This is not a rant on how about I think that World of Warcraft is going to be destroyed by its upcoming expansion. This blog is my thoughts about it. I haven’t been to BlizzCon, or anything “Cataclysm”-related that required me to leave my house, just so you know. And yeah, it might be a good thing that you know a bit about WoW before reading this. =P
For those of you that are following BlizzCon, or even have friends that are part of the 11 million subscribers of World of Warcraft, you’d probably know that the third expansion for WoW was announced; World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
I should probably tell you that I am avid WoW player. Even though a lot of people consider that World of Warcraft was destroyed with the release of the Burning Crusade, I should mention it's my favorite expansion (so far).
By the time the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (or “WotLK” for short) rolled around, we were obviously pretty psyched. Going to Northrend, fight the dreadful Lich King, bringing our super-special-awesome characters to the top of the servers! Sure, there were 10 more levels to get ourselves through, but those were always part of the fun!
But a few days ago my friend and I checked out the trailer for the expansion and it looks… pretty damn promising.
The world torn asunder…
The first thing that you’d probably notice if you’re looking at the trailer is that the world of Azeroth has been ravaged by the evil forces of Deathwing. All the old locations like The Barrens, Ashenvale and Thousand Needles have all changed thanks to the destruction of the evil lord. To me, it looks pretty damn cool. I think this is something that will really lighten up Azeroth, if that makes any sense. Try to look back at your innocent grinding days in The Barrens. The wide, desolate fields lie before your feet, the sun is smiling down and you see the hilarity that is the Barrens Chat, were several noobs try to redeem themselves with Chuck Norris- and your mom-jokes. Now image the same area, but with a big flood of lava in between everything. I think something like that could really refresh the gaming experience, because something like the destruction of your favourite area can really open your eyes again.
It has also been announced that you can use flying mounts to get across both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. I don’t have any thoughts on that, but I think it will be way easier exploiting several secret places.
Oh yeah, the new places…
No new continent has been announced, but there is finally a possibility for you to go into the Maelstrom, also recognized as the big whirlpool at the middle of the map. Several other maps have been opened up, like Hyjal and Uldum and… I’m going to list them here.
- Gilneas
- Lost Isles
- Hyjal
- Uldum
- The Twilight Highlands
- The Lost City of Vashj’ir
- Deepholm
I think it’s great that we’ll finally get to see Hyjal, since it’s one of the most exploited areas in World of Warcraft and probably the worst kept secrets of being a future area. But it’s great to see that we can finally see the famous Mount Hyjal.
Beside Hyjal, there isn’t any other area that really seems that much compelling to explore. Sure, Uldum is bound to be pretty damn interesting, but an area like “Deepholm” doesn’t seem very interesting to me.
The ones to form an Alliance with the Horde… wait, what!?
Yes, there is going to be two more playable races in the game. The first race that was announced was the new Horde race - Goblins. We are given a backstory that the goblins of the Lost Isles have been fighting off against an “unfamiliar enemy” after seeking refuge there from the destruction of Azeroth. The Horde decided to help them out, and there you go; Goblins are a new playable class. And as you already might’ve guessed – the Goblins starting area is located on The Lost Isles.
I never really saw Goblins as a race that you could actually play as. I mean, they have a big influence on the market in Azeroth, being in charge of prosperous towns such as Gadgetzan, Everlook and Ratchet. That’s about it for me, though, I only saw the goblins as a race of merchants rather than a race of fighters. But I guess they’ll do enough for the Horde, and they’ll probably be the new gnomes of the Horde which will probably lead to even more shouting 12-year olds with no idea how to play pick up and play.
The announced classes are:
- Death Knight
- Hunter
- Mage
- Warlock
- Warrior
- Rogue
- Priest
- Shaman
Now, let’s take a short trip down Memory Lane again. Remember when the Burning Crusade was announced, and the two new races were announced as well. Blood Elves were immediately announced as the new Horde race, but Blizzard held off on revealing their choice of the new Alliance race – which was later announced as the Draenei. For Cataclysm, Blizzard decided to reveal their new Alliance race along with the Horde race. The new Alliance race is - Worgen
In the wake of the Burning Crusade, Worgen was actually being considered as the new Alliance race. The reason for this is because behind the Greymane wall in Silverpine Forest, the humans had been transformed into Worgen for some arbitrary reason and since they were humans, they were eligible enough to join the Alliance. It’s probably the exact same reason why Blizzard let the Worgen join the Alliance this time around too.
Like Goblins, I never really thought about Worgen as playable race, mostly because the majority of the enemies in Silverpine Forest are Worgen. This race looks amazing and even worth going to the Alliance (for once).
The announced classes are
- Death Knight
- Druid
- Hunter
- Mage
- Priest
- Rogue
- Warlock
- Warrior
Remaining areas
There is a few areas that I didn’t mention. This is because I don’t know anything about them and they haven’t interested me enough to make me write down my thoughts about them.
The Best and the Worst
The Best – Level 85
One of the things I got stoked about was the small raise of levels. Everyone thought that by the time of the next expansion, we’d be able to advance to level 90 because that was the formula we had gone with. The Burning Crusade brought us to 70, Wrath of the Lich King brought us to 80 and now Cataclysm is brining us to 85. This might seem a bit inconsistent, but I think it’s a great way to get into the later content really fast and it’s a good thing to make us cut down on the dreary grinding all the time. Yeah, I said that levelling could be fun, but you do spend more time alone levelling than with your guildmates.
The Worst – Race/Class Combinations
I know that this sounds like a innovative idea, and that Blizzard needs to do something in order to keep WoW new and refreshing. But I think stuff just have gone out of hand with this. When I first heard about Tauren paladins, I thought it was a joke. I mean, most of we Alliance players (Yes, I played secretly for the Alliance) were shocked over that the Blood Elves were getting paladins (I like this but still..), or that the horde was getting paladins no less (as were the Horde players for letting us getting shamans). We could only imagine having a gnome priest with us, just for the sheer ridicule of it all or a hunter. Maybe I’ve gotten this the wrong way, but I think they should stick to the old classes.
Final Thoughts
I don’t think that this expansion will herald the cataclysm of this MMO. There has no doubt been brought some stuff that you’ll either love or hate. I’m actually really excited about how these new areas will change the way you quest or the way you interact with the world around you. Perhaps your best questing routes have destroyed, or perhaps they’ve been enhanced so that you can reach level 90… I mean 85 in a week or so.
So, that’s my thoughts on the new expansion. It was a bit longer than I expected, but I really felt like writing something about it when the trailer flashed before my eyes.
Either way, thanks for reading and I hope you’ll find this informative!
- BrandonMc
