Hey guys, it's just a day til Blizzcon now an Iv'e realized i can't add dates properly so instead of a few days to do reviews it seems i'm only going to get Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King out in time, so this will be an extended review of The Burning Crusade as a whole rather than just a overview of the expansion, so we'll dive into the raids as well as the zones and the game lore as well as discussing the impact of The Burning Crusade on the entirety of the game at large, so lets jump straight into it!

Premise and Setting

The Burning Crusade, henceforth know as BC or TBC, was the first expansion from Blizzard for their game World Of Warcraft, now given that WoW had already accrued a huge player base making it the most popular MMORPG of all time people were looking forward to TBC after 3 years of amazing Vanilla WoW.

TBC takes place on the apocalyptic destroyed remnants of Dreanor home of the Orcs and Draenei refugees, now known as Outland, during Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 the planet was used as a proxy war between numerous factions which eventually led to Gul'dan shattering the planet and leaving it a floating husk in the twisting nether also trapping anyone who didn't flee on Outland for nearly 20 years before the forces of Azeroth managed to reopen the Dark Portal.

Illidan Stormrage with the help of Kael'Thas and Lady Vashj fled to Outland during the time of the third war to escape the Burning Legion and Kil'Jaedens eye after illidan betrayed the Legion leading to the formation of The Lich King, however before doing so Illidan and his cohorts were largely responsible for stopping the 3rd war and ending the Second Legion invasion of azeroth, they fled to outland to escape persecution for something that wasn't objectively bad.

This has been extremely retconned in the lore with the current expansion Legion, however looking back at TBC we were actually the aggressors who killed all 3 really for no reason at all and it came to light recently in Legion that Illidan was training Demon Hunters to launch a massive invasion on the Legion homeworld of Argus to stop the threat of a 3rd invasion which inevitably happened and killed many heroes.

However enough about the lore, lets have a look at the actual game, TBC is set on outland that introduced 7 new zones as well as some of the best raids and instances to ever come out, it also introduced two new races, the long secluded Blood Elves and the enigmatic refugees in the Draenei, players would take the fight to Outland and the remaining demons by stepping through the Dark Portal, a massive structure that connects worlds and in Outlands case, completely destroy them if handled incorrectly.

So lets take a look a the zones of outland

Hellfire Pennisula.

Once a thriving orc territory named Tannan Jungle, Hellfire Pennisula bore the brunt of the explosion that fractured Outland it's lush jungle climate is now a vast red wasteland where nothing natural grows and is surrounded by the twisting nether and is now home to all many of Demons and the surviving Demonic infused orcs in Hellfire Citadel, it is a barren land that has never seen the end of a war raged for nearly 3 decades the only real settlements are Honor Hold and Thrallmar and in the middle of the map the Hellfire Citadel.

Hellfire citadel is home to the remaining demon blood orcs but it also holds a secret, Illidan has captured Magtheridon the Demon responsible for the 2nd and 3rd war and has him imprisoned beneath the Citadel, at max level players will finally put an end to Magtheridon in the raid "Magtheridons Lair" however ultimately the land is completely devoid of natural life and stands as a testament to the ills of magic.

Before it's destruction

Zangarmarsh

Zangarmarsh is one of two zones not entirely affected by the apocalyptic explosion, infact it is the explosion that caused Zangarmarsh to rise out of the sea, a living sea bed zone raised to the ground released a lot of strange races that quickly adapted to the ground level and as such they're everywhere, as devoid as hellfire pennisula is, Zangarmarsh is thriving with life in every area.

Zangarmarsh is also home to a very large Naga population and home to Coilfang Reservoir a gigantic underwater structure manned by Lady Vashj and her Naga who in secrecy are conducting experiments to increase Illidan's army, players with band together again to vash Lady Vashj and stop this in one of the coolest raids ever put together, Serpent Shrine Cavern.

The zone itself is extremely verdant with gigantic mushroom stalks and algae grown all over the place, it's also a partial home to the broken, the Draenei who never made it off outland before it was destroyed and can barely remember who they are or even what they are.

Blades Edge Mountains

Blades Edge is a very large zone surrounded entirely by treacherous mountains and rock formations that look like blades, in times past Neltharion the Earth Warden ruled this land before the rise of the "Dragon killers" the massive stone beings known as the Gronn who now do rule this land, the land is pretty devoid of nature and the nature that is there is almost as deadly as what inhabits it.

Blades Edge holds Gruul's lair, home of the Dragon killer who went on a crusade to rid Blades edge of the black dragon menace, he ultimately won and you can see the imapled corpses of black drakes nearly everywhere on the map it's also home to the remaining Ogre population after their island was destroyed when Outland exploded but they have severely dwindled in number and nearly none of their heirachy exists anymore.

Netherstorm

Once called Faralohn it was rumored to be a verdant forest before it was completely destroyed by the explosion of the dark portal, now the twisting nether rips right through the planet and has seperated all the land masses that are only connected by massive bridges holding the entire zone together, some attempts have been made to stabilize the zone however the twisting nether rips them apart again.

Netherstorm is home to The Eye, the ship used by the Draenei to flee Argus that has been taken by Kael'Thas and his blood elves to be used as their base of operations, Kael'Thas has however awakening numerous traps and put his most trusted warriors in charge in what statistically is the hardest raid of The Burning Crusade.

Nagrand

Nagrand has been relatively untouched by the destruction, still a wide open plains filled with wildlife in the grand scheme of things, Nagrand is a relatively unimportant, it holds no raids or instances and acts largely as a max level zone for farming reagents and crafting materials.

Terrokar Forest

Arguably the most important zone in TBC, Terrorkar is home to Shattrath city, the last and only safe place in all of Outland, it's broken into two zones, a decrepit forest and a stony wasteland that houses Auchindoun, the resting place for Draenei souls, however after many years of being abandoned Auchindoun has sprung to life again and restless souls of the dead stir and attack anyone who enters, also the Arrakoa the cursed and deformed ancestors of the Arokoa have made their home in Sethekk Halls and attempt to revive what remains of their cursed dwindling race.

Shattrath city itself is home to Both the Scryers and the Aldor, the last vestiges of the allied forces of outland who opposed Kael'Thas however neither side trusts each other and have divided the city into two, players arriving must make a choice between which faction they will join, each have different quests and different loot that will be offered as you progress with them.

Shadowmoon Valley

Another zone completely destroyed by the fel energies of the destruction of the dark portal, once filled with wide open plains and home to the massive temple of Karabor the land has been ripped apart by fel magic, demons and the illidari war machine, the volcano at the hand of gul'dan spews fel lava all over the zone and the once shining city of Karabor has been corrupted, now know as The Black Temple it is the seat of power for Illidan and his demonic horde.

The penultimate raid of the expansion takes place in The Black Temple as players fight their way through illidans best warriors before ultimately facing Lord Illidan himself in a climatic battle that is still felt 10 years later in the game and has some of the most unique boss fights of all time.

Before it's destruction

Isle Of Quel'Danas

The Isle Of Quel'Danas was the final patch of the expansion and added a small zone off the coast of the Blood Elf capital city Silvermoon, The Isle is home to the Blood Elves former power The Sunwell, a massive well of unstable magic that once caused The Sundering which split Azeroth apart and created the Maelstorm, the remaining Blood Elves from Outland under the command of Kael'Thas who survived The Eye, are attempting to summon through the right hand of Sargeras, Kil'Jaeden, who would destroy the entire world if successful.

Sunwell Plateau has the distinction of being the hardest raid ever in the game up until that point and possibly of all time before the retuned it, there was a boss before Kil'Jaeden known as M'uru who was called "The guild killer" it required ungodly precision and timing as well as every member of the raid giving 100% at all times, falling behind even by a few seconds lead to a wipe, very few people go to do the unnerfed version but even the nerfed version could completely destroy guilds and halt their progress.

Legacy and Critical Review

The burning crusade was a once in a life time experience, sure there are private servers out there but the transition from Vanilla to Burning Crusade is something i can't quite explain, Vanilla was brutal and punishing in every aspect, raids could be nightmarish and Instances could chew up a few hours, BC refined this, it dropped 40 raiding down to 25 man and 20 man raiding down to 10 which allowed for more execution and precision on what they were attempting to do in these raids.

It also brought class balance ahead by leaps and bounds, some classes, that is to say all of them, had 1 to 2 specs that were completely unusable in raids in Vanilla, there was no such thing as a feral druid raider or retribution paladin raider, so it was incredibly refreshing for some people who liked their class but weren't able to play their desired spec be given a chance in the raid, i was a holy paladin so this didn't really do anything for me personally.

However Burning Crusade molded World Of Warcraft into what it is today, Blizzard had learned a lot of lessons from Vanilla and every from class design, raiding, story telling and meta game play was changed during Burning Crusade and would continue even til today in Legion.

But story wise, Burning Crusade was a bit of a pitfall as it hadn't really been thought out too well as most of the "enemies" of Burning Crusade weren't actually enemies, rather Anti-Heroes who were working for the greater good in the shadow, this led to today's story line where we had to revive Illidan to help us with our fight against the legion, something that wouldn't of taken place if the story line had of been fleshed out in Burning Crusade as we learn in legion that Illidan was literally moments away from attacking Argus on masse and possibly wiping out the Legion for good.

Overall however Burning Crusade is remembered fondly because of the community, WoW reached a new peak during BC and there were people everywhere, every second person you knew was more than likely playing at that time and it showed, guilds were everywhere and the game was becoming more popular with being streamed everywhere and new celebrity guilds were popping up everywhere.

The legacy of The burning crusade is starting the expansion cycle of World Of Warcraft, something that is huge now days, it's hard to put into words what The Burning Crusade is and was but anyone who played it still probably loves it as much as I do, from the raids and classes to the locations and instances, The Burning Crusade is still touted as the best expansion blizzard has ever put out and personally, i have to agree with it.

Thanks for taking the time to read my article, if you enjoyed this feel free to up-vote or resteem, got any moments from Burning Crusade that you remember? drop them in the comments below or feel free to ask me a question about the review, thanks!