World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, everything you need to know

World of Warcraft Classic

On January 16, 2007 the infamous Dark Portal opened up on Outland: "You are not prepared", exclaimed Illidan Stormrage in the introduction in computer graphics when the Italian translation of World of Warcraft was still a distant mirage, and for all players it officially began The Burning Crusade, the first expansion of the Blizzard MMORPG. Today, fourteen years later, the Dark Portal reopens in World of Warcraft Classic, the controversial nostalgia operation launched by the Californian company to meet the players who missed that historic moment, and to revive those who were there the moments and emotions of the past.

We have expressed ourselves several times on this question, for example when we tried Classic for the first time: it is a complex and enormously subjective matter that has its roots in the experience of each of us and in the relationship that, in the years, it has settled with World of Warcraft and its social and gaming dynamics. Not everyone will relive those emotions, and those who haven't been there in 2007 will perceive every moment completely differently, but Burning Crusade Classic - production manager Patrick Dawson personally explained to us that the article was removed from the title for graphic reasons. - represents the best way to better understand the evolution of the MMORPG Blizzard, and the genre everything. Here's what you need to know about this first expansion of World of Warcraft Classic.

How to Play Burning Crusade Classic

To connect to the Burning Crusade Classic servers, all you need to do is open a Battle account. net and have an active subscription to modern World of Warcraft, and therefore access to the servers of World of Warcraft Classic: the expansion is therefore free, but Blizzard offers a couple of extra paid packages that may interest some players.

The Dark Portal Pass costs 39.99 Euros and allows you to upgrade a character on a Burning Crusade Classic realm at level 58. The enhanced character will receive a specific mount for his race, Apprentice Riding ability, competence in weapons, some unlocked airways, a set of equipment, bags and gold to start his adventure.

World of Warcraft Class: Burning Crusade, a game image. The Deluxe Edition instead costs 64.99 Euros and includes all the objects of the Dark Portal Pass, the Reawakened Phase-Hunter mount usable only in Burning Crusade Classic, the Greenish Phase Hunter mount usable only in modern World of Warcraft, a Dark Portal Hearthstone usable only in Burning Crusade Classic, the Path of Illidan toy for Burning Crusade Classic and 30 days of play time.

Blizzard has in fact opted for an interesting solution, adding the new types of realms to World of Warcraft Classic. Players who have already created characters on the Classic servers will have to decide whether to continue on the new Progression realms, and then face the contents of the expansion, or move for free to the Era realms, where they will remain permanently bound to the old Azeroth and its latest update. , Shadow of the Necropolis, without being able to access the Outlands. Alternatively, it is possible to "clone" a character to play him separately on the two realms by purchasing the appropriate service in the Battle.net shop.

What is Burning Crusade

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, three of the most famous raid bosses. Released in 2007, The Burning Crusade was the first expansion of World of Warcraft, which Blizzard launched in late 2004 in the United States and a few months later in Europe. The add-on added a hefty amount of content to the game that players could access once they reached level 58, as the previous level cap 60 was raised to 70. The story of World of Warcraft continued after Kel's defeat. 'thuzad to Naxxramas with the return of the Burning Legion, rejected for the first time in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Coming from another world and intent on invading Azeroth, the Legion forces the Alliance and the Horde, joined respectively by the races of the Draenei and that of the Blood Elves, to cross the Dark Portal to reach Outland and fight the threat directly to the origin.

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, Nagrand. At the time, The Burning Crusade enjoyed unprecedented success. Blizzard placed nearly 2.5 million copies in the first twenty-four hours and another 3.5 million between then and the end of the month. For players of 2007, who couldn't have imagined it was just the first of eight expansions, it was almost a generational leap. The Burning Crusade was a real evolution in many respects, and its release was going to change dynamics tested for at least two years, completely transforming the content but also social landscape of World of Warcraft.

The expansion received four major updates before ending its life cycle in November 2008 with the release of a second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. We asked Patrick Dawson and lead producer Holly Longdale if we can expect the same treatment for the next expansion as well. Longdale, laughing at the discounted question, said that for now the team is concentrating full time on the reconstruction of this experience, but if World of Warcraft Classic continues to have the hoped success, it is not excluded that the operation will continue in the next expansion.

Highlights

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, Netherstorm. The news are really a lot to list them all, so we will focus on the really relevant ones. The Burning Crusade was the first expansion in World of Warcraft to implement thematic starting zones: Draenei players started from Azuremyst Isle, while the Blood Elves started the adventure in Eversong Woods. Blizzard had written the two introductions so that the missions would lead players to the factions they belonged to following an engaging narrative: later, it would practically become a standard for additional races or classes. Along with the two races, Blizzard also implemented a new profession (jewelry) and new levels to be reached in existing professions.

Outland leveling did not follow a completely linear order: after the first Hellfire Peninsula map, the Levels of the levels tended to blend or overlap, so the player could continue along a certain storyline or divert to another that led him to a new map. In total, there were seven regions: Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, Nagrand, Blade's Edge Mountains, Netherstorm, Terokkar Forest, and Shadowmoon Valley. Upon reaching the sanctuary city of Shattrath, the player was asked to choose between the two factions that occupied it, Aldor and Scryer, which guaranteed exclusive services and opportunities.

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, Moroes is one of the bosses of Karazhan. On the PvE front, The Burning Crusade proposed a more sophisticated design for some missions, which sometimes involved the use of special vehicles and interfaces, and tested players in numerous dungeons and raids. While the dungeons continued to be designed for five players, on Normal and Heroic difficulty, the raids changed shape: Blizzard had in fact reduced the number of participants from 40 to 25 per raid, except for Karazhan, a sort of mini-raid designed for 10 players. The new formula was especially popular with raid leaders and laid the foundation for the dynamic formations that would come years later: Blizzard realized that fewer players made the experience more rewarding and balancing much easier.

As for PvP, in addition to a good number of objectives that players could compete against in the maps, The Burning Crusade introduced a new battlefield, Eye of the Storm, but above all the Team Arena: this novelty it would later become a sort of eSport that Blizzard would try to sponsor, broadcasting truly breathtaking tournaments. Although in a prototype form that would see many changes, the Arena represented one of the most important changes introduced by the expansion.Remembering the balance problems in teams of two, three and five players, we asked Dawson and Longdale if Blizzard made any changes. some changes or tweaks in the Classic version: the two developers declared that they were aware of how the community had exploited the best synergies at the time of the first seasons of the Arena, but they are convinced that over the years the players have assimilated techniques and strategies more effective for resisting despite the apparent disadvantages.

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, a PvP match. Finally, The Burning Crusade introduced an element into the Blizzard MMORPG that would have profoundly changed the very nature of gameplay: flight. Allowed at the highest level only in new areas, and only after purchasing a suitable mount and the very expensive license, the flight highlighted the skill of Blizzard designers and the power of a title that literally acquired a new dimension. The flight guaranteed access to new areas, became an additional tool for world PvP and made life easier for anyone who wanted to move from one map to another without resorting to common flight paths. The gameplay became much more immersive and immediate, and since then the flight, then implemented retroactively in the old game world, has been an integral part of the experience in every expansion.

Why it has been a memorable expansion?

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, Hellfire Peninsula. The Burning Crusade represented for many players the first real leap in quality of World of Warcraft, which if until 2007 was an extraordinary game, once crossed the Dark Portal it simply became something more. The merit was the incredible atmospheres that the Blizzard artists had managed to evoke from the moment of passage: you crossed the Dark Portal in the crater of the Blasted Lands to find yourself in an arid and infernal world, dominated by an alien sky, in which demons fought endlessly in front of the entrance to the dimension of Azeroth. The first few bars immediately suggested how high the stakes were: World of Warcraft did not shine for a curated and didactic storytelling, but already at the time of The Burning Crusade it could count on the power of suggestion that in the first expansion reached unforgettable heights. The introductory cutscene alone, in which Illidan Stormrage soars to the tune of an epic orchestral score, and utters the words "Your are not prepared!", Was one of the highest moments in Blizzard history.

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, the board of Karazhan. In this sense, The Burning Crusade also went down in history for some of the most iconic boss encounters in the history of World of Warcraft. The very long fight against Kael'thas Sunstrider and his posse in Tempest Keep, Illidan himself on the roof of the Black Temple or Lady Vashj with the relay mechanics in the depths of Coilfang Reservoir are just a few examples. Many players find The Burning Crusade's endgame generally more challenging than modern World of Warcraft, although today there are several difficulty levels to choose from.

Aware that players could not always gather in groups of twenty or more, Blizzard even designed a small raid, designed for small guilds or communities: Karazhan was the first "mega dungeon", a term coined only in recent years, but despite being a minor raid, in terms of progression and itemization, it showed all the care that the developer poured into the design of scenarios, environments and situations.

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, Zangarmarsh. The Burning Crusade was a fundamental expansion, for better or for worse. Today he remembers with a certain nostalgia, tending to ignore the downtime, the tiring farming of resources and materials, the stressful leveling sessions in the PvP servers manned by players who could fly and who ruthlessly raged on newcomers. All aspects that Blizzard could have fixed in the conversion to Burning Crusade Classic, but instead wanted to preserve. Chatting with Holly Longdale, we better understood the developer's point of view, who wanted to preserve not only what was beautiful but also what was less in the expansion, in order to return an almost completely authentic experience. Almost, because something had to be adjusted, at least to reconstruct the code lost in the passage from one version of the client to another, and to update the quality of the infrastructure. New players won't be lagging like we did at launch in 2007, missing out on that bit of magic that would have been out of place in 2021.

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, Warbringer O'mrogg is a boss of The Shattered Halls. The authenticity of this operation will also concern the evolution of the game itself, which should mirror the original one. Dawson has confirmed that Blizzard will tend to follow the same road map, periodically publishing updates that will change the expansion and that will introduce new raids and content. Even the infamous "attunement", the missions that were used to unlock the entrance to the first raids, will be in the game from the beginning, but Dawson admitted that they could be removed in the course of work just as happened at the turn of 2007 and 2008 in response to community feedback.

At the same time, we couldn't help but ask the two developers if the Classic experiment could take unexpected turns now that we have moved on to Progression realms, Era realms and even paid cloning of characters. We asked if Blizzard was considering implementing realms ... imaginative, so to speak, in which Burning Crusade Classic could be played with the classes, races and gameplay that would come to World of Warcraft. long after. Longdale, chuckling, said it would be absurd to see a Demon Hunter fighting Illidan, and therefore such a deviation is ruled out for now, but he also admitted that they have thought about it and that when the time comes they will probe the community to understand. his needs.

World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade, Illidan Stormrage. For now, in short, Burning Crusade Classic aims to reproduce as faithfully as possible an experience that dates back to over ten years ago and that many players may not remember well or have not known at all. It is an operation that still appeals to nostalgics, and to fans who have approached World of Warcraft later and who want to better understand, albeit retroactively, the extent of the transformations that have led the MMORPG Blizzard to reach peaks in sales and incredible turnout in those years, numbers that no other competitor has ever touched and that not even Irvine's company has managed to repeat.

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