BlizzCon 2010: Cataclysm Equals Two Expansions' Worth of Work

[Reveras]

It's hillarious how many people are facerolling on the keyboard about Blizzard having high prices while they themselfs have no idea how the market works.

 

[oathblade]

While I agree that it was alot of work to rework their game into WoW 2.0, right now the players of the game are being forced to act as Beta testers. There was a bit of this in BC/Wrath but this time its really awful. The pace is breakneck and the bugs many and why? Because Blizzard is married to the release date over its supposed addition to quality.

This all has to do with revamping the property as a money grind for the company instead of to making quality games.

GM tickes average 4-7 days, bugs that dont get fixed for longer, broken and disfunctional gameplay...for over a month, and were paying for it.

They have ruined whatever good fuzzy emotions I had for them as a company, all I have seen for month is a soulless money machine.

 

[Uber Waddles]

The reworking was an absolute neccesity for low levels, and may I remind people is COMPLETELY FREE TOO. Blizzard wouldnt have done this if they didnt see a way to pull in more people; and lets face it, the beggining part of WoW has not aged well. Its horrible.

If you have the expansion or not, the world still gets sundered. But in Blizzards defence, thats a massive patch to do.

Either way, its 5 levels, new raids, and a TON of new content. For like $40. Its not Blizzard being lazy, its Blizzard being a company. They give us FREE updates all the time, with TONS of content. This expansion is giving us even more content, and modernizing the game.

As for 4.0, they did rush that a little. But I expect Blizzard is already working on numerous fixes to release with The Sundering, whenever the hell that happens (sooner rather than later, according to Blizzard at BlizzCon). I was expecting it when they announced all they were reworking. Balacing power at low levels in the format they're using is difficult. And the bugs, while annoying, aren't game breaking. They don't pull the game to a standstill and beat you over the head with bad. I had just as much issue with pre-Wrath patches as I do with pre-Cata. When they add a new expansion, the game gets broken for a while. Most you can do is stop paying for the game until they fix the patches.

 

[ionveau]

The reworking was an absolute neccesity for low levels, and may I remind people is COMPLETELY FREE TOO. Blizzard wouldnt have done this if they didnt see a way to pull in more people; and lets face it, the beggining part of WoW has not aged well. Its horrible.

If you have the expansion or not, the world still gets sundered. But in Blizzards defence, thats a massive patch to do.

Either way, its 5 levels, new raids, and a TON of new content. For like $40. Its not Blizzard being lazy, its Blizzard being a company. They give us FREE updates all the time, with TONS of content. This expansion is giving us even more content, and modernizing the game.

As for 4.0, they did rush that a little. But I expect Blizzard is already working on numerous fixes to release with The Sundering, whenever the hell that happens (sooner rather than later, according to Blizzard at BlizzCon). I was expecting it when they announced all they were reworking. Balacing power at low levels in the format they're using is difficult. And the bugs, while annoying, aren't game breaking. They don't pull the game to a standstill and beat you over the head with bad. I had just as much issue with pre-Wrath patches as I do with pre-Cata. When they add a new expansion, the game gets broken for a while. Most you can do is stop paying for the game until they fix the patches.

Fun fact you pay $0.50 daily unless your playing a private server so NOTHING is free
blizzard could make the game free but still have the monthly fee and still make a profit,

Blizzard dose not want to tell us the cost of maintaining the servers etc and what there monthly income is, somewhere i heard that blizzard rakes in more money then Nintendo witch i assume is true

And also do you notice the lazy content patches they bring out? they build a room with 10 things to fight and say there you go play with it for 3months

 

[Therumancer]

Sorry, I think you're pretty much wrong on all provable (that is, non-subjective) counts.

Opinions are going to vary of course, but you need to read what I said more closely. I did mention Deathwing was mentioned in the Lore. The thing is though that Arthas is basically the primal spirit of death, which is why there must always be a Lich King. I also mentioned not only him, but the fact that at this point we've also dealt with Yog Saron who is a lovecraftian terror whose very release, even momentarily, caused the overgods to send a being to destroy the planet since his threat was multiversal in scale. Agalon was easily capable of destroying the entire planet by the very concept.

Deathwing in comparison is small potatoes. Yes, he was mentiond before, but the reason why he's being pulled out now is simply because he's mentioned in the lore and they are pretty much looking for anything they can use to justify another expansion and more money.

There are always going to be people who defend anything, and I get that. World Of Warcraft has a massive fanbase and people who are going to support more of it no matter what. If Blizzard wanted to release an expansion pack about how "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" is actually the lord of creation and being angry with how things have turned out has returned with a vengeance and heroes need to assemble to stop him, there would be people who would defend this until their dying breath.

As I myself said though, I can't really complain too much because this is one of those situations where I am going to buy a product against my better judgement for a number of reasons. That does not change the fact that the complaints are fairly justified.

See, the problem is that nobody should really have expected Blizzard to ever shut Warcraft down or stop supporting it while it was still making a ton of money and fairly "hot". The "keep them wanting more" logic has yet to seep in with video games. The "right" thing to do with the IP would have been to just stop releasing supplements and turn things off in another year or so when Blizzard's new MMORPG property comes out to avoid competing with themselves. That way later, when it comes time for that new IP to be put out to pressure, they can bring out "World Of Warcraft 2" set in a differant age, with new technology, and probably a decade or so to have worked on the writing instead of "giant flaming dragon wrecks everything allowing us to rebuild all the old zones, before sitting down in a dungeon atop a giant pile of loot".

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

While I agree that it was alot of work to rework their game into WoW 2.0, right now the players of the game are being forced to act as Beta testers. There was a bit of this in BC/Wrath but this time its really awful. The pace is breakneck and the bugs many and why? Because Blizzard is married to the release date over its supposed addition to quality.

This all has to do with revamping the property as a money grind for the company instead of to making quality games.

GM tickes average 4-7 days, bugs that dont get fixed for longer, broken and disfunctional gameplay...for over a month, and were paying for it.

They have ruined whatever good fuzzy emotions I had for them as a company, all I have seen for month is a soulless money machine.

Really? They rolled out some fixes to the major issues pretty quickly, and I think with the magnitude of the change a lot of bugs like that are to be expected. Some things just can't be tested until you put them in the hands of 12 million people, you know?

How long did it take them to fix Vanish again? It's all about priorities, I'm saying.

as for the 25 year guy with his bigging up of the latest expansion boss /sigh...even Blizzard have admitted they decided on what they were going to "fix" first and then decided on Deathwing as the method to justify those world changes after the fact and after a series of meetings where alternatives were fully considered and argued out.

he didn't appear in WC2 btw he appeared in the WC2 expansion and lorewise, just like Illidan, he has basically been brought back from the dead but then "the lore" is a joke no one really cares about now so what the hell y'know...

in short he's a means to an end shoehorned in as a viable antagonist and the "omg but Deathwing is more powerful than X, Y and Z" crap makes you should like an immature fanboi sucking on their hype pipe.

I know that, don't insult my intelligence by telling me I don't. I'm just saying that the in-game lore was definitely written to establish Deathwing as a potential threat lurking out there for exactly this reason--they could bring him back whenever they needed him, which was now. It still doesn't change the fact that his return was being foreshadowed.

(And yes I know that it was WC2x, I was using WC2 for shorthand, just like we talk Arthas being the Lich King in WC3, not WC3x).

WC lore is filled with retcons all over the place at this point, and the lore that was being set up over the last five years was clearly used as a springboard to reintroduce Deathwing as this big bad threat.

If you want to leave the game with Cataclysm, hey be my guest I'm not stopping you. Everyone's gotta quit sometime, right? I just dislike factually wrong information.

Fun fact you pay $0.50 daily unless your playing a private server so NOTHING is free
blizzard could make the game free but still have the monthly fee and still make a profit,

Blizzard dose not want to tell us the cost of maintaining the servers etc and what there monthly income is, somewhere i heard that blizzard rakes in more money then Nintendo witch i assume is true

And also do you notice the lazy content patches they bring out? they build a room with 10 things to fight and say there you go play with it for 3months

Do you do anything other than complain? I'm just saying.

Nobody's saying ToC was their finest moment, especially coming between Ulduar and ICC. On the other hand, players were asking for a no-trash raid since Vanilla.

Sorry, I think you're pretty much wrong on all provable (that is, non-subjective) counts.

Opinions are going to vary of course, but you need to read what I said more closely. I did mention Deathwing was mentioned in the Lore. The thing is though that Arthas is basically the primal spirit of death, which is why there must always be a Lich King. I also mentioned not only him, but the fact that at this point we've also dealt with Yog Saron who is a lovecraftian terror whose very release, even momentarily, caused the overgods to send a being to destroy the planet since his threat was multiversal in scale. Agalon was easily capable of destroying the entire planet by the very concept.

"the primal spirit of death"? Yeah, the primal spirit of death that was just introduced in the expansion pack to WC3, who was only even around for what, a decade in the in-game lore? Any of the Aspects, as built up in the last few years, were way bigger potatoes than him. You're still ignoring the fact that wow since Vanilla has been specifically saying "ooh, Deathwing's still out there, we don't know what's up with him!!!" much in the same way that they've been teasing the Infinite Dragonflight as villains. Does it mean they'll use them as villains? No, but the lore justification is there for them to use it.

Your point is invalidated by the fact that they're rolling out the changes in 4.0 for everyone whether they've bought Cataclysm or not. I don't know if you've gone back to Vanilla WoW lately, but the old game is pretty shit at this point. This was a desperately needed change.

And frankly, from a business perspective your ideas just don't make sense.

 

[Therumancer]

[
And frankly, from a business perspective your ideas just don't make sense.

This is the only bit that is valid and then only to a point.


I think you don't get what I'm saying about Deathwing at all. Deathwing was an enemy that should have been brought out before Ulduar and Arthas if they were going to use him at all. The events of the game have already surpassed him. He is not worthy of being the next step up from what has already happened conceptually.

You are correct that from a current business perspective what I am saying does not make sense. To today's corperate mentality what is good for a property is irrelevent, it's about running everything into the ground irregardless of diminishing quality and only moving on once every bit of profit has been strip mined from it's quivering corpse.

Right now World Of Warcraft has already been successful, it's made profits in excess of what it cost to produce. If they were to shut off the servers tomorrow it would still be a huge success. The only reason why this hasn't happened, and we're seeing things like Cataclysm is that Blizzard realizes that there is enough of an installed fan base where they can make more money right now.

Taking a long term perspective like I mentioned, the "keep them wanting more" strategy would probably generate more money in the long term, but it doesn't put money into pockets with that property right now, and that is the crucial issue.

Your right from the perspective of a "what will put the most money in Activision/Blizzard's pockets in the short term" attitude, but wrong in an absolute sense of what will make more money in the long run (perhaps turning into a multi-generational franchise) and be good for the IP itself.

WoW has already made a profit as I mentioned, and a huge one. Blizzard already has other products on the market making them a ton of money. It has another MMORPG in development as I'm typing this. It's all about making a cash grab right now.

 

[coldfrog]

So far my biggest issues with Cata is the silly way levelling a new character will go now. You will start in post Cata Azeroth, then hop casually into Outlands and Northrend to poke around with bit's of Legion/long dead Illidan/Arthas and then go back to Azeroth for more Deathwing madness.

That is sadly always the bad thing about re-designing old content. They can't make 2 previous expansions obsolete but same time it's impossible to keep the proper flow with all those gimmicks.

Actually, if I understand it correctly, Azeroth areas will have 60-80 stuff as well. You can still go to Outland if you want, but there will be additional zones in those levels as well. I've got nothing to back me up on that though, just something I might have read before.

Welp, now I've gotta save up to pay for that additional flying mount fee. Are they going to explain just WHY we couldn't fly our own mounts in there before? is there too much air traffic to deal with? Come on guys!

(I'm kidding, no doubt the lack of universal flying mounts is a relic of an old game that is now quite outdated. No need to explain! though it could be amusing to see why.)

 

[Computer-Noob]

I don't think Blizzard is capable of being cheap. :V

With 12 million players around the world, thats a lot of bodies needed to manage a ton of servers. Not to mention maitenence, wages for said workers, etc.

I've always wondered what the monthly balance of blizzard tends to be. I have the feeling that its a lot less than those set on the idea that "Blizzard are greedy money hungry gluttons" seem to believe it is.

 

[Marowit]

Brand new content 1-60, and 80-85 is completely worth my $40.00. Not to mention new races, and a world event that's actually growing and evolving the persistent world I've enjoyed for years.

 

[lomylithruldor]

The thing is though that Arthas is basically the primal spirit of death, which is why there must always be a Lich King.

Not really. He's just a dude that fused with a puppet of the Legion that rebelled that happened to have the power to make ghouls and ghosts and got worshipped for it. It's more like a powerful necromancer than anything else. There must be a lich king because you don't want a zombie apocalypse. It's like in the cold was, if a president dies, the nukes then have a twisted free will. You just don't want them loose.

 

[John Funk]

[
And frankly, from a business perspective your ideas just don't make sense.

This is the only bit that is valid and then only to a point.


I think you don't get what I'm saying about Deathwing at all. Deathwing was an enemy that should have been brought out before Ulduar and Arthas if they were going to use him at all. The events of the game have already surpassed him. He is not worthy of being the next step up from what has already happened conceptually.

You are correct that from a current business perspective what I am saying does not make sense. To today's corperate mentality what is good for a property is irrelevent, it's about running everything into the ground irregardless of diminishing quality and only moving on once every bit of profit has been strip mined from it's quivering corpse.

Right now World Of Warcraft has already been successful, it's made profits in excess of what it cost to produce. If they were to shut off the servers tomorrow it would still be a huge success. The only reason why this hasn't happened, and we're seeing things like Cataclysm is that Blizzard realizes that there is enough of an installed fan base where they can make more money right now.

Taking a long term perspective like I mentioned, the "keep them wanting more" strategy would probably generate more money in the long term, but it doesn't put money into pockets with that property right now, and that is the crucial issue.

Your right from the perspective of a "what will put the most money in Activision/Blizzard's pockets in the short term" attitude, but wrong in an absolute sense of what will make more money in the long run (perhaps turning into a multi-generational franchise) and be good for the IP itself.

WoW has already made a profit as I mentioned, and a huge one. Blizzard already has other products on the market making them a ton of money. It has another MMORPG in development as I'm typing this. It's all about making a cash grab right now.

I'm really not following you. How is wanting to improve the overall quality of your game to bring an entirely new audience into the fold not an improvement for the IP as a whole?

Yeah, Algalon could have called the Titans in to unmake Azeroth. So then shouldn't he have been the final boss of WotLK, not Arthas?

If you leave side bosses out of it, there's a pretty linear progression in terms of storyline power regarding main villains. Nefarian/Kelthuzad -> Illidan -> Arthas -> Deathwing.

For all intents and purposes, Cataclysm is WoW 2.

The thing is though that Arthas is basically the primal spirit of death, which is why there must always be a Lich King.

Not really. He's just a dude that fused with a puppet of the Legion that rebelled that happened to have the power to make ghouls and ghosts and got worshipped for it. It's more like a powerful necromancer than anything else. There must be a lich king because you don't want a zombie apocalypse. It's like in the cold was, if a president dies, the nukes then have a twisted free will. You just don't want them loose.

This is the best analogy. Thanks for putting a smile on my face

 

[Electrogecko]

They should make a boss that's tangible (in game) and requires certain participants to climb on top of it and melee it's head directly or something like that. The first phase could play out, then after a certain amount of damage the boss would collapse or lower it's tail to the ground, then a certain group would be required to quickly climb on top of it to attack a seperate body part or reach an elevated part of the room.

 

[VanityGirl]

Deathwing > Lich King.

Sorry guys, but Deathwing could CLEARLY make Lich King his *****. Does that mean good old Arthas isn't a big villian? No. But I like the idea of a new world and a new villian. I would have been very sad if they ended the story with Arthas.

Interestingly enough... When you think about Lich King (or at least when I do) I think of an icy world and a cold, evil villian. From what I've seen of Deathwing, I instantly fire and pure, hot, evil.

I think it would be interesting if we saw (though I know it won't happen since we've killed him) if the Lich King tried to go against Deathwing. If you've played as a DK in WoW, you get to see the Lich King fight someone during one of your missions. It is REALLY awesome.

I have high hopes for Cata. I've already enjoyed the patch they've made. Unlike some of the people I call "whiners", I like the new talent tree and the changes to the classes.
My hunter is now the beast of battlegrounds! Muahaha

 

[Stevepinto3]

I feel the bad reactions to cataclysm were the equivalent of 13 year old halo fans


It's just whining without real reason

Well, yes and no.

One thing you have to understand was that Warcraft had a sort of storyline to it that has been going on for a long time. "World Of Warcraft" was build up around the events of "Warcraft 3" and the entire plot driving the game has revolved around Arthas. With the end of "Lich King" Arthas is no more, and that should be that. Logically that should be the end of the story, and it's time for everyone to ride off into the sunset so to speak.

Or, you know, they could continue the story. I know on one-hand that reeks of Lucas-style franchise murder, but on the other hand the Warcraft games set up an entire universe to be expanded upon. Kil'Jaeden is still technically alive, Sargeras' whereabouts are unknown, there are more Old Gods still chained beneath the earth, another Dragon Aspect MIA, and numerous other characters who were in previous games that haven't been brought back up yet. If you thought Wrath was going to be the end of it you're ridiculous. Especially when it set the benchmark of, what, 12 million subscribers now? You don't just quit releasing content when that happens, MMO's are a very different medium than other games. The whole point is to always have a lot to do and to see, it's supposed to be a living world. You can't just end an MMO's story like you can a novel.

Actually, if I understand it correctly, Azeroth areas will have 60-80 stuff as well. You can still go to Outland if you want, but there will be additional zones in those levels as well. I've got nothing to back me up on that though, just something I might have read before.

Actually no. You will have to go to Outlands/Northrend for 60-80. Remember those Death Knight's from the DK starting zone/Icecrown gunships? Thassarian/Koltira? They're in the new Western Plaguelands, which is now a level 40-ish zone. They even specifically mention Arthas being defeated. Then you go to Northrend and help them kill Arthas about 40 levels later. Yeah...it's weird.

Welp, now I've gotta save up to pay for that additional flying mount fee. Are they going to explain just WHY we couldn't fly our own mounts in there before? is there too much air traffic to deal with? Come on guys!

(I'm kidding, no doubt the lack of universal flying mounts is a relic of an old game that is now quite outdated. No need to explain! though it could be amusing to see why.)

You didn't have your license.

I'm serious.

 

[Keava]

Actually, if I understand it correctly, Azeroth areas will have 60-80 stuff as well. You can still go to Outland if you want, but there will be additional zones in those levels as well. I've got nothing to back me up on that though, just something I might have read before.

Welp, now I've gotta save up to pay for that additional flying mount fee. Are they going to explain just WHY we couldn't fly our own mounts in there before? is there too much air traffic to deal with? Come on guys!

(I'm kidding, no doubt the lack of universal flying mounts is a relic of an old game that is now quite outdated. No need to explain! though it could be amusing to see why.)

Got any source of that information? From what i checked on various websites and by asking people who actively played WoW for last 1.5 year it doesnt seem any of the old world zones gets 60-80 content. The WoWWiki site about Cata has listing of level ranges for old locations and all are below 60.

 

[coldfrog]

Actually, if I understand it correctly, Azeroth areas will have 60-80 stuff as well. You can still go to Outland if you want, but there will be additional zones in those levels as well. I've got nothing to back me up on that though, just something I might have read before.

Welp, now I've gotta save up to pay for that additional flying mount fee. Are they going to explain just WHY we couldn't fly our own mounts in there before? is there too much air traffic to deal with? Come on guys!

(I'm kidding, no doubt the lack of universal flying mounts is a relic of an old game that is now quite outdated. No need to explain! though it could be amusing to see why.)

Got any source of that information? From what i checked on various websites and by asking people who actively played WoW for last 1.5 year it doesnt seem any of the old world zones gets 60-80 content. The WoWWiki site about Cata has listing of level ranges for old locations and all are below 60.

Well, I did say I had nothing to back it up. I think I may have read something and taken it the wrong way, or heck, even imagined it. I can't say, that's why I included my disclaimer.

 

[Epictank of Wintown]

Yep. They've completely revamped most of the old world of Azeroth- but the same six year old models are still there. Blizzard desperately needs to update the character models for their initial eight races.

Hell, even the Draenei and Blood Elf models look dated compared to the Goblin and Worgen ones.

 

[ssManae]

Actually, if I understand it correctly, Azeroth areas will have 60-80 stuff as well. You can still go to Outland if you want, but there will be additional zones in those levels as well. I've got nothing to back me up on that though, just something I might have read before.

Welp, now I've gotta save up to pay for that additional flying mount fee. Are they going to explain just WHY we couldn't fly our own mounts in there before? is there too much air traffic to deal with? Come on guys!

(I'm kidding, no doubt the lack of universal flying mounts is a relic of an old game that is now quite outdated. No need to explain! though it could be amusing to see why.)

Got any source of that information? From what i checked on various websites and by asking people who actively played WoW for last 1.5 year it doesnt seem any of the old world zones gets 60-80 content. The WoWWiki site about Cata has listing of level ranges for old locations and all are below 60.

Well, I did say I had nothing to back it up. I think I may have read something and taken it the wrong way, or heck, even imagined it. I can't say, that's why I included my disclaimer.

It was asked about in one of the BlizzCon panels. The answer was basically along the lines of "yeaaaaaah, we dropped the ball on that one. We don't like it either, but there was too much to get done to update all four continents in one expansion. It'll be fixed Soon(tm)."