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Outland and new race loading screen.
The Burning Crusade is the first expansion for World of Warcraft, released on January 16th, 2007 in North America, Europe and Australia, February 2nd, 2007 in Korea, and April 3rd, 2007 in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The main features include an increase of the level cap, the introduction of the blood elves and the draenei as playable races and the addition of the world of Outland, along with many new zones, dungeons, items, quests, and monsters.
Burning Crusade-related content on WoWWiki is categorised in Category:Burning Crusade.
Release information
Standard and Collector's Edition packaging.
In preparation for Burning Crusade, Blizzard released Patch 2.0.1 in North America and Europe on December 5th, 2006. The patch introduced some Burning Crusade content prior to the expansion itself - including a revamp of the honor system, skirmish Arena matches and a new Looking For Group system.
The expansion was released in standard as well as Collector's Edition packages. The Collector's Edition of Burning Crusade includes a bonus Behind-The-Scenes DVD, an in-game Netherwhelp pet and many other exclusive extras.
System requirements for both editions remained virtually unchanged compared to the original World of Warcraft, with the notable exception of the increase in the required network bandwidth (from 56k dialup to a "broadband connection"). Blizzard has stated that the change was due to the size of the future patches, and that it will continue to offer tech support to players with dialup, except for patching issues. [citation needed]
COUNTER STRIKE FTW!!!!!!!!
WoW SUX TEH BIG ONE
New mounts
Each new race received its own new mount:
- Blood elf -- a hawkstrider (originally called a cockatrice). These mounts can be found outside the entrance to Silvermoon City. Blood elf paladin mounts are the same as alliance though they are red instead of the alliance blue.
- Draenei -- an elekk ("a creature with a resemblance to a caparisoned war elephant" - GameSpot). These mounts can be found outside The Exodar.
New mounts are also available via drop from high-end instances such as Karazhan.[1]
Flying mounts
- Main article: Flying Mounts
Flying mounts are useable in Outland at level 70. The Horde and Alliance have the wyvern and gryphon [2], respectively, as standard mounts. The epic mounts are the armored wyvern and armored gryphon.
in addition there are rare mounts such as netherdrake and armored netherdrake[3]. An armored nether drake can be obtained by ranking first at the end of an Arena season, and the unarmored netherdrake can be obtained through a series of quests.
Normal flying mount training costs 800
and the mount costs 100. Training for flying mounts requires a skill of 150 (epic mount) and brings it up to 225. The epic version of the flying mount cost 5000 for the training and 200 to buy. Training for epic flying mounts requires 225 riding skill and upgrades it to 300.
Druids receive 
[Flight Form] at level 68 that offers the ability to fly and has a speed equivalent to a normal flying mount. [4]. Druids may obtain a quest at level 70 to obtain an epic flight form.(since patch 2.1 ) Purchasing riding skill 300 is a requirement for the quest. [5]
Character changes
New spells and talents
In the expansion, Blizzard added five to six new spells for the 60-70 level range to each class in order to round out the classes better. The talent trees were also greatly expanded and revised. All classes have additional talents leading up to a 41 talent point ability.[6] Players gain new spells at every level from 60-70 instead of every two levels.
Since the Paladin and Shaman classes are no longer unique to either faction, Blizzard added new abilities to each class to make them what they truly feel they should be: Paladins received a long-awaited spell, 
[Righteous Defense] (a long-range, mass taunt-like ability); and Shamans received the spell 
[Bloodlust] (a long-cooldown, powerful buff) to complement their DPS and utility roles. Information about changes and additions for several of the other classes is available from the official site.
See each class's respective page for more specific information regarding new spells and talents.
Combat rating system
- Main article: Combat Rating System
With the release of the Burning Crusade, a new stat was introduced: Combat Ratings. Source. This has replaced the critical rate, defense, hit rate, spell critical, and dodge stats as well as adding the new resilience stat. [7]
New zones
The Burning Crusade Cosmic Map
The Burning Crusade Eastern Kingdoms Map
The Burning Crusade Kalimdor Map
New starting areas
The blood elves have two new starting areas located in the Eastern Kingdom:
- Eversong Woods - Level 1-10
- Ghostlands - Level 10-20
Similarly, the draenei have two starting zones off the west coast of Kalimdor:
- Azuremyst Isle - Level 1-10
- Bloodmyst Isle - Level 10-20
New continent
The expansion heralds the addition of Outland, an entirely new continent/world, reachable through the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands and portals in several major cities. You may find an interactive map of Outland here and a detailed map here.
Outland contains the following zones:
- Hellfire Peninsula - Level 58-63
- Zangarmarsh - Level 60-64
- Terokkar Forest - Level 62-65
- Nagrand - Level 64-67
- Blade's Edge Mountains - Level 65-68
- Netherstorm - Level 67-70
- Shadowmoon Valley - Level 67-70
New high-level dungeons
The expansion has added several dungeons, including many in Outland and Azeroth. The dungeons contain a plethora of new equipment including Tier 4 , tier 5 and tier 6 armor pieces.
Azeroth
Outland
The login screen of the Burning Crusade.
- Hellfire Citadel, located on the Hellfire Peninsula
- Coilfang Reservoir in the Zangarmarsh
- Auchindoun in the Terokkar Forest
- Tempest Keep outside Netherstorm
- Gruul's Lair in the Blade's Edge Mountains
- Black Temple in the Shadowmoon Valley
Raid and instance changes
All future raids will now have caps not exceeding 25 players (older raids will remain at a 40 player cap, at least for now). This was done to allow for a greater number of players to participate in epic raids, and to allow more flexibility in the design of encounters.
In addition, high level instances have a feature allowing players to have the option to run the instances at two different difficulty levels: Normal and Heroic. This would turn a level 60-62 instance into a level 70 instance. The final boss of every hard mode instance will drop epic items, and every boss in hard mode instances will drop tokens to get special gear available in Shattrath. These instances will be marked with a purple portal.[8]
Profession changes
Jewelcrafting and socketed items
Jewelcrafting allows the crafting of rings, trinkets, necklaces and special jewels that can be used in specific items, called Socketed Items. See the main Jewelcrafting article for more details or you can check out the official page on the community site.
- Jewelcrafting Recipes - A complete list of jewelcrafting recipes
- Jewels - A complete list of socketable jewels
New specializations and profession abilities
For professions, the expansion adds a new level past Artisan (300) called Master (375). This can be maxed to 390 for gnomish engineers, draenei jewelcrafters, tauren herbalists and blood elf enchanters.
Characters are also be able to take advantage of new specializations within each profession as well as many new recipes, enchantments, patterns and schematics.
Also check out TBC Recipes for some of The Burning Crusade recipes.
New PvP features
Eye of the Storm
A new battleground called Eye of the Storm is based in Outland. The battleground features a mix of holding territory and capture the flag styles of gameplay.
Each team has 15 members ranging from levels 61-69 and 70, in its own bracket.
Team PvP Arena
- Main article: Arena PvP System
Following the introduction of Arena PvP in Patch 2.0.1, level 70 players are able to win prizes in these matches. The rewards for the arena is on par with even the most powerful PvE rewards. [9]
Currently three Arenas are known, Ring of Trials in Nagrand, Circle of Blood in Blade's Edge Mountains, and as of Patch 2.1, in the Ruins of Lordaeron, outside the Undercity.Backwards compatible
Players who have TBC installed can still log on to accounts that aren't upgraded (though new content isn't available on those accounts). Note though, you cannot log an upgraded account onto a computer that does not have TBC installed on it.
See also
- Opening of the dark portal world-event.
- Burning Crusade Q & A
- Official Burning Crusade site
- Definition of the word Crusade
- Beta Patch 2.0.2 (Release Notes) Beta patch notes
- Patch 2.1 release notes for 2.1 the black temple patch
External links
Official videos
- Movie of Blizzard's Burning Crusade presentation at E3
- Burning Crusade cinematic trailer on YouTube
Reviews
Online previews
- TenTonHammer FAQ
- GameAmp.com FAQ (Burning Crusade FAQ, updated often)
- Gamespy E3 2006
- MMOsite E3 2006
- TenTonHammer 11, Aug 2006 (Interview with Jeff Kaplan)
- GameSpot 31st Mar 2006 (Interview with Jeff Kaplan)
- CVG 12 Dec 2005 (Interview with Shane Dabiri)
- Pre-Expansion patch FAQ
Community information
Magazine articles
Unofficial videos