Catch up with the big changes coming in the Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft. All while wearing a natty top hat...
Seeing as Atomic is an intrepid group of explorers who all have their world exploration achievement (honest!) we're taking a tour around the latest World of Warcraft expansion: Cataclysm. We'll test run the new zones, the new levelling experience, raids as well as the latest races to join the Horde and Alliance - Goblin and Worgen.
So, with those aims in mind yours truly and our intrepid Editor, David Hollingworth downloaded the beta client, donned our top-hats and rolled up some Worgen hunters. Humans! Hunters! With the added bonus of werewolf goodness thrown in - what's not to love? Details about the goings-on behind the Greymane Wall have been trickling out since the new races were announced at BlizzCon 2009. Since then we've seen some great environment designs and learned some of the lore and history for this previously sealed off zone. And to be honest, the game doesn't disappoint on an initial play-through.
Blizzard has really taken the lessons learned in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King to heart - the use of phasing to move players through the opening experiences is very effective. This was used to good effect in the last expansion, in the Death Knight opening narrative, and its use has been expanded in Cataclysm. For one thing the phasing covers larger areas - so there's a real sense of the story moving on as players travel through the opening zones from Gilneas City to Stormhaven and Greymane Manor and out towards meeting the Alliance. Gilneas has been rendered beautifully and has retained the feel of an old Hollywood horror film. In the original beginner zones the storylines were mapped out very carefully - but in this case the new zones and quests tied very much into the story of the expansion itself, much like the first Death Knight zone released with Wrath of the Lich King.
Experienced players should find the revamped levelling design the most changed aspect of the expansion - especially if you enjoy levelling characters. There's been a lot of talk about how the talent trees are being tuned to remove ‘bloat' talents and to streamline paths to the final tier abilities. A big change that comes out of this is the ability to use really spec-defining talents early on - while running around on those baby Worgen hunters we were able to pick our specs; Beast Mastery and Marksmanship respectively and actually get talents and abilities right away that affect the play-style and, importantly, the feel of that role.
Broadly speaking low level characters get access to abilities and spells that were once much further down the levelling track. In the case of our Hunters we had access to steady shot before level 10. But there's also abilities granted just for picking a talent tree once a character reaches level 10. For Beast Mastery this proved to be Intimidation - a taunt-like stun delivered by the hunter's pet, great for when threat gets out of control. Marksmanship offered up Aimed Shot; a high-damage instant cast spell. These are both pretty important abilities and ones that really make you feel like you are actually playing a Hunter class.
Perhaps controversially, Blizzard has chosen to lock players into that particular talet tree until its final tier - while this definitely helps players really get into their role it also feels a bit like it's undermining the developer's earlier claims that they'd like to stop players adopting cookie-cutter specs in order to fit into a raid niche; however with the revamped levelling experience it might work out well in the end.
Back to the beta-testing!
Issue: 133 | February, 2012