World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

What happens when a paladin, a druid and a shaman walk into an instance? Other than heal, of course.

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Three years ago, no one was playing World of Warcraft, except perhaps the developers themselves. Even so, the signs of its powerful draw where undoubtedly there. Today, if Blizzard is to be believed, eight million souls are right now beavering away at their mice and keyboards, entranced by the MMO orgy that’s transpiring on their screens. About a million and a half reside in Europe, another two and half in the US, and Australia and Asia making up the rest.

Some are fighting skeletons hoping that – despite the game’s maddening randomisation code – the particular one they’re fighting will drop the bone fragments they need for a rep turn-in. Considering that’s all skeletons are made of, it’s not an insane expectation.

Others are running a dungeon for the 102nd time, praying that the tiger boss at the end will finally drop his Staff of Hale Magefire, despite his lack of opposable thumbs, or even the need for such an item. Finally, the majority will be playing an alt character, climbing the level ladder to 60 for the God-only-knows time.

This all however will change with the release of The Burning Crusade (TBC), Blizzard’s first pay-for expansion to the original game. Now, they get to do it in the Outland instead.

TBC is a sizeable update to World of Warcraft, and if you’re still playing you’d be crazy (or you’ll go crazy, one of the two) if you don’t buy it. The most important change is the increase in the player level cap to 70, forcing level 60 players to dust off their questing caps and once again kill boars in multiples of five for experience and loot.

Speaking of loot, item budgets in the expansion have been extensively revamped. Within the first few days of questing in the Outland, most players will have gear on-par or exceeding that which was only available to raid fiends. Stamina in particular appears to have depreciated in value, and almost all Outland items have copious amounts of it. The reason behind this is obvious: To increase the length of fights in both PvE and PvP. So no more dying from ‘three-minute’ Mages.

Gear, which one could argue drives the game, is also now more encouraging of ‘off-specs’ for hybrid classes, which are usually pigeon-holed into healing – something that wasn’t aided by all the healing-oriented epic sets in the original game. Leather, mail and plate gear with stats that promote spell and attack damage are now plentiful, so feral Druids, retribution Paladins and elemental Shamans have much to look forward to. Sadly, due to the rarity of healers, the default raid roster will more than likely demand that hybrids be healers.