PvP, Zones, Economy, Bad Things

The zones in Outland are fantastic, large, and generally attractive. A player has 7 zones to gain ten levels in, though technically Outland is open to level 58s and higher. Despite the much higher experience requirements in 60-70 than it was in 50-59, progression remains very fast due to generous quest xp. Most full quests will reward a player at least 10,000xp and as the levels progress this increases somewhat, to around 11,000 at level 65. It’s generally possible to skip an entire zone and still hit 70 if you started at 60, and do it all while questing. The idea of grinding for levels is completely non-existent in The Burning Crusade. Experience gain is just absurdly high. The quest log clearly tells players whether a quest should be done with two, three, or five-man groups. Due to the heavy dependence on quest reward XP rather than mob XP, the penalty for group leveling is minimal if not actually non-existent since there is a considerable number of “Kill # of A” quests that go faster in groups. Instances also provide good experience, though not enough to keep pace with hard questing. However, many quest lines end or continue through an instance, and instances often help a player gain faction. Ultimately, Exalted status with many factions is necessary before going to the final raid.

Playing on a PvP server, one would expect ganking to be commonplace but it is not as prevalent as you’d assume. Most players respect each other and understand that a reputation as a ganker is not conducive to leveling quickly. Even once they reach 70, Horde players generally have not interfered since they’re typically busy doing an instance or grinding reputation to enter raids.

For a game that’s supposedly balanced around PvE rather than PvP, World of WarCraft handles both rather well. There are matchups that aren’t especially favorable to certain classes, like Rogue vs Hunter or Mage vs Warlock, but in general each class can typically compete with a few others and dominate one or more if specced and played correctly. The new 41-point talents have played some havoc with class balance, but things have generally sorted themselves out. Rogues and Warlocks typically pose the biggest problem, since a Rogue out of stealth is usually dead meat and in stealth he’s a killer, while Warlocks are difficult to balance due to efficiency concerns over their damage over time spells in PvE and variety of pets.

Gold is very, very abundant in The Burning Crusade. Players new to 60 in TBC usually have epic mounts by the time they’re halfway through level 61 in Outland. Money sink trades like Engineering and Enchanting haven’t quite been made lucrative, but generally less expensive. The standard skinning/herbalism or skinning/mining option is still best for money making, but not as necessary for new toons as before. The abundance of gold should lead to inflation, especially for twink and high-end items, which may make things difficult for those who haven’t opted to buy the expansion pack.

Patch 1.20 absolutely destroyed all sorts of game and interface mods. Nurfed UI, a popular option in 1.12, still hasn’t quite recovered from the drastic changes Blizzard made though it can do some really cool things now that it couldn’t before. Other mods like decursive are totally gimped and force more labor on healers and casters. To make matters worse, the little patches and hot fixes have often interfered with even the smallest modifications like Chronometer or FuBar. It’s become very tedious trying to keep everything up-to-date.


The very refined experience TBC offers actually makes the leveling of alt characters somewhat painful. Going back to the (by comparison) uneven vanilla experience requires a considerable change of expectations after being in Outland. Moreover, it’s actually somewhat too refined if anything. In six levels of Outland, the least likeable quest I can think of is collecting Spore Bat Eyes and Fen Strider Tentacles, and that’s only because the drop rate is a bit uneven and the Striders and Bats aren’t densely concentrated. Plus, the first time through that quest, it wasn’t clear that Marsh Walkers and Greater Spore Bats, despite being the same core type, aren’t going to drop what I need. Compared to the menagerie of bad quests available in vanilla WoW, it’s rather easy to lose perspective.