World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade




 * Were you looking for the new for the World of Warcraft package that includes this expansion?

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (aka TBC), the first expansion for World of Warcraft, was announced on October 28th, 2005 and released on January 16th, 2007 in North America, Europe, and Australia, February 2nd, 2007 in Korea, April 3rd, 2007 in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and September 6th, 2007 in mainland China. 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 categorized in Category:Burning Crusade.

On June 28-29th, 2012, this expansion was made available free for owners of the original World of Warcraft game.

Release information
In preparation for The Burning Crusade, Blizzard released patch 2.0.1 in North America and Europe on December 5th, 2006. The patch introduced some of The Burning Crusade's content prior to the expansion itself — including a revamp of the honor system, skirmish Arena matches, and a new Looking For Group interface.

The expansion was released in standard as well as Collector's Edition packages. The Collector's Edition of The Burning Crusade includes a bonus Behind-The-Scenes DVD, an in-game Netherwhelp pet and many other exclusive extras. Installing the expansion does not break backwards compatibility — players are still able to log on to non-BC accounts using The Burning Crusade client.

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 dial-up, except for patching issues.

Lore
The quests in The Burning Crusade are generally set in continuity with original lore quests, meaning that timeline speaking, BC is basically the direct sequel to the original WoW. Some quests set in Outland, especially those that are related to Illidan, do speak of a five-year hiatus in the storyline, which suggests a one-year long interval between BC and the original. This is however unconfirmed, since there never was any real statement that TFT takes place one year after RoC. But generally agreed, there was a four year break between Warcraft III and WoW.

The expansion is primarily based in Outland, the former world of Draenor and the new continent in the game. Quests generally allow players to explore the world on their own. The main story centers on Illidan the Betrayer and what happened to him during the last years. Players can also go on quests that suggest helping Illidan in his time-being or slaying him for a special reward.

Other than that, many links between the former world of Draenor and the current Outland are also made, such as the opening of the Dark Portal by Medivh, which is an instance quest located in Caverns of Time. Retelling of the old relationship between Orcish shamans and the Burning Legion is also told in quest-sequence storyline.

The Burning Crusade also centers on the two new playable races and their affiliation to the gameline. Many plotholes are filled with quests that set the blood elves in with the Horde and the draenei with the Alliance. Players still have to be part of the old world quests in order to obtain lore related to Outland.

New races
The Burning Crusade contains two new playable races:
 * Blood elf — A faction of former Alliance members join the Horde in the expansion. They are led by Regent Lord Lor'themar Theron. The blood elf capital is Silvermoon City. Their racial mount is the bird-like hawkstrider and their Native language is Thalassian.

The expansion also allows previously faction-exclusive classes to be played on the opposing faction, with the inclusion of Horde blood elf paladins and Alliance draenei shaman.
 * Draenei — A faction of uncorrupted eredar join the Alliance. They are led by their prophet, Velen. The draenei capital city is the Exodar. Their racial mount is the elephant-like elekk and their language is Draenei.

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.

New mounts are also available via drop from high-end instances such as Karazhan.
 * Draenei — An elekk. These mounts can be found outside The Exodar.

Flying mounts
Flying mounts are only usable in Outland at level 60. The Horde and Alliance have the wyvern and gryphon, respectively, as standard mounts. The epic mounts are the armored wyvern and armored gryphon.

In addition there are rare mounts such as the netherdrake and the swift Nether Drake. An armored nether drake can be obtained by ranking in the top 0.5% at the end of an Arena season, and the unarmored netherdrake can be obtained through a series of quests. There are also Nether Rays.

Normal flying mount training costs and the mount costs. 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 for the training and  to buy. Training for epic flying mounts requires 225 riding skill and upgrades it to 300. Faction reputation discounts apply to the prices.

Druids receive Flight Form at level 60 that offers the ability to fly and has a speed equivalent to a normal flying mount. Druids may obtain a quest at level 70 to obtain an epic flight formor the quest.

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. 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, like the Death Knight's Dark Command); and Shamans received the spell Bloodlust (a long-cooldown, powerful buff) to complement their DPS and utility roles.

See each class's respective page for more specific information regarding new spells and talents.

Combat rating system
With the release of The Burning Crusade, critical strike, defense, hit rate, spell critical, and dodge stats as well as a new stat, resilience, changed from being absolute percentages to ratings, with each player level requiring more rating points to achieve the same absolute percentage.

New starting areas
The blood elves have two new starting areas located in the Eastern Kingdom:


 * Eversong Woods — Level 1-10

Similarly, the draenei have two starting zones off the west coast of Kalimdor:
 * Ghostlands — Level 10-20


 * 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. Interactive maps and otherwise detailed maps are available for use.

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, most with separate wings to make runs faster, including some in both in Outland and Azeroth. The dungeons contain a plethora of new equipment including Tier 4, Tier 5 and Tier 6 armor pieces.

Azeroth

 * Karazhan in Deadwind Pass


 * Caverns of Time in Tanaris


 * Zul'Aman in Ghostlands (added in patch 2.3)


 * Isle of Quel'Danas in Quel'Thalas (added in patch 2.4)

Outland

 * 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 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 normal level 60-70 instances into much harder level 70 instances with better loot. 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.

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.

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 able to take advantage of new specializations within each profession as well as many new recipes, enchantments, patterns and schematics.

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 it's own bracket.

Team PvP Arena
Following the introduction of Arena PvP, level 70 players are able to win prizes in these matches. The rewards for the arena are on par with even the most powerful PvE rewards. There are currently three Arenas: The Ring of Trials in Nagrand, the Circle of Blood in Blade's Edge Mountains, and the Ruins of Lordaeron, above Undercity.

Voice acting
Contrary to the popular belief that Blizzard brought back none of the original voice actors, actually almost half of them were brought back.

In Battle for Mount Hyjal the voice actors of Thrall and Tyrande were the original voice actors; Azgalor and Rage Winterchill didn't have speech in Warcraft III, so it can be told that their voice actors weren't changed; Archimonde voice actor was the same although he sounds different, it's probable that Blizzard used different modulations for the voice. Anetheron voice actor was changed but probably because of his minor role in Warcraft III (with just three quotes) Blizzard wasn't able to find him.

Illidan's original voice actor, Matthew Yang King, was changed due to guild union reasons. But his lieutenants Kael'thas and Lady Vashj were kept with the original voice actors. Akama's voice actor was changed probably for his minor role in Warcraft III (with just the gag quotes and two cinematic speeches). And Maiev's original voice actor was brought back.

Kil'jaeden's and Magtheridon's voice actors weren't brought back, probably for their minor roles in Warcraft III (with Magtheridon just having two quotes and Kil'jaeden appearing only in two interludes

The Alliance Expedition heros's voice actors weren't changed either, they were given the default human/dwarven voices, however Khadgar's voice actor was indeed changed in News From Outland: Crisis at Da Portal! official video. The Horde of Draenor hero's voice actors were changed, Kargath's voice actor used to be Bill Roper but he left Blizzard years before the release of The Burning Crusade, while Teron's voice actor was changed for unknown reasons.

Rexxar's and Nazgrel's voices are also the default voice of the orcs (ironically the default voice of the orcs and Rexxar's voice actor in Warcraft III are both made by Chris Metzen). Zul'jin's voice actor wasn't really changed because in Warcraft II he used the default troll voice and in The Burning Crusade he was given a unique voice.

Medivh's voice actor was changed from Michael Bell to Cam Clarke for unknown reasons. Sylvanas's original voice actress didn't sing Lament of the Highborne but probably because Piera Coppola isn't a singer.

Patches
The Burning Crusade received four major content patches. The patch release schedule is radically different from the original World of Warcraft - content is introduced in large chunks, and balancing fixes are often added as separate minor patches between the content patches.
 * Patch 2.1 introduced daily quests (and the relevant Netherwing/Ogri'la /Skyguard zones such as Skettis) and the Black Temple 25-man raid content. It can also be argued that this patch unlocked the Hyjal wing of the Caverns of Time, since prior to 2.1, Kael'Thas and Lady Vashj would only drop a limited number of attunement vials to Hyjal per kill, requiring several months of farming prior to fielding a 25-man raid into Hyjal.


 * Patch 2.2 introduces voice communications software built into the game client (as well as video recording for Mac clients).


 * Patch 2.3 introduces the Zul'Aman 10-man raid instance and leveling improvements for levels 20-60.


 * Patch 2.4 introduces the Isle of Quel'Danas, a new outdoor zone which includes the Magisters' Terrace, a 5-man instance, and the Sunwell Plateau, a 25-man raid. Also included are Combat Log improvements and the introduction of a global Arena Tournament realm.

Trivia

 * In mainland China, the communist government had been so slow to approve this expansion that Mandarin speaking players made a phrase from the English acronym TBC = Te Bie Chi = “特别迟” which means very late.