World of Warcraft: Burning crusade review; And some secrets to making gold.

If you do not know about World of Warcraft then you have probably been living under a rock. This is a mmorpg, massively multiplayer online role playing game. Or basically an rpg with a thousand of your closest friends.

This is the expansion pack and requires the original World of Warcraft to work. This expansion allows you to do several things you can't do in the original release.
Level to level 70.
Play in outland (basically play in a third continent.)
Buy a flying mount (which is soooo cool.)
Play two new races (one for Alliance (Draenei) and one for Horde(Blood Elves.))
Heroic dungeon mode.
Battle new epic world bosses.
New socket weapons.
New profession, Jewel crafting.
Professions can now max out at 375.

In addition you have...
New instances and raids.
New factions to earn rep with.
New items.
New places to go in the original 2 continents.
New arena fighting system.

I’m just going to give a brief overview of how to get started. I’ll give the fine details when I do my review on the core game

You choose a class (warrior, paladin, mage, priest, warlock, shaman) and a race (human, dwarf, Gnome, night elf, draenai, Orc, troll, tauren, blood elf, undead.) Once you do that you are dropped into an area or azeroth depending on your race. There you do what you do in a typical RPG, fight monsters, earn treasure, and level up.
At level ten you can start learning talents and at certain level you start learning spells/skills. This starts you on a particular path. For example you can be a mage that specialized in fire, a warrior that specialized in defense, a priest that specializes in the shadow arts, etc.

Also during this time you start to talk to NPC’s and complete quests. This earns you gold, treasure, and reputation. This is how you level up.

Eventually you get to a high enough level that you can go in an instance. This is a dungeon (of sorts) that up to 5 of you can go into at once. You generally get better treasure in instances than you do in the outside world. There are raids later on in Azeroth that can support 40 people at the same time. Most raids in outland (actually I think all but Kara) support up to 25 people at one time.

You do quests, instances, and general monster grinding until you reach level 58. Then (with your bought expansion pack) you can go to Outland by way of the portal in the western continent.

Also, with the original game, you can learn skills. Everyone can learn fishing, cooking, and first aid. Then there are several others you can learn, but only 2 others at a time.

New characters
This alone is not worth buying the expansion. In fact, this isn’t even worth the trouble of creating in the first place. It is just a different play on some minor abilities and skills as well as allows the alliance to have a shaman class and the horde to have a paladin class.
For the horde there really isn’t anything good to look at before the expansion, so I guess having the female blood elves is a plus for them.

What is outland like?
Outland is composed of 6 different sections. Each is completely different from the either. Thinking about it logically, no natural environment could have been created like this. But this is fantasy so who cares. The first realm you go into is harsh and volcanistic. It is barren and it doesn’t seem like anything can live in outland. You look at the outskirts of the land and you see that the island just ends. You literally fall off into nothingness. In fact you see large boulders hovering in the air, just a rocks throw from the edge of the land you are standing on. It is awesome, like a bad dream. And this edge effect is on every part of outland.
The other areas are unique and great to look at but most of them have a barren feel to them. That is except for two of them, one is a swamp and the other is a hilly grassland environment. Why are these two areas there? Magic. Lets just say the look of outland will not disappoint.

What do you get to do when you reach level 70?
A lot.

The game does not stop when you stop earning XP, you have a number of things to do. First thing you get is a flying mount (if you have the money). I think it was around 1k gold for the training and mount. This really isn't that hard to make and shouldn't take you more than 10 days of doing dailies and farming. You can also get a much faster flying mount for 5.2k (280% faster). Now this will take you a while, expect a month and a half if you don't know any gold making strategies. For me it took me 9 days to earn the 3k gold I needed but that was with farming, buying/reselling to the auction house, disenchanting, fishing, and skinning. Note:You cannot use flying mounts in Azeroth.

Speaking of dailies, there are a lot of daily quests you can do. You can do them repeatedly (which can get boring) but only once every day. At level 70 most of these dailies pay you some sort of simple reward and around 10 gold. This reward can be in the form of a green item or reputation with a particular faction. As I said before, reputation is important because it allows you access to unique recipes and keys to heroic difficulty in certain dungeons. Dailies are like other quests you have done in the past. Take measurements, kill monsters, collect items, bomb things, insert crystals, etc. Don’t expect anything new at this stage.

You also want to get in on raids. This is easier if you are in a guild. Raids allow you to get two things. Very very rare weapons/armor (the best in the game), and (when you kill a boss) you get tokens that you can spend to get some of the best equipment. If you want the best stuff then you need to raid.

What is a guild
A guild is a members only club that has their own chat channel and own bank account. They have some sort of leader and officers as well as some sort of ranking system. I’m in a guild that focuses on raids but there are guilds that focus on PVP (player vs. player) combat.

Reputation
Reputation plays a bigger role in The Burning Crusade. You have to have good reputation with several factions in order to get items. Just having the gold won't due. The most important thing to get is the key to each set of dungeons so you can play at heroic level. This is the level you want to play at after you get to level 70 and you have some descent gear (not just the green stuff.) But you can also get some unique equipment and recipes.

Jewel crafting
This is a skill you can learn to make ordinary gems into attribute enhancing gems. These enhanced gems go into socketed weapons/armor.

Socketed weapons/armor.
You have sockets in different items that accept attribute enhancing gems. These attributes can increase damage, healing rate, mana regen, strength, intelligence, etc. They are fairly easy to find on the auction house so I never found the need to learn jewel crafting. And if I did a friend of mine (in the guild) knows it.

Epic world monsters
There are several levels of BIG monsters in the game. There are quite a few walking around that require 3-5 people to take down. That’s 3-5 level 70’s to take down. Not all that easy either. These are typically attached to chain quests, some of which lead to important keys and stuff.
There are also bigger monsters that require armies of men to take down. It requires a lot of players, a lot of dying. If you cannot get a coordinated group, you probably shouldn’t bother. Not fun.

In game support
I have had two issues where I’ve had an in game issue. Both times I had to wait about 20 minutes for my ticket to be addressed. And both times the person was courteous and solved my problem.
This is a very complex world/program and a lot can go wrong. So it is absolutely necessary to have someone at our beck and call.

Gold making secrets and suggestions in World of Warcraft
These are my tips on how to make gold in World of Warcraft : The Burning Crusade.

I'd recommend getting the skill called skinning. Then go to nagrand and kill/skin the buffalo looking creatures called clefthoof’s. You can sell a stack of their skins for 40-60 gold on my server. While collecting that you can get some items and trash to sell for 3-10 gold in the same amount of time. Don’t forget to attack the elementals when you see them.
Note: I got rid of skinning a little bit after I got to level 70 (after I accumulate another 1500 gold) and became a tailor so I could get some elite cloth gear for my priest. So you will not have skinning forever.

Also while your in Nagrand you need to make sure your faction has control of Halaa, if you're an enchanter that is. There are a couple of limited supply weapons you can buy cheap and disenchant for some nice things to sell in the AH. It is possible (depending on your server) to disenchant one of these and sell the result to the auction house for 10-30 gold each (depending on what they randomly disenchant into.)
Enchanting is also a great skill to have for shard farming in some instanced like uldaman and scarlet monestary. I recommend being a hunter or rogue because they can sneak through to the bosses, kill the bosses, then disenchant the items. You sell the shards on the AH.

While not a secret, you should do the dailies too when you reach level 70. They are a good way to make gold.

The other thing to do is get auctioneer, an add-on. Once you get that installed you can monitor the auction house more efficiently. The idea is to buy low and sell high. You can ether buy select recipes from vendors all over the place and then sell them for a profit at the auction house, or you can scan for bargains in the auction house to buy and sell at a profit. For example, buy the Bat cooking recipe outside of Undercity and sell it for 2-3 gold on your server. I make a killing doing that. You can do the same with with a number of other cooking recipes. Each server is different so I recommend you get every recipe you can find, download auctioneer, and put every recipe on the auction house and sell for 100 - 200% profit. Write down every recipe on paper and see which sells and which does not. And then you will know which to buy and which not to. Other recipes that work well are Curiously Tasty Omelet, Undermine Clam Chowder, Nightfin Soup, Juicy Bear Burger, Lobster Stew. Also recipes that are limited sell well.

Why am I giving ayay these gold secrets? I don't play any more so I don't care if anyone else knows. And if I get more hits on my review then I'm happy, so feel free to link to this review or share with your clan mates. Also e-mail me if you want something more specific or if you have questions. The e-mail is on my main page in a gif image.


And if you are a fisherman then I recommend you check out the pools in the southeast corner of Terrokar Forest. You have to have a flying mount to get there but you can fish for some aquatic stuff and sell for a descent price at the auction house.

ESRB rating= Teen

System requirements
Minimum PC System Requirements
PC Processor TypeIntel® Pentium® III processor, AMD Athlon™ processor
PC Processor Speed800MHz
PC Operating SystemWindows 2000, Windows XP
PC System Memory512MB RAM
PC Video32MB 3D hardware transform and lighting-capable video card
PC Sound CardDirectX-compatible sound card
PC ModemCable Modem, DSL

Minimum Macintosh System Requirements
Mac Processor TypeG4, G5
Mac Processor Speed933MHz
Mac Operating SystemMacintosh System 10.3.9
Mac System Memory512MB RAM
Mac Video32MB NVIDIA or ATI video card
Mac Multiplayer NetworkYes
Mac ModemCable Modem, DSL

Although these are minimums, you will be disappointed with the results. Please get something much faster and the best video card you can afford.

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