Review: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

[XT inc]

I think my only worry and problem with upgrading to cata, is it reminds me too much of nintendos wii, which I dislike. You see they keep one upping stuff without much variety to get it. Say you have to run a dungeon over and over again to get the points to buy your teir gear. Then they patch it months later to have better gear than what you have now. So now you have to run the same raids and same dungeons to get slightly better content.

I mean it got ridiculous, that the gear you get from raiding the biggest dungeons and spending points from hours of instances is only at best mildly better like 265 gear and then you can just buy crap uncommon items from cata in the auction house that is better than the best stuff you can get anywhere else.

I think it's the notion that every time you think of wow you know if you wait a while you can just skirt in months down the line where they noob it up more so you are vastly more powerful with infinitely less work, marveling at how hardcore players paid 10 times what you did for the same stuff just months ago.

 

[Devil's Due]

Cata is nice... but it's not enough to drag me back after BC. I tried staying till WotLK and almost did, but just left a month before release because of some serious real life issues. I was glad I finally left, I wasn't so addicted anymore, and everything felt better afterwards. Though mulitple times I've been tested to come back and try out WotLK and now Cata, but it appears a hacker broke into my account months ago and screwed me over, so the people at Blizzard don't care about helping me, no matter how many days I waited on their stupid telephone line.

Though I must ask: WHY is WoW so popular on this site? Everyplace we go, there's WoW news. We have "Shamus Plays WoW" now too comic series. We have a thirty-two (!!) second long commercial before every video for WoW. In un-related news articles somehow drag WoW as examples or such into it.

It's really, really getting annoying, to be honest. Oh well, not like anyone agrees, I'll probably be shunned for this post. Anyways, my two Copper.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

Next expansion better have something to do with the Emerald Dream and/or the Great Dark Beyond. Travelling into the Dream of Creation to battle the Nightmare would be sick and so would going through a dimensional gate to Xoroth, the planet of the Nathrezim. Or battling the Burning Legion on the Eredar home planet.

The Emerald Nightmare
or
Great Dark Beyond

come on, Blizzard. You can do it.

 

[John Funk]

There's lots of ways it's improved that we just cannot show? Advertising dollars well spent, Blizzard!

Show *in a video*. Things like breadcrumb trails, the quest sidebars, the in-city hero boards that point you in the right direction, phased questing to make the world feel like it's changing around you. You want to tell me how you show those in a video?

But they were all things mentioned in the written review. Unless you didn't read that.

No mentioning of limited models for monsters armor and the shameless reuse of almost all boss models
blizzard you want unique boss models? ok we make this monster 2x bigger then normal monsters enjoy

This review mostly consists of praising the graphics while we all know graphics mean nothing in games (unless MMOs don't count)

Yes i admit they made leveling more streamline(in other words more casual)

Dont forget these are the game reviewers that said starcraft 2 was so good it feels like your robing blizzard after "only" paying $60 so we all know their bias



Heres my review

If you enjoyed WOTLK you will enjoy this
What got better? the 1-60 quests got organized
How much did the world change? well other then levels its 60% the same
If anything this installment is more casual friendly then WOTLK 80-85 only takes 20hours
Did they fix the errors of WOTLK? no they didnt

What i think will happen?
Player base will increase to 15million my next year



Overall its the same thing as WOTLK you will grind for gear for 4months then they give better gear etc they will not change the patch system to be interesting

The review consists of praising the graphics? What? Meanwhile, you're the one who says that the reuse of models (and it isn't even that egregious, no more than classic/BC/WotlK) is a ding against it.

The main issue I had with WotLK is that in the interests of being accessible it became TOO easy - doing dungeon runs in 15 minutes with AoE spam. That's what they've fixed.

 

[IamQ]

John Funk drops epics when killed. Please don't try to test this.

Ooh, do you drop any cat gear? I could use some

fitting avatar for what you said.

 

[jp201]

Review: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Rebirth through destruction.

Read Full Article

Two things wrong with that review. First there are non cosmetic rewards for archaeology such as BoA epic non scaling gear like http://www.wowhead.com/item=64377

Second thing is no Ghouls vs Peacebloom in the video? That is one of best quests in cataclysm.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

I will give it another chance, it better not disappoint me again with lame questing. I don't need a HUGE change in how the quests need to be remade, the information from the article tells me that enough has been done to make it enjoyable for me. I will try it.

 

[Vaccine]

Started running Heroics yesterday, stuff is painful when fully stocked in blues. We've had pretty good luck downing the heroic bosses, they've been really fun so far.

 

[Idocreating]

The great thing about Cataclysm is you don't even need to buy it to check out most of the decent changes to levelling. You can pick up the original World of Warcraft for like, £4. Access to most races (No Goblins, Blood Elves, Worgen or Draenei) and all the content from 1-60 with a month's gametime. Dirt cheap to see whether or not you like it. Blizzard are shrewd businessmen.

Enough plugs and back on topic; Cataclysm is brilliant. The questing is some of the most enjoyable and funny Blizzard has come up with, the level 85 dungeons have decent mechanics and the changes to classes and enemies has raised the skillcap in these dungeons, as a good player it's highly enjoyable to be taxed by 5 man content again and not mash straight through it.

Hopefully you can update your review with more information on how the game is at 85, PvP, Dungeons etc.

 

[Idocreating]

Second thing is no Ghouls vs Peacebloom in the video? That is one of best quests in cataclysm.

I still say "The Day Deathwing Came" is the best chain in the game. Friggin' hilarious drunkards recall there story about how they defeated Deathwing.

Check it out in the Badlands, it's proper wet ya pants funny.

 

[iblis666]

I love the fact that bliz is still using their old engine since it means i can play wow on my old laptop sitting in a big comfy chair instead of using my brand new top of the line tower sitting in an uncomfortable computer chair

Cataclysm is well worth more than Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 was almost a near flop of an RTS in terms of its single player campaign. Cataclysm was innovative in almost every way with the addition of archaeology and the new areas while still keeping up the old vanilla WoW interface.

wait there is a single player campaign in starcraft 2?!?

 

[mb16]

eve is better
yes you may have a more varied map. But in eve my alliance owns about 1/10th of the map.

also btw my raven can tank you paladin

 

[matrix3509]

Why did the review say that you have to actually find the physical entrance to a dungeon to use that dungeon in the dungeon finder? The dungeon finder works perfectly for me. I was able to do the low-level Stormwind Stockade dungeon even though I started out in the Draenei starting area.

 

[ZiggyE]

Why did the review say that you have to actually find the physical entrance to a dungeon to use that dungeon in the dungeon finder? The dungeon finder works perfectly for me. I was able to do the low-level Stormwind Stockade dungeon even though I started out in the Draenei starting area.

You need to find the physical entrance for Cataclysm exclusive dungeons. Any other dungeons are accessible straight away by using the dungeon finding.

 

[matrix3509]

Oh...silly me. Serves me right for not power-leveling to 85 straight-away.

 

[voetballeeuw]

Blast it! I stopped playing 2.5 years ago, but seeing all these vids make me want to play once more.

 

[syltman]

Cataclysm is well worth more than Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 was almost a near flop of an RTS in terms of its single player campaign. Cataclysm was innovative in almost every way with the addition of archaeology and the new areas while still keeping up the old vanilla WoW interface.

I liked its single player campaign. Apart from the simple story it had brilliant missions, epic cutscenes and great replay value with choices and upgrades.


Going back to the review, I look forward for getting cataclysm for christmas, greatly looking forward to level up a new goblin.

 

[Dana22]

Actually, using archeology you can find high level bind to account epics, like new/old Zin'rokh The Destroyer of Worlds.

So its not like you get only useless/vanity items.

 

[rileyrulesu]

Hmmm, digging holes is a fun part? I honestly was about to do the trial, but thanks for persuading me otherwise.

 

[mattaui]

One of the most important aspects about Cataclysm is that everything new they did to the old world (outside of the new high end content, and the new races) is available without actually buying the expansion. So when the vanilla client was on sale for $5 (which you need anyway if you want to start playing) you got to experience all the streamlined questing and the new storylines.