World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Preview

I know that many feel that reading quests is almost like an afterthought, but this expansion pack should not be a race to get to level 70 - it should be an immersive gaming experience that draws you into the world with sporadic well-told quest lines.

Whenever I play the expansion, I keep going back to the Pamela's Doll quest chain in Darrowshire. The heartfelt story presented in it, is what gave World of Warcraft the edge in my mind. It gave it soul and a bit of that human touch.

While the art in the expansion is absolutely beautiful and the design of the last few dungeons that I've done has been exemplary, the questing part seems a bit too calculated and soulless.

The way that the original game was designed, I could see the love and attention that vent into the quests. Time constraints in the design of the expansion are more than evident in that sense. It's either that, or the design team has made a conscious effort to mainly please the most hardcore of the crowds that want to race through the Outlands to level to seventy.

The joy of exploration (the very thing that got me hooked on World of Warcraft) is still there, and the worlds are varied and stunning, but thus far, Burning Crusade fails in delivering gripping quests. I know this may sound like a non-issue to many (and I may have been one of those people not a long time ago), but now that I am playing the game (and especially from the perspective of someone who has just done loads of original quests), I must say that The Burning Crusade lacks some of that unique Blizzard spirit that has (in my mind) made them so great in the first place.

Going back to my wife analogy from the start of the text, I am still going to love WoW with all its quirks and drawbacks, but if I was Blizzard I'd sort of step back and look at what the roots of success were for this game. It surely wasn't the great class balancing or the well thought-out loot tables (anyone remember what Tier 1 armors looked like at the beginning, or how "well balanced" the Warrior class was?). It was something else. Something that has thus far been in short supply in the expansion pack.

Remember "Pamela's Doll," Blizzard? You better. It's what got you the casual crowds to join in on the madness.