World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Previews

A handful of new hands-on previews of Blizzard’s upcoming World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion pack have surfaced on the ‘net. The first is at GameSpot:

In addition, Burning Crusade’s raid dungeons will offer multiple difficulty settings based on your character’s level, and may actually offer some replay value after you’ve finished them. For instance, the rampart section of the Hellfire Citadel dungeon, which lies beyond the Dark Portal (the same swirling gate flanked by two menacing statues that appears at the original game’s login screen) will be well-suited for players of level 60-62. However, once you’ve finished the dungeon in your early 60s and climbed all the way to level 70, you’ll be able to return to the area, set it to level 70 difficulty, and have a new experience in the same dungeon against tougher monsters who carry more-powerful loot. Currently, Blizzard plans to use the scaled-down raid party size and the multiple difficulty settings only for Burning Crusade’s dungeons, though the team is considering the possibility of adding these features to some of the dungeon areas in the original game at some point in the future.

The second is at UGO:

Another awesome dungeon is called Karazhan. Located in Deadwind Pass, Karazhan was home to Medivh, who was responsible for opening the Dark Portal. You can actually explore the exterior of the massive tower in the game right now, but the interior of the dungeon won’t be accessible until The Burning Legion gets released. Our brief guided tour through the dungeon was nothing short of stunning, though. When it releases, it’ll be the largest dungeon in the game, dwarfing such behemoths as Blackrock Depths. Complete with a number of different levels, you’ll start off in the haunted ground floor, complete with ghost-laden stables and kitchens, but as you move up it gets a lot more interesting. An opera house, which features three random boss fights/shows, and a library with a massive spiral staircase only hint at the overall size of the place. Nothing short of incredible.

The third is at Games Radar:

A part of the new outdoor PvP objectives through which you can earn this honor/currency will be the town of Hallah nestled within the land of Nagrand. Home of several quest-givers that will accept the various bits and bobs of enemies you pick up during your travels through Outland (like Bone Fragments or Crypt Stalker Parts… but not actually either of those specific items), Hallah is guarded by the burly warriors of either the Horde or the Alliance – the trick is in which faction can hold the town. The two sides will battle it out for control of Hallah, and the one that can hold it will reap the benefits of the quest-givers within. But laying siege to the town will not be as straightforward as simply killing all the guards, instead assaults will be lead by placing flight paths on the outskirts of Hallah and leading bomb-dropping sorties over the unsuspecting city dwellers. While the paths of the flyers are pre-determined, you’ll get a reticule similar to existing area effect spells, which makes attacking Hallah sort of like a shooter on rails.

The fourth is at IGN PC:

Competitive PvP will include an arena system. Arena will be a competitive ladder where teams of players will be able to fight amongst themselves in a sporting environment. At this point, Blizzard is planning to include 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 matches. Characters will be able to compete on one team from each division. Each team will also allow for double the number of players on the roster of each team to serve as substitutes if someone is gone for a while or doesn’t feel like participating because he or she is a big chicken. One of the particularly cool things about this system is that players will actually be able to fight against other teams in their own faction. Alliance and Horde players can finally find out who the best players are on each side of the conflict. Individual teams will still have to consist of players in the same faction but competitions should be more interesting with some inter-faction rivalries.

And the fifth is at GameSpy:

The next leg in our guided tour took us to Tempest Keep. From the looks of it, this will be one of the premier raid instances come Burning Crusade’s launch. Two of its wings will be centered on five-man groups of level 70 characters, and its last will be a full-on 25-head raid, at the end of which is none other than Prince Kael’Thas Sunstrider. Being a former center of Naaru power, the look of the wing that we saw, the Atrium, was clean and idyllic. It bears mention that Tempest Keep will only be accessible by players with flying mounts. Seeing as how the Draenei subverted a chunk of this fortress to travel through space (ahem, I mean intra-dimensionally), it makes sense that it would be suspended in the Nether.