It has been almost a week since the expansion for World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade was released. In that short time I managed to level my main character to level 64 and started a new Blood Elf female warlock.
And I must say, Blizzard did a very good job so far. For the starting area for Blood Elf, it looks absolutely beautiful. It reminds me of Disneyland, where everything is colourful. They even borrow the ‘sweep-on-its-own-bloom’ from Disney and put it in the area. For one who is so used to the bare waste of Barrens and Undercity, the Blood Elf starting area was really a pleasant change of scenary.
Also in terms of quest design, they learnt their lesson and streamlined it. No more running 10 minutes just to do 1 quest and another 10 minutes back to return the quest. It is all streamlined, and before I knew it, I already hit level 7.
For the Outlands, they also took in a lot of players feedback when it comes to the quests. Besides the usual kill this and that, get this and that, there are unique ones, like the bombing quest, looked in the boar’s poo quest etc. The bombing quests was fun and very different, and everyone in my guild actually loves it. The best part is that is possible to do the bombing quests again and again.
The 5 men instances are so different from the old 5 men instances. It is now possible to grab 5 players, run an instance that provides reasonable challenge and get some pretty good gear all within like 1-2 hours. So far I have tried 4 different 5 men instances, and I must say they up the difficulty quite well.
All in all, my first impression of TBC is pretty good. They say Blizzard does not come up with innovative ideas, they just do the same things as others exceptionally well. And they are a company that actually listens to their customers. And it seems in this case, they really did.