Should we be excited for Cataclysm?

#0 - Jan. 29, 2010, 12:44 a.m.

At first glance I bet you thought this was a QQ post, no instead I would like to discuss a problem I am seeing with the upcoming expansion pack. Namely I am not excited about buying it! What will Cataclysm bring? New races, new class combinations, a new level cap, flying in azeroth, and a redone Azeroth. I'm sure for many of you that is something to look forward, but for a person that has leveled dozens of times and is an alt maniac Cataclysm does not have much to offer me in terms of endgame content.

- No new talent points. But wait didn't GC say they were going to go back and redo the trees? That is a misconception. All that means is that they are going to tweak stats and abilities to match cataclysm's new stats and maybe new ones for underperforming pvp specs like subtly and moonkins. I know it's not always good to add new abilities on top of a already fragile pvp system. However for me new abilities was something to look forward too. You could be really excited about it. Also it put a creative side to blizzard, wondering how much further the team could think ahead of us.

- Recycled raid content. If there was one moment I would never have to live again it would be naxx at the beginning of WOTLK. For the people who had never to step into naxx it was great, but remember EVERYONE has seen molten core, blackwing, and van cleif. So for me who can grab a buddy and clear molten core in little under 15 minutes, it doesn't excited me knowing I will have to do that place just with higher HP levels. it screams repetition

- Nothing NEW. Sure we are going to have new zones, maybe a tweaked spell here and there, but what about something NEW! dance moves? flying cars? pve arena? Where is the imagination that blizzard once had that brought us to our knees? Cataclysm only feels like you are raising the level cap and allowing us to fly around azeroth. The only thing that can fit into this category is archeology, but only thing this is going to cause is min-maxing.

TL:DR Overall, I appreciate the work blizzard has done in the past, yet for me I don't feel excited about Cataclysm because there is nothing to be excited about. There is nothing new but a new level cap and recycled content. Please blizzard for the sake of the WOW community please let your imagination go wild with this expansion and don't give it a rushed feeling with eye candy.

Ghostcrawler

#5 - Jan. 29, 2010, 12:58 a.m.

I was going to bump this to the General forum, but I think the talent tree comment is worth addressing in the role forums, since it applies to class design.

1) We are changing talent trees, in some cases substantially. The major focus is pruning out boring but valuable talents that passively increase say damage or healing.

2) A secondary focus is to fix the clunky areas (e.g. warlocks having two conflicting range increasing talents). We're not going to remove old favorites or radically change the focus of the trees. You will definitely have to rethink your builds however.

3) Because you earn passive bonuses just for spending points in the tree, those fun, niche or utility talents won't seem as expensive as they do today. We want to create a lot more choices where you are choosing utility vs. utility. We want to see far more "cookie cutter" build guides that say "Spend the last 5-10 points where you want."

4) In some cases, trees will flat out get new abilities. These are in addition to the new level 81+ abilities.

5) You will get 5 additional talent points for the new levels.

6) We are not deepening the trees. This actually unlocks some interesting opportunities. For the first time, you can reach a 51 point talent and a 21 point talent in another tree.

I'll also add that for Lich King we just brought Naxxramas back and adjusted the bosses for 10 and 25 raid sizes. The Cataclysm raids are new content with new maps and new bosses. We're just trying to hit the nostalgia button with mentioning old foes like Ragnaros. Ragnaros may be back, but he's not in Molten Core.