No Wrath without Burning Crusade
by Mike Schramm 
Sep 17th 2008 at 5:10PM
We kind of already figured this (and who is really jumping into Northrend without first having finished up with Outland anyway?), but Datth has confirmed it on the forums: in order to install Wrath of the Lich King, you'll have to have Burning Crusade installed as well. Not a huge surprise, but just in case you were recruiting someone to come up to level 80 with you, make sure to tell them to buy all three versions of the game when Wrath comes out, because they'll need them.The bigger question is: when will get a battlechest? It took about seven months for Blizzard to put Burning Crusade and World of Warcraft in the same box, but can we expect them to do it faster with Wrath of the Lich King? Probably not -- while the price may drop a bit on the current Battlechest (if you wanted to jump into the game the day of Wrath's release, it would cost you $70 total, and our guess is that that's about $10 more than Blizzard will end up charging), odds are that anyone getting in now would have to buy that and Wrath to play.
Of course, odds are that you've made up your mind about buying the expansion anyway. Anyone out there still playing with vanilla WoW? As much as Blizzard has been about skipping past all that 1-60 content as fast as possible, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they even tweaked the subscription pricing on that end to try and pull more people into buying the expansions. They already will let you try the game and first expansion for free, and you'd have to think eventually they'll try to convince the last few demographics holding out to join up as well.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Arras Sep 17th 2008 5:28PM
well duh...I'm stunned by the lack of simple critical thinking demonstrated by people...especially on the general forums.
You need Burning Crusade to level past 60...you have to be at least 68 to get into Northrend. How were people expecting to get to 68/Northrend without burning crusade? Were people just expecting to magically pole vault from version 1.0 to 3.0 without touching 2.0?
Stop. Think.
Ichthus Sep 17th 2008 5:39PM
Eek! Don't use the 'T' word on those people. Thinking is hard.
pudds Sep 17th 2008 5:56PM
Technically speaking, there's nothing stopping someone from getting a summon to Northrend at 60 and being power leveled to 68 on outdoor mobs. Of course, that would require some help.
In fact, there's nothing stopping a level 1 from heading straight to Northrend, other than the fact that you'd aggro half of the continent.
NoTomorrow Sep 17th 2008 6:10PM
Actually, installing wraith without bc instantly levels you from 60 to 70. So now,with recruit a friend taking you to 60, and this level skip taking you to 70, you only need to gain 10 levels! Yay!
/silly
FireStar Sep 18th 2008 9:10AM
Let's think a bit harder here.....
I have 2 accounts. If i wanted to i could get a third one. If BC wasn't a prereq i could just transfer my lvl80 chars to that third account (that has wotlk but not bc) and save some money by not having to buy BC (hey look...i dont need to get my 60-68 on this char...wow.). If i needed something from BC, i could always use my original 2 accounts, just couldn't use a char from this new third account.
Dan Sep 17th 2008 5:46PM
I thin kits pretty safe to say that itll be about 6 months plus to get out a battlechest, I mean yes Blizzard makes Great games but they are a COMPANY first...
Truth be told if you are complaining about paying the 70 bucks to get into the game you're probably going to complain about the monthly charge no matter the price.
Let Blizzard do whatever they need to to ensure great games.
Ivan Carlos Oct 9th 2008 12:02PM
I vote for +- 10 months to haves an "Special Edition", with all 3 editions.
offday Sep 17th 2008 5:49PM
I'm a proud owner of the battlechest. I just got into WoW a little over a month ago. My main player is only level 33 at the moment, and with college in progress who knows how long it'll take me to get to Outland, and then level 70. I'm still debating on whether or not to get Wrath when it comes out, or hold out until I can actually use it.
Anyone else in the same boat?
vlad Sep 17th 2008 5:52PM
schramm, say this a few time in a row..
"i am we tall did"
this was announced in the blizzcon Q&A when wrath was first announced.
you guys should read the articles while your copy and pasting them from mmo-champion. just give the site to danny whitcomb and you and liz retire please :)
Jakeman Sep 18th 2008 3:50PM
Hey vlad,
Are you one of Schramm's ex-girlfriends? You seem to just follow him around and bash him.
Maybe you should repeat after me "It's a blog about a video game. Nothing here is important."
Arras Sep 17th 2008 5:59PM
if the person being summoned doesn't have BC or Wrath installed, then there's quite a bit to stop them - you can't zone into the content if you don't have the software and your account hasn't been upgraded with both expansions.
Patrick Sep 17th 2008 5:59PM
"when will get a battlechest?" 2nd Paragraph. I think you mean "When will we get a battlechest?"
Thought i would point this out.
Ikarus Sep 17th 2008 6:43PM
Any word on when/if WoTLK will be available for direct download from Blizz like they did with TBC?
Alemell Sep 17th 2008 6:49PM
I dunno that's a good question. That would save me from knocking over small children in the way of my death knight.
Zep Sep 17th 2008 6:49PM
You don't need to be 78 to go to Northrend. You can head there at 1 if you want.
Zep Sep 17th 2008 6:49PM
68* excuse me. Of course you would need to be 78 to get to the 70+ content.
AlexW573 Sep 17th 2008 7:09PM
To address the issue of people still playing original WoW:
I played WoW on release, and after Guild Wars came out I took a long break. A year or so ago I came back, without BC. Before I decided if I wanted to subscribe in full, I set up a 10-day BC trial. This let me try WoW again for 10 days, try out Dreanei/Blood Elves, and Jewelcrafting. After the 10 days were up, I decided I wanted to start my account back up :)
I imagine other ex-players are in the same position, even people who haven't played since before BC could have a 60. Meaning, they could start a DK and try out Inscriptions
Amaxe Sep 17th 2008 7:52PM
I'm guessing as obvious as it is to us that you need BC to play WOLK, Blizzard has to state this to protect themselves from someone who claims they were cheated and sues.
Tsukasa117 Sep 17th 2008 9:19PM
Just to let you all know Gamestop has stopped preordering the Special edition in stores less then 48 hours after the reserve skew went active so it you all want all the fun extras and havent reserved I would recommend you do so as soon as you can because unlike BC this is for all intents and purposes gonna be a limited quantity item much like the Frostmourne Replica was.
Barnister Sep 18th 2008 6:39AM
No offense, but are people really that stupid to assume they can skip TBC directly to Wrath?
I mean come on, use you brain, if you got any.
You got a classic game, then you got an expansion. Expanding 10 levels, then you get another expansion. Expanding another 10 levels. They all build up on each other.
You can't skip a step...