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  1. #1

    Why did Cataclysm fail?

    Bit of research done on the controversy surrounding Cata when compared to Vanilla, BC, WotLK and Pandaria. As someone who was only around for the Cataclysm launch, I really wanted to find out why the expansion seemed to be so poorly received by everyone once I came back for MoP.
    Here's a list of reasons I've rounded up:



    Launch
    - Too much focus on remaking 1-60 zones, not enough on end-game
    - Unlike Arthas, Deathwing required research to understand his motives. You're TOLD he's bad, not shown
    - During the expansion launch, big cry out over difficulty and Blizzard made the controversial move of mass nerfs
    - Quest linerarity, sense of discovery lost?
    - Heroic dungeons had little entry barrier, so heaps of unskilled/ungeared players jumped in and ruined it, trash was bad too (ie. sheeping mobs) and the difficult disparity between Cata and WotLK was too much of a leap
    - Places like Vash'jir had a rich storyline but was dropped because people didn't like the zone
    - It was too easy to outlevel the 1-60 leveling content and end up stuck in Outland (ie. you level in Northern Barrens but then everything is grey 3/4s through) and taking off heirlooms seems silly
    - Archaelogy was retardedly boring
    - Though the expansions tone was appropriate, moving from zone-to-zone felt disorienting and nothing seemed 100% connected
    - Not enough 80-85 leveling zones, moreso: not enough options when leveling through them (ie. 5 zones compared to Northrend's 8 and Pandaria's 7)
    - People loved Worgen/Goblin starting zones, but didn't like that you were forced to stay there until level 10-15

    4.1
    - Valour points from the same two dungeons over and over
    - Getting missing purples from the heroics was good, but then who could be bothered doing 4.0 raids when you could just get the loot from said heroics?

    4.2
    - Small raid tier, no content except the raid
    - Dailies were only mildly interesting

    4.3
    - Raid finder = good but too easy?
    - Killing Deathwing through raid finder felt lame
    - Deathwing fight had a lot of rehashed environments and models though, especially over the course of one year
    - The ending cinematic was bizarre and had no lead-up

    Was there anything else?
    Last edited by TheDDGuides; 2013-05-05 at 07:25 PM.

  2. #2
    High Overlord Ult92's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheDDGuides View Post
    Bit of research done on the controversy surrounding Cata when compared to Vanilla, BC, WotLK and Pandaria. As someone who was only around for the Cataclysm launch, I really wanted to find out why the expansion seemed to be so poorly received by everyone once I came back for MoP.
    Here's a list of reasons I've rounded up:

    Launch
    - Too much focus on remaking 1-60 zones, not enough on end-game
    - Unlike Arthas, Deathwing required research to understand his motives. You're TOLD he's bad, not shown
    - During the expansion launch, big cry out over difficulty and Blizzard made the controversial move of mass nerfs
    - Quest linerarity, sense of discovery lost?
    - Heroic dungeons had little entry barrier, so heaps of unskilled/ungeared players jumped in and ruined it, trash was bad too (ie. sheeping mobs) and the difficult disparity between Cata and WotLK was too much of a leap
    - Places like Vash'jir had a rich storyline but was dropped because people didn't like the zone
    - It was too easy to outlevel the 1-60 leveling content and end up stuck in Outland (ie. you level in Northern Barrens but then everything is grey 3/4s through) and taking off heirlooms seems silly
    - Archaelogy was retardedly boring
    - Though the expansions tone was appropriate, moving from zone-to-zone felt disorienting and nothing seemed 100% connected
    - Not enough 80-85 leveling zones, moreso: not enough options when leveling through them (ie. 5 zones compared to Northrend's 8 and Pandaria's 7)
    - People loved Worgen/Goblin starting zones, but didn't like that you were forced to stay there until level 10-15

    4.1
    - Valour points from the same two dungeons over and over
    - Getting missing purples from the heroics was good, but then who could be bothered doing 4.0 raids when you could just get the loot from said heroics?

    4.2
    - Small raid tier, no content except the raid
    - Dailies were only mildly interesting

    4.3
    - Raid finder = good but too easy?
    - Killing Deathwing through raid finder felt lame
    - Deathwing fight had a lot of rehashed environments and models though, especially over the course of one year
    - The ending cinematic was bizarre and had no lead-up



    Was there anything else?
    This pretty much sums up how I felt about the expansion, and I played all the way through. I think it did 'fail' - or, rather, it was the worst one.

    I would also add that it took them ages to come out with new content, and when they did it was relatively little. The gap between the last patch and expansion was far too much.
    "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
    -John Maynard Keynes-

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by TheDDGuides View Post
    4.2
    - Small raid tier, no content except the raid

    No content besides the raid, of course not.
    Lets just ignore the complete new questzone they added.

    After reading this statement, I stopped reading the rest.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by TheDDGuides View Post
    - It was too easy to outlevel the 1-60 leveling content and end up stuck in Outland (ie. you level in Northern Barrens but then everything is grey 3/4s through) and taking off heirlooms seems silly
    Leveling content has to be tuned around people without heirlooms, or else it just punishes new players or people who reroll on new realms. No real arguments against the other points from me.
    Q: Where the fuck is Xia Xia, SIU?!?!
    A1: She needs to start making eggs for Easter...
    A2: Drunk and sleeping somewhere.

  5. #5
    I thought it did alright, shit start but ended ok.

  6. #6
    High Overlord Ult92's Avatar
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    Also, I will add that I did not like the new PVP content at all. Not Tol'Barad (nor the daily zone), not the two new BGs.
    "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
    -John Maynard Keynes-

  7. #7
    Not much of a focus on how (not) good the story is.

    By the dotpoints you seem to have completely forgotten about the elemental bonds questline, and it's entirely likely that you willingly drank away those braincells after playing through the content. Same to do with most everything in Cata with Thrall.

    You noted that you need to read the books to get a grasp on Deathwing's motives; you need to read the books to understand anything that is going on ever. Cairne's dead? Who's this Aggra? Why do we care about this twilight cult?
    If you are particularly bold, you could use a Shiny Ditto. Do keep in mind though, this will infuriate your opponents due to Ditto's beauty. Please do not use Shiny Ditto. You have been warned.

  8. #8
    - Unlike Arthas, Deathwing required research to understand his motives. You're TOLD he's bad, not shown
    Uhh... the video of him fucking up the world? Him literally flying into zones and randomly murdering your ass.

    How was Arthas different? The minacal "Oh ima just not kill you till later!!!!" - honestly it seemed like we went outa our way to poke Arthas, he just be chillen up north with his undead homies.

  9. #9
    Over 9000! Golden Yak's Avatar
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    I didn't like the way dungeons worked, having there be multiple tiers. Getting stuck doing a small number of dungeons over and over got old fast.

    I'd much rather see a larger number of dungeons right at the start, especially if we're going to be called to do them throughout the entirety of the expansion's life-time.

    It's a problem I've noticed in MoP as well, although thankfully there's no tiers. I've got no problem with smaller zones and fewer quests in lieu of more dungeons - you can only go through a zone once.


    I also felt there was no cohesive storyline in Cata to bridge the zones. They were all self-contained, but unlike in Wrath there was no natural line from one zone to the next that built up the entire story. In Wrath the storylines of the Lich King and Yogg-Saron stretched across multiple zones and led from one to another - not so much with the Twilight's Hammer.

  10. #10
    Banned Gandrake's Avatar
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    It didn't.

    Dragon Soul lasted too long. Everything else was business as usual again.

    Though, I do think Vasj'ir sucked because there is no depth perception in the water. Personally, I think Mists of Pandaria is as terrible as some people like to make Cataclysm sound.
    Last edited by Gandrake; 2013-05-05 at 05:57 AM.

  11. #11
    I'll put it in much simpler reasons:

    -It was too hard
    -ZA and ZG was too hard AND felt too mandatory for many players (includes raiders who need dungeons to cap valor)
    -overall small tier raids (in boss counts)

    Made me actually quit for a couple of months in 4.1... all I could do was random dungeon and random pvp, very painful for someone who logs in a few hours a week and has no solid guild with a purpose. later patches and MoP fixed all that

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Devilyaki View Post
    I thought it did alright, shit start but ended ok.
    For me it was the opposite. Start was ok, end was shit.
    It started, for high levels, as a hardcore expansion. It ended as a casual expansion, and DS was one of the worst tiers to ever be made, as bad as t7 and ToC, if not worse.

    Why Cata failed? Lots of undeveloped content, many raids canceled, no content outside of raids, 1-60 revamp turned out pretty inexpressive for most players, bad overall raid design with starter raids and dungeons being way too unfriendly for new players and later raids and dungons being faceroll (should be the opposite right?) also dungeon gear better than last tier gear.
    Cata had a lot of good ideas and A LOT of potential that was wasted by pure incompetence of the devs. Unlike MoP, they didn't develop out-of-raids content, except for Molten Front. And raids were sometimes brilliant, like FL, sometimes disgusting, like DS with the most disappointing endboss ever, Dw nails. Overall raid design was dumb, Skywall raid was lame, no Abyssal Maw, no Wall of Eternity.
    It didn't please casuals. It didn't please raiders. And pvp was pretty lame, they say. But it always is.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by teddytous View Post
    Uhh... the video of him fucking up the world? Him literally flying into zones and randomly murdering your ass.

    How was Arthas different? The minacal "Oh ima just not kill you till later!!!!" - honestly it seemed like we went outa our way to poke Arthas, he just be chillen up north with his undead homies.
    I went into Wrath not knowing a damn thing about Arthas other than he was responsible for EPL/Strath/Scholo.

    By the time we killed him, I knew EVERYTHING about him.

    I fought at his side to "purge" Strath of the plague.
    I saw him get manipulated to focus on his anger.
    I saw him betray Muradin and his friends to get frostmourne.
    I saw him grant powers to beings
    I saw him punish and betray those same beings he gave powers to
    I saw him torture an old friend just out of malice
    He killed me in Howling Fjord, saying death isn't eternal - and that he has a plan for me.
    I even got to PLAY as him... creating armies of undead to slay more people to raise even MORE undead!
    In the end, he kills me again - revealing his plan was to raise us as an elite army.

    Aside from those things, yeah - we didn't see NOTHING of Arthas' back story or motivations.

    Cataclysm? We saw Deathwing get mad at Alextraza... and those few who did the Blasted Lands quest saw him hunt down an egg.

    Aside from that - Deathwing's cunning plan through all those zones was to shout "RAAAAAAARGH!" and burn random patches of land.

  14. #14
    liking/disliking expansions is completely subjective. i enjoyed cata, not as much as wotlk, but definitely more than mop.

  15. #15
    Titan Tierbook's Avatar
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    thats not entirely true Mvallas DW was also seen in Uldum he was just ignored because of Indiana Jones
    Quote Originally Posted by Connal View Post
    I'd never compare him to Hitler, Hitler was actually well educated, and by all accounts pretty intelligent.

  16. #16
    It didn't fail? IIRC, the number of players plateaued at about ten million players. Which was about five times more players than the best competitors to WoW. How exactly is that "fail?"

  17. #17
    cata was fun

  18. #18
    I left at the beginning of Cata.

    My group of friends couldn't even get through heroics without 3-4 wipes in the beginning. and once we did it took an hour an a half. The complete 180 blizzard decided to do with it's instance content caught my group of friends by surprises. So you can imagine what started to happen. The content at the time made playing with friends a burden.

    by the time the sweeping nerfs came out I was already unsubbed. Because the game drastically change from something I can enjoy with friends to friends getting angry and frustrated with each other because they were not good at cc/interrupts/getting out of the fire.

    Came back in Mop and wish that of group was still around because if blizzard has just skip cata that close nit of friends would still be around today. makes me sad thinking about it.
    Quote Originally Posted by adam86shadow View Post
    I hear people say bring War back to World of Warcraft, well how about bringing World back to World of Warcraft

  19. #19
    Cata didn't fail. MoP is the failure since that's where the players have left in big numbers. The only bad thing about cata was how long we had to raid DS for before MoP came out.

    MoP is the failure.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Gnosk View Post
    Cata didn't fail. MoP is the failure since that's where the players have left in big numbers. The only bad thing about cata was how long we had to raid DS for before MoP came out.

    MoP is the failure.
    I honestly love Mop
    raids are great!
    Zone are pretty!
    85-90 quest are fun and not as linear!
    New talent system is great!

    the only problem I have with mop is dailies and LFR. dailies can go to hell and than some. While LFR is convenient it a step in the wrong direction of too easy.
    Quote Originally Posted by adam86shadow View Post
    I hear people say bring War back to World of Warcraft, well how about bringing World back to World of Warcraft

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