World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
Tags: violence

Plot synopsis:
The expansion's name refers to the return of the "Burning Legion"; a vast army of demons being one of the main antagonist forces in the Warcraft-universe and whose last invasion was defeated in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. This legion and its allies are the main enemy which players will fight against in The Burning Crusade. In addition to some new areas on Azeroth, this expansion mainly features the ravaged world of Outland which the Burning Legion and other powerful beings control.
The Doom Lord Kazzak reopened the Dark Portal to Outland, flooding Azeroth with the ravenous demons of the Burning Legion. Expeditions from the Horde and Alliance, reinforced by their new blood elf and draenei allies, passed through the gateway to stop the invasion at its source. On Outland's desiccated Hellfire Peninsula, the Alliance discovered several of their heroes who had crossed through the portal many years before, while the Horde made contact with the Mag'har—'uncorrupted' orcs who had not participated in their race's original invasion of Azeroth. The expedition into Outland dragged Horde and Alliance armies further into conflict with the agents of the Legion and the lieutenants of Illidan Stormrage, who had claimed the shattered realm for his own.
=== The Black Temple ===
In his quest to reign over all of Outland, Illidan the Betrayer had established a mighty stronghold for his forces within the Black Temple, a former draenei citadel. Yet his influence began to wane after the defeat of his most trusted lieutenants, including the traitorous former leader of the blood elves, Kael'thas Sunstrider. The resulting window of opportunity permitted Akama, an elder sage of devolved draenei known as the Broken, to rebel against the self-styled "Lord of Outland." Along with Illidan's former jailor, the stoic night elf Maiev Shadowsong, Akama helped a group of heroes infiltrate Illidan's seat of power and put an end to the Betrayer's reign once and for all.
=== The Gods of Zul'Aman ===
Following years of battles alongside the old Horde, the troll warlord Zul'jin retired to the city of Zul'Aman, capital of the Amani trolls, where he called upon mysterious dark powers to rebuild his army. While the eyes of Azeroth focused on the fight against the Burning Legion and the expedition to Outland, treasure-seekers invaded Zul'Aman, rekindling Zul'jin's hatred of the outside world—particularly the high elves of Quel'Thalas. Upon hearing that these newly christened "blood elves" had become part of the Horde in his absence, the infuriated Zul'jin declared war on both Horde and Alliance. To gain the upper hand, Zul'jin attempts to awaken ancient animal gods to harness their power, but is slain by a group of heroes before his plans can come to fruition.
=== Fury of the Sunwell ===
Fresh from his defeat in Outland, Kael'thas Sunstrider returned to the blood elf city of Silvermoon. Rather than lead his people to glory as he had promised, the disgraced prince betrayed them. Kael'thas plotted to use the legendary Sunwell, source of the blood elves' magical power, to summon the demon lord Kil'jaeden into Azeroth. Aided by a joint task force of blood elves and draenei, the Shattered Sun Offensive, Horde and Alliance heroes, with the help of a dragon Kalecgos and the Sunwell's mortal form, Anveena; narrowly stopped both Kael'thas and Kil'jaeden, though Anveena sacrifices herself in the process. The draenei prophet Velen then uses the naaru M'uru's energy to reignite and purify the Sunwell.

Review: A worthwhile addition to the WoW universe. I resisted purchasing this expansion for awhile due to the inevitable bugs I thought would be present in it. Any new addon will have them. I'm glad I did hold off, though in retrospect, all I did was save money for a few months.Burning Crusade (BC) is a welcome addition to World of Warcraft that adds an entire new continent (Outland) to the WoW universe. The new continent is as interesting as the old ones and perhaps a little more imaginative. The mushroom forest swamp of Zangarmarsh and The Blade's Edge Mountains are particularly well done.That said, anyone familiar with WoW will feel immediately at home here, providing their characters are of sufficient level to survive the rigours of Outland. However, the quests are really more of the same that you should be used to by now from WoW. Gathering, killing, deliveries etc. There are a few more imaginative quests, such as placing markers, bombing runs and so on, but mostly more of the same.I think Blizzard made a point of stating that players would take as long to get to level 70 from level 60 as they did to get to level 60 in the first place. This is a complete nonsense. If anything, I found the quests in Outland to be substantially easier to accomplish than many of the old WoW quests. In part, I suspect this is due to the giant leap in equipment power that occurs in Outland. Be prepared to have dumped most of your old kit (barring higher Tier stuff) by the time you've finished the first zone (Hellfire Peninsula). Even the standard "green" drops and quest rewards you get here are often much better than many "blue" items from WoW.This doesn't mean that you can go back to Azeroth after a few levels and run rings around Onyxia solo, but things will be a lot easier to accomplish. Dig out all those old quests that you gave up on and try them again.With the new expansion has come the problem of finding enough people for certain old WoW group quests. Everyone disappears off to Outland as soon as they are able, leaving many struggling to get people together for Strat runs and the like. Join a good Guild and hope they do regular runs for members.All in all, though a reasonably good addition to the WoW universe. However, as of writing, there are so many 70's on the server (Doomhammer) that I wonder what Blizzard will do next to keep players interested.