10 World of Warcraft Cataclysm Changes to Pwn Vanilla WoWBlizzard has confirmed that the third expansion for World of Warcraft – Cataclysm will change the landscape of WoW forever.
It’s a sadness that many of the beloved parts of the original game will be lost, but more importantly Cataclysm is going to erase some of the worst parts of World of Warcraft, and that is something to truly cherish.
Here is my rundown of the top 10 things I definitely won’t be missing by the time Cataclysm sunders Azeroth for ever more.
1. DesolaceThe zone of Desolace has to go down as one of the most boring and tedious zones to ever be approved by Blizzard. The name is apt because Desolace is depressingly bleak. Not dark and mysterious in a cool way like Darkshire, just horrendously, eye-gougingly bleak and truly desolate of content.
Working your way between levels 30 and 40? Send your character to the lush jungle of Stranglethorn Vale, or the open expanses of the Arathi Highlands. For the love of God, don’t punish yourself by going to Desolace.
Not only is Desolace dark and boring, it is huge, with quests that force you to run around seemingly forever, making the zone unnecessarily long and arduous; particularly in vanilla WoW when you could only get a mount at level 40. Added to this, Desolace is also home to my nemesis instance, Maraudon, or “the unnavigable maze” as it is otherwise known.
Cataclysm will see Desolace remarkably changed: “Familiar zones across the original continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms have been altered forever,” Blizzard announced in the Cataclysm FAQ. As such, Desolace will cease to be a gray nothingness and will become a verdant expanse of greenery, with new quest lines and hopefully a new dungeon, which will finally make it a zone worth visiting, other than to complete the Scarlet Monastery pre-quest.
2. AzsharaAnother God-awful zone, Azshara at least is pretty to look at, but was criminally underused by Blizzard and always seemed like an unfinished zone which was tagged on at the end when deadlines were getting tight. Not to mention those infuriating fecking stone giant elites who had a habit of popping up just as you were clipping those essential pieces of Dreamfoil from the ground.
Azshara is to be completely re-done come Cataclysm and will be the new Goblin level 10-20 area. WoW has been crying out for playable Goblin characters ever since players first encountered them in game.
The short and stunty versions of the Orcs will be a most welcome and characterful addition to the WoW universe.
3. Long “Running Around” Quest ChainsThis comes back to the above point about some of the quest chains in Desolace. Desolace is far from the only offender here. Vanilla WoW is littered with pointless quest chains which require an awful lot of running around, and not much else.
Whilst Blizzard probably thought at the time that this was a good way for players to see more of the beautifully sculpted content they had created, particularly in some of the main cities, these quests actually end up being extremely annoying and frustrating.
Take the Missing Diplomat chain for the Alliance as an example. Did we really need 17 separate quests that force the character to run from Stormwind, to Darkshire, to Addle’s Stead, back to Stormwind, to Menethil Harbour, to Theramore, to Dustwallow Marsh?
As Blizzard discovered, there are better ways to get players to explore content than sending them on absurdly long quest chains. It’s also more inclusive, which is part of the reason they ditched the massive Onyxia quest chain down in Blackrock Depths.
“We felt we could apply the lessons of Outland and Northrend to improve the gameplay while levelling in the original two continents. Our goal is to make questing, levelling and the overall story more fun”. Amen to that.
4. Running EverywhereRunning around in general is pretty crap. There were times on the larger zones like the Barrens where you could literally go and make a cup of tea whilst your character auto-ran to the next destination you were trying to get to.
Some of that irritation has gone now that Blizzard has reduced the level requirement for mount riding to level 20 and epic riding to 40, but having got used to zipping around on drakes and gryphons through Outland and Northrend, being reduced to saddling up my old tiger back in Azeroth is pretty lame.
Thankfully, you’ll be able to fly around all of Azeroth in Cataclysm, which I have to say is one of the coolest changes announced to date. I can’t wait to explore some of the previously hidden realms of Eastern Kingdoms; and being able to do so at 300 per cent walking speed will only make that all the more satisfying.
5. Night Elf DruidsIt always confused me that Blizzard offered so much choice with character selection for most classes but completely restricted others for no apparent reason. I was always bitterly disappointed that if you wanted to play a Druid as Alliance you had to be a Night elf. Similarly if you wanted to roll a Horde Druid, you had to be Tauren.
Some players have commented that this is a point of Warcraft law, but if you take this line of reasoning then you will need to come up with a damn good reason why stout, chunky, ham-fisted Dwarves can roll a Rogue; the lithe, stealthy and agile DPS class of the game.
When The Burning Crusade came out, I was certain this oversight would be corrected, but low and behold Blizzard stuck with the mono-race option for Druids of each faction, whilst other classes such as Mages and Priests got even more options when the two new races of Blood Elves and Draenei were introduced to the game.
Finally with Cataclysm this imbalance is going to be redressed. “Since one of our goals with the expansion is to make the leveling-up process feel fresh again, it made sense to introduce these new combinations as another way for players to get a new perspective on Azeroth,” said Blizzard.
Say hello to Dwarf mages, Human Hunters, Blood Elf Warriors and Tauren Paladins. More importantly though, players wanting to roll a Druid will be given a second race option on both Horde and Alliance, with the introduction of Troll Druids and Worgen Druids. I’m also particularly pleased to see the addition of a Gnome healer for the Alliance which means all-Gnome groups and all-Gnome guilds are finally possible with the addition of Gnome Priests.
6. Crafted Items You Can’t UseThis is a particular pet hate of mine, having spent endless hours, not to mention gold, levelling crafting professions that seem to have very little use throughout the game. A classic example was levelling a Paladin with Mining and Blacksmithing, which afforded virtually no armor rewards with +Intellect or +Spell Power, but were entirely geared towards a Warrior.
Even worse, lovingly crafted items which were of some use were soon defunct as simple quest rewards quickly superseded the crafted items. Enchanting and Alchemy were the only two original crafting professions that were of any use, and this elite cadre were later joined by Jewelcrafting and Inscriptions, but Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring and Engineering were all-but useless.
Reforging is set to change all of the woes of the levelling crafter, as you will be able to adjust stats on your gear to suit your needs in much the same way as adding an enchant or jewel to your items can enhance them. Blacksmiths will be able to reforge plate armor, Tailors can reforge cloth gear and so on.
Blizzard have also promised to make crafting easier by offering multiple skill-ups for harder to craft items, and making lower level gear more useful during those early crafting phases.
7. FishingLet’s face it, fishing has always been a failure of WoW. Tediously monotonous to grind, it takes a special dedication to max your fishing level, although Blizzard made it considerably easier to fish shortly before Wrath of the Lich King came out. When cooking was given a considerable boost and became a gaming essential, especially for raiders, fishing was grudgingly levelled by many a player to get access to the top consumables.
There is still an awful lot of chaff when it comes to fishing though, and players can spend hours on end waiting for the lure to bob in the water just so they can snatch a crucial fishing point. Even fishing achievements were dull to complete. Blizzard has promised that fishing is going to be more fun in Cataclysm which can only be a good thing for those levelling the secondary professions.
Talking of secondary professions Cataclysm is also going to introduce Archaeology for all you budding Indiana Jones fans. Not only will players be able to collect artefacts from around Azeroth, Blizzard have said Archaeology will be tied to the new path system, which will allow players to develop new talents by completing quest objectives.
8. Defense and MP5Whilst stats are an essential part of the WoW, unless you can crank some serious numbers Rain Man style, you have no hope of assimilating all of the various stats which contribute to make an awesome player. The plethora of stats needed for a healer, including: Intellect, Spirit, Spell Power, Mana-Per-5-seconds (MP5), Haste and Critical Strike make it difficult to compare items on a like-for-like basis.
Blizzard cleaned up a lot of stats when they merged functions such as Spell Damage and Healing Power into Spell Power. Thankfully in Cataclysm a whole bunch of other stats are due to be phased out to make the whole process more simple and easy to get to grips with. Spirit will become the mana-regeneration stat, so you can wave goodbye to MP5.
Spell Power will be assimilated into Intellect along with your mana pool. Melee classes will lose attack power and instead have that encompassed with agility, whilst tanks will lose Defense and have a boost to Stamina and Agility.
9. Hunter LootIt’s an old and tired joke, but some Huntards will still insist that any item which is not plate is legitimate “hunter loot”. No other class deserves the title “loot whore” more than hunters as they constantly find a need to roll on anything and everything that drops for a boss fight.
Bows and crossbows are fair enough, but Hunters are still eager for staves, swords, axes, maces polearms, a range of cloth, leather and mail, the whole nine yards.
It was a sweet and wonderful moment when I read the words on a Blizzard forum that Hunters will lose mana in Cataclysm. “Hunter loot” is no more, as mana will be replaced with a Rogue-style energy points system called “focus”. That means healer items will be safe from the greedy clutches of hunters trying to roll on the kitchen sink, as will any item which boosts Intellect or Spirit. A very welcome change indeed.
10. DrowningCompleting any quest underwater used to be a total nightmare for anyone who wasn’t a Druid, Warlock or Alchemist. Diving down to pick up that hidden locket or kill a few feisty murlocs in their own backyard was fraught with the added difficulty of having to time your resurfacing carefully so you wouldn’t drown at a critical moment.
Blizzard sorted the problem to a large extent when they dramatically increased the amount of time you could spend underwater before you needed to worry about coming up for breath. However, the whole underwater questing thing is still extremely tedious as movement speed is reduced to that of an ambling kobold and the unwary player can still be caught out without breath, meaning he’ll be sleeping with the fishes.
Cataclysm is going to see an entirely new dynamic brought to the game as Blizzard will introduce a completely underwater zone, the Sunken City of Vashj’ir. “We’ll be introducing some new mechanics specific to the Sunken City of Vashj’ir that address current issues with underwater movement, combat and other gameplay mechanics.”
With so much time inevitably spent underwater it’s pretty safe to say that you can kiss goodbye to drowning as Blizzard implements some underwater breathing apparatus and you can be certain that the next level of mounts to be rolled out will be underwater turtles, seahorses and sharks. Like Finding Nemo, Cataclysm is going to make life under the sea very cool.