Review: Cataclysm - five more levels, one pissed off dragon, and a whole new world to explore. Welcome to the end of days, Azeroth style!
Traditionally, World of Warcraft expansions have upped the level cap, added new high-level regions to explore, and maybe a few new crafting professions and a new race or two. The Cataclysm expansion goes way further. In lore terms, the world of Azeroth has literally been shattered – coastal regions have been flooded or destroyed, cities attacked and buildings ruined, and the balance of power forever changed.
Every starting area and major quest-line has been updated to fit into this new world, while at the upper end of the game regions have opened up for level 80 players to start their advance to the new level cap of 85. So while the upper end of Cataclysm isn’t quite as large as the ten-level-ranged Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King, the overall changes to the case game are both vaster, and far more interesting.
For this review we’ve split the work between our high-level WoW expert, Liz Skuthorpe, and me, your humble Editor, who’s been exploring just how messed up his beloved Night Elves are following the rise of Deathwing...
A whole new game We can’t stress enough how different Warcraft now feels. The new starter areas and Cataclysm-affected regions freshen up gameplay immensely. For a WoW veteran, the impact of seeing familiar areas like Auberdine shattered and inundated with evil elementals is oddly... harrowing.
At the same time, the changes to the game’s base mechanics have well and truly gotten us hooked all over again. The new Talent system effectively does away with the dabbling of cookie-cutter builds and forces you to focus on one Talent group at a time. Professions have all been cleaned up, and the two new ones – Inscription, for making Glyphs and a range of stupidly useful scrolls, and the very cleverly implemented Archaeology – really round out the game.
And then there’s the graphical upgrades. WoW is still ultra cartoony, but Azeroth and its attendant continents/worlds have never looked better. Lush grasses and shrubbery cover the ground, the view distance has been bumped up to officially ‘hella impressive’ levels and the water... well, it’s got to be seen to be believed.
It’s almost like devs at Blizzard have mugged someone from Crytek and stolen their liquid physics engine for a laugh.
The high end Azeroth has been destroyed and Hyjal and Vashj’ir beckon but how do these new zones hold up in the New World Order? Our illustrious editor has covered the noob zones so let’s have a look at what to expect for levels 80 through 85.
Blizzard learned a few lessons after the initial release of World of Warcraft and the Burning Crusade expansion. Focused narrative quest-lines were the order of the day for the second expansion Wrath of the Lich King, and the developers have continued in that vein for Cataclysm. All the new high-level zones; Hyjal, Vashj’ir, Deepholm, Uldum, Twilight Highlands, have quite a linear feel to the questing – which may be a negative if you like a more open sand-box feel, but you won’t be lost for quests.
For higher level players the biggest change to the game will most likely be the new outlook on dungeon difficulty. Prior to the expansion Blizzard hinted that the easy-days of chain-pulling through heroics would be dead in the water come Cataclsym, and that is certainly true. Dungeons and heroics have seen a return to crowd control, so it’s time to keybind that Polymorph, Hex, Banish or Entangling Roots spell (here’s a hint, it’s in your Spellbook).
And those elite dungeon mobs hit like Mac trucks driven by angry bears – which means both tanks and healers are feeling the strain and the challenge. All in all, it means that heroics feel they way they should – really hard, and satisfying to complete. You’ll also need to get those regular dungeon ‘Blue’ rewards before you can think about heroics. And you’ll need those heroic rewards before you can think about raiding. Easy-mode is gone, and it feels glorious!
Which pretty much sums up our feelings on the entire expansion. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to go see a man about some boars...
Issue: 137 | June, 2012