View from the Road: The WoW Cataclysm Cometh

[Sabrestar]

It will be dramatic, that's for sure.

I'm not in game right now, though I likely will be back for the expansion. Being an RPer and all, I'll be tossing all the conflicted emotions from watching the world change onto the shoulders of my poor draenei shaman and letting her deal with it. As if she's not emotionally troubled enough already.

Bring it on. If it works, it'll be glorious.

 

[Nightfalke]

All that matters is:

In the new Barrens, where is Mankrik's wife going to be? Is someone finally going to bury her?

 

[John Funk]

Launch servers for Vanilla WoW and each expansion. Problem solved.

And a new problem solved. You want Blizzard to make new content for Vanilla WoW diehards? No? Then watch the same people grow burned out after they realize that there is nothing coming and they can keep running bwl and mc over and over again.

Won't all the changes be phased off? If an account doesn't own Cataclysm, is it going to be implemented in the changes too? It doesn't really make sense if EVERYTHING changes.

Yes, everything is changing, whether you own Cataclysm or not. And honestly, I think it's for the best. Would you really rather Blizzard charge people for an improved experience?

I must say - the news of Cataclysm was one of the things that finally persuaded me that it was time to give up on WoW.

I'd far rather play in Old Azeroth (as I'm sure it'll come to be known when they release half of it through CoT) than play much of the new content. Sure, the graphics are better - but it's just totally samey. Same kinda quests. Same grindy dailies. The same 'dont stand in stuff' dungeons. [yes, yes - I'm exaggurating - but you get the point]

Nope. I'm grateful for Cataclysm.

Here's hoping that Bioware can really deliver the 'story-driven' MMO then promise with TOR.

...I'm sorry, do you really think the quests/dungeons NOW are more "samey" than original WoW? Really? :/

The content now is heads and shoulders above Classic.

 

[holdwine]

My recommendation on character/class: split the difference and roll a Goblin Shaman and a Worgen Rogue.

 

[Lawyer105]

...I'm sorry, do you really think the quests/dungeons NOW are more "samey" than original WoW? Really? :/
The content now is heads and shoulders above Classic.

Yes. Yes I do. Largely because they seem to have decreased the drop-rates on 'necessary' items (in as much as anything in a virtual world can be called necessary), and setting up dailies that require running said dungeons over and over again.

In Classic, you ran a dungeon 4-6 times (that would be my guess at an average - I certainly didn't exceed that except on my favourites). And that seemed to be a reasonable sort of number.

But from BC onwards, there have been a reduced number of dungeons, and an increased need to run them repeatedly. Often because there wasn't much else to do. You could grind dungeons, you could grind dailies, you could grind materials for the next raid, or you could grind honour in PvP. Yay.

Even after 2 years in Classic, I spent more time in Azeroth exploring, even during TBC and WotLK than I did in Outlands or Northrend. Because there was so much more to do and see there.

Perhaps any individual dungeon is better developed than the Classic ones. I can't argue with that. But when you've reached 25+ runs, it's way more samey than the 5-odd runs of a Classic dungeon.

 

[Chaya]

I've been playing since January after launch, and I like it for different reasons now. I miss the sense of exploring, the sense of "ooh, what's over that hill," of seeing locations on my map like Uldaman and Blackrock Mountain and being genuinely excited to get to go there.

I think the game is much BETTER now; I don't ever want to relive the darkest days of my addiction (Around BWL/AQ40) when I would stay at the office until 4 AM to raid and grind and do dungeons. It's more accessible, it lets me see the great content without having to sign my life away. The new content is fantastic, it's imaginative, it gives me options that I never had before. It may be easier to the hardcore, but I think that's a fair tradeoff.

But at the same time, I do miss the wonder. Part of that is the game being nailed down to a science on the playerbase's part - there's no need to wonder how much information on Thottbot is correct because it's all there on WoWwiki and WoWhead.

I like the game just as much now; I think it's better now, but sometimes I'd like to forget everything I know about WoW and just start all over again as a noob. IF that answers your question.

Yeah, it does answer my question. And proves that there's more to the game. Blizzard did create a magical world and there are maybe only a few things that will come close to what it was like playing it for the first time. Try this however, relive the early days when you play the new expansion. Forget about everything and just hop on a horse and go exploring.

 

[John Funk]

...I'm sorry, do you really think the quests/dungeons NOW are more "samey" than original WoW? Really? :/
The content now is heads and shoulders above Classic.

Yes. Yes I do. Largely because they seem to have decreased the drop-rates on 'necessary' items (in as much as anything in a virtual world can be called necessary), and setting up dailies that require running said dungeons over and over again.

In Classic, you ran a dungeon 4-6 times (that would be my guess at an average - I certainly didn't exceed that except on my favourites). And that seemed to be a reasonable sort of number.

But from BC onwards, there have been a reduced number of dungeons, and an increased need to run them repeatedly. Often because there wasn't much else to do. You could grind dungeons, you could grind dailies, you could grind materials for the next raid, or you could grind honour in PvP. Yay.

Even after 2 years in Classic, I spent more time in Azeroth exploring, even during TBC and WotLK than I did in Outlands or Northrend. Because there was so much more to do and see there.

Perhaps any individual dungeon is better developed than the Classic ones. I can't argue with that. But when you've reached 25+ runs, it's way more samey than the 5-odd runs of a Classic dungeon.

Er...

...I really don't get how you can say that there are fewer dungeons in BC and WotLK and less stuff to do than there were in Classic.

In Classic, all you did was run Scholo, Stratholme, UBRS, or DM until your eyes bled, if you weren't in a raiding guild. It was that, or do the same two (later three) BGs over and over again in pursuit of a horrible PvP ladder system, where you would get pwned by raiders who had the best gear in the game. What did you do other than that? You grinded out mats or rare drops because you had nothing else to do.

I don't know about you, but I ran all of those dungeons WAAAAAAY more than anything I've ever done in BC or WotLK. Well, maybe not WotLK since they're so quick these days, but if you weren't a raider, that content was all there was to do.

In BC, not only did you have Shattered Halls, all the TK dungeons, CoT Black Morass, Shadow Labyrinth, Steam Vaults, but you had all the heroics. You also had Kara - available from launch, and still the most popular raid in the game when WotLK hit (as the equivalent of UBRS) - and later ZA.

In WotLK, you have Halls of Lightning, Oculus, Utgarde Pinnacle, Gundrak, and the three ICC 5mans - and then all the heroic versions of those. You have 10man raids, you have more BGs than ever, you have Wintergrasp, you have arenas.

If you aren't in a massive raid guild these days you have so many more options than you ever did pre-BC, and all of the content is better.

There's nothing wrong with fond reminiscence or rose-tinted nostalgia - that's the point of the column I wrote in the first place - but objectively, there's so much more to do now.

 

[Lawyer105]

Snip for brevity

Perhaps you just played a great deal more than I did. I was only JUST getting my two 60's into end-game raiding when TBC came out. And yet, spending no extra time playing, I was still into end-game raiding within a few months of release.

The presence of more dungeons doesn't actually make a difference if nobody's running those dungeons. I've always hated getting boosted through, because you never actually get to experience that dungeon. And it's pretty hard to argue that the first 2/3 tiers of a dungeon zone got ANY significant traffic once the level-rush had passed through. In many cases, the first time I got to see many of the dungeon was in the Heroic mode - and even then, the only ones that got regularly run where the daily heroics.

I don't understand how you say a heroic dungeon is different from a normal one. It's the same dungeon. Perhaps there's one additional boss. Each pull has 2/3 more adds. Whatever. But it's the same dungeon.

I don't agree with you. Sorry. But that's no reason to argue about the fact that WoW Classic was awesome and is going to be missed.

 

[John Funk]

Snip for brevity

Perhaps you just played a great deal more than I did. I was only JUST getting my two 60's into end-game raiding when TBC came out. And yet, spending no extra time playing, I was still into end-game raiding within a few months of release.

The presence of more dungeons doesn't actually make a difference if nobody's running those dungeons. I've always hated getting boosted through, because you never actually get to experience that dungeon. And it's pretty hard to argue that the first 2/3 tiers of a dungeon zone got ANY significant traffic once the level-rush had passed through. In many cases, the first time I got to see many of the dungeon was in the Heroic mode - and even then, the only ones that got regularly run where the daily heroics.

I don't understand how you say a heroic dungeon is different from a normal one. It's the same dungeon. Perhaps there's one additional boss. Each pull has 2/3 more adds. Whatever. But it's the same dungeon.

I don't agree with you. Sorry. But that's no reason to argue about the fact that WoW Classic was awesome and is going to be missed.

You're right, Heroic dungeons aren't different from their normal counterparts - but the fact remains that Heroic Nexus is still an option at level 80, whereas most people weren't going back to SM or ZFK at 60 unless it was to run a guildie through.

WoW Classic was great in its way. It's just better now.

 

[I am Spy]

I think it's a great idea in concept, though I'm wary of some potential issues. Now, if only 20 people continue to the continuation of my guild's 25-man run, we can run two 10-mans. What will we do in this situation where we're all locked into one raid and have no alternatives?

That said, I think that the current state where people are encouraged to run the same instance twice every week isn't the best one.

I think Blizzard have said somewhere that they're going to be focusing on a greater amount of small raids like ToC or the incoming Ruby Sanctum rather than big raids in Cataclysm. That should counteract the problem as once you have the basics of the fights down, it shouldn't take more than one night per raid. That said, right at the start of the content, that might be a problem.

I'm really looking forward to this expansion. The thing I hate most about WoW is the tedium of levelling through Azeroth. Well, that and Westfall. I'm going to go there straight after release and dance on that disgusting zone's smouldering corpse. Although, the changes to Azashara are making me want to transfer to horde... Someone save me!

 

[jp201]

goblin rogue or dwarf shaman? I would suggest the best one of them all, tauren paladin.

 

[SilverKyo]

Launch servers for Vanilla WoW and each expansion. Problem solved.

you do realize that this is physically impossible. they don't sit on their old technology about previous versions of WoW, just having it stay there and take up space. It's a waste of resources. A simple example would be think about how much they changed the various classes and talent trees since vanilla. When you write code, you don't write new code on top of old code and have it run concurrently, you scrap the old code and replace it with the improved code. After 5 years of that, the coding for vanilla WoW no longer exists.

 

[chiefohara]

I'm looking forward to the new stuff, but I've given up on Loremaster - 2 quests from it in Blade's Edge and 1 quest from it in Nagrand, no more Alliance quests in Blade's Edge, bugged quest in Nagrand. It's a shame, really. Still, the new stuff's looking really nice, can't wait for it.

Also, my guild has a plan - we're gonna reroll on the new RP PvP server they HAVE to bring in, quickly level to 55 and then make a pack of Worgen Death Knights. I just want to say that again. A PACK of Worgen Death Knights. Bring on Cataclysm.

I had the same problem. You need to be exhalted or honoured (can't remember tis so long ago) with the scryers or the Aldor to get the last few quests done, and these are just fetch and carry quests that take you all over the place.

 

[chiefohara]

I got loremaster so i've seen and done everything from the Alliance side (im trying to do the same from the horde but tbh its a struggle) and i have to say im not really going to miss the old Azeroth. Sure there are areas i really enjoyed like Darkshire, Westfall and eastern/western plaguelands... but scenery and some good atmosphere aside, the quests always felt like more of a grind than anything else... In TBC and WTLK you felt your quests made a difference to the story, i felt a hell of a lot more involved, whereas in Azeroth it just felt like a grind, find 20 boar meats and get back to me... A lot of the story Quests felt unfinished like the SI:7 quests, you finish the latest one and then thats it... no real conclusion to the story thread you've been following.

That said i bought the wow/TBC expansion pack when it was out and cheap, and by the time i hit lvl 70, WTLK had just come out, so i never spent time looking for stuff to do in Azeroth (except for loremaster) that i do now in Northrend. So i may just view it as one long grind to get to the good stuff... so im not really going to miss it.

 

[VanBasten]

you do realize that this is physically impossible. they don't sit on their old technology about previous versions of WoW, just having it stay there and take up space.

It's always sensible to have backups, and with the cheapness of storage these days it's a good bet they have a backup of every single build ever released. Most developers actually do keep all the old versions of their program because you never know when you might need to undo something.

After 5 years of that, the coding for vanilla WoW no longer exists.

Actually it does.
Even if they didn't keep backups, which is unlikely in the first place, all the files you need to run a Vanilla server are on the original installation CD-s, that's why there are right now private servers out there, so there are definitely no technical obstacles in such a thing happening.

Just to clarify, I don't think separate WoW-Classic servers are a good idea, I'm just pointing out your argument is invalid.

 

[Scythax]

I'll miss the sweet taste of Vanilla, but I can still remember the bitter aftertaste a lot of it had, so my exitement for cataclysm overshadows it for the most part. Wetlands' overhaul will be very interesting, as will the Hillsbrad area. I died from mountain lions and human guards in that place FAR too often. Be good to see Deathwing smack 'em around.

But in the end, it really all boils down to this single point;

Goblin vs Gnome PvP.

That is the only reason I needed for this expansion to be worth it. Can't wait to make my Goblin Warrior and name him Debonaire. Gonna be a sweet time...

 

[Lerxst]

I still say Blizzard is milking a dead cow that's spread the plague to the rest of the cows. Thanks not only to WoW's success, but Blizzard's persistence to keep it going no matter what, other MMO's coming out don't have the leeway to get away with trying anything new; it's either a WoW clone or so vastly different no one plays it.

They're homogenizing the MMO market the same as Microsoft did to the personal computer market back in the 80's. For the good of the genre it's time they hang up their hat and retire WoW from the world. Of course they won't do this as long as they can make money off of it...

This is why I'm truly sad to see them come up with, yet another, expansion.

 

[GothmogII]

I still say Blizzard is milking a dead cow that's spread the plague to the rest of the cows. Thanks not only to WoW's success, but Blizzard's persistence to keep it going no matter what, other MMO's coming out don't have the leeway to get away with trying anything new; it's either a WoW clone or so vastly different no one plays it.

They're homogenizing the MMO market the same as Microsoft did to the personal computer market back in the 80's. For the good of the genre it's time they hang up their hat and retire WoW from the world. Of course they won't do this as long as they can make money off of it...

This is why I'm truly sad to see them come up with, yet another, expansion.

While I'm not disagreeing that these big companies are often the ones who start off these trends, it is only the fault of a company who -chooses- to follow those trends and then fails to profit from doing so. If an MMO is released with a bog-standard fantasy setting and wow-alike interface, and ends up bombing, it is only it's creators that are to blame here, they didn't create a product that enough people were interested in or was distinct enough to set it apart.

Skk, like blaming Peter Pan for a child jumping off a bookcase.