My copy of The Burning Crusade showed up today, thanks to Amazon. The expansion went live last night at midnight, with some people in more… urban… areas being able to find their local game stores open at midnight dispensing Burning Crusade goodness. When I quit World of Warcraft just shy of 1AM, a grand total of 12 people on the Gilneas server had made it through to Hellfire Peninsula, the new continent.

The normal package includes four CDROM’s, a manual, two guest keys and the user’s key printed on the first CDROM sleeve.

Beyond the Dark Portal	Fel Soldiers marching to the Dark Portal
View of the Dark Portal from the other side

Some facts about it:

1. You need to have the regular release of World of Warcraft installed in order to be able to upgrade it with this expansion pack.
2. The new areas that are added to the world aren’t included in the slew of recent patches that have been issued for World of Warcraft. You have to install this content from the CDROM’s.
3. After you install the expansion you’ll still need to re-apply recently issued updates. The game should do this for you. If you’ve deleted the update files then the game will have to download them again in order to apply the update.
4. The expansion provides you with access to the Outlands, through the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands. You have to be level 58 or higher to go through the Dark Portal. One of the great new things that Outlands offers is flying mounts, which can only be used there. The expansion also allows characters at level 60 to continue earning experience and going up levels to level 70. It also allows you to create characters in one of two new races, the Dranei (on the Alliance side) and the Blood Elves (on the Horde side). It adds a new jewelcrafting profession, and it offers new “socketed” items which can be modified by adding special jewels to them. It also opens up a few new areas in the existing World of Warcraft, like the Caverns of Time.
5. You only need the CDROM’s to install The Burning Crusade; you don’t need them to play. You can use the same CDROM’s on as many computers as you want, but each separate World of Warcraft user account (that’s user account, not character) will need a separate key (and therefore copy of Burning Crusade) to upgrade the account and all its characters.
6. If you want to install the Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition (it gets you a special pet, has a DVDROM and some other benefits), do not install the regular edition of Burning Crusade - you can only upgrade your account once and you won’t be able to get access to the special features of the Collector’s Edition if you’ve already bought the regular edition.
7. Like the original release, the same CDROMs will install under Windows or MacOS X.

You must have a copy of Burning Crusade in order to create Dranei or Blood Elf characters, and you must have it in order to go through the Dark Portal.

The whole installation was painless and completed in under 15 minutes on my Mac Pro, including reinstalling two recent patches. It even assisted me to in upgrading my account while it was installing from the CDROMs.

I’ve included some shots of what you’ll see on the other side of the Dark Portal. I’m gaining experience again, which is strange after all this time at level 60. And I feel very small and in need of much better armor and weapons. Now I wish I’d saved turning in my attunement to Onyxia until after the portal opened; I could’ve gotten experience from it!

Flying to Honor Hold	Still flying…	More flying…
Yup, you guessed it… aerial shot…	Honor Hold from the air	Things are hopping at Honor Hold

[tags]world of warcraft, burning crusade, hellfire peninsula, expansion, games[/tags]

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