World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

WoW's only shortcoming in my opinion was the lack of endgame material, a goal they worked on throughout the game's release but were always a little behind on. Burning Crusade fixes that problem - with wide, sprawling geography for level 70 players to roam around in (flying mounts are way fun), no shortage of quests, and a wealth of small-group dungeons that any fool can find a team for.

After Nagrand, I made a small pit stop in Gnomish outpost Toshley's Station (BC also has an admirable supply of Star Wars references), then moved on to the Netherstorm zone. Netherstorm has a Goblin town working on a space rocket, called Area 52; the Outland capitol of the Ethereal race, Stormspire; the ruins of Kirin'Var Village, where the ghosts of the first Azerothian mages to come to Outland still linger; and is in general just super cool. I got a new helmet from the Goblins that is a rocket, and reached level 70 on Sunday morning.

Now, my plate of tasks is fuller than before, if anything. I've got to work on a chain of quests to get my key to Karazhan, could use some more cash money for a faster flying mount, and really doing quests is still a load of fun.

One of my favorite quest lines from the original game was the Razelikh chain. It begins by talking to the ghost of a fallen champion, and then takes the player (and his groupmates) to several different zones, gathering materials and making preparations for slaying the demon lord. There are other quests that send you to location X to pick up object Y - this was different: upon arriving at Azshara, you need to find a demon hunter, and borrow some tools from him to help you find enchanted crystals and such for your demon-slaying weapons. Then back in the Blasted Lands, you have to use the weapons to remove the demon lord's lieutenants' protective barriers, and take them out to unlock the way to his throne. It's very long, and feels very epic.

I bring this up because there are a lot of quest lines in Burning Crusade that resemble this. There is an ultimate goal (usually, yes, killing a demon lord), and you must help in planning the attack or collecting the proper components, ala your favorite fantasy story. Each of these quest lines could stand alone as a solid plotline, and there are several (dozens?) of them now. I was helping a guildmate level yesterday, and a mask dropped off some warlock enemies; it began a quest line that had us infiltrating and then destroying a demon staging camp, performing some reconaissance by a portal through which a demon was summoning other, lesser demons, perform sabotage on the portal's equipment, and then fight the demon himself with the help of some gigantic tree guardians. The coolest part is that, even though we did it together, most of it could have been done by a solo player.

This wasn't the first like this either; I gained experience on a bunch of quest lines that ended in the approach of a demon lord in his lair. And I hotly anticipate finding even more like this in my ongoing quest for more money.

Progress: Level 70, 387 Engineering