World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade was for a long time the primary topic of discussion among Classic fans. When the expansion was initially released a new wave of players entered Azeroth, raising the player base to new heights and making World of Warcraft a truly household name.
Blizzcon 2021 confirmed that The Burning Crusade will be the next major content release for Classic, arriving later in the year for all players with a basic subscription. While some fans are excited to explore Outland, some are concerned that Blizzard won't do enough to preserve the original experience.
10 Keep: Vanilla Servers
World of Warcraft Classic was a welcome surprise on launch – for many players, the 2004 version of the game is the ultimate way to experience World of Warcraft. In the expansion, players will have the option to stay with their server for The Burning Crusade or transfer (for free) to dedicated Classic servers.
This is a great way to preserve the original game for those who don't particularly care for Outland while still expanding the game for those who have done everything on offer in Classic.
9 Change: Multiboxers
One of the most obvious problems with Classic is multiboxers. When questing, players might come across a group of characters all eerily jumping, attacking, and emoting at the exact same time. Multiboxers run multiple versions of the game and tie each character's movements and actions to the same keyboard.
Multiboxers are infamous for ruining the questing experience for other players and "cheating" the game's progression system – while not technically against the World of Warcraft TOS, Blizzard needs to systematically prevent this, especially when Outland quests are so dense compared to Azeroth.
8 Keep: Heroic Dungeons
While heroic dungeons are an iconic part of World of Warcraft, they were actually added in The Burning Crusade. Dungeons were all a set difficulty before, with some dungeons being harder just due to the layout or density of mobs.
All dungeons added in The Burning Crusade Classic will have a normal and heroic difficulty option. The fights will be much harder, but the upgraded loot will make it well worthwhile.
7 Change: Class Balance
Class balance in The Burning Crusade upon release was... bad, to say the least. Rogues and Warriors especially got the short end of the stick, as they just could not keep up in DPS with any other class – at least Warriors had the option to tank instead, while Rogues just suffered.
Blizzard released Classic with a number of fixes to each class based on the 1.12 balancing update, and should replicate that process in some form for The Burning Crusade so no-one falls behind solely based on class.
6 Keep: Phased Patch Releases
One of the highlights of World of Warcraft is that not all content is available to players initially. When Classic launched dungeons like Mauradon and Dire Maul and raids such as Blackwing Lair and Naxxramas were slated for release once a number of players had reached that point in the game.
This helps servers because it encourages players to keep coming back and makes ancient content feel fresh and exciting again. When The Burning Crusade Classic launches, The Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau should not be speedrun and should be locked behind timed patches.
5 Change: Bugs and Exploits
Being such an old game certainly has its downsides. The Burning Crusade was Blizzard's first expansion for World of Warcraft and it's evident that the team was still getting used to coding for such a massive, interconnected world.
Blizzard did a pretty decent job of fixing the 17-year-old game for Classic's launch without breaking the unique feel of the original game. While the #nochanges players will gripe, class imbalance was a major problem on the expansion's initial release and The Burning Crusade Classic needs to ship with similar fixes.
4 Keep: Raid Difficulty (With Some Caveats)
Raid difficulty in The Burning Crusade spiked compared to Vanilla World of Warcraft. Suddenly, bosses had a host of tools at their disposal, and some of the most difficult bosses of all time were from The Burning Crusade raids. Kael'Thas Sunstrider, for example, took four months to fall after the expansion came out.
While difficult raid bosses make the game far more interesting, some bosses were deemed near-impossible due to bugs. Blizzard should maintain raid and heroic dungeon difficulty but address the issues that led to such overwhelming odds.
3 Change: Broken Addon Support
While addons such as Questie, Spy, and others make the game much easier to play, many fans believe they ruin the experience. World of Warcraft was unique in that it fostered a sense of community by forcing players to talk to each other for guidance and knowledge.
There is no way to erase all the knowledge on the internet about The Burning Crusade, no way to ensure players don't just look up the solution to a problem on forums from 2006. But Blizzard should curb support of game-changing mods such as these to preserve the original, difficult experience as much as possible.
2 Keep: Difficult Flying Requirements
For players returning to Classic from Shadowlands, buying a mount is a much, much different experience. Gold is not just given out to players in Classic as it is in retail World of Warcraft. Flying mounts in The Burning Crusade are a reward for dedication to the game over a long period of time.
The price is steep, too – initial flying training costs 800 gold, normal mounts are 100 gold while epic, faster mounts are 200, and the training to ride those epic mounts costs a staggering 5000 gold. It might take a long time to save up, but proper use of the auction house will aid this endeavor.
1 Change: Horde Favoritism
In the initial release of The Burning Crusade, there was a serious faction imbalance, favoring the Horde. Not only did the Horde get specialty abilities and items, like the Seal of Blood, that were strictly better than their Alliance counterparts, they also had Blood Elves.
Blood Elves, unique to the horde for being the only non-"monster" race, were hugely popular upon The Burning Crusade's initial release. Some have suggested faction queues to maintain a 50/50 balance on every server, but ultimately it will be up to Blizzard to combat the popularity of these... beautiful... illustrious... elven members of the Horde.