World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Gameplay

Gameplay

Two new playable races were added to World of Warcraft in The Burning Crusade: The Draenei of the Alliance and the Blood Elves of the Horde. Previously, the shaman class was exclusive to the Horde faction (races available were orcs, troll and tauren), and the paladin class was exclusive to the Alliance faction (races available were humans and dwarves); with the new races, the expansion allowed players to be a Draenei Shaman (Alliance), and a Blood Elf Paladin (Horde). The level cap was raised by ten, making it 70 (up from 60, established in the 2004 release of World of Warcraft) in addition to that; a whole new planet, Outland, was released, with associated quests, dungeons, raids, zones, creatures, and cities.

In Player versus Player (PvP), a new battleground, Eye of the Storm was introduced with two brackets: one for characters between levels 61-69, and another for level 70 characters. Although this battleground was designed for level 70 characters, players are unable to summon flying mounts in this battleground. The Eye of the Storm battleground is only available to those with the expansion.

In addition, a new PvP Arena System was introduced as a way for players to fight in 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, or 5 vs 5 death-match style battles. While the arena system allows players without The Burning Crusade expansion to partake in skirmish matches, those without the expansion are unable to participate in rated matches, which yield rewards based on a point system. Ladder matches were only accessible by players who have reached level 70. Three arena stages were introduced in The Burning Crusade expansion, including The Ruins of Lordaeron in the Undercity, The Circle of Blood in Blades Edge Mountains, and the Ring of Trials in Nagrand. Arena matches have taken a more prominent role in World of Warcraft's PvP content, and have developed into an electronic sport. One example of Arena matches as an electronic sport was the World Series of Video Games in 2007, where player teams competed in 3 vs 3 matches to earn cash prizes. Blizzard also holds its own seasonal tournament, the World of Warcraft Arena Tournament, which pitches teams from servers all around the world against each other. This tournament concludes with a 5v5 world final event, the first of which took place at BlizzCon ’07 and so ended season 1.

Additional "outdoor" PvP objectives were implemented, which are different for each zone in which they are located. Most of these outdoor PvP objectives involve "capturing" key points to reward players of the same faction in the area, usually with a temporary buff that adds a damage boost to player attacks or increases the rate players gain experience or faction points while the players are in the zone. For example, Terokkar Forest's PvP contest involves players standing near towers in order to capture them while defending the towers in PvP combat with players of the opposite faction that try to capture the objective. Other examples include Halaa in Nagrand and the Hellfire Fortifications in Hellfire Peninsula, where players compete for control to unlock quest and vendor access or gain factional reputation for rewards.