With Blizzards recent release of the "Burning Crusade Expansion Warcraft World" has been rejuvenated, veteran players interests have taken off again in the game. The Burning Crusades release has brought new zones, new levels, new character races, new spells and abilities, a new battleground and PVP system and much more.
I'll start off with the two new races that were recently added, the Alliance side received the Draenei. A extraterrestrial race that crash landed on Azeroth, they are the Alliance sides answer to the Tauren, being the biggest race in the Alliance now. Draenei can be Hunters, Mages, Paladins, Priests, Shamans and Warriors.
The Horde received the Blood Elves and magic addicted race of evil elves. Now the Horde has a beautiful race. Blood Elves can be Hunters, Mage, Paladins Priests, Rogues, or Warlocks.
Another cool feature that was added in the latest release was flying mounts, each faction has two flying mount types to choose from in assorted colors, there is a slow version and a fast version. The basic model appears to be a gryphon type creature or a wind rider depending if you are Horde or Alliance. Now you will need to have a certain riding skill to be able to take advantage of these mounts, and for the faster mount a pretty hefty riding skill is needed. You can only use these mounts in the Outland area.
Questing
Clear out your inventory before going questing in the 60+ range, make sure you store all of your unnecessary's. To make it easier for you on consumables - ie. bandages, scrolls or potions, mail yourself these items from a mule and don't fill your inventory with more than one stack of them.
Don't forget to move your Hearthstone, for the Outland area a convenient place is Honor Hold if you are Alliance and Thrallmar if you are Horde. The problem that you might encounter in some of the level 60-61 areas of Outland is the bottlenecks. With the new release 1000's of people are flooding these areas which are creating bottlenecks especially with the Quests where you have to kill a certain Mob, waiting for it to respawn can really take the fun out of the game at times. Blizzard is trying to deal with this time by regulating the spawn time by the number of people in the area at a given time. More characters in the area cause faster spawn rates.
Instances
The new instances in outland due to the popularity of the Scarlet Monastery and Dire Maul have been made shorter. All of the five man instances in Outland are made along the lines of the ones typically encountered in Azeroth. For the people who like to grind Blizzard has made the groups of mobs with similar abilities in different groups, for instance a priest type character might grind in an area with mobs that have a certain type of magical abilities, while a Fighter character would best grind in an area with mobs of different abilities.
Professions
Jewelcrafting is a new profession that was added in the expansion which allows you to craft rings, amulets and socketable gems, this should end up being a very profitable profession.
Battlegrounds
Battlegrounds are pretty much the same as they were before with a higher level cap and in addition a new Battleground has been added called Eye of the Storm. There are two levels in the new battle ground, 61-69 and level 70. There are 15 players per team and the first team to 2000 points is the winner.
If you are a diehard World of Warcraft fan like I am, The Burning Crusade expansion warcraft world only fans the flames of my obsession with the game.(which is a good thing) High quality content has always been a strong point from Blizzard and they have not failed in their delivery as usual.
World of Warcraft has been criticized in the past for a sub-par and almost useless profession system. Burning Crusade attempts to change all that by allowing users to craft items of great power that are comparable to loot in dungeons or the arenas.
As far as leatherworking goes in the Burning Crusade, the improvements are pretty comprehensive. Armor will be made stronger, will include leg enhancements, and will provide more protection for the players getting into the raids and the more hazardous dungeons. These new armor kits will be pretty simple to construct and will really come in handy when players can't get a particular high-end enchantment.
Mining now has available some more types of metal at the endgame. In BC, players will find Fel Iron and Adamantite, several kinds of high-end base metals, and also a few rare metals known as Eternium and Khorium. Similar to herbalists, miners will see some of the unusual Outland dwellers give up some rare materials when killed, for use for forge-fires. The miners will "skin" these corpses to obtain materials utilized by blacksmiths and engineers.
With the blacksmithing, they will now be able to make legendary quality weapons that only they themselves can use, such as a sword or the most durable suit of armor. These will be able to be worn, no matter what the game stage. Then, when they want everyone to take advantages of all this, they can so designate.
Alchemists will all have basic subject knowledge, but they will also be able to specialize. These individuals will learn Elixirs, Potions, or Transmutation. Because of this, alchemists will be capable of constructing two items instead of merely one.
Enchanters now have new spells/enchantments in their repertoire. There are the new and improved mana and wizard oils, the ring spells, and lastly the Battlemaster and Spellsurge weapon enchantments. The ring spells will require locating the hidden formulas.
Herbalists will discover rare and novel herbs indigenous to Outland, with many strange and varied effects, some positive and some negative. And some will bestow (or inflict) strange effects on the herbalist who picks them. Plus, only this group will be permitted to harvest through the act of skinning, the unusual and scarce ingredients from plant beasts of the shattered regions lying outside the Dark Portal.
Engineers will locate new and useful gadget schematics. These will come from the innovative Goblin and Gnomish in their Research and Development Labs. Two such inventions will be Rocket Launchers and the Nigh Invulnerability Belts. Next, this class will have at their disposal a Mote Extractor to collect various resources from Outland's magic and gas clouds. Finally, raiding engineers will be able to create different colored smoke flares, enabling marking of significant areas.
