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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Review
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
World of Warcraft has been completely remade with the recent Cataclysm expansion. MMORPG.com Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller takes a look at all of the Cataclysm features that have made it nearly a new game. From the remade quests and leveling mechanics to the new classes, Garrett gives a comprehensive look at World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
At Blizzcon 2009, fans were treated to a sneak peak at the next expansion for World of Warcraft. Cataclysm would change the game forever, taking the old world that players had gotten used to and after six years of Warcraft, the world was destroyed. The cinematic was all over the place even making it into a commercial during an NFL broadcast. With all the hype, let’s start the review of Cataclysm by looking at what Blizzard has done to the world of Azeroth.
Read more at the MMORPG.com World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Review.
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Comments
Nice score but i would rate it as an easy 9/10 just for the sheer amount of fun this expansion brings. I am glad i started playing WOW during Cataclysm.
Bite Me
No new classes should actually be a "Pro" and non a "Con"
were you there for the death knight launch? ya know, people still have no respect for this class.
at any rate, I think it deserves a higher rating than an 8. No other MMO or video game for that matter has evolved in the positive direction like WoW has in its 6 years. Im not saying give it a 10, but really just compare this expansion to any other MMO currently and you'll know it deserves a bit more than an 8.
I'm no WOW apologist, and I wasn't even going to play this expansion having burned out on the game long ago. But, Blizzard deserves props for taking their 'phasing' and quest development to a whole new level. The quest strings are now much more story driven and integrated with WOW lore. You can actually see yourself changing the world, so to speak. I can't imagine SW:TOR doing a better job...and, frankly, if they don't do at least as well as Cata has done they will have whiffed at their chance to rock the MMO world.
There is no "World" of Warcraft anymore, just an amusement park with a couple of rides and chat lobby. Phasing is everywhere and chunks of land area are pretty well devoid of anything. Every player is in their own "reality" of the world depending on the quest chains they've done. Other players, mobs, and resources flicker in and out of sight. Imagine a multiverse where the only thing reasonably stable are the NPCs.
Classes, if not broken, are bent to hell and back in the developers' attempts to remake the game into something they can manage more easily. Sounds are missing or incorrectly assigned. Look closely and you can see traces of the other, less successful, games Blizzard used to glean their inspiration from.
From what I've seen, the main group of people who are enthusiastic about this expansion are the ones who have become bored with the old content. Check back in a couple of months and they'll be bored with this too.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
I'm having lots of fun running some of my alts through the new old-world content. The new zone, Deepholm is really nice looking as well. I agree with a lot of the negative things that posters have said in this thread, but it's actually nice to be playing an MMORPG again after a long hiatus. I've been watching some of the current and soon to be released games, but I've not been very impressed except maybe for GW2. It's a nice expansion if you've been away for a long time, but it hasn't really fixed any of the glaring issues I have had with the game in the past, such as imbalanced PvP and a transparent community. I'll play it for what it is until I get burned out again.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Well, I'm sort of an old WoW player. I started playing WoW at it's release...back some years ago. I wound up leaving EQ2 to play WoW. I really enjoyied the game at it's birth, it was a lot of fun. The BC expansion, was okay, and the WoTLK well, I disliked it so much that I did not even play it. I stopped at level 70, and quit the game for good.
But I recently started back playing with the release of Cataclysm. I first I was not fond of the total re-vamping of the talents and skills. But, after sort of gritting my teeth and baring it a little bit, it really is not all that bad. In fact, it's probably really good for the game overall. It provides a lot of change the game really needed to make it something new and exciting. Cause quite frankly I was completely burned out with the old WoW.
The new questing and story telling of blizzard putting the lore into the quest lines, and having players actually play through it...is absoultly stunning!
I honestly did not think Blizzard knew how to do story line and questing together...I am indeed impressed. I never thought I'd say that about World of Warcraft again...but I am...I am Impressed. Blizzard has proven themself again. They have earned their right to be at the top of the MMO Food Chain with this expansion. Good Job Blizz!
"The games graphics remain the same"---this is not true at all. Most of the graphics have been noticably improved. There's much higher level resolution available now and (for the most part) the game seems to handle it better than it did when the entire population of a server was in Dalaran. Of course, some of that could be the intentional losing of portals to spread the population out a bit.
Also, the singing sunflower is the freakiest pet I've gotten yet (and the plants vs zombies mini-game is awesome).
Quoted for Truth.
I think you took the extent of what he said a little far. Moves WoW into the next decade and "sets the standard for everything to come in the next 10 years" are two completely different concepts. In other words, lighten up Francis.
I still find it funny all the anti WoW fanboys out there. All them have their panties all up in a bunch because WoW stole the fanbase from their first loved MMO and made it a ghost town.
WoW might not have brought anything new in this expansion to some of you haters... For those of us who has seen every up and down lived every nerf and buff this is a huge step. There will never be any perfect MMO out there to any of your standards but whatever crappy one you played 10 years ago that WoW crushed...
If you play an MMO and want a ever changing sandbox go play Mortal Online. Oh wait it failed.. Aion? Fail.. WAR (the WoW killer) Fail... AoC (Slowly bleeding out).. There is no game out there worth a damn with a player base like WoW and one that has a Dev team working their butts off trying to keep it updated and up to everyones standards.
Gaming community: IRONFIST
New World: Lilith - US East
WoW Guild: IRONFIST <Burning Legion> Alliance(We transferred to Illidan)
WoW Guild: IRONFIST <Illidan> Horde
SWOTR: IRONFIST <Satele Shan> Empire/Republic
Pwned!!! Rofl!Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes
Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge
Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
There is a bit of misinformation in the review, or rather information left out. It really is disapointing how biased this site's reviews have become in the past few months.
Other than that, the main point I was disapointed with Cataclysm is that the Worgen don't have any ability to run on all fours as was suggested would/was to be in beta. It seems really pointless to have the Worgen character models have anthropomorphic legs if they don't use them how they are designed. Basically more cartoonish unrealism for the gamer who likes to feel their brain turn to mush I suppose with the lack of intelligent gaming.
Play the game, then speak. You get four-footed running ability (as fast as a basic mount) at 20th.
Ummmmm...yeah. That's what WOW is - it's an 'amusement park' style MMORPG. Always has been. And now it has taken this style of game and pushed the envelope further than any game using phasing and story-driven quest strings.
There are two types of MMORPG's: amusement park style and sandbox style. You cannot have both in the same game (at least no one has proven you can yet). If you don't like amusement park style MMORPG's, that's fine. Don't play WOW and don't comment on WOW. Saying WOW sucks because it is an amusement park style game taken to the extreme is inconsistent. You don't compare WOW to a sandbox game. I wouldn't go on a Darkfall forum and say Darkfall is the crappiest amusement park style game I've ever played.
(1) The maelstrom is NOT the underwater zone, the underwater zone is Vashj'Ir.
(2) Actually the graphics got a very nice overhaul and it looks alot better than it did before.
(3) Some classes got their talents and abilities changed so drastically that they have an entirely new playstyle, you mentioned they changed, but still try to knock blizzard on it?
You also completely neglected to mention the addition of MULTIPLE in-game cut-scenes and cinematics that pull you in to the story, as well as quests that are completely different from "Go here, kill x, collect y".
Just thought you'd like your mistakes pointed out, cheers.
played Cata on main from 7th, almost all done by now, looks like I'll not waste my time on raids and go play something better & more fun thne sorta reanimated game =D
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
This... play the game before you make assumptions. Or type a simple phrase into Google, ya know, before you come on here and make yourself look silly. Worgen DO run on all fours. Talk about intelligent gaming?
As far as the review, I would've given it probably an 8.5. No new classes as a con? Really? Look at the class balance issues Death Knights put into the game. The game does offer new graphics, not sure where you got that from. Also, leveling from 80-85 I died quite a few times. I don't think I ever died 70-80. I haven't died very much since leveling in classic, but it was considerably harder since monsters hit you for 7k-8k. While 80-85 isn't that much harder, the end game heroics are.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
I'd like to spotlight this post. Really, I can't believe the review on the expansion is THIS factually wrong.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
From the review it appears as if this is more of a large patch than an expansion.. Though one must respect Blizzard to be able to sell it way overpriced to millions
Exactly from as it appears... Now instead of reading it try it out...
Gaming community: IRONFIST
New World: Lilith - US East
WoW Guild: IRONFIST <Burning Legion> Alliance(We transferred to Illidan)
WoW Guild: IRONFIST <Illidan> Horde
SWOTR: IRONFIST <Satele Shan> Empire/Republic
Thanks for the review, and for some of the comments. I've been in two minds about whether to return to WoW after my latest long break and what I've read here is adding to the side of me that wants to give it a go again.
Despite getting burnt out on WoW a few times (hence the long breaks), this game still has things about it which draw me back like the choices of areas for levelling, the smooth gameplay and character animation, and the fact that there always seems plenty to do, no matter how much or little time I have to spare. Although the style of graphics are not my preference (and I particularly hate anthropomorphised animals in any game), WoW has drawn me back more times and held my attention overall for longer than any other mmo to date.
I'm beginning to feel curious enough to experience the changes that I just might re-sub ^^
This is the only MMO I've stuck with for more than a month so I'm genuinely curious--do other MMO's give away thier expansions or something? Or sell them for less than $40?
As many have noted however, the review isn't entirely accurate. I think only counting the new areas there are more than 1000 new quests (not to mention factions, items, pets, mounts, etc). The overhaul of the old areas and new quests there probably means there are more than a couple thousand new quests. I guess I need to switch to whatever game you play if the "large patch"es they apparently give away have more content than this.
I get that not everybody likes this game (and I even understand most of the reasons why) but let's at least be accurate in the criticism if we can.
I usually read reviews by knowledgable others before checking things out. This one didn't exactly make me want to...
When the allegorical H-bomb of the MMO world, the life blood of any gaming site, isn't causing completely scale breaking frenzy over an expansion, I fear the reality is actually far worse than the review.
Sorry I bought it now. Cata is just more of the same. After 6 years I'm totally jaded by the experience. Level, grind regualr instances get some blue gear, enchant it, now do it heroics, now start raiding again. Do that times how many alts you can be arsed to level.