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| World Of Warcraft Cataclysm |
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World of Warcraft has been out for almost five years now - hard to imagine, thinking back to the days when the game was first announced - and it's got a massive following. It's only had two official expansion packs, but it's one of the most content-heavy MMORPGs out there, and it shows no signs of letting up. With at least three major content patches stuffed in between retail releases, almost all of which have added new functionality, more convenience, and plenty of new loot, dungeons, and places to PvP in, it's easy to see why Blizzard does charge a hefty $35 price tag for each expansion.
But with Cataclysm, Blizzard hopes to start righting the wrongs with the original world of Azeroth. From the disjointed quest lines to the way Blizzard has increased leveling speed (but forcing you to leave whole zones' worth of content behind), Azeroth has so far only been haphazardly made barely tolerable to those enjoying the superior gameplay style of both The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. Now, the granddaddy of Azeroth's dragons, Deathwing, is back, and when he emerges from the core of the planet, he brings with him some pretty serious changes to the face of Azeroth.
The whole original world is being redesigned for this as lava flows appear in old, familiar places, chasms appear, zones that were once devoid of anything living now see new life taking hold. Blizzard isn't going to necessarily upend every zone or turn every environment into some kind of "opposite day" caricature, but one thing you can expect is a complete rewrite of most of the game's quests and a complete redo of the level 1-60 game.
And with that also come two new races. The Alliance will get the Worgen, the werewolves who have organized and are ready to join the forces of Stormwind, Darnassus, and Ironforge. Meanwhile, a new faction of goblins have been uprooted from their home by the Cataclysm, and they get to join the Horde. Each will have a brand new outdoor zone that takes them from level one to fifteen, and from there they'll get to join the rest of Azeroth to go to around 60, then on to Outland until around 70, Northrend until 80ish, and then it's back to Azeroth to get to the new level cap of 85.
You might be wondering why the cap is only being increased by 5, but it seems to be part of Blizzard's attempt to make level just a little less important when you're actually leveling. The intent so far is to give players just as much in the way of new talents, spells, and abilities as one would get inside of ten original levels, so that shouldn't be an issue. But what might be the most interesting change coming to the new Azeroth is the ability to use flying mounts.
Some have been annoyed at how adding the ability to fly in Azeroth has taken so long, but check out any video on Youtube exploring some of the more broken and usually inaccessible areas of Azeroth and you'll see why Blizzard can't flip that switch without making their game look like a complete embarrassment. Some areas are just flat plains covered in a single repeating texture; some have no textures at all; some are broken, derelict areas made during development, years back, that never got used in the original game. Many of those half-finished places from the old Azeroth will be brought to life in spectacular new fashion: Mount Hyjal (the modern-day version, that is), Uldum, and more are being rebuilt as level 80+ areas to level in or run through as dungeons or raids.
I got the chance at Blizzcon to play as both new races and try out their starting areas, and I can say without out a doubt that the developers are really putting their phasing technology to good use. This is the system that lets Blizzard show you a completely different "time" in the area you're standing in, allowing the world to change based on your actions - and those changes are permanent for your character. So while your buddy who's starting out as a Worgen will see a lush, peaceful version of their kingdom of Gilneas, you, having started a few minutes earlier, will be in a later phase of that zone where an invading army has landed on nearby ships and the whole area is being overrun. Until your friend catches up with you, you won't be able to work with him on quests in that area, but once he does, you'll have a blast together. The phasing system is a fantastic way for Blizzard to simulate this idea of allowing each player to "change the world" in their own way, and I'd love to see almost every area in Cataclysm use it to one extent or another.
The Worgen are interesting in that the player also has his original human form he can change into. Unfortunately, there isn't really much that a werewolf can do in WoW that a human cannot; there's no biting, clawing, or anything else that his class choice doesn't already give him. Yes, it probably is a good idea for Blizzard to give the Alliance a "beastly" class, but for anyone who's seriously into PvP, it's not going to make a bunch of Horde players go and switch to Alliance. Not a chance. One other downside is that while players got to configure the look of their Worgen, their human form was not customizable during character creation. (This shouldn't be that difficult for Blizzard to fix before release.)
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