If there's a downside to the new races, it's that you outgrow the starting areas quite quickly. People with veteran characters will find themselves back in familiar stomping grounds by level 20, because there's very little in The Burning Crusade for mid-level characters.
Broadening PvP
The player vs. player combat system has seen significant changes since Battlegrounds were introduced back in 2005. WoW now has PvP servers, PvP Battlegrounds, PvP arenas, and persistent world PvP objectives. The Honor system, which was once ranked, has been changed to offer linear progression similar to standard experience except that you spend the points earned on items. Players seem much happier with this, as it allows them to work toward certain goals more gradually, without losing rank on weeks that they don't play. Under the old system, reaching the top ranks was extremely difficult because you were, in effect, competing with everyone in your faction for the most Honor Kills each week. Ranked competition has been moved into the new arenas, which feature 2 on 2, 3 on 3, and 5 on 5 matches.
World PvP objectives were added to a couple of the old zones well before The Burning Crusade, but every zone in the new expansion has PvP objectives. When they first came along, I expected them to be quite popular, but the rewards weren't that great, and MMORPG players are an incredibly rewards-driven bunch. In Outland zones, they've increased the rewards for world PvP considerably, granting players tokens that can be exchanged for some decent items. They've also put the objectives closer together in most of the new zones, which makes the battle a lot more lively. This has resulted in a big increase in participation. Currently there is almost always at least one raid group fighting for control of the towers in Hellfire Pennisula on my server.
It's interesting to note that, although I'm on a PvP server, a sort of unspoken truce has broken out between the two factions, simply because people want to get some questing done. Of course, ganking is still common, but most of the PvP is concentrated around the objectives. As skeptical as I was about persistent world objectives after they fell flat in Western Plaguelands and Silithus, they have so far gone over quite well in the Outland zones.
The Burning Crusade also includes a new Battleground called Eye of the Storm. It's built for 2 teams of 15 and features a combination of base capturing and flag capturing. Although I haven't spent any time with it yet, I wish they had made one for teams of 20 or 30 players, since we already have 15 vs. 15 in an earlier Battleground, Arathi Basin.
PvP in World of Warcraft has evolved a great deal since the game was released, and in most cases Blizzard has made the right decisions. Right now there is pretty good balance of persistent world zergs, instanced competition for teams of limited sizes, and last-man-standing arena matches for small groups of players. Even town raids have made a bit of a resurgence since the elimination of Dishonorable Kills.
Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafting is another profession that has been added to the game, allowing characters with sufficient skill to craft gems that can be placed in special weapon and armor sockets, giving the item various stat bonuses. While this is not entirely unlike the enchanting profession, it's always nice to see more options of this kind, even though crafting has never been one of WoW's strongest features. In keeping with the new level cap, other professions have all been given new recipes and had their limits raised.
Bottom Line
In terms of gameplay, The Burning Crusade understandably stays close to its roots. It would be daft to make major deviations from a concept that has proven so successful. If you're one of the few that hated the game before, I doubt that anything in the expansion would change your mind. On the other hand, if you had a good time getting from 1 to 60, it's hard to imagine that you wouldn't enjoy the trip from 60 to 70. I also fully expect the game at level 70 to be similar to the game at level 60 - that is, raids, gold, PvP, and earning faction, not necessarily in that order. There is a tremendous amount of new content in The Burning Crusade for casual and hardcore players alike, and it's bringing scores of old players back into Azeroth. No MMORPG on the market right now can touch WoW in terms of accessibility, attention to detail, and the ability to appeal to gamers with different tastes. The Burning Crusade is a truly stellar addition to the package and, simply put, no World of Warcraft fan should be without it.
