View from the Road: The Big Goodbye

[Caliostro]

Imagine if Valve suddenly decided that it would be giving a huge destructive overhaul to the Team Fortress 2 maps that people have been growing fond of since 2007. The sniper balconies in 2fort? Gone. The chokepoints and nooks for sentry guns in Badwater Basin? Yanked 'em right out.

As a TF2 player, destroying both 2fort and Badwater would hardly be a bad thing... Hell, I'd ask you lump in Dustbowl, Goldrush and hats in the "to be nuked out of existence" list and it would be the best patch TF2 ever had.

Annnnnnnyways... Even though I don't play WoW, and actually quite dislike the game for the boring grindfest that it is, I've been following the cataclysm "events" rather closely as it's concept is very intriguing. Most MMOs focus on continuously updating (and generally raising) the end-game, which usually lasts about a week, at most, to be fully explored, ultimately accomplishing nothing but creating a bigger gap between new and old players. Cataclysm is the first of it's kind. Not only is it adding some end-game content (pretty much mandatory at this point), but, more importantly, it's rebuilding everything before it. Truly "hardcore" players will inevitably reroll, and be forced to relearn the whole PVE side of the game... It's basically making old players new again. It's beautiful.

That said, there is a certain level of melancholy in the disappearance of a world you've spent hours, days, some even years, exploring. It's suddenly not there anymore, and all that's left is the memories.

To loosely quote Neon Genesis Evangelion: "Through the pain of sacramental death shall they find the joys of rebirth!"

 

[Irridium]

Imagine if Valve suddenly decided that it would be giving a huge destructive overhaul to the Team Fortress 2 maps that people have been growing fond of since 2007. The sniper balconies in 2fort? Gone. The chokepoints and nooks for sentry guns in Badwater Basin? Yanked 'em right out.

As a TF2 player, destroying both 2fort and Badwater would hardly be a bad thing... Hell, I'd ask you lump in Dustbowl, Goldrush and hats in the "to be nuked out of existence" list and it would be the best patch TF2 ever had.

Yeah, but then Valve's entire fanbase would cry and moan, and Valve being the developer that listens to its community, would probably cancel said update, or if it did go through with it, they'd add many other things.

Still, I would love to see 2fort either taken away completely, or changed so it doesn't turn games into stalemates for thirty minutes every. fucking. time.

*ahem*
More on topic: I can certainty understand why people would find it weird. I don't play, or really like World of Warcraft that much, but I do love the world and how big it is. A friend once let me use his (then) level 70 character just so I could explore everything. I didn't want to have to grind up for months just to see everything.

But yeah, I can see why this is such a big thing. Its like if Bad Company 2 went all Unreal Tournament on us.

 

[BarefootGamer]

I played WoW for 4+ years and although I quit a while ago I'm looking forward to the changes in Cataclysm. I'm actually thinking of signing back up and rolling a new character just to experience a whole new WoW. IMHO, what Blizzard is doing is much better than creating, say, WoW 2. Now, older players will be able to keep the characters they've worked so hard on for so many years, while still being able to explore all-new content, instead of starting over in a whole new game.

 

[Fearzone]

Gaming needs more Cataclysms. I'm still wondering if this Cataclysm will be enough for me to reactivate my WoW account. The more I hear the more I wonder if we are getting a re-skinned variant of the same thing. Time will tell.

As with Cataclysm, much has already been lost with each WoW expansion, namely the end game content of the prior version was lost with each new expansion, and with quick levelling the early game content has fallen by the wayside lately as well. Burning Crusade worked because what was added was greater than what was lost, especially because a lot of new players were just coming on around that time. Wrath of the Lich King though--not so much, and that is where the sense of bland repetition became overwhelming and I had to stop.

 

[SturmDolch]

I think it's great they're re-working Azeroth in a way... But I do agree with you. Although I don't play WoW anymore and most likely won't ever again, it's been part of my life in one way or another for the past 4 or 5 years.

I loved exploring Azeroth, all the easter eggs and incomplete areas. My former best friend and I spent hours just walking around finding things we weren't supposed to. We spent a whole afternoon trying to get into Hyjal, even though it had been patched by then. Azshara was one of my favourite zones because it just seemed so unexplored. I figured out a million ways to get to the Ironforge Airport even after they kept patching it. I loved exploring and finding these glitches. I didn't exploit them, I just enjoyed exploring.

Now come flying mounts. So everything is pretty much gone as far as getting to lesser known places goes. Sure, there will be mountaintop hideouts, but it won't have the same sense of accomplishment as wall-walking for half a kilometer does, or stumbling on a random hill that takes you above Searing Gorge to a second, lesser Searing Gorge.

Just my two cents. It's sad to see it go, but still cool to see it reworked instead of staying in stasis.

 

[MaltesePigeon]

Gaming needs more Cataclysms. I'm still wondering if this Cataclysm will be enough for me to reactivate my WoW account. The more I hear the more I wonder if we are getting a re-skinned variant of the same thing. Time will tell.

As with Cataclysm, much has already been lost with each WoW expansion, namely the end game content of the prior version was lost with each new expansion, and with quick levelling the early game content has fallen by the wayside lately as well. Burning Crusade worked because what was added was greater than what was lost, especially because a lot of new players were just coming on around that time. Wrath of the Lich King though--not so much, and that is where the sense of bland repetition became overwhelming and I had to stop.

^this

My fear: I'll buy the expansion and pay for a month of service. It will take hours to load the game and all of the immediate patches. So I'll start playing, I'll roll a new Tauran pally and play for a few days. When I get to level 20, I'll walk out of the starting area, then someone will fly down and gank me. So I'll take my ghost back to my body. Where the level 85 human death knight that ganked me will be fighting a level 85 Tauran pally.

I think they will do some amazing things with cataclysm that will ultimately be pointless. People will still be running past it to get the armor that is currently most shiny. That said I'm probably going to log on after I get home tonight.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Hah! Nooks to wait for my cloak to recharge? Screw that, I use the cloak and dagger, bitches!

But seriously, interesting article there and I would be saddened for this to happen to other games. but despite this, I can see it would be for the better.

 

[kibayasu]

To pick a somewhat larger-than-normal nit, to say that EvE Online has only added graphics and engine updates over the course of its entire life is pretty ignorant. Practically every major patch to EvE has done what Cataclysm is doing to WoW.

Also, what that guy said.

 

[Miumaru]

Its nice to have a big change. In a RP server on NWN I played, at one point, the main city got attacked, destroyed, and occupied by very evil cultists, and it really changed everything. (not to the expansion scale, but this was a small knit server) and until the DMs wussed out, it was pretty cool, especcially since it was a time where my devious plans could start to bear fruit. But then they decided "nah...it sucks, lets pretend it never happened". Lame.

 

[John Funk]

EVE Online has added nothing game changing?

Clearly you haven't been playing attention lately.

Imagine your precious WOW map.

Now copy it, paste it somewhere far away, make it then add rare, randomly spawning teleporters that last for as little as 16 hours at a time. On both sides.

In this new world are wonderful things that are impossible to get anywhere else. You can make a metaphorical army of sharks with frickin' laser beams with this stuff.

Then populate this new world with evil things that want to kick your ass.

Then take away your minimap, your world map, and reduce your vision to about 20 feet around you unless you have special equipment.

Then allow players with said special equipment to turn invisible.

Then allow PVP.

This is just one expansion. One. Free. Provided to all players free of charge.

Giving your world new names is much less of a change than giving players the ability to create armies of sharks with frickin' laser beams, mate.

That is... pretty much an average expansion to an MMOG, yes. It adds a ton of new stuff.

Did it go back and destroy all of your old planets and stations?

Anyone can *add* to a game. This is changing what already exists, permanently.

 

[SomeGuyNamedKy]

Are you kidding? I'd be glad if they took out the sniper posts in 2fort, those things are shit!

Anyways, back on topic. I get what you're saying, even though I don't play MMO's. Tweaks are a good thing, but total change to a steady world might alienate some players, mostly the hardcore, but maybe the casual MMO fan as well.

 

[xyrafhoan]

I remember when Ragnarok nuked Morroc, one of the first cities they ever added to the game. My favourite town was reduced to a smoking crater. Plus, they made the desert an extremely stressful place to navigate filled with contorted zombie ladies who are having a particularly bad period, mud golems, angels with hammer arms... no more honking peco pecos, no more farming eggs for cards, just... a dimensional hole to a brand new world. WoW probably won't make whole lowbie-friendly areas turn into zones of death, but I hope they at least remodel all the early armor. It looked like a pile of turds.

 

[Manicotti]

I just quit WoW (again), and I don't intend to come back even for Cata until most of my RL has changed and become more profitable. On the other hand, I've been watching the developments constantly and what Blizz is doing is just flat-out awesome. i've always been of the opinion that WoW's problem is that it didn't expand "sideways" often enough (ie unbuilt zones, poor pre-endgame replayability, etc), and I am impressed at both their effort and the product thus far.

To answer the title question - a Cataclysm'd City 17 would just feel redundant.

 

[Knight Templar]

So it's kinda like the Spellplauge in Forgotten Realms?

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

You do know that most gamers will be happy that they will never have to take your cousin bowling if he is dead and the bowling alley is now a zombie party room?

 

[Silva]

It's amusing that such an in-game cataclysm is seen as an original idea.

There are MMOs that have used this concept before. At least, Guild Wars did. The whole "Presearing" section of Prophecies gives everyone the time to become comfortable with their surroundings. Then you finally say you're "ready" to enter the Academy, and all Hell breaks loose. Your character cannot then return to Presearing. The whole nation of Ascalon, which made up the borders of where you could go at first, is now a torn husk, with every patch of ground burned. Even if you know how to navigate Presearing brilliantly, the landscape and locations have shifted just enough to set you off course if you're not careful.

Of course, the difference between how GW achieved this, and how WoW will, is that you could go back to the old world as a new character, and experience Presearing again. This reduces the impact, so frankly, as design and efficiency goes, I find GW's approach to be a better idea.

Getting rid of all of those finely-balanced, over-tested areas and changing it all radically is a great waste of all that these areas were. Yes, you're right that on an impact level, making a cataclysm universal is going to really hit the user base as it stands. But there is an impermanence in this impact.

The obvious thing about this is: if you're new to WoW and start after all of this happens, the contrast will mean nothing to you (though, of course, the fundamental qualities of the game will be different, this difference would not exist subjectively speaking). If WoW's user base doubled, many of them wouldn't know or care about the differences. And that's to say nothing of whether the new design is actually better or not. I think it would be a little to early to tell either way.

I think that this is a really great experiment for Blizzard to engage in, and it'll be fascinating to see what future MMO designers can take from the experience. But with every strength, a weakness reveals itself. I suppose you could say that of all decisions of such a large scale. I look forward to the next risk Blizzard takes.