Reviewed by Alan Bell
While Blizzard may well have been around for nearly 20 years, and had all sorts of “success” in that time (by any other measure), few would dare claim that World of Warcraft isn’t the out-and-out success story of the organization. Almost instantly eclipsing their initial target of one million subscribers (double the number of the then-king, EverQuest), WoW currently boasts more than 12,000,000 active subscribers. That’s billions of dollars in revenue per year, just from subs - and WoW is now six years old!
So, when Blizzard announce a new expansion pack (of which there have been just two beforehand - Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King), it’s kind of a big deal. This expansion pack, Cataclysm, is particularly highly anticipated, as it’s rebooting the old-world content (which is, obviously, six years old now) as well as bringing in new content for max-level characters.
This reboot brings the quest mechanics, rewards and general flow of the experience of the first content in the game up to the standard set by their very latest stuff - and a lot can happen to game design in six years, especially when you have billions of dollars in the bank...
So specifically, then, what does it bring to the table? To get to the nitty gritty, we need to first segue into the story. Deathwing, an ultra-badass dragon that once tried to topple the four mighty dragon flights of Azeroth, has escaped from what was supposed to be his eternal prison. In so doing, he made an almighty mess of Azeroth - known now and forever as “the Shattering”. That, in a nutshell, is used to explain the massive revamp of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Deathwing has escaped and time has passed - almost nothing remains the same.
Available to all World of Warcraft players (even those with no expansion packs at all, let alone the Cataclysm expansion), the changes to the old world are significant. In part, many of these were necessary - now that players can fly around the old world, a lot of dirty little secrets about the way the world was actually constructed (compared to how it appeared to be) would have been revealed. Backs of mountain ranges, tops of buildings - you name it, chances are good some part of it didn’t actually exist before and needed to be built anyway (hence the no flying in the old world all this time). Technically they’re not part of the Cataclysm expansion pack so we won’t spend too much time discussing them here but if you’ve got any specific questions, be sure and let me know; I’ve spent a lot of time in there now (I have a level 57 Tauren Paladin, amongst other new characters, created for this review) and can probably answer them.
So the high-level changes to the old world, then. Almost every zone has been touched in some way - most of them significantly. There are far too many changes to even list the stuff I spotted, let alone everything, but some of my personal highlights include:
- Westfall. The entire zone is completely awesome now, going from being one of the low-points in levelling an alliance character to one of the high points. In particular, the new meta quest (it’s several years later, remember... things have changed) and the CSI: Miami quest chains are worth leveling just to experience.
- Redridge. Remember Guard Parker? You once had to bring him his lunch from his girlfriend in town. He’s Captain Parker now, has a regiment of guards to order about from the top of his new guard tower and his now-wife and daughter are there alongside him.
- Thousand Needles. Completely flooded now, you complete an early quest chain to get access to your own personal boat to assist you as you move around the area performing your (mostly underwater) tasks. Most of the quests here are highly referential to the way the zone used to work, with loads of new stuff too - it’s great fun!
- Maximillian of Northshire’s quest in Un’Goro - so funny and so much fun, you simply must do them. A highlight of my entire time playing WoW!
- Dungeons! Dungeon quests are now handed out by quest givers right at the start of the instance, or at key points throughout. Many of the later dungeons, like Dire Maul and Stratholme, have had their level massively revised downward to ensure that people actually do them before moving on to Outland. Strat, DM Scholo are done in the early 40’s, for example. For a full list of dungeons, listed by level, check out this page on Wowhead.
- New race / class combinations - ever wanted to roll a Dwarf Shaman? Tauren Priest? Now you can. Sure, not every combo is possible but at least Blood Elves can be Warriors now - finally that old whinefest can be put to bed. For a full run-down on the class changes, check out Wowhead’s excellent guide.
In general, everything about the levelling process through the old world content has massively improved. From quest mechanics, to the stats you get on items, to the flow from one zone to the next - you name it, it works so much better now than ever before. If Outland (the Burning Crusade content) seemed disappointing before, that distinction just became all the clearer, as it’s now the oldest tech in the game. The revamped Azeroth stuff is so good it’s almost enough to offset the fact that Mr. Smite has gone from Deadmines or that Zul’Gurub has gone completely - almost (I never did get my raptor).
Character talent points, spells, glyphs and abilities have also all had a massive overhaul in the weeks immediately preceding the release of Cataclysm. Characters get far fewer talent points, for example, earning a maximum of 41 as they level to 85 (the new level cap). Further to that, players must choose their chosen spec at level 10, at which point they are locked into the particular tree (i.e. Retribution Paladin). Until they’ve spent a minimum of 31 points in that tree, they can’t spend any points in any other tree - meaning you’ll be 71 before you can put points in a tree other than your primary tree. (Note: no branching out is permitted. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
This is a major change, ensuring that players of any class have a clearly defined role in any group, with no real “hybrid” specs possible. Of course, with the dual-spec option priced at just 10g, there’s no longer any reason for people to feel aggrieved about having to spec one way for an instance / PvP and another for when playing solo.
The new Cataclysm-exclusive content is also significant - so much so that it would be impossible to go into great detail on (or even list!) all of it. There are, for example, seven new dungeons as well as heroic (Level 85) versions of Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep, with four new raids available straight away for those who simply must get some “purples” as quickly as possible. There’s also a stack of new questing areas, dotted around both of Azeroth’s content and in the space in between - remember the swirly thing in the middle of the map? That’s the Maelstrom, where Thrall is locked in mortal combat with the very elements themselves, as he tries to heal the land. If you’re looking for a catchup on the story, by the way, the official WoW blog has two great entries, or the recently released (but unavailable on Kindle in our area, boo hiss) “The Shattering” novel will fill in the blanks. Which is one thing Cataclysm is pretty poor at, to be honest - a lot of stuff has changed and it doesn’t go into much detail as to why, simply assuming (in most cases) that you already know.
The rush of players to level in the new zones, helped in no small part by the excellent reputation the expansion already had from beta testers which caused lots of ex-players to return, makes for a quite unnatural first impression of the new zones. Starting in either Mt. Hyjal or the underwater (and therefore, vastly more mysterious and alluring) Vashj’ir, zones are currently overrun with players clamoring to get their characters up to the new maximum level of 85. While many people are already 85, most people will take a week or two to get there and many of the early levellers will take the time to level an alt while waiting for people to catch up so they can start grinding Justice Points (the new badge-replacing currency for buying end-game gear) in heroics.
So, in a nutshell, the new zones are packed to the brim. If you’re on a PvP server, good luck to ya - if my experiences on Frostwolf (where I play Alliance) are anything to go by, you’re going to get wtfpwned by ultra high-powered level 85 characters (who have 100K HP and hit for 30K) several times a minute. Even on PvE servers, there are so many people around it’s hard to really get into the spirit of the quests, as there are likely as not 100 people waiting around for a quest mob or item to spawn. If you’ve got an instacast ability you’re going to want to use it to tag a mob as soon as it spawns - proper spell rotation be damned. Simply being in NZ gives us a massive disadvantage here as our very ping plots against us - time and again some noddy in the states will tag something before you even see it.
Still, these are launch-week issues really - along with the epic queues (up to two hours reported on Blackrock, for example), they will pass in time. They’re already lessening in impact as the bulk of the population pushes through the early content - if you’re looking to jump in, chances are good it will be much less congested by Christmas.
Gear, even greens, boost your ability so fast (after all, you’re only gaining five levels here) you’ll have ditched all of your heroic ilevel 284 purples long before you get to 85. Even green BoE drops that require a character of just level 78 can eclipse ilevel 232 epics you strove so long and hard to get in an heroic. Still, that’s life in an MMO - the quest to replace your gear is, after all, much of the point and doubly so in an expansion. They need to clear the decks as it were, setting new expectations and causing players to strive for a whole new raft of content - something they’ve done remarkably well here. Even the most geared characters will be making regular replacements, watching their health increase around 15,000HP per level without any real effort (all gear contains masses of stamina now, rather than specific types of gear in the past - it’s no longer only Tanks that have huge health pools).
The new zones are, without exception, gorgeous and richly detailed. The return to Azeroth for their content base means that everything feels familiar yet new; comfortable yet exciting to explore. It’s not about whacky aliens or strange floating landmasses, it’s back to bonking big multi-headed dogs on the nose or battling Ragnaros. Sure, it means they’ve revisited a bunch of content rather than creating all new stuff and yes, it means we have to fight bosses like Nefarion or Ragnaros again. For some, this may be seen as a negative but for me, it’s like pulling on a comfy pair of socks. Maybe they’ve got holes in them but they’re super comfortable and we’ve had great times together - for me, an excuse to pull them out of the drawer and take them for a walk is one I’ll grasp with both hands, thank you very much.
A lot of content which has been hinted at since we first embarked on our first voyages in Azeroth, such as Uldum and Grim Batol, are finally here. Uldum is a particular highlight, with huge Egyptian inspired architecture. If you’re any kind of fan of Stargate, you’re going to love it.
The quests are fun and tend to lead well from one area to the next - however that they’re fresh and new is quite apparent. While I wouldn’t describe the game as buggy at all, that there are bugs is in no question. Some quests couldn’t be completed, only to be sorted out in a hotfix. Some quests lack sufficient instructions, with a few giving people no end of grief thanks to the exclusion of a few key words (the Waters of Farseeing, by the way, are a small bird-bath-like item right next to the quest giver in Stormwind). On the whole, the quests we tried (there are over three thousand new quests - we didn’t try them all!) were fun and worth doing - even if some are still the “kill 8 boars” type so successfully parodied in South Park all those years ago.
New dungeons are similarly impressive - it’s clear from the very outset that the designers have learned a lot since they rolled out Scholomance or even Dire Maul. Boss and trash mechanics aren’t insurmountable but they do require players to think at least a little bit in order to defeat them, with the challenge escalating as players move on to the next dungeon in succession. The only hiccup so far seems to be the Stonecore, which is universally (in my guild, at least) looked down upon as something to be avoided. One player went so far as to say that they’d rather kill themselves than ever do it again! Ultimately this challenging dungeon will probably be revised, with its overly difficult (and numerous) trash preventing players from spending much time on the (still very hard but very fun) boss encounters.
Flying around in Azeroth is great fun - suddenly everything you know so well (and a bunch of stuff that’s brand new) takes on an all-new perspective. This Cataclysm-exclusive feature, costing just 200g if you’re exalted with the faction that sells it, makes things like exploration or simply travelling around in Azeroth far more enjoyable. It’s well worth checking out Stormwind or Thunderbluff from the sky, for example, where you can finally and truly appreciate their splendor. Stormwind in particular, thanks to its massive overhaul, looks amazing and is far larger than it probably appeared to be before. Spotting and heading for the trade district is a thousand times cooler from the cockpit of your engineering helicopter. One thing it does reveal, however, is that not all of the newly-added chunks of landmass actually have anything on ‘em. Flapping around the continents, particularly in the bits between zones, reveals vast tracts of area that are completely devoid of any mobs or even plants - about the only thing they may have is a big pool of water. It would be nice if these areas at least had ground cluttering vegetation or trees on them - they feel artificial and weird as they are.
Something else you’ll need flying in Azeroth to make any headway with is Archaeology, Cataclysm’s new secondary profession (secondary meaning everyone can learn it without having to drop an existing skill). Archaeology is interesting, particularly for those WoW players that are interested in the lore Blizzard have built up to surround their Warcraft universe. Essentially you fly around the world hunting for dig sites, where you dig up fragments and attempt to form them into artifacts which somehow fit into the world’s story.
In practice, what this means is that you will have at any given time four dig sites per continent (starting with Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, until you have at least 300 skill and can go to Outland - etc). You need to go to one (they’re easy to see on your map) and, once there, use your supplied Survey skill. This will point you in the direction of an artifact or, if close enough, reveal the artifact itself. Each dig site is related to a particular Archaeology tree, each of which is a race from Warcraft (i.e. Dwarf, Troll, Night Elf - etc).
Each artifact when looted, provides 3 fragments for the race related to that dig site. All you need to then do is combine a certain number of fragments to create the next artifact on the list (you can’t choose) for the chosen race - simple, right? Yep, it is pretty simple but it’s also a LOT of work. If you thought fishing was a grind, there’s a new champion timewaster in town - Arc. As the artifacts you’re crafting get more useful, the number of fragments you need to find in order to “solve” them increases. A little skeleton dinosaur pet, for example, takes 85 fragments to solve and you can’t use any Keystones in its creation. That means you need to find ten fossil-type dig sites in order to solve it. When you do, you’ll be awarded 5 skill points - it’s easy to imagine, then, how much flapping around is required to max the skill out to 525!
That may sound a bit grim and it will probably put some players off - in much the same way that most people don’t level fishing, for example. But for those of us (myself included) that quite like a bit of ambient WoW from time to time, during which you can also pay reasonable attention to television or (heaven forbid) your significant other, it’s actually very restful and soothing (until a level 85 shammy drops out of the sky and facerolls you, naturally).
If you’re still keen, here’s a couple of tips I picked up on the way:
- Don’t solve any artifacts until you reach skill level 100 - at which point collecting artifacts from dig sites stops awarding any skill points / goes grey
- Use your keystones as often as you can - you end up accruing them and don’t need to save them up for any particular piece of loot
- Pick the skill up early if you’re rolling a new character but don’t bother investing serious time into it until you can fly. Zones flit around all over the continent and traveling between them takes long enough with 310% (plus 20% pallyhax) speed, you really don’t want to be doing this on a level 20 mount (however if you pick up a few points while you’re leveling through the content, that will help heaps later)
- Don’t worry about people stealing your artifacts - they’re phased and only you can loot them (although the dig sites are common to all, so you’re bound to bump into others while you fly around looking for places to dig)
- Always drop a survey point where you previously discovered an artifact - it’s not uncommon for the next one to be in the same place as the last one
Another major addition is what’s happened to guilds. In the past, a guild was a group of people in the same chat room - and not much more. Now, your guild levels up (based on experience earned by its members) and it can even earn achievements - each of which unlocks a series of perks and bonuses for its members. As an example, guilds of a certain level allow their members to buy a whole raft of new heirlooms, with cloaks, hats and much more available for purchase. At just level 2, anyone in the guild will earn 5% more xp. Level 2 brings 10% faster mount speed (reports suggest this actually stacks with 310 speed mounts and a Paladin’s aura). Level 3 is 5% more rep per mob kill - etc. Being in a large, skilled guild now has a purpose beyond bragging rights and a regular raid spot, and it works well. If you’ve resisted joining up, maybe now’s the time to reconsider... Leveling the guild does take a while and some of the achieves (like “Kill 50,000 critters”) are truly epic in scale - but as a meta thing to help bond and entertain your guild, it’s a big winner (my guild’s at 3,000 critter kills, if you were interested).
The new races are fun to play, with each starting area being a particular highlight that every WoW player needs to play through just for the experience. The Worgen area, similar in feel to the Death Knight starting area, is a fun gothic romp - surrounded by NPCs with wonky accents. Good use of phasing and a top hat quest reward are two things of particular note here.
Goblins... if you’re going to try both new races, try the Goblins second. Once you’ve leveled through the Goblin area, the Worgen area (in itself no slouch) feels extremely tame and boring in comparison. The Goblin stuff is so funny, so gorgeous and the environments so lush, you’ll want to do it more than once. Loads of funny engineering-y things and loads of brand new experiences that you’ve never had in WoW before. It’s the stuff of legend and no mistake!
It’s hard to sum up a review for an expansion this large, just as it’s hard to get the word out before we’ve raided every last scrap of content on offer. What is not hard, however, is proclaiming from the rooftops that this is the very best expansion yet. World of Warcraft is already the best MMO around and Cataclysm has made it better in every way.
It looks better (mainly thanks to the improved water, which while still not close to that seen in Crysis, is pretty damn nice - complete with reflection, movement and refraction), plays better and - most importantly - has loads more loot. There’s more to do, the experience is streamlined and it’s more addictive than ever before.
Yes, there are bugs but this is Blizzard - they’re still patching Diablo 2, for crying out loud. Issues will be resolved and those that are left aren’t even very significant anyway.
It’s a triumph of the art and it deserves the critical acclaim which will undoubtedly be heaped upon it (except, perhaps, from the WoW forum warriors - but there’s no pleasing them). If you’re at all interested in getting into WoW, now’s the best possible time to try it out or to return to an abandoned character you played some time ago.
Bravo, Blizzard, Bravo.
Here’s a triumphant music video set in the new Stormwind as a reward for reading the whole thing:
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
:: Publisher: Blizzard
:: Developer: Blizzard
:: Format: PC
:: Rating: G
NZGamer.com