https://www.cybersport.ru/games/articles/epicheskii-start-wow-burning-crusade-classic-v-sng-kak-ya-chetyre-chasa-bil-orkov-i-nostalgiroval-po-2007- godu

“You are not ready” – with this statement of Illidan on the eve of the opening of the Dark Portal, the entire community of the game would argue. Although on the afternoon of June 1, when I was finishing level 60 of my ShP, in the chat on the Russian-language server “Rock-Delar” an everyday atmosphere reigned and no one even particularly remembered the release of Burning Crusade. However, a few hours later the situation changed dramatically. In the late afternoon, players began to flock to the Dark Portal and prepare for an epic battle … not with the Burning Legion, but with the opposing faction.

The Burning Crusade was released quite differently from the original Classic. Then all players started in safe locations and before the first serious PvP battles in the same Stranglethorn Valley (zone for levels 30+) it was still a long time, so the only threat to gamers were wild boars and wolves (and queues). Burning Crusade started from the contested area of ​​Blasted Lands. On the other side of the Dark Portal, the Horde and the Alliance had to go hand in hand on almost the same quests, so the bloody massacre began not only from the first seconds after the release of the addon, but long before that.

Battle for the Dark Portal

I arrived in Blasted Lands around 10:30 pm Moscow time (2.5 hours before the update was released). By that time, the battle had been fought for almost an hour and a half. The Alliance, which is much smaller on the server (40 to 60%), occupied the Dark Portal, the crossroads and practically squeezed the Horde near the Dread Hammer Fort.

The alliance assembled four raids that were coordinated on Discord. All of the Horde’s counterattacks were so incomprehensible and scattered that they instilled overconfidence in our ranks. Oh, what a mistake it was.

At 12 am, alarming reports began to arrive that literally an army of orcs had gathered on the approach to the Blasted Lands. The vanguards of the Alliance, who were the first to face the Horde raids, either quickly fell, or immediately retreated closer to the portal, which was still under our control. The scouts reported that the greenskins had assembled five to seven raids. The Alliance had nowhere to draw additional resources from, so we decided to use tactics. The main part was supposed to advance into a frontal attack near the road, and one of the raids was to jump out from behind the hill a little later and attack from the rear, turning off the healers and wreaking havoc.

The plan worked, and it seemed that the ranks of the orcs began to thin, but reinforcements were already rushing to them from the base, which began to clamp the Alliance in a ring. As a result, it was possible to get out of the environment, albeit with losses. The Alliance decided to retreat to the Dark Portal and fight on the mountain. But even the advantage in the form of height did not help my gallant dwarven brothers and elven sisters.

The horde, thanks to the numerical superiority, began to win, squeezing us to the very edge of the ravine. To some extent, it was even cinematic: my character was standing on the edge, allies were dying nearby, there was nowhere to retreat, and in the meantime hundreds of green-skinned muzzles were pushed towards me from all sides.

As a result, the forces of the Alliance were completely defeated, but there were still 30 minutes left before the start of the expansion, so we had a chance to recapture the Dark Portal. We repaired the artifacts, regrouped and prepared to attack. At that moment, messages about the first noticeable lags began to appear, and pacifists in the general chat began to whine that PvP fans would now break the server and no one would get to Outland.

Naturally, these complaints and lags did not repulse the general desire to give the Horde the last battle, and about 15 minutes before the start of BC we rushed to the attack from the flank. By that time, the Horde had already concentrated their forces on the steps of the Dark Portal. The fight promised to be brutal and spectacular, but … it, in fact, did not happen. When the Alliance came close to the opponent, the server was so filled with the epic moment that it almost suffocated. The response reached almost seven seconds, due to which the battle, in fact, simply stopped. As a result, the two armies faced each other, occasionally throwing AoE abilities. The game only got better a couple of minutes before the start of BC.

At 1:00 Moscow time, part of the orcs immediately jumped into the Dark Portal, and the Alliance launched a frontal attack on those greenskins who were more interested in PvP new content. These were the last moments of a fierce battle lasting several hours. As soon as the players ran into the portal through a hail of arrows, fireballs and logs, all the madness ended immediately.

Unlike the start of Classic, there were practically no queues in BC, including on “Plamegor” (the most popular Russian-language server), which could be accessed without waiting even immediately after the opening of the Dark Portal. The only thing is that they say that Seryoga is again stuck in the queue. By the way, happy birthday to him.

Welcome to Outland

On the other side of the Dark Portal, PvP mode was turned off, and users were quickly divided into different layers. How many of these layers were on “Rock-Delar”, it is rather difficult to say for sure, but the most popular option is seven. However, even with this in mind, it didn’t feel like the world was empty.

The adventure has begun. The Horde and the Alliance immediately headed to different directions to begin completing the starting quests in their strongholds. In Honor Hold, there was a real pandemonium: players united in groups to make it easier to grab the necessary mobs for the task. The speed of the revival of enemies Blizzard twisted to the maximum – the NPC had not yet had time to fall dead, and a new one had already appeared in its place. But even so, there were still not enough mobs for everyone. Each fel orc camp had over a dozen players. Although we must pay tribute: the participants behaved extremely decently and did not steal creeps from each other insolently. To me, as a ShP, who starts the rotation of spells with two DoTs, such gentlemanliness was a balm to the soul.

If two starting quests, the completion of which lasted almost 20-30 minutes, took place in a safe neighborhood of the fortress and far from the Horde, then the next task was sent to the hillock to the greenskins. There was exactly the same congestion of players (and even more) waiting for NPCs near the siege buildings. We had to set fire to these very structures, taking into account the fact that the torch throw is a long spell. In the end, it looked funny: while 15 orcs were fighting for creeps, a beautiful priestess could appear, brandishing a torch. The effect of surprise sometimes made it possible to finish what was started, but immediately after that, it was time for retribution. In total, it was necessary to set fire to four siege structures located at a distance from each other (jogging from one to the other also often ended in failure). So it turns out that in total I had to run from the cemetery six or seven times, saying that in a month I will definitely get dressed and my revenge will be terrible. After all, I learned to punish the Horde in Outland as a child.

We are finally home

Despite the atrocities of the Horde, the mood of all the assembled players was high. People congratulated each other on the release of Burning Crusade, made plans and indulged in nostalgia, because for a large number of Russian-speaking users, BC was the starting point in World of Warcraft. Those who whined too much about ganks were politely sent to follow in the direction of “Chromie” – the only Russian-language PvE server. In the end, for some, even the defense of the diploma could not prevent them from exploring Outland, where is there some greenskin.

However, by 2:30 at night, activity in the game had dropped: many entered at such a late hour in WoW solely to witness the opening of the Portal and the beginning of a new era. Mass pumping will resume tonight and this weekend, after all, the vast majority of the Burning Crusade fanbase can hardly now spend as much time on games as in 2007. Although there were enough messages in the chat like “Took a vacation to farm turnips” or “Goodbye, wife, Outland is waiting for me here.”

Despite the fact that many went to bed, even at three in the morning there were problems due to the abundance of players. For example, a real test for the stability of the nervous system was the task “The Abyss Slope”, in which, flying on a griffin, you need to throw bombs on the Legion’s minions swarming on the ground. It’s all about the mo’arg overseers, which had to be eliminated in the amount of five pieces. There were significantly fewer of them than the rest of the mobs required for the mission. As a result, a dozen griffin players flew over the field, and only five or six of these Mo’arg overseers swarmed under them. It took me about six flights to complete the mission, designed for one run.

By four o’clock in the morning, Outland became completely quiet: hardcore players who were seriously tuned in to pumping did not crawl out of the dungeons, and ordinary hard workers went to bed. This silence was broken only by our old comrade Fel Reaver, whose rumble echoed throughout the location. While the heroes are not afraid of him, and he himself will kill anyone with a couple of hits without any problems. Hearing his grinding and feeling the vibration from his steps, I realized: we returned home.

In the morning before work, I looked into Outland again. And then there was already a stormy activity: announcements about the search for a group in the dungeons swept in the chat one after another, and dozens of characters ran around after the mobs. In my case, I had to run only from the cemetery, because it was at that moment that the damned talismans, together with me, decided to collect three undead robber. And apparently, they were interested in the “green” SHP much more than the quest.

The Burning Crusade release did not generate the same resonance as the vanilla release in 2019. At that time, let me remind you that the opening of servers in the peak was followed by more than a million people on Twitch. Now, only 434 thousand – half the number at the start of Shadowlands in November 2023. This time there were no longer many hours of queues to the server (and for creeps), as well as endless disconnections. Although with the latter, everything is not so simple: Blizzard announced that it was subjected to a DDoS attack during the release of the add-on. Western players have experienced this to a large extent. For example, the Asmongold broadcast even had a disconnect counter that showed more than a dozen departures. However, most of them fell within the first hour after the opening of the Dark Portal. Nobody complained about disconnects on Rock Delar, and lags during the final battle with the Horde ten minutes before the start of the add-on became the only technical problem I faced.

In any case, it was a very bright night full of fun. But today, workdays will begin in Outland: players will massively engage in character pumping, and most importantly, reputation farming with the Burning Crusade Classic factions. So trust us, Illidan, we will definitely be ready this time.