not disappointed and the server had stabilised itself. The new high-level Outlands area is visually stunning (that word again!) and a player is very quickly back into the swing of things. It is a long time since I have had the feeling of danger that you get when entering a new zone and monsters are actually able to kill you, but I definitely got that feeling again whilst exploring Outland. All in all, I have enjoyed things immensely.
If you are an existing player, get this game. If you are new to the game, get it with a normal copy of World of Warcraft - just be prepared to wonder where all the hours have gone.
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
What more could you want?, 19 Jan 2007
Fun:
This expansion is an essential for people that have played the World of Warcraft pre expansion game. Despite a series of small bugs (most have which have been amended) the game has opened up vastly and now allows for a much larger scale of both PvE and PvP action.
New items gained relitivly easily in the new area 'The Outland' can help new players get up to date on items, so there is no feeling that you will be constantly playing the 'catch-up' game, and some of the easily obtained items even replace those that some of the more seasoned players have.
The support offered by blizzard both by in game gm's and on their official forums also makes this game one of a kind.
The game is truely enjoyable, with magical lands and wonderful creatures, some so well animated you may even feel bad killing them.
Well worth the money, best expansion i have seen in a game to date
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14 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Grindcraft, 17 April 2007
Fun:
Unfortunately having played the "expansion" or it really ought to be called an extension its not all it could have been and definitely not all its made out to be.
TBC took the worst aspects of the game i.e. grinding for cash, reputation with factions, and consumbales and made it the whole of the X pack. Everything smells of a desperation to increase the time sink to keep people paying to play and most of the new content is now aimed at the top 5% of guilds that the more casual player just won't ever have the opportunity to enjoy. Thye WoW forums are full of players stating that they feel like they have been had and are cancelling their accounts.
Avoid unless you fancy being bored stupid once you hit the level cap.
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6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Addictive at first..., 20 Nov 2007
Fun:
Well I have to agree 100% with another post on here that says you spend so much time doing the same thing over n over again in the hope you will find a special item (armour, weapon, spell ect) that after a couple of weeks you'll be bored out of your mind.
When I stared playing I was addicted straight away, but once I realised how many times I was doing the same thing over n over again and generally just wasting time, my attention span vanished; I bought the new FM2008 instead which is awesome...but that's a side issue.
Graphics are good, game engine is good but to get far in the game you need to join a good guild/team who are willing to help you through difficult tasks/quests/instances and there are not many of those. Try and befriend someone with a level of at least 20 or 30 when you start and this will make life much easier, but again the problem is folk are not interested in going through old quests over n over again.
Don't join a guild called Battlehymn because you will get next to know help from any of the high level folk. I asked for help on many quests and not once did anyone bother to help me out...so I left.
Don't think I'll be renewing my subscription either, the game is to repetative and will eventually bore you to tears. Some quests are so far away you have to run to them which can take a while, then you'll see higher level folks flying past you on horses, rams, birds ect which starts to get annoying.
You'll be over the moon for a month with this game then bored out of your mind. You are better off getting a FSP War game with constant action.
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53 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
Expansion to the most addictive game ever., 16 Mar 2006
By A Customer
The 5 star rating is for the original game which is, it has to be said, stunning. Although a little cartoony graphically, and still gripping turn-based combat a little too tightly behind the interface, the sheer immersion of the world of Azeroth has to be experienced to be believed.Make your character learn new skills, professions, upgrade armour, earn money, cast magic, learn to ride, even eat and drink in order to progress in the game. Gain experience by completeing quests collected from the people of Azeroth in order to reach higher levels and unlock more deadly combat abilities, advanced profession skills and greater durability. The £8 monthly subscription is worth every penny, as once you have begun you will find yourself wanting to do little else with your spare time, meaning huge savings in other areas (for the sake of your sanity just don't forget there is a real world out there). The enhancements promised (and speculated on) in the Burning Crusade will only cement the reputation of this already excellent game as the number one MMORPG. A whole extra continent added to the already HUGE game world, 2 extra playable races - Blood Elves (& Kung Fu Bears?), the level cap raised from 60 to 70 so your character can become even more powerful, additional skills & abilties, flying mounts (controllable), jewel-crafting (and the ability to place these magical gems in specially socketed weapons to increase their power), is there no end to it? If you are just beginning the game, my tip is to take the suggested realm or a newer, low-population realm (realms are simply different servers that house so many players before a new one must be created). I joined an established realm because a friend of mine played on it. This meant that most of the players were far in advance of me and some could get annoyed on occaision due to my inexperience. That said the game can be as social as you like. Play almost exclusively solo, or if the fancy takes you joins a party to complete a specific quest or join a GUILD to serve common long-term goals! Engage in multiple chat channels (General, Trade, Party, Raid, Looking for Group), wheel and deal in the ebay style auction houses, store goods in your deposit banking account, join in seasonal tasks suchas collecting medical supplies for the War Effort, and join huge (40 ppl) Raid groups to tackle more difficult high-level dungeons. A fantastic game, but make sure you have the time and dedication to play it, not to mention a decent graphics card and connection (Broadband). Good luck and happy questing. Vigo, Level 42 Human Warrior, Magtheridon.
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38 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
Its very simple, if you're reading this its because you' re going to buy it, 6 Oct 2006
Fun:
Title says it all - you WILL be buying this, else why are you on this page. To play WOW, and not get TBC is insane - its not just the additional content, its what that content is that makes it a must.
Currently when hitting 60, the content aimed at you comprises at a minimum 20 man raids requiring organisation and guilds, which wont suit all. There are reputation grinds for some epic rewards, but the 5-main instances have topped out.
TBC adds many new 5 man raids, in the style of Scarlet Monastary which will keep you busy for a looong time, as going 60-70 is meant to be equivalent of going 0-60. So for the casual player, this is exactly what you want.
For the hardcore players, well....you've already ordered havent you :)
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