A starter guide to the expansion.

Welcome to The Burning Crusade (TBC), the first expansion to Blizzard’s extremely popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft. This guide details many helpful hints and tips to get the most out of your first few hours with the expansion and should answer the majority of your starting questions in regards to “what to do” now that you have the expansion.

The first thing to know is that if you are under level fifty eight then there is little The Burning Crusade will offer you (outside of new Races and professions). Outland is restricted to level fifty eight players and above, so if you are yet level fifty eight then continue leveling up! Enjoy the game and take your time, Outland will wait.

Welcome to Outland
(What to do once you have the Expansion)

Once you have installed, activated, and are inside of TBC then you’ll be ready to set off for Outland! Outland is accessed through The Dark Portal which is located in the Blasted Lands south of Nethergarde Keep. You can fly there using either the Nethergarde Keep flightpath (Alliance) or the Stonard flightpath (Horde). The Dark Portal is directly south of Nethergarde and this map (in our Zone Database) gives a pretty good location of it.

To get to Outland you simply just need to walk through the Dark Portal, as long as you are above level fifty eight. Don’t jump through right away though, there is a quest located outside of the portal on the Azeroth side that begins your introduction into Outland. Be sure to pick up this quest before making the plunge through as it’s absolutely free XP and opens up your starting quest lines from the first cities in Hellfire Peninsula.

Once you step through the Dark Portal you will find yourself at the Stair of Destiny. The Stair of Destiny is one of the first “sanctuary” sub-zones in the game. No PvP combat can happen in a zone marked as sanctuary, so both the Horde and Alliance can mingle within the Dark Portals outland hub with no problem.

Once you pass through the portal, assuming you took the quest, you just simply need to turn it to the NPC at the base of the first set of stairs. They will then tell you to visit the flight master located either on the east side (Alliance) or west side (Horde). From there you turn the quest in, pick up the next one, and fly to the only location available.

Do not try to be a hero and fight the demons assaulting the portal! The majority of them can one or two hit even the strongest of level sixties. You have more important things to do, such as train up to one day take them on, so it’s best completely avoid that fight. Outside of the quest NPC and the flight master, there is nothing of interest as the Stair of Destiny. At least, right now anyway.

Your next location depends on what faction you are. The Alliance will be heading for Honor Hold, a Human stronghold that is crumbling apart. The Horde will be heading for the city of Thrallmar, a camp that is at the edge of the Hellfire Citadel.

Once you arrive in the city then its questing time. There are two reasons to quest, the first one being the massive amount of reputation you get with Honor Hold (which helps later on) and for the nice rewards you’ll get. Unless you are completely outfitted in Tier 2 and 3 then you’ll probably find a lot of the rewards as major upgrades. You’ll need them too, especially stuff heavy on stamina.

Stamina is VERY important and is one of the few ways you’ll survive the upcoming challenges. I ill-advise attempting any instances until you get yourself from quested gear. While the instances are very trivial for anyone decked out in purple gear, they are very difficult for anyone in Azeroth greens.

From there, the game sort of goes into auto-pilot until you are level 70. As you finish quests and instances in one city you will be lead on to the next one. You may find yourself running instances more often then quests, as they are very short and worth a ton of experience.

If your starting area is too camped, you can move on to Zangarmarsh (located west of Hellfire Peninsula). It has plenty of quests available for level sixties and may be less crowded at first then Hellfire.

The Burning Crusade Helpful Tips

• Do not buy First Aid books off of the auction house. They are available from your second city (for your faction) in Hellfire Peninsula.
• Load up on stamina. Stamina is very important for surviving in Outland. You may want to also get some Demonslaying enchants on your weapons. It’ll help while you are questing and doing instances in Hellfire Peninsula.
• Do not pay outrageous prices for gems to put something in one of the first pieces of gear you get with sockets. There are gem vendors who sell cheap gems that can be used as filler. A lot of gear you’ll be replacing often, so there is no need to put expensive or over-priced gems into it.
• There are no class trainers in Outland nor is there an Auction House. You’ll have to return to a main city in Azeroth to do that. That’s why you may want to set your hearth to Shattrath City (head out of the southern exit of Hellfire and follow the road west to Shattrath. You can’t miss it. You can also go south through Zangarmarsh and get there as well.
• If you have Herbalism then gather from the plants! Some herbs give buffs or heal!
• Don’t worry about gold, you shouldn’t need it until you are level seventy and need to buy a flying mount (which costs 1000g). The quests and quest items you will be getting will have you swimming in gold.
• If questing has you down then run instances over and over! Instances in TBC are similar to the ones in Azeroth, but they give much more XP and valuable reputation with various groups that give great bonuses for having lots of their reputation!
• A lot of quests in TBC require reputation to unlock. This means you’ll have to run some of the newbie quests in order to unlock more quests with that faction. For instance, Honor Hold and Thrallmar will require 1,000 reputation in order to get the next set of quests. To get the Hellfire Rampart line of quests you will need to do a few starter ones.
• Bring friends to make questing easier! Seriously, if it’s a kill quest then bring along friends. There is no need to solo if you can bring a few along to make things easier.
• To learn the portal skill (Mages) to get to Shattrath City you will have to travel to Shattrath City to learn it.

Location of the New Zones
(How do I get to Exodar/Silvermoon?)

There is a person in the Undercity who will teleport you to Silvermoon City. You can also enter through a portal in the Northeast part of the Eastern Plaguelands.

You can get to the Exodar from a boat outside of Auberdine. Both cities do have auction houses.

Outland is located in The Blasted Lands by going through the Dark Portal.

You can summon people into Outland or any other new zone as long as they have the expansion. You can also learn to teleport to Shattrath City and create portals for your group but they can only be entered by those with the new expansion.

More Resources

View our The Burning Crusade Portal for more detailed information and guides on the various things inside of TBC!

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