WoW - Cataclysm

[blackcatgrowl]

It's been out 2 days and no post... so, I guess I'll do the honors:

I bought the DDL license, and played the minute the servers converted to Cata. However, the actual content had been patched onto the servers for a couple weeks now though, so some of the changes that weren't "Expansion Specific" were prior to this past Tuesday and I've been messing around with it for awhile.

Anyhow, here's what seems to be the Pros and Cons thus far.

Pros;

Complete revamp of original old world - Almost every stitch of the old world has been changed. Sure, most of the geography is similar, and there are some areas which haven't been modified much, but many areas which were inaccessible or incomplete are now new full zones. Many existing areas have also been significantly changed. All the changes so far seem to be for the better.

Being able to find out what was behind Dire Maul was a lingering question I had for years that got answered!

Completely New areas - There is a HUGE underwater zone that promises to be very interesting with all new creatures and new underwater mounts. In fact, the intro to that area is fairly epic. (Don't worry, right off the bat, you get a permanent buff from a quest that gives you faster swim speed and unlimited breathing in that area).

There is also Deepholm, the "Plane of Earth", which is accessed via the Maelstrom (you know, that enigma of a giant whirlpool on the world map). This area looks to be a end-game area, where you face off against Deathwing, the expansion's ultimate bad guy.

Complete vanilla WoW quest revamp - As far as I can tell so far, ALL of the quests have been redone from Vanilla WoW. And they have used phased instancing and interactive quest objects similar to the quests in Wrath of the Lich King, but to the next level. They also path you to the quests in chains, instead of bombarding you with 30 new quests at once.

I've played through all the new Eastern Plaguelands quests, and Badlands quests... both quest lines are awesome, and are massive improvements over the old quests.

New Races - So far the addition of the Goblin and Worgen have been done very well, and fit into the game fairly fluidly. The Goblin starting area and quests through level 20 is serious lulz, and what I consider a must play.

New sub-profession, Archeology - You find dig sites on the Continent maps, and head over to that area. Then you start using the "survey" tools to "hone in" on the "dig". Once you are close enough, you get a dig, which gives you various relics. Not sure how it plays into the big scheme of things yet, but it's kinda cool.

Flying Mounts in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms - Finally!!! Believe it or not, this was a huge reason for me to return from a 3 year absence from this game. The fact they put them in at all, and didn't allow for flying in the old world because of technical reasons was a huge sticking point for me.

The Ruins of Lordaeron are very interesting from the air.

But nothing Blizzard does can be perfect. So... here's some

Cons;

Class Balance Issues - Same old, same old for WoW. With the new content came new nerfs and buffs, some of which are faceplant-on-the-keyboard stupid.

I'd say right now, the game caters to Paladins. I've got a level 53 Holy Paladin, and I can do stuff with him my 80 Death Knight, 75 Warrior, and 78 Warlock couldn't at that level. I can actually solo dungeons just a few levels lower than me for example.

But I'm convinced planned variations on class balance are a business tactic to keep people playing alts, and spending more time in the game so they don't quit. :banghead:

This leads into the next problem...

Dungeon queue times - Trade chat has been rife with complaints about dungeon queue times. The problem? No tanks! Warrior nerfs might have something to do with this. I'm sure it will even out in time though, as people finish leveling up their Paladins mains and start running their Warrior/DK Alts.

Flying Mounts in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms - Yes, this was a pro. But there's one aspect to it that's a Con. It's incomplete.

Yeah, you can fly all over the old Vanilla areas. However, if you try to go north into the Blood Elf zones, you hit an invisible wall. You have to go through the white portal from Eastern Plaguelands to the Ghostlands. Once there however, Flying doesn't work anymore.

Likewise, you can't fly west over to Azuremyst or Bloodmyst Isles (the starting area for the Draenei). In fact, you can't even see them in the distance.

It's my understanding that these areas are "instanced" into separate areas and this is a technical reason why they didn't make them a whole part of the new-old world.

But I think it's more of a monetary motivator than a technical one. These areas are bundled with "Burning Crusade". So if you don't own it, you can't get to this content. (you'll get a message that your account doesn't have Burning Crusade content active). But you can't play Cataclysm without Burning Crusade OR Wrath of the Lich king... so really they are only prohibiting people who only bought the main retail WoW box. Kinda silly.

Blizzard also left a ton of "Fatigue" areas in surrounding waters that don't make sense anymore. Fatigue was a control to keep people from exploring unfinished content in vanilla WoW. It served that purpose well by killing the character when the meter ran out.

So, I took the gear off one of my characters with 280% flight and headed east to see how far I could get into the ocean from Orgrimmar. Eventually I hit an invisible wall. So why have the fatigue?

There is also the fact that fatigue will cause flight limitations. For example, if you try a direct flight in a line from Gilneas (the Worgen City), to Ironforge, you will shortly run into a "Fatigue" meter. Even with 280% flight speed, you can clear it with only a fraction of it left. A regular flying mount is gonna see you dead.

Anyhow... to summarize, I'd probably give the X-pac a 93 out of 100. It's really really good... but has a few polishing blemishes.

[Wanderlai]

I never played WoW but I bought the Battlechest, Lich King, and Cataclysm CE. I know almost nothing about playing but I've played tons of rpg and strategy games. I thought about playing on a PvE instead of a PvP server to start out on. I thinking about what character to create to start out with. In most games I prefer being a tank. A Worgen deathnight sounds nice. Any advice from you guys that play? What about buying toons from others?

[Wanderlai]

Anyone know about the extra exp and levels with the refer a friend offer from blizzard?

[mav1234]

used to play WoW a bit, but done with it. Moving on to greener pastures.

[blackcatgrowl]

I never played WoW but I bought the Battlechest, Lich King, and Cataclysm CE. I know almost nothing about playing but I've played tons of rpg and strategy games. I thought about playing on a PvE instead of a PvP server to start out on. I thinking about what character to create to start out with. In most games I prefer being a tank. A Worgen deathnight sounds nice. Any advice from you guys that play? What about buying toons from others?

Sure, I'll give some advice.

I thought about playing on a PvE instead of a PvP server to start out on

Not a bad idea.

Three out of four of my higher leveled characters are on a PVP server. There was once upon a time where playing on a PVP server had a thrill to it. You would watch your back all the time... and spontaneous battles could be epic... resource battles were fun.

However, it is all for nothing but to grief other people. The tangible in-game rewards you get from a open-world PVP battle are trivial. All the effective PVP rewards come from Battlegrounds, and Arenas now.

Both of these are equally accessible to PVE players as for PVP players.

In most games I prefer being a tank. A Worgen deathnight sounds nice.

This actually is a good choice. Death Knight Tanks are one of the best in the game, and they have good abilities and high survivability.

However... there's one problem with this idea...

If you just bought a new WoW Battlechest (boxed or online), you have a brand new account. Unless this was changed... to create a Death Knight, you have to have at least one level 55 character on any server on that account. Since you don't have any characters of that level, you won't be able to create a Death Knight character.

What about buying toons from others?

With the changes to low level areas, I honestly think you'd be doing yourself a dis-service by buying an existing character. You'd also not make many friends buying a high level character, as there is a learning curve as you level up that will make figuring out how to play difficult, and people would get frustrated with you as you learn.

[Wanderlai]

Thanks for the advice. Keep it coming. So which class is better to start out with or does it matter if I switch to a deathknight at level 55.

[blackcatgrowl]

Thanks for the advice. Keep it coming. So which class is better to start out with or does it matter if I switch to a deathknight at level 55.

Again, the Paladin is crazy good right now. They can main Heal and main Tank, both of which they do excellently. They can also DPS, not quite as well as other classes, but will do in most raids. There's nothing they can't really do (well, crowd control... )

Hunters are also an awesome great solo class, and DPS class for groups and raids.

[natty]

Hell, anyone want to buy my account have at it. 80 orc warrior, troll priest, tauren druid, orc hunter and undead warlock - all decently geared and epic flying mounts(hunter has a rare protodrake).

$500. Go.

[Darth Urious]

play LOTRO instead

[Zaximus]

So we've done about all the heroic 5 man's, and man, this expansion is fun so far. The counters are way harder. You earn your gear right now.

My main spec will be resto but I've been feral DPSing on my druid lately in our group (shaman healing) and I've been loving it. Pretty competitive DPS and a lot of the things druid have are being used now. I've rooted, hibernated, used tranquility, etc, all in feral spec. You're required to use all abilities at the right times now and it's great.

If they put this much time into 5 man's I can't wait to see how crazy the raiding is going to be. They really did a great job with Cata.

[SgtJoo]

I played Vanilla > BC --- Quit --- > Wrath --- Back for a Month then Quit --- > Cata

Not too inclined to come back with college and all =P

[bredy087]

Not too inclined to come back with college and all =P

I hear that! I work with a couple people that play and they always want me to come back. I really want to play but I know if I do ill never get anything else done in life lol!

[blackcatgrowl]

So we've done about all the heroic 5 man's, and man, this expansion is fun so far. The counters are way harder. You earn your gear right now.

My main spec will be resto but I've been feral DPSing on my druid lately in our group (shaman healing) and I've been loving it. Pretty competitive DPS and a lot of the things druid have are being used now. I've rooted, hibernated, used tranquility, etc, all in feral spec. You're required to use all abilities at the right times now and it's great.

If they put this much time into 5 man's I can't wait to see how crazy the raiding is going to be. They really did a great job with Cata.

Yeah, I've not run any dungeons yet, but I'm going to soon. I've been finishing up quests in Icecrown. The leveling is slower, I'm sure, but I don't want all that xp to go to waste. I'm almost halfway through 82.

Besides, since I've swapped out all my old gear for 81+ cata greens, I can solo anything outside of a dungeon (I've finished every 5-man for Icecrown thus far, only died once). To that point, the GREEN gear is amazingly good, the blue is even better. I can't imagine what Epics will be like.

[blackcatgrowl]

I assume you know this but just in case - Once you crossed the line to 80 all of that Northrend XP was cut by 90% on all of your kills.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1253376893

Oh yeah, I've noticed. With rested XP, I only get around 170xp per kill. I had wondered what the actual percentage change was... thanks for the info.

But it's all good, because the quest XP is still full value, and that's where the bulk of XP comes from. Also... I'm playing a Frost spec DW Death Knight using full green Cata gear and weapons (well, minus shoulders, haven't seen any good ones yet)... and regular mobs die in one or two hits (Howling Blast, Plague Strike, dead)

I can finish a 5-man quest solo, and get between 33,000 and 44,000 xp. Most of the other quests are 22,000 xp, but it takes longer to fly to the quest location than to finish the quest. So I stack the quests in groups and profit.

Also, if I get to Hyjal or Vashj'ir and am level 83 (or close to it), all the quests from those areas will have cash payouts much higher than going back and finishing Icecrown later.