World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade Classic beta has begun. A visit to the past is always welcome. If you’ve never played the Burning Crusade then you might not know what to expect. The Burning Crusade was World of Warcraft’s first expansion. Classic versions of WoW feel different.
Classic WoW is a good representation of what vanilla WoW was like. The Burning Crusade Classic follows the same model as Classic WoW. Patience is key to playing old-school versions of World of Warcraft. Everything will feel different to you if you’ve never played Vanilla, the Burning Crusade, or the Wrath of the Lich King.
Check out my stream of the Burning Crusade Classic beta below. The video is only of gameplay with no microphone or camera. You can try to catch my next stream in the evenings around 8 pm PST. I don’t have a set schedule, because I don’t stream often. If you’d like to try and catch my next stream, then please feel free to check out spyells’ twitch channel and one of my streams below!
Sign up for the Burning Crusade Classic beta!
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World Of Warcraft The Burning Crusade Classic Beta
What To Expect: Mindset
Mindset is crucial when playing the Burning Crusade. Leveling is slow. There is no dungeon finder or looking for the raid. Cross realm and sharding don’t exist in the Burning Crusade.
When I play older versions of WoW I always go in with the mindset of relaxation. There’s no pressure to min-max or learn systems. The end game is fun, but it’s not the point of the game. Leveling and existing within the game world is the experience. Exploration is encouraged, especially because you’ll have to read quests to discover new places to travel.
Modern World of Warcraft is all about the end game. When you play Vanilla, BC or Wrath always remember the journey is most important. You’re going to need professions and help from guildies. Gold is harder to make, but everything is incredibly expensive. Playing the Classic versions of World of Warcraft is fun. Articles about Classic WoW should still be helpful to get you started with the Burning Crusade Classic.
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What Should You Do First?
- Choose a Realm/Server
- Declare a Faction
- Pick your Class
- Grab Professions
- Start Questing
- Join a Guild
- Have Fun!
1. Choose A Realm or Server
The first thing you’ll want to do is choose a realm. If you’ve never played World of Warcraft or any mass-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) before then you’re probably not familiar with realms. A realm is a server you play the game on.
All of World of Warcraft’s content and data is packed inside of a server blade and rests within a tower. So if you live in North America then you’ll want to join a North American server.
You want to pick a server in your region because of time zones. Playing WoW is no fun when everyone is asleep. Also, if you’re going to play with friends always ask them what server (and faction) they’re on before you create your character. A server has a name. Usually, a server in World of Warcraft is named after a lore character or place.
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2. Declare A Faction
World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade Classic has two factions. The factions are the Horde and Alliance. Swearing allegiance to your faction is determined by several factors.
First, join the same faction as your friends. This way you can play together. Being in the same server and faction means you can be in a guild with them. You may also be interested in the storyline for each faction.
Horde races include the Orcs, Trolls, Undead (Forsaken), Tauren, and Blood Elves. The Horde races have banded together for survival. Orcs and Undead are usually considered evil or misunderstood by Alliance races. Undead were once humans. Their kingdom, Lordaeron, fell when the Undead Scourge (led by their own Prince Arthas who later becomes the Lich King) spread the plague of undeath.
Tauren loves nature and worships the Earth Mother (also known as Elune). The Blood Elves were once in the Alliance, but they were abandoned by them when the scourge tore apart their kingdom. They were referred to as High Elves then. Choosing a Horde race could help you better understand them.
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Declare A Faction Continued
Alliance races are Humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Draenei. The Alliance races have banded together because of shared beliefs.
Most of the Alliance races have a strong faith within the light. Humans are like traditional medieval fantasy with castles and kings. The Dwarves live in a cold mountain and are great at finding treasure.
Night elves are from Kalimdor. They believe in protecting nature and worship the moon goddess Elune (she’s also the Earth Mother to the Tauren). Gnomes live with the dwarves because their capital was destroyed. They’re really cute, have squeaky voices, and are great at engineering.
Your final reason for declaring a faction is Player vs. player combat. Every race has a racial talent. Some races are known for having abilities that grant them an edge in PvP. Be sure to consider racials when choosing them. Different races may also give certain professions a boost. For example, Draenei is good at jewelcrafting, and gnomes are good at engineering. Blood Elves and Draenei were new races that were added to the game during the Burning Crusade.
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3. Pick Your Class
There are nine classes in the Burning Crusade Classic. The classes are Hunter, Warrior, Druid, Mage, Shaman, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, and Paladin. Shamans and Paladins were new classes added to the Burning Crusade.
Classes are divided into roles for group content. There are three roles called a tank, DPS (damage per second), and healer. You’ll want to choose a class based on its role.
Tanks protect their group members from harm. Their job is to pull aggro (threat) of hard enemies. Without a tank, you can’t run dungeons or raids. Damage per second (DPS) are classes whose primary focus is damage. The DPS job is to burn (kill) the boss as quickly as possible. A healer’s task is to keep the party alive. Healers are crucial. In damage heavy fights you’ll be glad that you have a healer.
Tanking classes include Warrior, Druid, and Paladin. All classes can participate as DPS in a dungeon or raid. The healing classes include Druid, Shaman, Paladin, and Priest. Healers use mana (magic) to heal. Learning how to manage your mana is important for damage heavy fights.
In player vs. player combat, you’ll want to consider if you want to heal. Some classes like Rogues or Hunters are great at scouting. Rogues are assassins and can stealth around their enemies. Always remember to visit your class trainer to learn new abilities.
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4. Grab Professions
Professions are needed in the Burning Crusade Classic. You’re going to need a profession to make gold. Also, professions allow you to create armor, potions, and weapons. You’ll want to pick up professions before you start questing. Professions trainers are in major cities and small towns.
Joining a guild will be important because it’ll be difficult to level all the professions on your own. Guild members usually help each other. They’ll craft items for their guildies and raid team members.
The professions are divided into two categories. They’re called primary and secondary. You can only have two primary professions, but you are allowed to learn all secondary professions. Primary professions are divided into crafting and gathering. Ideally, you want to choose one gathering and one crafting profession. Many players will pick all gathering professions to make gold on the auction house.
Some races give professions a boost. You may also want to consider if your class can use anything that you make. For example, a blacksmith can create guns, and an herbalist can create potions to regain mana or health. Secondary professions like cooking and first-aid can help you heal, and give you buffs that make your character stronger.
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Primary Professions: Gathering
Herbalism
Skinning
Mining
Primary Profession: Crafting
Tailoring
Leatherworking
Blacksmithing
Engineering
Enchanting
Jewelcrafting
Secondary Professions
First-Aid
Cooking
Fishing
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5. Start Questing
When you first log into the Burning Crusade Classic you’ll see a quest giver. A quest giver has a yellow exclamation mark floating above them. Quests aren’t marked on the map. They’re also not tracked.
Open your quest log by pressing “L” or clicking the trophy icon on the bottom of your screen. To track a quest, hover over the quest title, and hold down “shift+right click”. If the quest has any trackable objectives (ex. killing five boars) then it will appear on the right side of your screen.
To find a quest location be sure to pay attention to the wording. Quests will use wording like “east of the camp” or “south of the lake”. Always pay close attention to any identifiers in the quest text. These may include “east of the caravan on the Path of Glory” for example. Context clues will help you find your way.
In order to level you need to complete quests and turn them into the quest giver. This will award your playable character with experience points. Always remember to log out in an inn or major city. Doing so will give you a rested experience, and place your experience bar in the blue. This allows your character to level faster. Joining dungeon groups will also help because you’ll gain more experience in them. Be sure you have time to participate in a dungeon because there’s no dungeon finder and it may take time to find a replacement.
If you can’t find a quest location, or if a quest objective is too challenging then ask for help. Most Classic WoW players will lend a hand. You can also check websites like Wowhead or Reddit for advice.
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6. Join A Guild
Be sure to join a guild. A guild is like an online club. So you can think of them as a virtual hangout spot. Guilds carve out a small pocket within the WoW community. This gives you a safe space to ask questions. Most guilds will recruit in Trade chat or General chat. Friendly players will invite you to their guild if they enjoyed playing with you.
Always pay attention to a guild’s description, especially if the guild has a website. You need to know what you’re looking for. Guilds participate in end-game content like raiding. Most guilds don’t allow hate speech. If you’re not sure about a guild you can always speak with a guild officer or the guild master. Don’t stay in a guild that makes you uncomfortable. To leave a guild, open the chatbox and type”/gquit” then press “enter”.
Guilds provide necessary resources. Leveling professions take a lot of materials. So guildies help each other to craft. It’s a good idea to say thank you and to offer something in return for the help. Many friendly players won’t desire anything, but gold, crafting materials, and useful items are always nice.
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7. Have Fun!
Lastly, have fun! I hope this post gets you started. You can learn how to raid and PvP later. I’ve been on a raid team in the past, and I used to run a guild. I’m not experienced in PvP because I don’t usually participate in it. If you want to learn to master your class, make sure to connect with other players who know how to play that class well. Good luck!
Check out my stream of the Burning Crusade Classic below.
World Of Warcraft The Burning Crusade Classic Beta
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You can still sign up for the Burning Crusade Classic beta. Be sure to click the “Opt-in” button.
WoW Classic and the Burning Crusade Classic have many similarities. Check out the best addons for WoW Classic. Also, be sure to check out how-to make gold in WoW Classic.
The Burning Crusade Classic has older graphics. You may still want to look into getting a gaming laptop or a gaming PC.
Also, the World of Warcraft community is raising money for charity. Help raise money for a good cause and unlock awesome battle pets in retail WoW.
Thank you for hanging out at my hearth.
Happy Hunting,
Spyells