cataclysm-changes
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Leveling a time capsule
I still remember the first day I played this game on live servers, even though it's been nearly nine years since I looked at the login screen and tried to muddle out what to pick. Friends of mine had already made an Alliance guild and encouraged me to join them. When I mentioned I wanted to play a rogue, I was told that they really needed healers, not rogues. However, my friend suggested I roll a druid, as they could not only heal, but they could turn into a cat and stealth around like a rogue does. That seemed suitable to me, so I rolled a night elf druid, logged in and began to play. Several months and sixty levels later, that experience remains full of fond memories of endless frustration with the class and how it played. It absolutely did not help that giant improvements for that class were rolled out in a patch shortly after I hit 60. I rolled Horde, and the rest is history ... or it was, anyway. The druid remained at level 60, years after I hit 70, 80, 85 and 90, frozen in a distinct period of time. Several months ago, while idly looking at the login screen and pondering what to play, I decided to actually level the druid and get it caught up. Furthermore, I decided to make the trip without heirloom gear -- after all, it didn't exist when I originally played the character. This is the story of a peculiar alt that used to be a main, and what happens when you crack open a time capsule from 2005.
Patch 4.0.3a: What's in The Shattering, what's not
With Patch 4.0.3a, The Shattering, just around the corner, people are unsure exactly what this means. Will goblins and worgen be available? Will we be able to fly in Azeroth? Will we be able to do anything with the new race/class combinations? Fear not -- WoW Insider has a list of what you can expect to see in the upcoming patch and what won't be found till Dec. 7 and Cataclysm's launch. What's in The Shattering Hearthstone set to Dalaran? Better change that -- Dalaran and Shattrath portals will be removed once the patch hits. In place of the handy portals in Dalaran, you'll find a series of equally handy class trainers. The new race/class combinations will be playable, with the exception of goblins and worgen. If you're wondering why we spent all that time taking back Echo Isles and Gnomeregan, you'll be able to see the fruits of your labors in 4.0.3a, where both the trolls and the gnomes have their brand new starting zones. Speaking of zone changes, all level 1 to 60 zones will be forever changed, and as a result, all zones will have fully playable content. More changes and a list of what won't be changing, after the break.
Cataclysm Beta: Last call for Quel'thalas
One of the better kept secrets of vanilla WoW is a zone called Quel'thalas. (Be careful not to confuse this with the zone Isle of Quel'danas.) If you're not a lore buff, Quel'thalas is the kingdom of the Quel'dorei, or blood elves, as they're now known. (Check out Elven Evolution and Current Horde Politics: the Blood Elves for the full story.) The blood elf zones we know in WoW as Silvermoon City, Eversong Woods and Ghostlands are all considered part of Quel'thalas -- but those are not the zones I'm talking about today. The Quel'thalas I'm referring to is a tiny peninsula northeast of Tirisfal Glades. It isn't accessible by road or flight path, only water, and when you arrive you'll be greeted by ... nothing. There aren't any NPCs, enterable buildings or quest legs -- just an empty, unexplained mystery. Take a look. %Gallery-99822%
Cataclysm Press Event: New views of Cataclysm, Blizzard offices
In addition to all the changes announced in the Cataclysm press release event, World of Raids has a flyover video of several of the new zones, including Orgrimmar, Stormwind and Thousand Needles, among others. If photos are more your fancy, Wowhead posted a gallery from their tour of the Blizzard offices, including some gorgeous shots of statues and action figures from the Warcraft line, a ton of gallery artwork, giant plushies and Blizzard's own unique take on motivational posters that highlight Blizzard's philosophy on game design.
Breakfast Topic: 101 things to do before the world dies
On the EU forums, a character named Redbranch from Thunderhorn came up with what I thought was a pretty nifty idea -- getting his/her fellow players to chime in on a list of 101 things to do in old Azeroth before Cataclysm hits. It's sort of the WoW equivalent of The Bucket List, and the responses range from the violent ("Slaying as many people as possible") to the nostalgic ("Go base jumping again in Feralas") to the practical ("Prepare plentiful supplies of gold"). Then Slorkuz chimed in with the following: Slorkuz Quote: The old world is changing forever. Let's compile a list of things to do before the end. 1) Play through all the starter zones, to give some idea if each race's lore. Visit the Shimmering Flats! source We already know that Thousand Needles is going to be mostly underwater in Cataclysm, but it was another nudge to the realization that the world we know is going bye-bye forever. Right now, my personal "bucket list" includes doing the dungeon set 2 quest line, but I'd love to hear from other players on how they're approaching the "end of the world."
Shifting Perspectives: The forest and the trees
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we ponder the end of an era, and Allie kicks herself for not recognizing something she should have. When the news hit on Tree of Life form going bye-bye, I didn't know what to think. To be perfectly clear, chopping the tree down is something that Blizzard's been kicking around for the better part of a year, if not more. We ran a Shifting Perspectives on it in May 2009 in the hope of drawing more attention to a forum thread where Ghostcrawler asked druid players if they thought the Tree was fun. To anyone who's new to the class and thought the developers pulled a fast one, that's not the case; they were open about the possibility that this would happen. When the discussion ended and nothing seemed to come of it, I (foolishly) assumed they had decided to leave well enough alone. The tree wasn't really adding anything to the druid's restoration spec, but it was a harmless addition to a class that considered shapeshifting its raison d'être. Then the class announcement hit. Like I said, I didn't know what to think. I sat back, thought about it, read the announcement thread again, thought more, reread the May 2009 thread, read through all of April 2010 class announcements again, noticed a fairly obvious trend, and finally realized something: What Blizzard is doing with Cataclysm has almost nothing to do with what players have trained themselves to expect after Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. Pavlov's bell is ringing, but it ain't dinnertime.
Clarification on Cataclysm dispel mechanics
Yesterday's news on the upcoming dispel mechanic changes coming in Cataclysm raised a lot of questions among players worried about how the changes will affect their particular class. Today, Zarhym clarified some of these changes surrounding dispel mechanics, particularly how it will work with the shaman and druid classes. To the concerns about requiring talent points being spent for particular buffs -- something that Blizzard has said time and time again they wanted to move away from -- Zarhym stated, "This is specifically an example of a utility talent we were referring to. Rather than going for all of the "increase your damage/healing by X" talents of today, you'll more often be choosing from talents which will add utility to existing spells and abilities, or just plain give you new spells or abilities. " As to the concerns that the changes were suggesting that PvP is now going to take precedence over PvE, Zarhym had this to say: "No one here approached dispel mechanics with the idea that PvP takes precedence over PvE, so there's little reason to object in that regard. The changes to class systems in Cataclysm we've announced thus far are being proposed to make the game better, both in terms of PvP and PvE. Mind you, we have a host of changes planned for every class we plan to share in the future. Before providing overviews of our goals for each class though, we wanted to give you a look at some changes to more broad systems. While the feedback is welcomed, I'd caution players to consider this information with an open mind, rather than directly translating the proposed changes into the class systems of Wrath of the Lich King. " In addition, Zarhym had a few other clarifications to make; check them out after the break.
WoW Rookie: Leveling in the pre-Cataclysm era
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. See all our collected tips, tricks and how-to's at WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide. Make hay while the sun shines. In fact, if you're leveling a character pre-Cataclysm, you might want to consider making that hay on one of the farms in Westfall. Westfall is slated for a "moderate" overhaul in the upcoming expansion, so the Harvest Reapers you see today might be something entirely different come Cataclysm. Maybe the farms will be gone entirely. Who knows? Whatever ends up coming our way, it's time to stop and smell the flowers (or in this case, the sweet scent of hay). Whether or not you choose to purchase Cataclysm, zones like Westfall will be forever changed when the expansion hits. My significant DPSer and I are currently leveling a set of Alliance characters (our original faction, but one we haven't played much in several years) specifically in order to revisit content that Cataclysm will sweep away. We're not the only ones with that idea. Still, it's not all nostalgia. The desire to soak up all that WoW has to offer rings just as true for new players who are leveling their first characters. We'll show you how to embrace it all while you still can.
Warlocks to get a new pet in Cataclysm?
Coming out of the Twitter developer chat tonight was this question and following answer, given by Ghostcrawler and J. Allen Brack: Q. With the new skins for druid forms, what is the chance that warlocks might see race/faction specific demon skins or maybe a new one? A. When you look around, there are a lot of say imp or voidwalkers we could use. It's something we talk about quite a bit. As for new demons, I hear warlocks are going to be getting some new spells for the next expansion... While it's not a direct confirmation that warlocks will be getting a new pet in Cataclysm, I think it's safe to read into this and maybe get a bit excited about this one. I doubt they'd mention warlocks getting "new spells" in relation to getting a new demon if such an addition to the warlock class wasn't planned. So, new demons for warlocks? Probably. My guess is that it'll be a pet lava monster or something related to the elemental plane. Just the perfect kind of thing to pop up into the evil hands of warlocks from the sundered land in Cataclysm. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
Cataclysm: The exhaustive list of old-world changes (so far)
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is coming. Sometime. We're at that point now where BlizzCon has been over for a few months and Blizzard is being pretty stingy with new information in the meantime. It's a definite dry spell, but the same thing happened with Wrath -- and then the Friends and Family Alpha began, and all bets were off. And while the F&F Alpha for Cataclysm hasn't started yet (believe me, we'd know), that doesn't mean you can't stay informed. There've been bits and pieces of new info released, in PC Gamer magazine, on Twitter, and elsewhere on the internet. And we like to keep track of that! What's come out is mostly new information on what's going to happen to Azeroth. And we just recently decoded this planning map of Cataclysm zones, which is where some information comes from. So what this article is meant to be is a compendium of all known changes to old-world zones that'll occur in Cataclysm, sorted by continent and zone. We'll update whenever new information is released. Hit the jump to get caught up! Disclaimer: Some information may be outdated or incorrect by this stage in Cataclysm's development!
