No release date has been announced. There will be a level cap boost to 70. There is a Horde race. The Alliance race has yet to be seen. There will be new instance dungeons. There will be new raid dungeons. There will be a new zone with flying mounts and quests. All this sounds nice and good, well actually not all of it. In this editorial I want to try and bring up some questions about what The Burning Crusade will mean for five million players.

That is right, five million! Congratulations Blizzard on the largest selling MMORPG to date! In doing more research on this game I am most surprised at the sheer amount of people who play. From executives and celebrities to my friend’s twelve year old son (who still beats me in duels), it seems like everyone plays this game. Is everyone happy with the content and game-play of Warcraft? Some yes, some no, we have all had a lot of things to say about the design of the game and its flaws. The biggest question players have is what will The Burning Crusade bring?

Blizzard has given us a wonderful preview video. A look at the Blood Elf race and answered some questions about content like Medivh’s Tower and Karazhan. I for one am looking forward to the Caverns of Time and the Outlands. A large concern is how the boost in level will affect players who have reached their end-game at level 60. For example, will dungeons like Molten Core and Blackwing Lair become obsolete? Will all the time players spend farming those dungeons for epic items go to waste? With Blizzard using level based loot as rewards for questing, PvP, and factions, will these items even compare to the level seventy gear that we all expect to see? This is a very difficult question to ask and unfortunately Blizzard has not given any straight answers to their players. One post on their forums had said that they will certainly come up with something to balance the loot by the time the expansion is released. Many players remain concerned on how the level seventy content will impact all the time spent playing at level sixty.