World of Warcraft Cataclysm Press Tour

[Deleted]

Yep this is just them basically saying, "So yeah we're gonna just not do some of the things we said we were gonna do so you guys can get the game quicker."

I hope you QQers are happy, because you spammed the blizzard forums saying you want Cata faster, this is what you get.

i also spammed how i hate pet shop and micro-transactions yet they didn't remove it

[Deleted]

"only 5 new levels"? You don't know how long those levels will take. The number doesn't equal amount of time needed, so the number is completely arbitrary. How can there be a failure of switching out dull talents when it is still a work in progress? I doubt you could come up with a good amount of "fun" or "interesting" new talents anyway, because they would need many new which would likely lead to even more homogenization. .

I dont buy this "its all numbers anyways" mantra. Fantasy RPG games is all about making those numbers( data) into a interesting illusion. A level is a Carrot on a Stick, a reward for doing stuff`. By cutting down the lvls but maintaining the time spent, you cut out 5 Carrots. Thats downplaying the whole concept of lvl`ing. Its fun to ding. You get talent points, new spells, acces to new gear and instances. If players are getting 2 talent points and twice te amount of abillitys in Cata, it would be a tie. That dosnt seem to be the case though.

The fun and interesting talents could be found in abundence in either the suggestion forums or the first found 3rd addition AD&D Player handbook you google. I doubt the best of the best game designer (they all end up at Blizzard) would need any of that though.
Typical fun talents are for me stuff like - Slow, Shadowstep, Heroic Leap, Natures Swift and suchs.

"
Path of the Titans would have only forced every single person to grind away with Archeology because nobody would want to group you with in any dungeon without having everything maxed out. Do you think it is bad today with the GS nonsense? It would be even worse with the addition of Path of the Titans and the forced grind on everyone..

My hope was that we would have seen the fun and utillity kinda abillitys in Path. And that it would be a way to keep progressing your character over time instead of ending up with the usualy badge grind.

"
How does your character not evolve one bit when you are getting new abilities from level 80 to 85? I don't see how getting extra talents, albeit ones you may have seen before, is less about evolving your character. And you do get more damage because there are still talents which will boost that. Not every damage talent is being removed in favor of the Mastery.
..

Im positive about the new spells. Its cool. But its still hard not to weigh it up against TBC and WOTLK, where you got those new abillitys ( Bloodlust/Heroism, Icelance, Savage Roar, Fan of Knives etc etc) On top of interesting talents.

"
Funny. So WoW is less of an RPG game with actual RPG-elements such as exploring? The way Archeology is going to be now is actually making it more of an RPG, not less.

I wasn't happy about the removal of Path of the Titans either until I realized how much of a forced grind it would be. It may not be grindy because you would have gotten it for doing anything, but players would have made it completely mandatory to do the easiest of tasks in the game as they already do with the GS-requirement. It is rather looney to act as if the removal of that feature makes Cataclysm all of the sudden not worth it or just a patch. They are adding 3 times as many quests to this expansion than the current one. People may not care about quests but those are actual the staple of what makes this an RPG. When you feel the removal of Path of the Titans is so bad which makes this expansion too much like TBC or Wrath I really wonder why people have continued to play this game for so long when they seem to in fact hate/loathe the current features of the game. If you really want something completely different, you may want to look into a completely new game instead of thinking expansions should significantly alter the game.

Exploring is fine. I like Adventure games - even though they tend to bore me in the length. Adding a RPG element to a Adventure game can seriously spice it up. Removing the RPG element from a RPG game ( or tone it down)might risk doing the opposite.
The promised concept of the Path was that it *wouldnt* be a grind. It would open up step by step.

A zillion quest is fine if you can use them to progress through. But if you cut out character progress, quest are only really rewarding gold/rep/achivements.
And let me be clear - is not the removal of the Path alone which make me disapointed. Its the direction this expansion have taken - we have been around more then just Path in this post alone. Everything is "less" and apperantly more about streamlining then adding.
Offcourse i could allso just throw in the towel and play something else. But i kinda like Wow, and i really, really hope Cataclysm will be worth playing. I guess thats why alot of ppl would like to se a reassuring from the devs that Cataclysm indeed will ship with alot of really interesting features.

[Manchaku]

goblins+island = howitzer gun??

and no more PotT

but i guess the guild thing seems better

[RumlyD]

After digesting this news, I think it should be pretty obvious that this is more of a refinement of the original concepts. They are taking what was good about those features and keeping them in the game, while removing the downsides.

As others have pointed out I think having to rely on Archaeology to slowly unlock what ultimately amounts to an expanded glyph system, was not the way to go. Also it was going to really be a barrier to playing alts. They can really make the glyph system quite a lot better this way I think, without having it depend on an extra mechanic that ties into a secondary prof. The more I think about that, the more I realize this seems like a much better implementation than what was originally planned. I'm interested to see what kind of stuff the medium glyphs will offer, I suppose a lot of cosmetic or convenience things that should give people chance to individualize their char? Sounds good.

As for guild talents; I guess they just realized that there was going to be always be one ideal spec, and also that it could hamper guilds that want to do pvp and pve. This way we get (one can assume) most of the perks they had planned without having to choose between them. As someone else said, talent trees are a very individual thing and probably weren't going to translate too well to a guild setting.

Now if these changes also mean they are able to finish work on the expansion faster, then I guess that's a nice bonus but I would doubt if that was the main driving factor behind the decision. That just doesn't seem to be Blizz's style. They will always do what they believe to be best for the game they are making, before panicking about release dates (in my opinion).

[Radux]

A little bit of a letdown in terms of Path of the Titans being removed and a lesser extent of Guild talents.

However, I'm super excited at the amount of new quests being added, as well as many of the other changes.

[GrieverXIII]

Sky is falling.

[Kekbur]

I accidentally the Cataclysm.

[Mjollnir]

The BG changes have gotten me interested to BG again =D Gonna be like Vanilla times.

(Arena > BG still, takes more quick thinking)

[AnotherPaladin]

Yikes. Seems like they just removed some of the most interesting things in Cataclysm. I hope goblins aren't next.

[tankbug]

Im dreaming of a blue post that says:

New hero class!
New primary profession!
New (interesting) horde race!

What I'm expecting:

Masteries have been deemed too complex to balance and have been taken out of the game.
Blizzard proudly introduces Mini-Arthas. This ingame pet will be available at the Blizzard online store shortly.

[Deleted]

am dissapointed about those 2 changes not being implemented, but i won't say anything until i see more of whats in store for these new proposed changes in detail.

but that still ain't gonna stop me buying cata. Finally, I can ditch my blueberry squidgoat and become the vertically-challenged thundergod dwarfkind has been always destined to be, and gonna hurl them bolts on top of a manbearpig...or whatever mutant the worgen are going to get as a mount.

[Dexiefy]

gr8, so we will see the horrific secret of ahn'qiraj being only a setback
and blizz already plans to kill rated bg's by making them premade only? Main reason for 5man arena being so unpopular is because its hard to gather 5 ppl at the same time... let alone 10 15 or 25 ~~

[Vanhelsen]

No Path in cata? Ok, Mid-glyphs look better for me, and whole solution with glyphs is awesome but they drop guild talents too? Oh c'mon! It was one of the best things in cata for me! Ability to customize your guild etc :/ But rep with your own guild? OMGWTFBBQ?!

[Ganimah]

This confirms for me that I will not be picking up Cataclysm. All of the things that make the game new and different are now. As well...Grim Batol being the "Noobs R Us" Naxxramas equivalent? No thanks Blizz. I'm not returning.

[Gilian]

More of the same. No thanks.

They don't even give a reason for dropping those ideas that they announced a long time ago. Or did I miss something?

[Underpanties]

LOVE this.

[Seifa]

Meh, they just removed two customization tools that could make your character/guild a little different. I hope they work on cool "Medium" Glyphs instead of the boring Minor and Major (hi no reagent, more damage, less mana and so on).
Guild talents was a cool idea, i loved lvling a Guild in Ragnarok Online to unlock Guild Abilities but as Blizzy stated we will just level up the guild and unlock the whole guild arsenal just by grinding.... sound fun? No.

I have this sensation these changes are because those two features were overcomplicated for... guess who? Baddies. Skilling a profession to gather reagents for Path of Titans was so hardcore and needed some web information that would be too hard for those players! And choosing guild talents? Oh god, better not!
Meh, i hope i'm over negative...

[Ricen]

Dumb dumb dumb dumb, BLIZZARD GRR u had a awesome thing going with path of the titans, and guild talents who is the idiot in your company that X'd it. i hate them -_-

[iceberg265]

Removing path of the titans and rated BGs for premades only=fail

[m4xc4v413r4]

Bah, what a disappointment... was looking forward for guild talents and Path of the Titans..