Cataclysm- A Brief Analysis

[Hoothor]

Please Note: The following article is heavily influenced by my own opinions and i recognise that they will not be share by everyone, please be contructive in your responses.

Cataclysm has been heralded as the renaissance, the time of new life after the dark ages that were Wrath of the Lich King. While on paper this may seem so, challenging raid encounters, brilliant quest design, a complete revamp of the old world, what’s not to like? However I personally feel that Cataclysm does not measure up to previous expansions in some respects, while it greatly surpasses them in others. In this short article I hope to address some of these points.

Levelling:
In this expansion Blizzard have streamlined the questing so that it flows much more easily, gone are the boring grindy days of ‘Arrive at town, pick up all quests, complete all quests, move on’ and I believe that the current questing model of moving from sub-zone to sub-zone following an overarching storyline is a great addition to the game. However some may go so far as to say that the questing is too streamlined and linear. To a certain extend I would agree with them. Quoting from the slogan of the car company Alfa Romeo ‘Without heart we would be mere machines’ and I believe that in some cases, not all, that’s what cataclysm has made us, machines, some zones seem to be lack-luster and are there for the sole purpose of providing a few levels, clear examples of this would be Deepholm. To me Deepholm feels like something Blizzard shoved into the expansion as a way of bridging the gap between Hyjal/Vashj’Ir and Uldum/ Twilight Highlands, while on paper Deepholm shares the quality and polish the other zones possess, it lacks the heart and personality of other zones and resembles it primary theme, rock.

So levelling: Overall brilliant, kudos Blizzard another job well done, but in some respects lack-luster due to an overuse of the streamline brush and lack of heart.

Raiding:
In my limited experience I haven’t found a raid encounter that I didn’t like, each dungeon offers some unique elements and each is refreshing in its own right. Bastion of Twilight in my opinion is an execution fight through and through, each boss doesn’t hit particularly hard and I find that 99.9% of damage is avoidable if you don’t screw-up, it’s a kind of ‘You suck, you die’ attitude which I feel has been sorely missed in previous expansions. Not to say the bosses are not challenging, because they are, but they are a different kind of challenging.

Blackwing Descent on the other hand is a classic style raid; the bosses have lots of mechanics that will royally screw your raid over while giving your tanks a bludgeoning they will not soon forget. Most of the damage cannot be avoided. This dungeon is as much a test of your class as it is your ability to recognise and react to other what’s going on around you. All in all a good dungeon with sufficient difficulty to keep raiders like me happy for a while.

So raiding: Well Done Blizzard, I, as a consumer, am a happy bunny... and on a side note the guy who thought up Chimaeron can die in a fire XD

Overarching story and Atmosphere:
Here is where I must protest to a slight disappointment. I shall start with listing the things that Blizzard got right in this regard.

Sliverpine Forest is a stellar job, an utterly amazing zone, one of my favourites. Twilight Highlands is again another amazing zone and vastly superior to Icecrown. Stonetalon Mountains is amazing and heart wrenching, I was really touched by the skill of storytelling displayed in that zone and the phasing technology was unsurpassed in its application. While there are numerous others those stood out to me as being particularly good.

But now is when I move on to my main problem with Cataclysm as a whole, it is not a problem that Blizzard can fix and it is not a problem they caused, I am unaware if I am alone in my thoughts but I shall voice them regardless. The point is that: I just don’t care enough.
The main reason for my love of wrath of the Lich King was my love for Arthas and that I cared deeply about what happened to his storyline and the storylines of those that he touched, that is why that every time I would level through Northrend I would relish in every last moment of it, but with Cataclysm I just can’t care enough about what happens, as much as I want to I just can’t. This feeling comes to its most powerful when I quest in Deepholm, as mentioned above my feelings on Deepholm are not exactly good and they are not helped by that fact that I just give two bits about the elemental plane of Earth. In regards to the aforementioned exceptions to this rule they share aspects of the world I care about, those being the welfare of the Horde and Alliance and the Dragons. I also care about the Old Gods, but was disappointed to see that they didn’t feature in a more meaningful way but were rather a sinister undertone that didn’t have the desired effect on me.

So overarching storyline and atmosphere: Good for the most part and phenomenal elsewhere, but have significant portions that don’t excite me in the same way the game has been able to do before.

In conclusion:
Well done blizzard on delivering us another expansion, it’s not without its flaws, but they are the outnumbered by the improvements you have made. I look forward to what the game brings in the future.

[Elite Peon]

Cataclysm has a VERY forgettable main boss that once you get his achievement you totally forget about him ...

45+ min que times for dps and sorry my guild does not want to run back to back heroics at my whim and yes I have a tank and a healer

Sick of BG's and getting 4 shot by frost mages who crit for 45k on all resil gear

Leveling is funner but still boring IMO and tedious slow grind .

All the high level zones are spread apart and while they look nice they are totally forgettable story and lore wise ...

just waiting for SWTOR or GW2 ...