Well Cata has its good and has its bad....my main complaint is the zones, are even more linear then before, you get 1-3 quests most of the time, have to do those, to get the next 1-3 quests, so you get there, theres 10 mobs to kill with 20 ppl there killin them and you have really nowhere else to go till next level.
As far as intances go, glad to see they added a little more challenge to them
New classes sound good on paper, but really what could you add to WOW that would be different from existing classes? There are already 10 classes with 3 unique talent trees each, essentially 30 classes compared to most other MMO's. I personally would like to see a Warden class added, but again... how would they make it cool and different?
Waits for the usual Two Minute Hate for anything WoW related to fade
Now that thats out of the way... Cat as you mention has its pros and cons. Having two 85's (and three 80's) I've seen quite a bit of the new expansion. On the plus side, some of the new areas(underwater especially) have much better flow than many of the old ones. Even though its the same types of quests, they are presented in a more effective fashion. Sea horse mounts was also a cute touch. Also the use of a portal hub in SW was well thought out. The egyptian theme zone was also a blast, as was the daily with the pigmies and the ancient hammer. ^^
I'm of two minds when it comes to the talent system make over. On the one side I can see that the old system had its flaws, but the current one is even more prone to cookie cutter builds than the last one was. Many of the class talents and trees, that defined a given class role have been changed. In that its a mixed bag. But once more it speaks about Blizzards obsession with spread sheets, rather than the fun factor. I suspect they spend much more time data mining, than they do in actual play.
Now the con side. First and foremost to my mind is the crippling of the Dungeon Finder. In Wrath, it was the main thing that brought me back to the game after burning out. Its one of the most effective anti churn devices I've seen in quite awhile. I simply do not have the time and patience to spend 45 minutes to an hour (or more) in the LFG channel, in the hope I might get a dungeon run.
The Dungeon Finder made it so that anyone(even dps) could find a dungeon party in no more than 15 to 20 minutes(even in off peak hours). Sure tanks and healers have almost insta pop even these days, but the poor bloody dps have to wait, and wait and wait. Then they added the cute little addition that one has to "discover" the dungeon entries before being able to queue for them. Yes, yes, I know all about the rationalizations involved, but that wasn't in place in Wrath, and it remains just that, a rationalization.
Unless one is a tank or healer, the typical wait is in the 35-45 minute to an hour plus range(and doesn't seem to change that much no matter the hour). It seriously limits the number of runs that many people can have, and thus we are almost back to the amount of time one had to spend spamming the LFG channel.
The fact remains that by limiting access to one of the games best selling points, they have crippled their own anti churn device. Not to mention the petty aspect of making the main dungeon point gear blue, rather than purple(as it was in Wrath). Its that type of pettiness that comes to define many of Blizzards Dev's attitudes towards their player base. No doubt it was a bone thrown to the raider types who QQ'ed over "welfare epics".
As for adding a new class...(cue bitter laughter) They are still working on ruining the last one!(Death Knight).
The endless nerfs and "balances" the DK class has been subjected to are so extensive, that it literally went on for most of the first year. Even to this day, it is still one of the Dev's favorite targets for their nerf bats. So, lets not even speak of adding another new class, shall we?.
Over all, I agree with your score of 8. Its a fun expansion, but it has some rather poor design decisions.
You certainly used the word 'easier' alot of times in this review. Hard to imagine WOW getting even easier.
ugh you haven't played cata then, you thought it was easy and on rails before its worse now(mostly lower areas). some mobs that use to be red before are now yellow, some quests that was a bit rough (by wow standards) now have NPC escorts so its basicly impossible to die and you can't refuse them. you finish an area and there is no question ALOT of the times as to where you need to go next because there is NPC coaches to shuttle you to the next area. like even just the run from the dwarf starter area to Kaz, you no longer have to run through that tunnel. you take a helicoptor to kaz, completely by passing that little skit they had their with the dwarves and the "THIS IS MY BOOMSTICK!" and actually they removed the skit completely. the npcs are still there, i was wondering about it so i back tracked and watched for a good while and they all just stand there now like lumps.
that said tho i am really enjoying the expansion, i like all the revamped areas and how they even redid the crap gear quests use to give. you do all the quests in a hub you'll no longer look like a hobo your gear all matches and actually looks good. favorite quest zone so far was Redridge, had a pretty long quest chain there that i enjoyed alot. i believe it was an "Expendibles" spoof (not sure never seen it) quest rewards at the end was a Rambo headband,survival knife,bow or a ring i think you always got the headband tho.
Vash'jr (sp?) is alot of fun as well, wich i was honestly blown away by the fact they GIVE you a mount for there thats 450% speed and was a simple quest, and fairly early like within an hour i had the mount. usually stuff like that blizz likes to make a major chore of rep grind and insane price.
there is a really funny quests with a drunk dwarf,gnome and orc in... i forget the zone... talking about how they kicked deathwings ass. had me actually laughing out loud, you got to control each of them as they told thier story. dwarf was running around punching elementals in the face (yelling "face punch") till you got to deathwing who he also punched in teh face sending him flying to kalimdor.. all 3 was really funny tho but the but the orc was the best one. talking about how he was on his hog checkin out hot chicks and there was like 4 there but the one was a BE male all 1/2 naked and they're all doing the /flirt emote at the male orc lol
tho i was never a gear whore, and i could honestly careless about gear. once i see an instance and do it a couple times and get bored i won't do it anymore, unless for a friend. i'm an alt-aholic tho, wich this expansion seems to be 99% for. i plan on rolling an alt of the other races to see whats changed and what the quests are like.
New classes sound good on paper, but really what could you add to WOW that would be different from existing classes? There are already 10 classes with 3 unique talent trees each, essentially 30 classes compared to most other MMO's. I personally would like to see a Warden class added, but again... how would they make it cool and different?
How about a ranged class that isn't pet based and has stealth? Gun based option? Dual pistols, bigger guns, bow or crossbow? Ranger or Gunslinger?
How about a melee based healing class that works similar to the bear shaman in AOC? Or the Justicar in the upcoming Rift? Or like one of the dark elf classes in War? (forget what they are called)
A monk class? fist weapon or staff specialist, with elemental melee attacks and side healing? basically a rogue/healer?
A melee based magic class in weak armor? Like the one that can turn into a demon on AoC
Something using throwing weapons? they do seem a bit useless other than for pulling at the moment...
Now the con side. First and foremost to my mind is the crippling of the Dungeon Finder. In Wrath, it was the main thing that brought me back to the game after burning out. Its one of the most effective anti churn devices I've seen in quite awhile. I simply do not have the time and patience to spend 45 minutes to an hour (or more) in the LFG channel, in the hope I might get a dungeon run.
The Dungeon Finder made it so that anyone(even dps) could find a dungeon party in no more than 15 to 20 minutes(even in off peak hours). Sure tanks and healers have almost insta pop even these days, but the poor bloody dps have to wait, and wait and wait. Then they added the cute little addition that one has to "discover" the dungeon entries before being able to queue for them. Yes, yes, I know all about the rationalizations involved, but that wasn't in place in Wrath, and it remains just that, a rationalization.
The Dungeon Finder itself has not been changed. It works exactly as it did in Wrath.
What has changed is this:
You need to visit each dungeon portal via world travel first before you can enter it. if you have your Flight Master's License (flying in Azeroth) this takes just a few minutes per dungeon. Once you've "discovered" the portal, you can enter via DF afterwards.
Some dungeons have an average item level requirement as well as a level requirement. This undoubtedly keeps some players out of the harder dungeons, but they may not be the players you'd really want by your side in those harder dungeons! As time goes on and players gear up, this will be less of a factor.
Perhaps most importantly, the "number of players by level" graph no longer looks like a long low tail followed by a tall wall at 80. Hundreds of thousands or millions of players are working their way up to 85 this very minute. Some of them are using DF on the way up, others are not. When they hit 85, your queues in DF will shorten like magic.
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.
And it's people like you that have given your "beloved" game it's bad name. Good job!
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.
And it's people like you that have given your "beloved" game it's bad name. Good job!
I more so just made that post to point out the obvious. People are drawn to anything that has WoW in it. Most the people that come are there more to slander then have a decent opinion.
WoW doesn't need my help to get a good or bad name.
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
You certainly used the word 'easier' alot of times in this review. Hard to imagine WOW getting even easier.
ugh you haven't played cata then, you thought it was easy and on rails before its worse now(mostly lower areas). some mobs that use to be red before are now yellow, some quests that was a bit rough (by wow standards) now have NPC escorts so its basicly impossible to die and you can't refuse them. you finish an area and there is no question ALOT of the times as to where you need to go next because there is NPC coaches to shuttle you to the next area. like even just the run from the dwarf starter area to Kaz, you no longer have to run through that tunnel. you take a helicoptor to kaz, completely by passing that little skit they had their with the dwarves and the "THIS IS MY BOOMSTICK!" and actually they removed the skit completely. the npcs are still there, i was wondering about it so i back tracked and watched for a good while and they all just stand there now like lumps.
that said tho i am really enjoying the expansion, i like all the revamped areas and how they even redid the crap gear quests use to give. you do all the quests in a hub you'll no longer look like a hobo your gear all matches and actually looks good. favorite quest zone so far was Redridge, had a pretty long quest chain there that i enjoyed alot. i believe it was an "Expendibles" spoof (not sure never seen it) quest rewards at the end was a Rambo headband,survival knife,bow or a ring i think you always got the headband tho.
Vash'jr (sp?) is alot of fun as well, wich i was honestly blown away by the fact they GIVE you a mount for there thats 450% speed and was a simple quest, and fairly early like within an hour i had the mount. usually stuff like that blizz likes to make a major chore of rep grind and insane price.
there is a really funny quests with a drunk dwarf,gnome and orc in... i forget the zone... talking about how they kicked deathwings ass. had me actually laughing out loud, you got to control each of them as they told thier story. dwarf was running around punching elementals in the face (yelling "face punch") till you got to deathwing who he also punched in teh face sending him flying to kalimdor.. all 3 was really funny tho but the but the orc was the best one. talking about how he was on his hog checkin out hot chicks and there was like 4 there but the one was a BE male all 1/2 naked and they're all doing the /flirt emote at the male orc lol
tho i was never a gear whore, and i could honestly careless about gear. once i see an instance and do it a couple times and get bored i won't do it anymore, unless for a friend. i'm an alt-aholic tho, wich this expansion seems to be 99% for. i plan on rolling an alt of the other races to see whats changed and what the quests are like.
I agree the game has been dumbed down so many times its got to the point that the only kind of challange is Raids and only then if your raiding with idiots, its a good expansion but really just another way to distract from a game that has little depth and no real challange left in it.
no I'm not a hater, I still play and will till ToR or something with some teeth comes out but wow is now 100% fisher price.
I did not like the water zones although they were very pretty. The one major problem I have with the expansion, the quest lines are all linked, you just can't skip one if you don't want to do it as it prevents you from doing the others in the line.
I got to a point in the water zone with a boss fight you have to do with a 110k hp elite against a boss with 1.1 million hp and it is strictly a timing fight, you have to time your spells to interrupt the bosses big spells. Needless to say I am horrilbe in timing scenarios. Since I did not complete this quest I could not finish the rest of the quests in the area. I will eventually go back and do it, just that I play a game to have fun, not be frustrated.
The seahorse mount was nice, but there were a lot of issues with it, many places where it was not usable when it should have been. Note to developers, when you restrict a mount to a certain area, you are going to create more problems than if you had just made the mount available in water anywhere. Bad decision leads to many bugs.
I will say I really like the redesign of the 1-60 areas including the new races areas. That was very well done.
In general, I like cataclysm. However, it bugs me a bit that the resources found within dungeons ain't fitting anymore to the level of the dungeon.
Example: with lvl 40 or 41 on my tauren paladin, I was in Diremaul, which was pre-cata a lvl 55-60 dungeon. There are still rich thorium veines in Diremaul, which is kinda silly, since it's unlikely that you have a mining of... what is it... 250 or 275 or higher on lvl 40. Same with Maraudon. Earlier it was a lvl 45-50 dungeon, now it's a lvl 38 dungeon (or something like that).
As a result, you will quite often find resource nodes which you can't harvest. I mean, you have to grind for some resources now anyway, to keep your gathering skills fitting to your level, because you level too quickly to find enough resource nodes in that time. Pre-Cata, you could at least harvest all the nodes you found in dungeons, which helped you keeping your gathering skills up to date. Now that you encounter rich thorium mines or ghost mushrooms between lvl 30 and 40, for both of which you need a gathering skill of over 200, you basically can't harvest resources anymore in many dungeons. And since you can't harvest them, you have to grind them even more outside the normal levelling/questing/dungeons.
It's not such a big problem. With my goblin priest, who is into alchemy and herbalism, I went several times some zones up and down, and the gathering skill is now way higher than it normally would be. Basically, her herbalism and alchemy skills are always near the maximum that the level permits. Still... it's simply a design flaw. Until level 60, your gathering skill was, before cata, fine if it was 5 times your level. So at level 10 you had profession skills at 50. On level 20, they were at 100, on lvl 40, they were at 200, and on lvl 60, they were at 300. That worked. Now, it doesn't anymore. According to this old balancing, with lvl 40 I should have a skill of roughly 200, while I no encounter at that level resources requiring a far higher skill to be gathered.
So... it's not gamebreaking or anything, but it's an annoying design flaw. They should have replaced the nodes found in dungeons with those fitting to the level. For example: put mithril into Diremaul, instead of rich thorium. Or put iron and gold into Maraudon, instead of mithril.
i got to say !cataclysm does suprise me !in fact it bring back lot the fun factor in wow a thing that surprisingly we havent have had since vanilla wow.ho you ll still get the video review on how to do this and do that ,but ask any that met shogall or other raid and people see that these raid were made so that even if you know the fight it wont help you a lot if you re not paying attention to the fight!before lol surprisingly they might have been harder fight when lunched but less brainiac.this here lol ,dont cc in any shape and form ,outch outch outch.people are so used to just put the hammer down and go to town that i bet a lot of player feel frustrated at time .that what vanilla was everybody had to do stuff im very glad blizzard finally brough back the soul of what wow was.and now is!and its not just raid everything is challenging .yes pvp have cheating issue!(patched temporarelly this week .till the final solution on the 25 on january but aside from that ,i got to say the only negative i could find was faction imbalance on server,like on illidan 1000 horde vs 200 .on other server its 1000 ally vs 200 horde !this got to change but aside from this issue
I know everyone here loves to hate WoW because the game they play is a ghost town, but Cataclysm is in my personal opinion the best MMORPG expansion I have ever played and that's since playing MMORPGs since EQ in 2000.
Do we really need new classes when every class was revamped with 4.0.1?
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
Didn't people say it's supposed to get more difficult? So, I played now mostly goblin and worgen on low levels, and just leveled up my warlock to 81. With said warlock, I had been twice in that vashjir dungeon and the blackrock one, the dungeons for lvl 80/81. In those three groups, most often only one or two people had been in that dungeon before, the other 3 or 4 haven't. We wiped a total of... once or twice. And that is supposed to be difficult? You get in there with random people, crappy equipment, people who don't know what to do, and you still can kill everything easily?
Huh? Didn't people shout "You need now crow control!" and so on? I can still with my warlock pop metamorphosis, the flame aura, hellfire, the fellguards whirlwind, and with that triple aoe run into the mob groups, mostly unarmed, burning and killing them all down at once.
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.
I have played the game thanks, and the lack of mentioning a player doesnt get the ability until L 20 only proves my point. Anthropomorphic legs dont learn to walk as a biped before moving as a quadriped, lol, its the opposite. I guess it just goes to show how clueless Blizzard devs really are.
Bought cata, got my warrior to 85 and tanked some heroics - boredoom
Blizzard fully ignores the RP community and that is just sad. Tbh, I think it's the community that ruins WoW for me, not the game itself...
I couldnt agree more. I tried the new races, the starting areas feel rushed and incomplete, not to mention all the horrible voice-acting... Then I logged in my old character and I really had to look to find anything different about the game other than a few terraign changes. The skill and class changes arent worth mentioning. Cata is definitely not worth 40 USD.
I have only been playing WOW for three years...which puts me at the BC XPAC right before WOTLK. However, I have only really played Horde toons.
I have also played each of the Warcraft games, and I am versed (but not an expert) in WOW lore.
I have enjoyed the game thus far. However, I am currently playing EVE Online. Taking a little break from WOW.
Once WOTLK started up, I traveled to Howling Fjord and was amazed. I got into WOTLK, and I enjoyed the game. Cata looks very nice and I have enjoyed playing. Two weeks before the CATA release I leveled a Undead Hunter, and a Troll Druid to level 25. I enjoyed the new content and new starting areas. At CAta release I played a Goblin and a Worgen and leveled each to level 10 or so.
I give much props to WOW, and all that they have done. But, I remember that this is JUST a game and nothing more.
What I have enjoyed thus far,
I have enjoyed the reworking of the old world. It looks great. The new quests are updated and more fun in general. I actually enjoyed questing in the Barrens. The new marshland south of ORG is awesome. I loved prowling through the marsh with my troll druid.
The Forsaken starting area looks great also, plus Tarren Mill quests are awesome, and Brill got a much needed update. The quests were engaging pretty novel.
I have leveled quite a few toons in my three years of playing and I really enjoyed the updates.
The Goblin and Worgen starting areas and questing was also pretty fun. The Worgen area was well thought out, and I could see that they really worked hard. However, for my play style it felt restrictive, however, WOW was trying to tell a singular story. The Goblin story-line was enjoyable, but I wished that WOW had introduced a Tinker Class or some steam punk class. I think that WOW has laid the groundwork for that class in the lore. The Goblin/Gnome screams for it.
The new Cata content looks really nice also, and I have enjoyed the look and questing so far.
Currently Play: ? Occasionally Play: Champions, Pirates of the Burning Sea, WOW, EVE ONLINE
Most people seem to focus on one or two aspects of the game when knocking on it. For instance, one person talks about difficulty yet isn't even 85 yet. Another person speaks of how they don't ike the Vash'jir quest chain, but neglects to mention if you so choose, you can SKIP one or two of the new zones and still get to 85 easily.
WoW is and always has been attracting different sorts of people. People into lore, end-game raiding, etc. come to have fun. For those upset leveling their 1 or 2 characters from 80 to 85 and not being fulfilled, I'd say re-visit the world. People say questing is "easy", but some fail to mention how fun some quests are. All the achievements you can work towards. All the shear options that are available. Want to have a lot of fun achievement point-ing and doing cool things? Want to be challenged with end-game raiding? Want to go on with a bunch of close friends and just have fun?
I honestly point and laugh at people who say they don't like WoW or ANY MMO and are doing it alone. You truly miss out on the purpose of an MMO. You talk about instancing and phasing and how it's a single player game...yet have you ever leveled every step of the way with a friend to just goof off and have fun with? Maybe some of you should re-evaluate what you want out of a game. If you're looking for a 1-85 grind with no friends and turn to WoW, you might be inclined to not like it. It's not that I don't agree that some aspects of WoW are easy or dumbed down, but when those things occur, other things are brought to the table that can hep you overlook those things. If you're solely focused on graphics or being tired of "collect this" quest, you'll hate every MMO because you'll always find something to hate on.
In all honesty I'm not even playing Cataclysm currently and just go on some friends' accounts and have fun for awhile because I can't afford it (yeah, I'm poor, oh well). And I'm not a huge "omg you hate WoW you're an idiot I'll defend WoW until I die" person, but I don't understand how some people continuously bash a game when they could be elsewhere praising one they enjoy. To every person hating on people who love WoW or who think it's a bad game: It seems like a jealousy issue that you haven't found a game you truly enjoy. And if you HAVE found that game, I implore you to go do your "defending" of that game and leave all those who enjoy something at peace. We appreciate peace (yet play WARcraft ^_^).
Originally posted by DBGokuX4 Most people seem to focus on one or two aspects of the game when knocking on it. For instance, one person talks about difficulty yet isn't even 85 yet. Another person speaks of how they don't ike the Vash'jir quest chain, but neglects to mention if you so choose, you can SKIP one or two of the new zones and still get to 85 easily.
WoW is and always has been attracting different sorts of people. People into lore, end-game raiding, etc. come to have fun. For those upset leveling their 1 or 2 characters from 80 to 85 and not being fulfilled, I'd say re-visit the world. People say questing is "easy", but some fail to mention how fun some quests are. All the achievements you can work towards. All the shear options that are available. Want to have a lot of fun achievement point-ing and doing cool things? Want to be challenged with end-game raiding? Want to go on with a bunch of close friends and just have fun?
I honestly point and laugh at people who say they don't like WoW or ANY MMO and are doing it alone. You truly miss out on the purpose of an MMO. You talk about instancing and phasing and how it's a single player game...yet have you ever leveled every step of the way with a friend to just goof off and have fun with? Maybe some of you should re-evaluate what you want out of a game. If you're looking for a 1-85 grind with no friends and turn to WoW, you might be inclined to not like it. It's not that I don't agree that some aspects of WoW are easy or dumbed down, but when those things occur, other things are brought to the table that can hep you overlook those things. If you're solely focused on graphics or being tired of "collect this" quest, you'll hate every MMO because you'll always find something to hate on.
In all honesty I'm not even playing Cataclysm currently and just go on some friends' accounts and have fun for awhile because I can't afford it (yeah, I'm poor, oh well). And I'm not a huge "omg you hate WoW you're an idiot I'll defend WoW until I die" person, but I don't understand how some people continuously bash a game when they could be elsewhere praising one they enjoy. To every person hating on people who love WoW or who think it's a bad game: It seems like a jealousy issue that you haven't found a game you truly enjoy. And if you HAVE found that game, I implore you to go do your "defending" of that game and leave all those who enjoy something at peace. We appreciate peace (yet play WARcraft ^_^).
Happy Holidays!
Simply Put WoW looks like a cartoon and lacks Many things many MMO gamers crave.
Bought cata, got my warrior to 85 and tanked some heroics - boredoom
Blizzard fully ignores the RP community and that is just sad. Tbh, I think it's the community that ruins WoW for me, not the game itself...
This is one of the most laughable comments i have read to date, how can a game designer promote or improve roleplay? Roleplay is reliant on the playerbase embracing the concept. The simple TRUTH is Blizzard do everything possible to promote roleplay all the tools are there already, have been for years now, you just need to find like-minded individuals to use them.
On topic, Cata is probably the single best expansion i have ever played in any mmgo, and i have played many of them over the years. It's a massive content boost and the revampin of the old zones makes for some interresting exploration. The increased diffisulty of the higher end heroics is also a welcome addition, no more farming instances with the sole requirement to succeed being your gear. Now players at least have to learn to think a little to succeed, at the moment at any rate.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Comments
Bought cata, got my warrior to 85 and tanked some heroics - boredoom
Blizzard fully ignores the RP community and that is just sad. Tbh, I think it's the community that ruins WoW for me, not the game itself...
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
Well Cata has its good and has its bad....my main complaint is the zones, are even more linear then before, you get 1-3 quests most of the time, have to do those, to get the next 1-3 quests, so you get there, theres 10 mobs to kill with 20 ppl there killin them and you have really nowhere else to go till next level.
As far as intances go, glad to see they added a little more challenge to them
New classes sound good on paper, but really what could you add to WOW that would be different from existing classes? There are already 10 classes with 3 unique talent trees each, essentially 30 classes compared to most other MMO's. I personally would like to see a Warden class added, but again... how would they make it cool and different?
Real review:
It's 2010, here is more of the same grinding crap you have been doing for 6 years, with a bit of new stuff stolen from other games.
Waits for the usual Two Minute Hate for anything WoW related to fade
Now that thats out of the way... Cat as you mention has its pros and cons. Having two 85's (and three 80's) I've seen quite a bit of the new expansion. On the plus side, some of the new areas(underwater especially) have much better flow than many of the old ones. Even though its the same types of quests, they are presented in a more effective fashion. Sea horse mounts was also a cute touch. Also the use of a portal hub in SW was well thought out. The egyptian theme zone was also a blast, as was the daily with the pigmies and the ancient hammer. ^^
I'm of two minds when it comes to the talent system make over. On the one side I can see that the old system had its flaws, but the current one is even more prone to cookie cutter builds than the last one was. Many of the class talents and trees, that defined a given class role have been changed. In that its a mixed bag. But once more it speaks about Blizzards obsession with spread sheets, rather than the fun factor. I suspect they spend much more time data mining, than they do in actual play.
Now the con side. First and foremost to my mind is the crippling of the Dungeon Finder. In Wrath, it was the main thing that brought me back to the game after burning out. Its one of the most effective anti churn devices I've seen in quite awhile. I simply do not have the time and patience to spend 45 minutes to an hour (or more) in the LFG channel, in the hope I might get a dungeon run.
The Dungeon Finder made it so that anyone(even dps) could find a dungeon party in no more than 15 to 20 minutes(even in off peak hours). Sure tanks and healers have almost insta pop even these days, but the poor bloody dps have to wait, and wait and wait. Then they added the cute little addition that one has to "discover" the dungeon entries before being able to queue for them. Yes, yes, I know all about the rationalizations involved, but that wasn't in place in Wrath, and it remains just that, a rationalization.
Unless one is a tank or healer, the typical wait is in the 35-45 minute to an hour plus range(and doesn't seem to change that much no matter the hour). It seriously limits the number of runs that many people can have, and thus we are almost back to the amount of time one had to spend spamming the LFG channel.
The fact remains that by limiting access to one of the games best selling points, they have crippled their own anti churn device. Not to mention the petty aspect of making the main dungeon point gear blue, rather than purple(as it was in Wrath). Its that type of pettiness that comes to define many of Blizzards Dev's attitudes towards their player base. No doubt it was a bone thrown to the raider types who QQ'ed over "welfare epics".
As for adding a new class...(cue bitter laughter) They are still working on ruining the last one!(Death Knight).
The endless nerfs and "balances" the DK class has been subjected to are so extensive, that it literally went on for most of the first year. Even to this day, it is still one of the Dev's favorite targets for their nerf bats. So, lets not even speak of adding another new class, shall we?.
Over all, I agree with your score of 8. Its a fun expansion, but it has some rather poor design decisions.
You certainly used the word 'easier' alot of times in this review. Hard to imagine WOW getting even easier.
ugh you haven't played cata then, you thought it was easy and on rails before its worse now(mostly lower areas). some mobs that use to be red before are now yellow, some quests that was a bit rough (by wow standards) now have NPC escorts so its basicly impossible to die and you can't refuse them. you finish an area and there is no question ALOT of the times as to where you need to go next because there is NPC coaches to shuttle you to the next area. like even just the run from the dwarf starter area to Kaz, you no longer have to run through that tunnel. you take a helicoptor to kaz, completely by passing that little skit they had their with the dwarves and the "THIS IS MY BOOMSTICK!" and actually they removed the skit completely. the npcs are still there, i was wondering about it so i back tracked and watched for a good while and they all just stand there now like lumps.
that said tho i am really enjoying the expansion, i like all the revamped areas and how they even redid the crap gear quests use to give. you do all the quests in a hub you'll no longer look like a hobo your gear all matches and actually looks good. favorite quest zone so far was Redridge, had a pretty long quest chain there that i enjoyed alot. i believe it was an "Expendibles" spoof (not sure never seen it) quest rewards at the end was a Rambo headband,survival knife,bow or a ring i think you always got the headband tho.
Vash'jr (sp?) is alot of fun as well, wich i was honestly blown away by the fact they GIVE you a mount for there thats 450% speed and was a simple quest, and fairly early like within an hour i had the mount. usually stuff like that blizz likes to make a major chore of rep grind and insane price.
there is a really funny quests with a drunk dwarf,gnome and orc in... i forget the zone... talking about how they kicked deathwings ass. had me actually laughing out loud, you got to control each of them as they told thier story. dwarf was running around punching elementals in the face (yelling "face punch") till you got to deathwing who he also punched in teh face sending him flying to kalimdor.. all 3 was really funny tho but the but the orc was the best one. talking about how he was on his hog checkin out hot chicks and there was like 4 there but the one was a BE male all 1/2 naked and they're all doing the /flirt emote at the male orc lol
tho i was never a gear whore, and i could honestly careless about gear. once i see an instance and do it a couple times and get bored i won't do it anymore, unless for a friend. i'm an alt-aholic tho, wich this expansion seems to be 99% for. i plan on rolling an alt of the other races to see whats changed and what the quests are like.
How about a ranged class that isn't pet based and has stealth? Gun based option? Dual pistols, bigger guns, bow or crossbow? Ranger or Gunslinger?
How about a melee based healing class that works similar to the bear shaman in AOC? Or the Justicar in the upcoming Rift? Or like one of the dark elf classes in War? (forget what they are called)
A monk class? fist weapon or staff specialist, with elemental melee attacks and side healing? basically a rogue/healer?
A melee based magic class in weak armor? Like the one that can turn into a demon on AoC
Something using throwing weapons? they do seem a bit useless other than for pulling at the moment...
A Runemaster? It's already in the lore.. http://www.wowwiki.com/Runemaster
Something like Vampire? Melee based health leeching class?
A full engineer class? Steampunk pets, gadgets and stationary turrets?
The Dungeon Finder itself has not been changed. It works exactly as it did in Wrath.
What has changed is this:
You need to visit each dungeon portal via world travel first before you can enter it. if you have your Flight Master's License (flying in Azeroth) this takes just a few minutes per dungeon. Once you've "discovered" the portal, you can enter via DF afterwards.
Some dungeons have an average item level requirement as well as a level requirement. This undoubtedly keeps some players out of the harder dungeons, but they may not be the players you'd really want by your side in those harder dungeons! As time goes on and players gear up, this will be less of a factor.
Perhaps most importantly, the "number of players by level" graph no longer looks like a long low tail followed by a tall wall at 80. Hundreds of thousands or millions of players are working their way up to 85 this very minute. Some of them are using DF on the way up, others are not. When they hit 85, your queues in DF will shorten like magic.
i can tell by reading this review the author didn't actualy play the expansion at all, and just read about it from people on the forums here.
KERPLAH!
And it's people like you that have given your "beloved" game it's bad name. Good job!
I more so just made that post to point out the obvious. People are drawn to anything that has WoW in it. Most the people that come are there more to slander then have a decent opinion.
WoW doesn't need my help to get a good or bad name.
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
I agree the game has been dumbed down so many times its got to the point that the only kind of challange is Raids and only then if your raiding with idiots, its a good expansion but really just another way to distract from a game that has little depth and no real challange left in it.
no I'm not a hater, I still play and will till ToR or something with some teeth comes out but wow is now 100% fisher price.
I did not like the water zones although they were very pretty. The one major problem I have with the expansion, the quest lines are all linked, you just can't skip one if you don't want to do it as it prevents you from doing the others in the line.
I got to a point in the water zone with a boss fight you have to do with a 110k hp elite against a boss with 1.1 million hp and it is strictly a timing fight, you have to time your spells to interrupt the bosses big spells. Needless to say I am horrilbe in timing scenarios. Since I did not complete this quest I could not finish the rest of the quests in the area. I will eventually go back and do it, just that I play a game to have fun, not be frustrated.
The seahorse mount was nice, but there were a lot of issues with it, many places where it was not usable when it should have been. Note to developers, when you restrict a mount to a certain area, you are going to create more problems than if you had just made the mount available in water anywhere. Bad decision leads to many bugs.
I will say I really like the redesign of the 1-60 areas including the new races areas. That was very well done.
"wow is now 100% fisher price"
Best quote in the thread, bar none.
In general, I like cataclysm. However, it bugs me a bit that the resources found within dungeons ain't fitting anymore to the level of the dungeon.
Example: with lvl 40 or 41 on my tauren paladin, I was in Diremaul, which was pre-cata a lvl 55-60 dungeon. There are still rich thorium veines in Diremaul, which is kinda silly, since it's unlikely that you have a mining of... what is it... 250 or 275 or higher on lvl 40. Same with Maraudon. Earlier it was a lvl 45-50 dungeon, now it's a lvl 38 dungeon (or something like that).
As a result, you will quite often find resource nodes which you can't harvest. I mean, you have to grind for some resources now anyway, to keep your gathering skills fitting to your level, because you level too quickly to find enough resource nodes in that time. Pre-Cata, you could at least harvest all the nodes you found in dungeons, which helped you keeping your gathering skills up to date. Now that you encounter rich thorium mines or ghost mushrooms between lvl 30 and 40, for both of which you need a gathering skill of over 200, you basically can't harvest resources anymore in many dungeons. And since you can't harvest them, you have to grind them even more outside the normal levelling/questing/dungeons.
It's not such a big problem. With my goblin priest, who is into alchemy and herbalism, I went several times some zones up and down, and the gathering skill is now way higher than it normally would be. Basically, her herbalism and alchemy skills are always near the maximum that the level permits. Still... it's simply a design flaw. Until level 60, your gathering skill was, before cata, fine if it was 5 times your level. So at level 10 you had profession skills at 50. On level 20, they were at 100, on lvl 40, they were at 200, and on lvl 60, they were at 300. That worked. Now, it doesn't anymore. According to this old balancing, with lvl 40 I should have a skill of roughly 200, while I no encounter at that level resources requiring a far higher skill to be gathered.
So... it's not gamebreaking or anything, but it's an annoying design flaw. They should have replaced the nodes found in dungeons with those fitting to the level. For example: put mithril into Diremaul, instead of rich thorium. Or put iron and gold into Maraudon, instead of mithril.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
i got to say !cataclysm does suprise me !in fact it bring back lot the fun factor in wow a thing that surprisingly we havent have had since vanilla wow.ho you ll still get the video review on how to do this and do that ,but ask any that met shogall or other raid and people see that these raid were made so that even if you know the fight it wont help you a lot if you re not paying attention to the fight!before lol surprisingly they might have been harder fight when lunched but less brainiac.this here lol ,dont cc in any shape and form ,outch outch outch.people are so used to just put the hammer down and go to town that i bet a lot of player feel frustrated at time .that what vanilla was everybody had to do stuff im very glad blizzard finally brough back the soul of what wow was.and now is!and its not just raid everything is challenging .yes pvp have cheating issue!(patched temporarelly this week .till the final solution on the 25 on january but aside from that ,i got to say the only negative i could find was faction imbalance on server,like on illidan 1000 horde vs 200 .on other server its 1000 ally vs 200 horde !this got to change but aside from this issue
i love cataclysm!enjoy the game guys!
I know everyone here loves to hate WoW because the game they play is a ghost town, but Cataclysm is in my personal opinion the best MMORPG expansion I have ever played and that's since playing MMORPGs since EQ in 2000.
Do we really need new classes when every class was revamped with 4.0.1?
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
Oh, another thing that bugs me about Cata:
Didn't people say it's supposed to get more difficult? So, I played now mostly goblin and worgen on low levels, and just leveled up my warlock to 81. With said warlock, I had been twice in that vashjir dungeon and the blackrock one, the dungeons for lvl 80/81. In those three groups, most often only one or two people had been in that dungeon before, the other 3 or 4 haven't. We wiped a total of... once or twice. And that is supposed to be difficult? You get in there with random people, crappy equipment, people who don't know what to do, and you still can kill everything easily?
Huh? Didn't people shout "You need now crow control!" and so on? I can still with my warlock pop metamorphosis, the flame aura, hellfire, the fellguards whirlwind, and with that triple aoe run into the mob groups, mostly unarmed, burning and killing them all down at once.
Difficult my ass.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
I have played the game thanks, and the lack of mentioning a player doesnt get the ability until L 20 only proves my point. Anthropomorphic legs dont learn to walk as a biped before moving as a quadriped, lol, its the opposite. I guess it just goes to show how clueless Blizzard devs really are.
I couldnt agree more. I tried the new races, the starting areas feel rushed and incomplete, not to mention all the horrible voice-acting... Then I logged in my old character and I really had to look to find anything different about the game other than a few terraign changes. The skill and class changes arent worth mentioning. Cata is definitely not worth 40 USD.
I have only been playing WOW for three years...which puts me at the BC XPAC right before WOTLK. However, I have only really played Horde toons.
I have also played each of the Warcraft games, and I am versed (but not an expert) in WOW lore.
I have enjoyed the game thus far. However, I am currently playing EVE Online. Taking a little break from WOW.
Once WOTLK started up, I traveled to Howling Fjord and was amazed. I got into WOTLK, and I enjoyed the game. Cata looks very nice and I have enjoyed playing. Two weeks before the CATA release I leveled a Undead Hunter, and a Troll Druid to level 25. I enjoyed the new content and new starting areas. At CAta release I played a Goblin and a Worgen and leveled each to level 10 or so.
I give much props to WOW, and all that they have done. But, I remember that this is JUST a game and nothing more.
What I have enjoyed thus far,
I have enjoyed the reworking of the old world. It looks great. The new quests are updated and more fun in general. I actually enjoyed questing in the Barrens. The new marshland south of ORG is awesome. I loved prowling through the marsh with my troll druid.
The Forsaken starting area looks great also, plus Tarren Mill quests are awesome, and Brill got a much needed update. The quests were engaging pretty novel.
I have leveled quite a few toons in my three years of playing and I really enjoyed the updates.
The Goblin and Worgen starting areas and questing was also pretty fun. The Worgen area was well thought out, and I could see that they really worked hard. However, for my play style it felt restrictive, however, WOW was trying to tell a singular story. The Goblin story-line was enjoyable, but I wished that WOW had introduced a Tinker Class or some steam punk class. I think that WOW has laid the groundwork for that class in the lore. The Goblin/Gnome screams for it.
The new Cata content looks really nice also, and I have enjoyed the look and questing so far.
Currently Play: ?
Occasionally Play: Champions, Pirates of the Burning Sea, WOW, EVE ONLINE
8/10 and main comments all seem fair.
Most people seem to focus on one or two aspects of the game when knocking on it. For instance, one person talks about difficulty yet isn't even 85 yet. Another person speaks of how they don't ike the Vash'jir quest chain, but neglects to mention if you so choose, you can SKIP one or two of the new zones and still get to 85 easily.
WoW is and always has been attracting different sorts of people. People into lore, end-game raiding, etc. come to have fun. For those upset leveling their 1 or 2 characters from 80 to 85 and not being fulfilled, I'd say re-visit the world. People say questing is "easy", but some fail to mention how fun some quests are. All the achievements you can work towards. All the shear options that are available. Want to have a lot of fun achievement point-ing and doing cool things? Want to be challenged with end-game raiding? Want to go on with a bunch of close friends and just have fun?
I honestly point and laugh at people who say they don't like WoW or ANY MMO and are doing it alone. You truly miss out on the purpose of an MMO. You talk about instancing and phasing and how it's a single player game...yet have you ever leveled every step of the way with a friend to just goof off and have fun with? Maybe some of you should re-evaluate what you want out of a game. If you're looking for a 1-85 grind with no friends and turn to WoW, you might be inclined to not like it. It's not that I don't agree that some aspects of WoW are easy or dumbed down, but when those things occur, other things are brought to the table that can hep you overlook those things. If you're solely focused on graphics or being tired of "collect this" quest, you'll hate every MMO because you'll always find something to hate on.
In all honesty I'm not even playing Cataclysm currently and just go on some friends' accounts and have fun for awhile because I can't afford it (yeah, I'm poor, oh well). And I'm not a huge "omg you hate WoW you're an idiot I'll defend WoW until I die" person, but I don't understand how some people continuously bash a game when they could be elsewhere praising one they enjoy. To every person hating on people who love WoW or who think it's a bad game: It seems like a jealousy issue that you haven't found a game you truly enjoy. And if you HAVE found that game, I implore you to go do your "defending" of that game and leave all those who enjoy something at peace. We appreciate peace (yet play WARcraft ^_^).
Happy Holidays!
Simply Put WoW looks like a cartoon and lacks Many things many MMO gamers crave.
This is one of the most laughable comments i have read to date, how can a game designer promote or improve roleplay? Roleplay is reliant on the playerbase embracing the concept. The simple TRUTH is Blizzard do everything possible to promote roleplay all the tools are there already, have been for years now, you just need to find like-minded individuals to use them.
On topic, Cata is probably the single best expansion i have ever played in any mmgo, and i have played many of them over the years. It's a massive content boost and the revampin of the old zones makes for some interresting exploration. The increased diffisulty of the higher end heroics is also a welcome addition, no more farming instances with the sole requirement to succeed being your gear. Now players at least have to learn to think a little to succeed, at the moment at any rate.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy