Blizzard's Burning Crusade

The phenomenon that is World of Warcraft is about to blast into new worlds and summon furious gameplay enhancements. Ben Mansill visited Blizzard’s HQ in Irvine, California to get the goods.

Update: The Burning Crusade has been released, and we were at the launch with cameras. Check out the scenes from the midnight launch here.

With almost seven million players – a number that grows every day – Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has forever changed the face of MMOs, and gaming itself. The game world of Azeroth is home to hardcore addicts and casual escapists alike. Players can experience the game in so many ways, from following quests, raiding, or even just working the highly evolved economy.

With such a massive base of players, in an equally massive world, Blizzard faces great expectations for the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion. Atomic recently visited Blizzard HQ and met with the designers and company founders to get the lowdown on Burning Crusade, which we got by the bucketload, plus a bonus insight into what drives this secretive, perfectionist and deeply idealistic creative company.

What’s new
Burning Crusade is more than just new turf to explore – it’s a set of enhancements designed to add new life for tired players, make old challenges new and exciting and attract new players who may have felt that the highly evolved state of the game meant it was ‘too late’ to join in.

WoW’s Lead Game Designer Jeff Kaplan explains: ‘There’s stuff in this expansion for people that have never played WoW before. So if you’re only now deciding to pick it up, we’re not just adding in-game content.’ Burning Crusade (BC) features two new races – the Blood Elves for the Horde, and Draenei for the Alliance. Kaplan hopes that these fresh new races will welcome in new players as a ground level starting point for all to experience from the get-go. ‘Both the Blood Elves and the Draenei will get new starting zones. They’ll get a level 10 to 20, what I call “sophomore zone”, they’ll get a whole new city and it’s on the same scale and grandeur as Stormwind in the current game. The Draenei get Exodar, which was at one point a trans-dimensional high energy ship that came crashing down from Outland.’

Ogres were already nasty (and ugly) in WoW. Burning Crusade makes them even more so.

At the same time, Kaplan also expects that veteran players will relish the chance to play from scratch using the new races. Each race offers a twist on what players are used to, as players faithful to either the Horde or Alliance can now experience character classes previously unavailable to them: ‘We think this will be really desirable for people who just want to start over and try a new class. For the first time there’s the opportunity for Horde players to play a Paladin, a class that used to be strictly Alliance. And the Alliance will get the chance to play the Shaman, which was previously a Horde class.’

While the class switcharoo won’t specifically alter the way the Paladin or Shaman plays, the classes bring their unique strengths to groups, giving Horde and Alliance parties a fresh new tactical recipe. ‘It’s mostly a flavour difference. The Horde Paladins refer to themselves as Blood Knights, but a Paladin is a Paladin is a Paladin. They have healing spells and tanking. They’re kind of a support healer and a somewhat tanking class. But the class itself isn’t fundamentally different between Horde or Alliance.’

‘The Shaman on the Alliance will add new things like Wind Fury, which is a very desirable ability in both PvE and PvP that Alliance players have never had access to. We’re anticipating some pretty interesting combinations will come about. Previously they could never be in the same group together. So you can have Shaman casting a spell like Bloodlust which gives a great enhancement to melee and spell casting speed, which should be interesting.’

Special BC comp! We have secured a very special Collector's Edition of The Burning Crusade for one lucky winner. Enter the competition here!