For players that have been level 60 for some time, they've been waiting for the chance to experience something more... Something new... Some that involves going into outer space and fighting a legion of demons. Wait, maybe not exactly that, but it'll do. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade adds more content for once max-leveled characters by introducing the spacey wasteland known as Outland. As lore puts, Outland the shattered floating remnants of the red world Draenor, the homeworld of the orcs and refuge of the draenei, due to Shaman Ner'zhul being portal happy. Alright, so we understand why we're switching from medival mythology to a more sci-fi experience.

"Hellfire Peninsula is the first zone you enter as you pass through the dark portal."

With the level cap raised from 60 to 70, players of at least level 58 were able to venture through the dark portal of the Badlands and end up in Outland get to that wanted desirable level 70. What can be said about Outland was the well done twist of Warcraft traditional style with a sci-fi environment. Giving thousands of new quests, seven new zones, and plenty of more story, items, and blah blah blah... The good stuff. However, there was something missing to this new content, I believe it was the "new" feeling.

Sure the environment are lush with new graphics as well as new quest lines, but the quests themselves seemed more like a copy and paste of previous quest mechanics. Now, to give it the benefit of the doubt, they did introduce a few new mechanics such as air bombing and more interaction to the environment itself, but we saw quite a bit of those 'kill XX of this, collect XX of that' quests that made the our adventuring not feel too new in a questing variety; or the lack of.

"A level 70 player on a Netherdrake flying mount over the Outland zone, Nagrand."

However, to be more fair, there were plenty of new additions to the game such as item socketing that helped open up a more personal customized feel for your gear in addition to a new profession that made socketing more valuable and enjoyable. In additional to those were the introduction of flying mounts, which is one of my most favorite features. Allowing me to finally soar into the heavens and kiss that flight master good bye... Or well, that is once I get riding skill 225 for 1,000 gold and gather another 5,200 to get enough speed to not use flight masters or cut my wrists. Although justice can be said that it is much easier to gain gold with this expansion than before as well as Daily Quests added in the patches that provided a more fun way to get rich.

But what about the old game? And by that, I'm referring to Azeroth, the origina game's content. With the introduction of two new playable races came four new low level zones (two for each race). Now, playing through these zones, my vote would be that the Azuremyst Isles had the most variety in gameplay. However, since those two zones were done after the other two, that can be understandable. Offering a few new mechanics such as being able to ride an Elekk mount temporarily and a quest line that offered various little gameplay tricks.

"Entrance to the "Old Hillsbrad" Caverns of Time instance, one of three instances."

The addition of Karazhan and the Caverns of Time instances to Azeroth also helped breathe some life back into the old lands, but it was the content for levels 20 through 58 that felt unchanged. With flying being limited to Outland and old quest reward specifications, Azeroth lost its luster in comparison to Outland. No longer having incentive to raiding old end game content, a lot of fun and experiences of the old world is hard to come by when Outland offers much more. To many, this has cause a dislike of the expansion's existence.

So, is the expansion all bad? Not at all. It offered something more for veteran players as well as fixed much of the old gameplay problems, allowing virtually any talent specification to be valuable in some way. So, if you're looking into more content that has improved some as well as a method to advance in the World of Warcraft series (get to level 70), this is a must have. For others that have found anything over level 30 a but dull or don't have a group of people to play with on a regular basis, you might want to reconsider the game.