There are certain areas or quests inspired by some famous books/movies or TV shows like Dune, Star Trek, Men in Black, Starship Troopers, etc. and the NPCs are also scripted to act in most areas, making it seem so real. We have a whole city called “Area 52” in Netherstorm region for example, and a “Neuralizer” is used on you as you exit the city.

The flash of light you did not see did not erase your memories.

There are also a lot of factions in the game, that you need to get revered or honored in order to get the keys for heroic mode instances (gonna talk about that a bit later), or items and equipment. But getting reputation isn't by far as hard as in the old World of Warcraft, as you get a lot of reputation points per kills or per quests that you have to do with that certain faction.

While the first zones after the Dark Portal were invaded by new players, the respawn time of the monsters was reasonably high so everyone could basically complete quests there. And as the number of available quests was high, if one quest was too hard to complete, players could always switch to another and come back later. The biggest problems are at the end of a quest chain, when you are trying to kill a boss and 10 more around you are attempting the same thing; but boss respawn times are generally fast, and players usually have common sense to group up for it. (*Usually* - that is).

This quest for example asks you to transform into a monster, to be able to communicate with a specific faction faction, that is otherwise hostile.

All in all, questing just got better in Burning Crusade.

The new areas are also amazingly varied, from barrens to sci-fi decors, and all in-between. The design is awesome, and it makes the new areas feel vast and alive.

While it's a shame you cannot use your flying mount in Azeroth, (Blizzard explains that the way the game was designed two years ago couldn't make this thing possible) once you get to level 70 you are free to fly everywhere in the Outlands, assuming that you have around 1000 gold to buy a regular mount. Epic mounts are a much more expensive (around 6000 g), but they are much faster.