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Just got Burning Crusade, installing it now.

First things first, 4 CD's? Cripes, just stick it on a DVD, please!

still installing...

Ok, starting up, and I get hit with that cinematic intro that I've already seen a half-dozen times. I have to admit though, it's much better in fullscreen.

Also, not even 24 hrs past release, and I have to install a patch?

Yikes, better make that two patches... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Blizzard?

Stupid blizzard downloader...a 2.82 MB file should take all of 10 seconds to download, but it's taken 10 minutes for me to get 37% of that.

I'm on the second patch right now.

The first one was actually released last week.

Also, the launch at my local store was cool. I got a Horde T shirt.

From Slashdot:

Your servers are not prepared!!

Serious aside: once you get your copy, there is no need to run the installer from the discs. All you need is the key to upgrade your account using the provided key—you already have all the content as of the 2.0 patch series. If you run the installer, it rolls your local copy back to 2.0.3, and once you start the game, you would go through two patch cycles back to 2.0.5. Save yourself some time and just upgrade your account directly at https://upgrade.worldofwarcraft.com/expansion/ [worldofwarcraft.com].

So there you go.

Already had patches, installed the dumb thing within half hour, and played both new races, and did a few quests in Outhouse of the universe.

New Races: Way too many bastichs, but eh...lowers Outland's crushing needs.

New Equipment from quests: Not replacing Tier 2.5-3 anytime soon, but nice to see what I can eventually get from Smithing.

New Quests: Glad the spawn rate is like the beta where shit can spawn on top of the one you've killed. This'll kill many unawares and cause mass frustration. Good times.

Look? Actually very nice...it's not a complete rehash which I was wondering even from Beta, and I'm glad that while people are swarming to new stuff, they still are as dumb as one can get.

Oh and the Nether Welping looks like a retarded dragonling. Pretty cute, but the glowy eyes with vacant expression...well the damn thing looks funny. Jess said I should name it Max if I could.

Hellfire Citadel: Ramparts. Overall, too easy for a mixed-gear group such as mine. Two deaths, personally, one from falling clean off the Citadel while trying to zone in, one from a freak triple-pull in the instance. Off-tank a definite plus. Two boss fights actually made me put Prayer of Healing on my bar, which was a pleasant chance of pace. Blue BoP drops between MC and BWL quality, on average. Staff that is in every way an upgrade to Staff of Dominance. Overall nifty boss fights, if nothing too terribly challenging to a decent 60 group.

More on the Ramparts, and perhaps the Blood Furnace, tonight after work.

White Haven wrote:Hellfire Citadel: Ramparts. Overall, too easy for a mixed-gear group such as mine. Two deaths, personally, one from falling clean off the Citadel while trying to zone in, one from a freak triple-pull in the instance. Off-tank a definite plus. Two boss fights actually made me put Prayer of Healing on my bar, which was a pleasant chance of pace. Blue BoP drops between MC and BWL quality, on average. Staff that is in every way an upgrade to Staff of Dominance. Overall nifty boss fights, if nothing too terribly challenging to a decent 60 group.

More on the Ramparts, and perhaps the Blood Furnace, tonight after work.

Ah good, I can upgrade my Mage then without see MC or BWL(Nef at this point should be asking for me to chop his head off...it'll make all our lives easier).

So which route are you ultimately taking?

Arena and the glories of Gladiator equipment or Raiding and seeing Illy poo face when he runs like a headless chicken from you?

I've just realised that since I'm only at level 28, there was no crushing need for me to get this expansion.

There isn't, but blood elf mages & warlocks are wicked sick.

Goddamnit though, Silvermoon City is both winding and deserted.

I'll see you in Kharazan and onwards, Ghost

so am I supposed to feel better or worse knowing that my copy is held up and in the USPS redtape problem?

Ghost Rider wrote:

White Haven wrote:Hellfire Citadel: Ramparts. Overall, too easy for a mixed-gear group such as mine. Two deaths, personally, one from falling clean off the Citadel while trying to zone in, one from a freak triple-pull in the instance. Off-tank a definite plus. Two boss fights actually made me put Prayer of Healing on my bar, which was a pleasant chance of pace. Blue BoP drops between MC and BWL quality, on average. Staff that is in every way an upgrade to Staff of Dominance. Overall nifty boss fights, if nothing too terribly challenging to a decent 60 group.

More on the Ramparts, and perhaps the Blood Furnace, tonight after work.

Ah good, I can upgrade my Mage then without see MC or BWL(Nef at this point should be asking for me to chop his head off...it'll make all our lives easier).

So which route are you ultimately taking?

Arena and the glories of Gladiator equipment or Raiding and seeing Illy poo face when he runs like a headless chicken from you?

From what I've seen so far, Blizz is basically of the opinion that as long as you have a 60 character you should enjoy the expansion. My first quest reward was an upgrade for my chest armor from the pvp blue to the new item. Similarly easily better-then-any-nonexpansion-blues items are available at every step almost. Also, the instances are quick. One hour tops each. So a much more casual friendly experience which suits me just fine.

All in all, loved the launch. I finally got together with my ingame guildies in real life at around 22h, drank a bit and then headed for the store with the midnight sale, managed to sneak into the queue at almost the beginning of it, in the end was actually the first at the non-reserved desk in the store (got my mug onto a local TV station that was covering the event even), installed without issues at around 1am (loved that in the end we didn't have to use the web page system), arrived at the servers that held up perfectly. No glitches, no lag, everything just top notch. Went to sleep around half past 2, today played for some 5 hours, again no issues except a slight lag spike for like 10 min in hellfire peninsula. Frankly, a refreshing experience compared to usual problems with Blizz servers.

Also, whoever wrote that at slashdot is wrong. Yes, the client is the same one, however without installing the content of the expansion is simply not there so you can't see any of it. Related to that is the only thing that annoyed me - the installer correctly detected the 2.0.0 to 2.0.3 patch and used it, however it downloaded the 2.0.3 to 2.0.5 patch instead of using the available 203 to 204 and 204 to 205. Yes, it was just a couple of meg download, but as someone already said it took ages with the downloader and that isn't exactly a perfect experience when you are eager to play.

White Haven wrote:I'll see you in Kharazan and onwards, Ghost

LOL...kick ass. For me, the Mount Hyjal looks to be an awesome set up(Honestly so it requires some set up...the reward is to be a small part of the largest battle in WCIII).

Also, I'm looking forward to Illidan and hopefully the other nooks that will be up. That and I can actually get the Gladiator gear without losing twenty weeks of my life....and do it with friends.

Lining up for a copy was a novel event.

It was like Barrens Chat Live.

in a way...I'm excessively glad I was working...

as cool as it would have been to head to Gamestop and pick up my reserve copy at 2300 hours last night.....I also got to avoid the nitwits and the Barrens Chat type thing.....

gods I hate the Barren's Chat..

ah well, my folks are mailing my copy to me...so I will still get to venture into it later in the week

All the people logging on to play the new content has caused queue times on my servers. I ended up looking at a "Cenarius is Full" window for about thirty minutes before I could play, and supposedly, some people had to wait even longer. All the "Kill X Enemies" quests are frustrating at best and almost impossible due at worst to the sheer number of people staking out kills, but it's still fun exploring the new content.

Question: Do you need one copy of Burning Crusade per account or just one per computer?

One per account. It pegs access between the account and the key; you can have as many instances installed as you like.

Also, I want reviews of the new content! I'm actually very tempted to re-activate my account (I had a 60 rogue in ages past - I started playing at launch) and if I can ever get my computer to 3D render properly again I might take her up again if the incentive's enough. Doubly so if I can hook up with people from here - I always hated pickups.

Blood Furnace: Hoooboy, and I thought Ramparts was cool. Periodic stealhed patrolling Rogue ambushes make this place feel almost like a battleground. Very atmospheric, with a real Soloesque 'I've got a bad feeling about this...' moment the first time you look down off a balcony and see the last boss. Broggok's(sp?) model is also new, and very snazzy, albeit a shade Metroid. Still the Metroid gave my priest a revolting new trinket, so I can't complain too much. (+59 healing, use to reduce the cost of your next spell by 215 mana. Dunno the cooldown yet, as I can't equip it.)

<-Icecrown, Horde, Noose, (still) 60 mage.

The Iceque yesterday was pretty crazy (almost 1k) but having one that long means time to do other things... like eat supper. Once I got in (And away from heavily populated areas) the servers were stable and no laggier than normal. I only had to camp a mob a couple times for quests, all in all a much better launch than MMO history led me to expect.

GuppyShark wrote:Lining up for a copy was a novel event.

It was like Barrens Chat Live.

...so that does happen on every server.

Spyder wrote:

GuppyShark wrote:Lining up for a copy was a novel event.

It was like Barrens Chat Live.

...so that does happen on every server.

Yea, and it was. I felt bad for they guy in front of me, he had 35 splinters of Atiesh when the expansion came out.