It seemed like Christmas all over again as I shut myself off from the rest of the world to dive into The Burning Crusade, the expansion pack to the wildly successful MMORPG World of Warcraft.
Armed with a bag of Cheetos, two Susie Q’s and four liters of Diet Coke - the necessities of any traveler - I started the hurry-up-and-wait process of loading the game.
The load time for the four disks wasn’t bad and I started imagining I might get at the new content without a single glitch. Alas, that wasn’t the case.
After an hour of updated patches and too many failed attempts to log in, I finally gained entrance to the game.
Getting started
This is the screen you don't want to see, but you will.
I have to admit, my heart sped up as I watched the opening cut scene that introduced the storyline. The voice of Ner’Zhul – who created the Dark Portal – spoke ominously of the impending peril with this opening statement: “You dare not enter my realm.” What follows is a cut to a stunning scene of animated characters taking part in various stages of battle. Ner’Zhul closes this episode with a command that “You are not prepared!”
To be honest, Ner’Zhul should have said “You are not prepared to suffer the excruciating amount of lag this game has in store for you!”
On to the Dark Portal...
I made the quick trip to the Dark Portal that is the starting point for the expansion and crossed over into the world of Outland. If you have been playing the game for any length of time, the controls remain the same with a few interface options added in to freshen things up. One I particularly like is being able to loot corpses with the single push of a button which considerably speeds things up.
In Outland
Once in the world of Outland, I noticed the extremely large number of players at the gate running about. Some were engaged in combat with a large elite dragon while others were milling about trying to overcome the choppy game play they were experiencing as a result of the server being crowded.
Boredom in Outland leads to dragon abuse.
My first assigned task sent me on a flight to the initial base camp called Honor Hold where you collect quests and storylines for your journeys. As I flew over the lands, I panned to see countless characters engaged in fights, corpses of beasts, and the ghosts of other players who were killed running about searching for their bodies. When I arrived at the hold, I explored the area and collected as many quests as I could.
Honor Hold essentially has the same floor plan as the many other keeps you find throughout other areas in Warcraft. I would have liked to see some changes… maybe new architecture or a different layout. No such luck, everything looks recycled buildings and related structures of the keep.
Quests, monsters and inflation, oh my...
The first quests are not unlike those of the previous 60 levels – go out and kill a bunch of beasts or go track down a certain number of widgets, etc., repeat ad naseum.
One notable monster I noticed is the Fel Reaver, a transformer-looking giant that shook the ground as he randomly walked amongst the questing throngs.
Say hello to ma wittle fwiend
Mr. Fel Reaver will smash n00bs and 1337s alike.
I would recommend that you run from this thing at this juncture since it will take many higher levels to knock him off.
Outside of this, kills of beasts made within the game reward you with larger amounts of silver commensurate to the higher levels you are battling. This makes life a little easier to manage, knowing the high cost of your first flying mount you will obtain at 70 or auction house items you may need to up your skill levels.
Speaking of the auction house, I noticed that prices were inflated upwards to extreme proportions with materials needed for the new Jewlcrafting skill, which we forecasted previously. Some prices were upwards of 600% higher for common materials. I suspect that as the game rolls through the first weeks, prices will relax and drop to more manageable levels.
The highlight of the game for me was checking out the links of loot that people posted of items that dropped from corpses. That, amongst the constant complaints of connectivity and lag, filled the general chat channel. The uncommon items that randomly dropped offered new armor, weapons and trinkets.
Many of these quickly attained random drop and quest reward items were better then some of the difficult-to-find items that people have been holding on to for ages, which will no doubt lead some pack rats to grudgingly vendor their previously pimp items.
Consequently, a solo or once-a-week casual player will benefit from these initial drops. Within the first two hours of intermittent connectivity, several people could be found changing out their ex-favorite equipment with some of the new drops the expansion provides.
The first instance...
The LFG or Looking for Group Interface was created to make finding a group much easier. Not today – trying to find a group was near impossible utilizing the channel. Working through the General chat, I teamed up with a group of folks within minutes. Too bad trying to get into the instance and run the content didn’t happen as fast.
Hellfire Citadel
Ogres? Mobs? Look at my biceps!
Upon entering the instance, the initial mobs of ogres were very challenging. Unfortunately, we only had one crack at the first group when a party member got disconnected from the server. When he attempted to log back in, he landed in a queue line of 558 people in the same boat. Thirty minutes later, he arrived back in and we proceeded to work the first mobs.
The initial battles were very challenging considering we had a party of a Rogue, Druid, Two Hunters, and a Warrior. I envisioned this part of the game was going to be the redeeming factor bringing me out of the frustration we experienced throughout the night collectively experienced by our server. So much for visions. The player made it back to the server and within minutes another was booted into the queue line. We all called it quits and decided that things may get better in time.
Final thoughts...
What it all means
As excited as I (and most of you) are about Burning Crusade, Blizzard - with upwards of 8 million subscribers and the revenue provided by our loyalty - should have taken care of the server issues in advance with the beta test.
WTF?
Umm... where is everybody? Oh, they can't get onto the server. Boo!
We all know as returning players that Blizzard doesn’t lag when it comes time to debit our accounts or close people down if they are a day late in payment. Perhaps they should have employed the billing department to address the server issues prior to the release.
Although I believe the content and grind will probably be a near identical experience to what we did eeking up to level 60, there seems to be adventures to look forward to with this expansion. At this point though, I would suggest taking time to clean out your belly button lint, read a nice book, or watch the new season of American Idol for a few weeks to let Blizzard work out the kinks before rushing out to purchase this title that, for the time being, I affectionately call “World of Warcrap, the Lagging Crusade.”
Pros
- New gear
- Monsters provide new challenges
- Compelling instances
Cons
- Laggy server
- LFG still sucks, use general chat
- Same old level grind
- Recycled layout
USA
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