Cataclysm and the Shattering Initial Impressions

By -


I've been having fun with WoW since the Shattering changed the old world.  With the release of Cataclysm that fun has been extended to my main too!

I currently have a 13 Paladin, 17 Priest, 6 Mage, and a 82 Druid that I'm playing around with.  Since I created all the alts in the past 2 weeks I've had a chance to test out a bunch of starting zones.  Overall the quests are much tighter and have a more cohesive story then they used to.  I really appreciate that quest text tends to be shorter then the old world.  I always like to read the lore but I hate running into a wall of text at quest givers.

The tighter quest pathing gives the game a more linear feeling, but I would rather have that then the way the old world used to be.  Besides, I can always go off the beaten path if I choose to.  The only starting area I tried that still feels scattered is for the draenei.  It needs work.  I can't believe how long it took me to get to level 15.  At that point I was so frustrated with the zone that I started exclusively running dungeons with that character.  On the other hand, the dwarf and worgen starting areas feel great and both tell an interesting story.  Now is a fantastic time to be rolling alts!

 Be prepared to see a lot of these at low levels

I love the dungeon finder for leveling, gearing, and having a good time.  My favorite part of WoW has always been 5-man dungeons and now it's easier then ever to run them.  Every time I jump into one with my alts I get a new experience because all the old world instances have been redone.  I may be the only non-worgen in that particular group, but the content is fresh and exciting.

I've had a ton of fun with my 82 druid.  I've always had a special place in my heart for my druid and being able to progress with him is a treat for me.  I'm not rushing to endgame or racing anyone else, I'm taking my time and enjoying the journey.  I finished all of Vashj'ir last night and hit level 82.  The underwater continent is great for my class because my aquatic form is super fast (with the continent-wide buff plus minor glyph).  The seahorse mounts were also fun, but for me it was simply easier to use my aquatic form.

 My main and his current big stick

Vashj'ir felt like it went on a little bit too long by the end.  I almost wish they had cut out a zone worth of content.  There were a few epic quest lines that let me (spoiler) visit the past in another body and find out more about the history of the Naga and Old Gods (end spoiler).  These were awesome, but there were definitely filler quests to be found as well.  Although I had fun in Vashj'ir I was ready to be out of the ocean by the end of the quest chain and completely sick of looking at yet another cave that we  happened to be using as a base.  I'm excited for a change of scenery next time I log in.

If you're tired of the World of Warcraft formula or never liked it in the first place then you should steer clear of Cataclysm.  If you stopped playing because you were bored of the content then you really have no excuse to stay away.  I know a lot of old players are returning.  The proof is in the log-in queue.  That's fine, it just means more people to play with.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently ...
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing g...
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a...
Read more