10 WoW Cataclysm Changes to Pwn Vanilla WoW
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WoW will change forever in Cataclysm, and thank god we won’t have to put up with these bits again.
Blizzard has confirmed that the third expansion for World of Warcraft – Cataclysm will change the landscape of WoW forever.
It’s a sadness that many of the beloved parts of the original game will be lost, but more importantly Cataclysm is going to erase some of the worst parts of World of Warcraft, and that is something to truly cherish.
Here is my rundown of the top 10 things I definitely won’t be missing by the time Cataclysm sunders Azeroth for ever more.
1. Desolace
The zone of Desolace has to go down as one of the most boring and tedious zones to ever be approved by Blizzard. The name is apt because Desolace is depressingly bleak. Not dark and mysterious in a cool way like Darkshire, just horrendously, eye-gougingly bleak and truly desolate of content.
Working your way between levels 30 and 40? Send your character to the lush jungle of Stranglethorn Vale, or the open expanses of the Arathi Highlands. For the love of God, don’t punish yourself by going to Desolace.
Not only is Desolace dark and boring, it is huge, with quests that force you to run around seemingly forever, making the zone unnecessarily long and arduous; particularly in vanilla WoW when you could only get a mount at level 40. Added to this, Desolace is also home to my nemesis instance, Maraudon, or “the unnavigable maze” as it is otherwise known.
Cataclysm will see Desolace remarkably changed: “Familiar zones across the original continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms have been altered forever,” Blizzard announced in the Cataclysm FAQ. As such, Desolace will cease to be a gray nothingness and will become a verdant expanse of greenery, with new quest lines and hopefully a new dungeon, which will finally make it a zone worth visiting, other than to complete the Scarlet Monastery pre-quest.
2. Azshara
Another God-awful zone, Azshara at least is pretty to look at, but was criminally underused by Blizzard and always seemed like an unfinished zone which was tagged on at the end when deadlines were getting tight. Not to mention those infuriating fecking stone giant elites who had a habit of popping up just as you were clipping those essential pieces of Dreamfoil from the ground.
Azshara is to be completely re-done come Cataclysm and will be the new Goblin level 10-20 area. WoW has been crying out for playable Goblin characters ever since players first encountered them in game.
The short and stunty versions of the Orcs will be a most welcome and characterful addition to the WoW universe.
3. Long “Running Around” Quest Chains
This comes back to the above point about some of the quest chains in Desolace. Desolace is far from the only offender here. Vanilla WoW is littered with pointless quest chains which require an awful lot of running around, and not much else.
Whilst Blizzard probably thought at the time that this was a good way for players to see more of the beautifully sculpted content they had created, particularly in some of the main cities, these quests actually end up being extremely annoying and frustrating.
Take the Missing Diplomat chain for the Alliance as an example. Did we really need 17 separate quests that force the character to run from Stormwind, to Darkshire, to Addle’s Stead, back to Stormwind, to Menethil Harbour, to Theramore, to Dustwallow Marsh?
As Blizzard discovered, there are better ways to get players to explore content than sending them on absurdly long quest chains. It’s also more inclusive, which is part of the reason they ditched the massive Onyxia quest chain down in Blackrock Depths.
“We felt we could apply the lessons of Outland and Northrend to improve the gameplay while levelling in the original two continents. Our goal is to make questing, levelling and the overall story more fun”. Amen to that.
4. Running Everywhere
Running around in general is pretty crap. There were times on the larger zones like the Barrens where you could literally go and make a cup of tea whilst your character auto-ran to the next destination you were trying to get to.
Some of that irritation has gone now that Blizzard has reduced the level requirement for mount riding to level 20 and epic riding to 40, but having got used to zipping around on drakes and gryphons through Outland and Northrend, being reduced to saddling up my old tiger back in Azeroth is pretty lame.
Thankfully, you’ll be able to fly around all of Azeroth in Cataclysm, which I have to say is one of the coolest changes announced to date. I can’t wait to explore some of the previously hidden realms of Eastern Kingdoms; and being able to do so at 300 per cent walking speed will only make that all the more satisfying.
5. Night Elf Druids
It always confused me that Blizzard offered so much choice with character selection for most classes but completely restricted others for no apparent reason. I was always bitterly disappointed that if you wanted to play a Druid as Alliance you had to be a Night elf. Similarly if you wanted to roll a Horde Druid, you had to be Tauren.
Some players have commented that this is a point of Warcraft law, but if you take this line of reasoning then you will need to come up with a damn good reason why stout, chunky, ham-fisted Dwarves can roll a Rogue; the lithe, stealthy and agile DPS class of the game.
When The Burning Crusade came out, I was certain this oversight would be corrected, but low and behold Blizzard stuck with the mono-race option for Druids of each faction, whilst other classes such as Mages and Priests got even more options when the two new races of Blood Elves and Draenei were introduced to the game.
Finally with Cataclysm this imbalance is going to be redressed. “Since one of our goals with the expansion is to make the leveling-up process feel fresh again, it made sense to introduce these new combinations as another way for players to get a new perspective on Azeroth,” said Blizzard.
Say hello to Dwarf mages, Human Hunters, Blood Elf Warriors and Tauren Paladins. More importantly though, players wanting to roll a Druid will be given a second race option on both Horde and Alliance, with the introduction of Troll Druids and Worgen Druids. I’m also particularly pleased to see the addition of a Gnome healer for the Alliance which means all-Gnome groups and all-Gnome guilds are finally possible with the addition of Gnome Priests.
6. Crafted Items You Can’t Use
This is a particular pet hate of mine, having spent endless hours, not to mention gold, levelling crafting professions that seem to have very little use throughout the game. A classic example was levelling a Paladin with Mining and Blacksmithing, which afforded virtually no armor rewards with +Intellect or +Spell Power, but were entirely geared towards a Warrior.
Even worse, lovingly crafted items which were of some use were soon defunct as simple quest rewards quickly superseded the crafted items. Enchanting and Alchemy were the only two original crafting professions that were of any use, and this elite cadre were later joined by Jewelcrafting and Inscriptions, but Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring and Engineering were all-but useless.
Reforging is set to change all of the woes of the levelling crafter, as you will be able to adjust stats on your gear to suit your needs in much the same way as adding an enchant or jewel to your items can enhance them. Blacksmiths will be able to reforge plate armor, Tailors can reforge cloth gear and so on.
Blizzard have also promised to make crafting easier by offering multiple skill-ups for harder to craft items, and making lower level gear more useful during those early crafting phases.
7. Fishing
Let’s face it, fishing has always been a failure of WoW. Tediously monotonous to grind, it takes a special dedication to max your fishing level, although Blizzard made it considerably easier to fish shortly before Wrath of the Lich King came out. When cooking was given a considerable boost and became a gaming essential, especially for raiders, fishing was grudgingly levelled by many a player to get access to the top consumables.
There is still an awful lot of chaff when it comes to fishing though, and players can spend hours on end waiting for the lure to bob in the water just so they can snatch a crucial fishing point. Even fishing achievements were dull to complete. Blizzard has promised that fishing is going to be more fun in Cataclysm which can only be a good thing for those levelling the secondary professions.
Talking of secondary professions Cataclysm is also going to introduce Archaeology for all you budding Indiana Jones fans. Not only will players be able to collect artefacts from around Azeroth, Blizzard have said Archaeology will be tied to the new path system, which will allow players to develop new talents by completing quest objectives.
8. Defense and MP5
Whilst stats are an essential part of the WoW, unless you can crank some serious numbers Rain Man style, you have no hope of assimilating all of the various stats which contribute to make an awesome player. The plethora of stats needed for a healer, including: Intellect, Spirit, Spell Power, Mana-Per-5-seconds (MP5), Haste and Critical Strike make it difficult to compare items on a like-for-like basis.
Blizzard cleaned up a lot of stats when they merged functions such as Spell Damage and Healing Power into Spell Power. Thankfully in Cataclysm a whole bunch of other stats are due to be phased out to make the whole process more simple and easy to get to grips with. Spirit will become the mana-regeneration stat, so you can wave goodbye to MP5.
Spell Power will be assimilated into Intellect along with your mana pool. Melee classes will lose attack power and instead have that encompassed with agility, whilst tanks will lose Defense and have a boost to Stamina and Agility.
9. Hunter Loot
It’s an old and tired joke, but some Huntards will still insist that any item which is not plate is legitimate “hunter loot”. No other class deserves the title “loot whore” more than hunters as they constantly find a need to roll on anything and everything that drops for a boss fight.
Bows and crossbows are fair enough, but Hunters are still eager for staves, swords, axes, maces polearms, a range of cloth, leather and mail, the whole nine yards.
It was a sweet and wonderful moment when I read the words on a Blizzard forum that Hunters will lose mana in Cataclysm. “Hunter loot” is no more, as mana will be replaced with a Rogue-style energy points system called “focus”. That means healer items will be safe from the greedy clutches of hunters trying to roll on the kitchen sink, as will any item which boosts Intellect or Spirit. A very welcome change indeed.
10. Drowning
Completing any quest underwater used to be a total nightmare for anyone who wasn’t a Druid, Warlock or Alchemist. Diving down to pick up that hidden locket or kill a few feisty murlocs in their own backyard was fraught with the added difficulty of having to time your resurfacing carefully so you wouldn’t drown at a critical moment.
Blizzard sorted the problem to a large extent when they dramatically increased the amount of time you could spend underwater before you needed to worry about coming up for breath. However, the whole underwater questing thing is still extremely tedious as movement speed is reduced to that of an ambling kobold and the unwary player can still be caught out without breath, meaning he’ll be sleeping with the fishes.
Cataclysm is going to see an entirely new dynamic brought to the game as Blizzard will introduce a completely underwater zone, the Sunken City of Vashj’ir. “We’ll be introducing some new mechanics specific to the Sunken City of Vashj’ir that address current issues with underwater movement, combat and other gameplay mechanics.”
With so much time inevitably spent underwater it’s pretty safe to say that you can kiss goodbye to drowning as Blizzard implements some underwater breathing apparatus and you can be certain that the next level of mounts to be rolled out will be underwater turtles, seahorses and sharks. Like Finding Nemo, Cataclysm is going to make life under the sea very cool.
Got something you can’t wait to see axed from Vanilla WoW? Let us know with a comment below.
You need a new editor, the grammar and spelling used in this article is heinous.
I would welcome some insight into the heinous spelling and grammar, please enlighten me.
Ur rong lol… he spel gud n tok gud tu!
What the fuck are you talking about?
Stop being part of the Nazi spelling police, no one cares if he never spelt some words right. Seriously? I mean this was a great article, so stop moaning….
You just wanted to use the word heinous.
I’m not even surprised that they are gonna merge more stats and thus make the game easier for noobs. Precisely why I don’t play any more.
That’s some pretty flawed thinking as making stats simpler in no way makes the actual game easier to play.
When the British Army made improvements to their SA80 assault rifle, one of the many things they did was reduce the number working parts so that less things could go wrong.
The gun now jams less often and is more reliable, but just because it is simpler, you wouldn’t say it was easier for a soldier to hit a target would you? The user still needs skill in order to make the weapon effective.
The stat changes are exactly the same, everything will be easier to comprehend, but players will still need to use their skills in order to progress with achievements in the game.
This is a good move for all – noobs and hardcore players alike.
Ugh, he was talking about starting your character will be easier, shush.
Congratulations!
Don’t you look like a skilful WoW player complaining about the game being easier?
These changes suck! This is 10 reasons why I wont play WoW anymore. OMG, they just simplify EVERYTHING for noobs.
What’s next? Endless mana? What was wrong with long quests? That was interesting. The “Legend of Stalvan” was epic guys. And what now? You want more “kill 100 boars” quests. Oh, I just don’t get it.
I miss the Vanilla WoW time. Cataclysm (and WotLK by the way) is not the game I started playing. R.I.P. World Of Warcraft…
Go back and read (3) again.
It’s not about ditching story from quest lines altogether – which btw some of Blizzard’s best story lines have come from WotLK (see Icecrown, DK starting quests) – the point is that the pointless chains running around with no purpose are going to be dropped.
Legend of Stalvan is a perfect example, so much of that quest line involves running between different NPCs without actually doing anything inbetween the quests apart from running. And Blizz are supposed to be making stuff easier NOW in the later expansions?
At least in WotLK you don’t get free XP just for walking from A to B, you have to earn that experience killing stuff.
Totally agree with you, even though no one checks this post any more probably. The 10 things he listed up were all positives, things that made WoW, or should I say Vanilla WoW, interesting and great. WoW shouldn’t be over-polished, which it’s about to be. The little flaws here and there are what makes it such a great game. Anyway, WoW was so great back then, now it’s getting too balanced! ^^
Spare me. As if gaining Epic armor is even hard anymore. WoW is dead classic was the only real EPIC WoW.
Legend of Stalvan is in fact a perfect example of a quest that has you do some needless running around.
Clerk Daltry sends you to Moonshire and only AFTER you go there and come back does he find that the guy had a more recent address. At which point you really want yell “Why didn’t you see that BEFORE you sent me to Moonshire, Magoo?!” to the Clerk.
Stalvan – pointless running around? It’s a game, so it’s all pointless in that respect. The game offers nothing in the end – the fun is in the process. And this whole time ever since the middle of BC they’re been killing the process. gg.
Seriously? Vanilla WoW was terrible.
Lemme guess….you started at BC or WOTLK….go figure -.-
I, personally, found “classic” WoW to be boring and unplayable. I got in during beta, and IMHO the game didn’t even start to get interesting until BC was released. I had tried SEVERAL TIMES to get into it prior, but it was just blah!
BC and WotLK, as well as lead-in, in-between, and subsequent content patches, took leaps and bounds toward improving the game, making it fresh and exciting for everyone from the newb to the hardcore, from the soloist to the raid junkie. Now, with the upcoming Cataclysm, Blizzard has the opportunity to give this 5+ year old title a (much needed) major overhaul.
Zones – Some zones needed some serious work, and while I never spent much time in Azshara, they definitely hit the nail on the head with Desolace. Plus, revamping the zones means it may actually be interesting to start up a new alt, seeing as it’s likely that many of the ‘old skool’ quests will be either gone or, at least, reworked.
Quests – I just happen to be in the middle of the Missing Diplomat quest at this time with my Draenei Mage (I’m usually a Hordie), and yeah, these quests need serious retooling!
At least give us something interesting to do while we’re running from A to B to C to D to etc, etc, etc! WotLK, particularly, introduced some interesting, story-driven quest elements that I am happy they will be expanding into the lower level content. The game shouldn’t just be about the end game, but what you did to get there!
Race/Class Combos – Yeah, I loved 1st Ed Dungeon & Dragons as much as the next ‘old skool’ gamer, but 3/3.5e did a lot to make the game more interesting by breaking those race/class combo walls. Now if only we could make “sympathizers”; members of races that have “gone to the other side”, such as Horde Humans and Alliance Orcs. I’m all about RP factor, and some players like play “bad” races “good”, and vice-versa.
Crafting – Oh, this is a LOOOOOONG needed change. It might actually make it worthwhile to take a non-gathering profession prior to hitting end-game!
Stats – Some people seem to feel that this is dumbing down the game, and it might be from a certain PoV. However, while simplifying stats may be “making things easier for noobs”, it will also make things easier for everybody else! It will make it easier to understand what each stat does, cuz there are less to know, and it will simultaneously make it easier to collect gear oriented toward your specific build/concept. Everybody wins! Well, except maybe the hardcore mathletes. :p
Underwater – Details are too vague at this point, but I’m definitely excited to see what changes they’re implementing here.
Phasing – SOOOOO glad they’re gonna implement this feature throughout the ENTIRE game. It’s nice to do something that has an impact on the world and actually SEE that impact as a permanent change! Even things as simple as picking up a unique quest item and having it permanently disappear (to that character) from the game world.
The devil is in the details, my friends! I’m sorry, but as times change, so do demands and desires. Blizzard knows that they need their cash cow to change WITH the technological possibilities and the ever-changing demands of the consumer in order to remain “top dog” as long as possible. The trick is to utilize these advancements to ENHANCE the game-play experience. So far they seem to be doing just that.
I, for one, look forward to Cataclysm.
Great post – I agree with nearly everything you said except the bit about vanilla WoW being boring.
But yeah, change is good and Blizz have a lot of good ideas here.
Oh, well I hope I didn’t imply that that was how everyone would feel, because I had plenty of friends who fell hard for WoW when it first came out.
Just saying that I, personally, wasn’t able to really get into it until BC was released. I’m not saying it was bad, I guess it was just a little TOO vanilla at that point for my taste. I don’t know. I really got into the Blood Elves, and I wasn’t able to really dig the shaman until I played one as a Draenei.
I have to say I’m kind of pissed about the new ‘focus’ power supply replacing mana. It’s going to be incredibly frustrating for a level 80 Hunter to now learn an entirely different play style (my least favorite based on my experience with cat form).
They’ll have to change up the talent trees to remove anything dealing with intellect/mana (including Careful Aim) and what are we to do about all the gear we’ve already acquired? Will we have to start from scratch or will they modify “hunter gear” to accommodate the massive loss in AP?
We have to learn an entirely new way of setting up rotations. Ugh…I love my Hunter. I don’t want to shelf her. But there’s a reason I didn’t want to play my Druid as feral dps. It’s not my play style of choice. To force me into it on a toon I played for so long makes me very very sad. I feel kind of…cheated?
First up, you definitely won’t have to start from scratch on gear, Blizzard have said gear will be modified with new stats, so your epics will be adjusted accordingly.
Second, Cataclysm is going to present major shifts for all classes in terms of talent trees and rotations. Everyone will be dealing with stat changes of one kind or another which will inevitably lead to new rotations, and leveling to 85 will change your talent tree specs regardless of class.
Third, your play style shouldn’t be affected that much, you’ll still be ranged dps, only your rotations will be different to maximise combo points etc. All in all, I can’t see a problem with the changes.
Yeah, my 80 hunter gets to sit and collect dust now… goodbye epics.
WoW has been made so easy a 7 year old blindfolded and banging his head on the wall can down the “hardest” bosses… and that’s why many old school players finally broke their addictions and left the game to the baddies.
They are just reaching with this expansion to try and pull back a now constantly slipping consumer base.
No more spell/attack power? No more defense rating or MP5?
All they’re doing is making the game so simple an 8 year old could play it in order to bring in more players.
The combination of that and them all but giving away epics now (ie. being carried through 5-mans can score you 232 gear and a couple of t8 pieces) has made it where the game is awful for serious players.
Ever try pugging anymore? It’s a nightmare. People with awesome gear who don’t even know how to play their class and overall are horrible.
Some interesting points but perhaps I could offer a reply.
1. Changing the stats does not make the game easier to play. It’s easier to understand, but it won’t make the game simpler to play for younger players.
That would be like me saying a car is easier to drive because manufacturers describe speed in terms of 0-60 in 5 seconds rather than in terms of bhp and torque.
2. I agree epics are easier to obtain now which does make the game easier. However, serious players are not going to be interested in 5-man ToTC loot. If they are serious then they will be in a proper raid group which should have a vetting process to weed out weak players, regardless of what items they wear. Top players will be able to obtain the top epics which still differentiates them from the casual player who gathers epics from heroic dailies.
3. Pugging has always been a nightmare. At least now most heroics are easy enough that a pug wont disintergrate at the first wipe because some huntard doesn’t know how to play.
You are still just as likely to find random good players as you were random idiots in a pug. The difference now being that even idiots in some decent gear can contribute something, instead of being carried. Again if you want to avoid the nightmare of pugging, join a raid group.
4. Easier epics means you can legitimately gear up alts without dragging down the effectiveness of a group too much. This adds an extra depth to the game which keeps things interesting for most players.
Hunters cant use maces FYI, shows how much you know about them, and secondly I play a lvl 80 Orc Hunter myself, but maybe you should group with “HUNTERS” who know what the fuck they’re doing, NOT “HUNTARDS” who are just a joke and there too piss you off.
No matter how hard they try, nothing Blizzard can do will return the game to its former glory without actually returning the original game.
I’m gonna sell my account and stop playing. Blizzard destroyed the great game they made.
Funny how you all seem to forget at one stage none of you knew how to play.
Mmm a lot of angst directed towards this class. IMO Hunters are a very important part of any high-end raid team.
True, few players are skilled with this class but the same may be said for all classes. Each class can be face-rolled, or PLAYED, a good hunter is your best friend, a bad one, hell on Azeroth.
Hunters are the best choice for new players as well. Disagreements may be forwarded to any top rank Raid guild, though you might get called a fekking noob.
Indomael
I pretty much agree with this post.
Stop playing with noobs and go play with some real players.
I used to be a dps ret pally. The groups kept on wiping so I switched to holy and now no-one ever says a word in the group we just do the instance with zero wipes. Why is this happening? Because I looked at every spell and I know how to play a holy paladin.
Or you just weren’t a good enough Ret Pally…
While the idea of being able to understand stats easier would be nice, I don’t like the idea of giving up the customisable aspect of the old stats. I want to be able to go “You know what? I don’t need dodge and parry for my PVP Rogue. I’ll just be a glass cannon and get my insane +crit +AP up and try to kill them before they can react.”
Or I could go the other way and go “You know what? Those glass cannon guys are easy to kill. I’ll just get as close to 100% block dodge and parry as I can so they can’t hit me.” Personally I wouldn’t go that far to the extremes of those 2 examples but I want the option.
WoW is just stealing ideas from LOTRO and WAR and incorporating them into WoW now. I fukin hate Blizz
I didn’t enjoy TBC or WOTLK, but I don’t think they were bad games. They were just too different from Vanilla WoW.
Vanilla WoW was simple, but still hard (simple does not mean easy to play, rather easy to understand).
It seems like the expansions turned WoW into too much of a “science”. All I ever heard was “you need X amount of health, X dps, X defense, X gear level”. In Vanilla WoW it didn’t really matter what gear you had for entry-level raiding (except maybe if you were a tank).
As long as you were competent, people didn’t question you. I was never once asked how much dps I did, or how much HP I had before being allowed to join a group. Raids were just happy to be able to fill a slot. They were content with the old saying “beggars can’t be choosers”. These days it’s “LF Healer (random crappy raid) must have +2039482384 healing and 3485093458 mp5 with full tier 69, we are gear checking”.
WoW needs to go back to being a GAME, not a SCIENCE.
Agreed.
I loved the game but too many bitches joined and it’s getting too simple.
I agree!
Personally I think that the changes they are making to stats are going to make the game less challenging, which will in turn bore people that are skilled at the game much quicker. Blizzard is a very smart business because they know some people are going to stop playing but they also know more noobs are going to like it! They are only in the video game business for the money, not people’s opinions on their games. They never would have created WoW if it weren’t for money.
World of Warcraft was the funnest in the first 50 levels and then raids and dungeons were the only fun part after that…
That is only my opinion though – if someone else thinks differently, don’t be a douche.
I like what they’re doing. I’ve played since the beginning. Not all people like the same thing. Some people like chocolate some vanilla. If you don’t like it, don’t play. And btw the first reply to this article is a jackass, that’s all you had to say about the article is the spelling. Fucking life reject. o imm sory i didt’n spel evri wurd corect bi cos you wher chekkin my gramer.
Great article and thx for everyone that wasn’t a cry baby.
Can’t be the same forever or everyone will get bored and quit ;P
BTW, first guy who commented GET A LIFE NUB… anyways…
Archaeology is no longer important to the path system because the path system has been removed.
Stop acting like all hunters are like that. I’m gonna hate the changes in Cataclysm. Stupid Blizz. Better at least send hunters new gear. o.O
Very, very interesting post. I actually have a website that you might be interested in, OP, and maybe other people might have an interest in it as well? It’s called WarWealth. It’s pretty much a giant knowledge base of all the greatest World of Warcraft (working) exploits. They’ve got an item and gold duplication method, ways to fly in Azeroth, and apparantly even a glitch that increases your stats by thousands (they say infinity, but I’ve only got like 100,000+ on stats max). It’s pretty cool, I’d check it out if you want an unfair advantage. wow exploits.
That focus replacement for hunters just clearly sucks ballz. If that actually happens, I won’t play it any more and I know other people who won’t too. WTF were they thinking? I don’t need on something because it has +int on it!!
Are you serious?!
Hunters wanting maces?! Night elves only being able to be druids is also part of the lore!
I think your list is pretty good and well reasoned but I think it speaks too harshly of some of the old gameplay decisions in classic wow. They served their purpose and were appropriate for their time. Does a WoW player 6 years later need to be running around aimlessly on explorer quest chains? Of course not. But they were atmospheric and immersive requirements in their day.
Any player that partook in the Onyxia quest chain, at least the alliance one, will look back with pride and a sense of accomplishment on the final end of the quest when they marched in to Stormwind with Marshall Windsor to confront Prestor/Onyxia and watch the epic battle unfold. Events like that are diminished by a more straight forward and less time consuming and concise TBC-style quest.
It’s true that the game needs “out with the old in with the new”, but it shouldn’t be done with gilded enthusiasm like a communist party cultural revolution. it should be looked at with resigned futility of trying to preserve a worthwhile and engaging component of the game’s history that sadly has no place in the current context.
I really don’t like the changes they made to the old Vanilla zones. I can’t post my feedback and minor criticisms on the WoW forums without the hardcore fanbois bashing me over the head with their nerdrage.
Basically this expansion did it for me. I realized oddly enough that it was the old vanilla zones i enjoyed the most. The way they changed them totally destroyed any desire I have for leveling through it.
Sure these changes are nice, but they honestly should have rebuilt the old zones from the ground up.
Vanilla WoW sucked. The changes to WoW have only gotten better as time goes on. You old-school panny waists don’t get it. It’s about the majority of players, not the whining minority. Do you actually think they would be making these changes if it wasn’t going to bring in more cash? So go back to your mom’s basement and do… whatever… cause you won’t be missed!
This game was great till TBC hit. Now we get fail players rocking epics they don’t deserve doing raids that are way too easy, thats why we complain. If you actually played wow back in the day you could talk but im sure you did not, so I would recommend that anyone who did not play vanilla wow stfu and go back to ezmode citadel and faceroll Lichking a few times so u can get ur leet epics that any other noob can get with ease.
All they are doing is turning WoW into a video game. This pisses me off because WoW is not a video game. It is a virtual world based on a storyline. By forgetting this, Blizzard is pissing off a lot of loyal WoW players.
My personal opinion is that anyone who thinks that getting rid of stats such as arm. pen and defence is a good thing should be shot… preferably somewhere that will make them die slowly and painfully.
My reason for this being that it makes everything so much easier for the people who play 2 hours a day before they go to bed, whereas the people who spend all their lives on it just shoot up the instances even faster than before. It means that the time I spent on balancing the stats on my warrior so that I could hit hard and be hit hard has been rendered null and void, all I gotta do now is stack dodge with some stamina. Thanks Blizzard. Really.
I can understand where you are coming from with the healing, stating that its complex to balance that many stats, but correct me if I’m wrong, the arcane arts were for those who were most intelligent? That being said I never played a healer until after the recent patch, so am not really qualified to judge.
I quite like most of the changes coming in Cata, but do have to say that the stat changes make me feel as if Blizzard is pandering to idiots who are unable to understand maths.
/rant
Thank you for reading, and if you feel inclined to respond to this post stating that I’m wrong and it was all too complicated before, please stop, move up a couple of lines and remember who Blizzard is pandering to.
The long quest lines were what made WoW. you had to spend time reading quest lore and going from A to B. Nothing wrong with killing 100 boars but should every quest be like that? Now i rarely glance at the name of a quest, just pop your map, run to a dot, kill boars, run back. rinse repeat. MMO’s are built on repetition so don’t complain when something’s a challenge like underwater breathing or you have to (lo and behold) RUN to a dungeon. “WoW should be ppl sitting is SW clicking their dungeon finder and trolling trade”. unfortunately that is now the World of Warcraft that we play!
Private servers are always a viable choice for old expansions.
-Prince Thundraan
I agree with your points except for 5,6 and 9.
5. Night Elf druids
Just because you want to be a human instead of nelf or Troll instead of Tauren isn’t really a good change. A minor change IMO, nothing that really changes the game much.
6. Crafted items you can’t use
If blacksmithing and and mining aren’t good for your paladin, GET DIFFERENT PROFESSIONS. Simple as that.
9. Hunter Loot
If a hunter can’t tell the difference between hunter gear and priest gear, than that hunter is huntarded and most likely noob. Good hunters know what to look for on gear. If you have a huntard that keeps needing everything or can’t play his class properly, KICK THEM. Problem solved.
Whatever will keep you guys paying. Thats all Blizzard cares about.
Bad spelling who cares.. Wotlk was shitty and now Cataclysm shows that it was ONLY for the money … allready all patches are out = cata is the shortest exp ever…
Also it is booringly easy
play vanilla
Vanilla was way better.
I used to look in awe at people in Tier gear, and dream about getting epics. Things meant something because it was much harder, had atmosphere and character, decent communities and and it wasn’t like now when every new patch instantly makes prior raids pointless. I would happily pay for a vanilla (or TBC) server and have posted this on the forums but considering the game instead turns to pandas, a joke made into an expac, it’s been a good time to sadly unsub. But it was a great game once and that keeps people there long after the Expiry date on the packet has passed.