We're almost 2 months into Mists, and I have a question for all of you!

[Arcilux]

For me personally, I felt like there were three major problems with Cata.

1) The new talent system. I hated having fewer talent points, other people loved it. This is actually the main reason I quit during cata and won't resub now. It's all personal, but I liked getting talents every level.

2) Retribution nerfs. Not as big of an issue, I still mained as Ret, and played a ton of alts while I was still active, but I didn't have nearly as much fun with the completely overhauled ret.

3) Herioc dungeons. Flame me all you want, but I loved Wrath heroics, Cata not so much. I feel that heroics should be more accessible to PuGs while raids should be moreso for the hardcore. Vanilla/TBC raids with Wrath heroics would be my personal ideal.

There were also a lot of things that I felt Cata did right, but for me overall it just wasn't an enjoyable game anymore. Mists made my main gripe even worse, so I haven't come back to play it at all. Although as an addon developer I did get a beta key which I used to try out the monks, but just didn't really wow me like the game used to.

So, all in all, not a bad expac per se, but it definitely wasn't the game I personally wanted.

[Florena]

I will COMPLETELY agree with you that Deathwing was a disappointment.

The first time I got on Spine of Deathwing, I was wow'd and thought it was epic and amazing.

Madness was just..I mean, it felt great killing him but..meh.

When you compare my hopes of Deathwing to the Lich King, and when the Lich King lived up to it, well, you get the picture.

I think maybe the fight was too simple mechanic wise. It didn't really have anything that difficult. Kill this when it spawns, single target these, do the same thing 4 time with one part getting harder each time, then last phase is just a turn and burn between boss and easy to kill adds. There was nothing that competed to balancing val'kyr spawns and defiles in LK. Nothing like juggling killing tentacles in Yogg with sending dps into the brain room to get you into phase 3 asap. Nothing like managing the adds on Ragnaros or the boulders in phase 3. Even Nefarian 2.0 felt like a more epic fight. So you cap off an expansion ending raid with a lot of generic and reused scenery with a lackluster final boss mechanic wise.

[KCguy]

Mainly this. Everything else was great about Cata.

The reason I hated Cata was a few reasons. One, all the zones felt disconnected, two, flying right away ruined the game. People were able to rush through things so fast that they were able to hit end level in a few days. I think the average person could ding in less than one week. It was ridiculous. At least in Mists they went back to how it should be. And lastly, once you go to end game, there was literally nothing to do. People were sitting around their respective capitals a week and change into the expansion with nothing to do. Tol Barad ate of very little time and other than that if you didn't raid, what else was there to do? Roll an alt and experience the 1-60 zones? That doesn't count. It was well done and I love that Blizzard did it, but I think they spent so much time redoing all the zones that when it came to end game content they rushed it. Then of course after all that, we got 9 months of one raid that quite honestly was terribly recycled and designed. I mean I'll admit that the beginning of Cata was "decent", but I think many people share the same view as me that it went down hill very fast and ended on a ridiculous note of a 9 month long raid. Ouch indeed. To me, it was complete garbage and it must have been because look how many millions of people quit.

[Mawnix]

For me personally, I felt like there were three major problems with Cata.

1) The new talent system. I hated having fewer talent points, other people loved it. This is actually the main reason I quit during cata and won't resub now. It's all personal, but I liked getting talents every level.

2) Retribution nerfs. Not as big of an issue, I still mained as Ret, and played a ton of alts while I was still active, but I didn't have nearly as much fun with the completely overhauled ret.

3) Herioc dungeons. Flame me all you want, but I loved Wrath heroics, Cata not so much. I feel that heroics should be more accessible to PuGs while raids should be moreso for the hardcore. Vanilla/TBC raids with Wrath heroics would be my personal ideal.

There were also a lot of things that I felt Cata did right, but for me overall it just wasn't an enjoyable game anymore. Mists made my main gripe even worse, so I haven't come back to play it at all. Although as an addon developer I did get a beta key which I used to try out the monks, but just didn't really wow me like the game used to.

So, all in all, not a bad expac per se, but it definitely wasn't the game I personally wanted.

Well, considering Ret is strong right now and Mists Heroics are like Wrath except much better (imo), why don't you resub?

[Florena]

The Zandalari being introduced I can safely say was simply to start their development as a major threat in Mists of Pandaria.

Zandalar was destroyed by the Cataclysm, and so the Zandalari, aka the original rulers of the "Troll Empire", were looking for a new land for their people, started calling in alliances, etc.

And now we have the Zandalari Mogu alliance.

To be fair, the return of Zul'Gurub was a huge part of the new Stranglethorn Vale questl ines that came with Cata. But ZA wsa just tacked on and didn't have as many changes.

[Mawnix]

To be fair, the return of Zul'Gurub was a huge part of the new Stranglethorn Vale questl ines that came with Cata. But ZA wsa just tacked on and didn't have as many changes.

Actually yeah I will agree with you to that extent.

It was literally like "lolZulAmansbackwat"

[torterra275]

Legitimately No, The Problem which was faced is that Blizzard had to make the start game more "engaging" might you call it for new subscribers, because granted Pre-Cata Classic Leveling was horrible. When you didn't have DF it was a huge deterrence to new players start the game. This granted, took Blizzard's resources with the lack of endgame problems. Though, for most I would say, save for DS the amount at launch was fine. The only other problem is Blizzard's quick attitude switch from Hard Content to Easy Content, like they couldn't make up their minds.

[Mormolyce]

Not really. Haters just love to hate.

Had its ups and downs, on the whole probably not as good as Wrath, but it moved the game forward in numerous important ways and you wouldn't want to go back.

[insmek]

I think if 4.1 had featured raids instead of Troll dungeons, Cataclysm's reputation would be different. But people had to do the launch raids for too long, Firelands for too long, and Dragon Soul for too long. And because so much is tied into the raid schedule--PVP seasons and dailies, for instance--everyone just ran out of things to do way too quickly.

Mists is already turning out better, because we're heading into 5.1 already and most people haven't finished the current content that's available to them. Now there's going to be even more to do before the next raid patch hits.

[Deletedaccount1]

Lack of content was my biggest problem with it. Other than that it would have been fine for me.

[mvaliz]

/cracks knuckles

First off - the begining of the death of 25 man raiding. Being one of the only 25 man guilds since vanilla on our server (even survived after 40) really murdered us for trying to recruit people.

Secondly - I LOATHED the heroic dungeons... they were way too long and slow moving. I FULLY admit this is because I had an action-packed year of Wrath-LFD awesomeness. I fully admit that Wrath completely changed my standards of the game that I played in Vanilla/BC. Wrath LFD taught me that you don't need to slam a car door on your head for an hour to have fun.

The zone stories were VERY lame... and the one zone I was looking forward to was Uldum - After experiencing Storm Peaks, I couldn't imagine how an Egyptian Storm Peaks would be like... I never thought they'd turn 90% of the zone into nothing but a Raiders of the Lost Ark lampoon. >_<

After that, it was an absolute LACK of quality content. I left for a year and only came back for 4.3 when I heard they brought back the dungeons to Wrath-style play. First off... they didn't. They instead introduced 3 dungeons at Wrath-difficulty that were a) not dungeons, just funky events - two in Dragonblight! >_< and b) were locked into their own separate queue, so you burnt out of them INSANELY quickly! I didn't burn out from Wrath-LFD dungeons because I had 15+ dungeons in my random queue. I could go theoretically 5 days at 3 dungeons per-day and not see the same dungeon twice in wrath.

Deathwing was a stupid joke... especially if you were a fan of him in the books like me. The way he's in the books vs the way he was in the game was 250% different and contradicted many of his key characteristics. The fact he is a willing pawn of an Old God goes completely against the point of his character.
In the books, he was a paranoid mastermind manipulator hatching complicated schemes. In the game, he's a brainless Godzilla flying around who's cunning masterplan was to fly around and burn random patches of land.

In Wrath - I got to see everything of Arthas. Why he became who he was... his corruption... see him grant powers, betray allies, and hatch a plan that ultimately involved me. Deathwing I saw jack squat of. No origins... next to NOTHING that told me of what his character was about at all.

Wrath also had another thing going for it... a unified theme for the expansion. Nordic mixed with Titan/Roman styles. Cataclysm was an insane bunch of unconnected zones that seemed very disjointed with no real feeling of being in one place or overall theme.

And don't get me started on the story... Thrall suddenly getting Super Shaman Powers inexplicably overnight. Malfurion Stormrage waking up and going totally neutral despite his people getting murdered in Ashenvale, and DON'T get me started on the Alli/Horde design imabalances. Even Blizz admitted they lacked on the Ali side in order to get the game out... particularly with the Worgen.

Seriously, I could go on and on... I really REALLY could not understand how they could follow up something as cohesive and epic as Wrath with something as abysmal on almost ALL fronts as Cataclysm. It broke more than the world... it broke the game.

[Zues]

Personally, I hated the state of shamans throughout Cata. No one brought dps shamans (mainly talking about progressive guilds) and only 25 mans could afford to use shamans as mana batteries inb4 MTT nerf. Resto shamans were ehhhh tank healers, and absolutely garbage at raid healing.

After that, we were garbage until (I believe) halfway through T12, when we got Spirit Link. Late T12 and all of T13 was basically godmode, due to LB giving us all of our mana back and allowing us to run with only ~2k spirit.

Also, I hate Heroic Nef, AC, and To4W.

[Splatter]

Well, considering Ret is strong right now and Mists Heroics are like Wrath except much better (imo), why don't you resub?

I was wondering the same thing, Maining a pally in Mop after being a rogue since vanilla and really loving the change. The new talent system is really awesome, so much better than the old talent trees and as they tweak the talents they get better and better.

OT, I disliked Cata simply because it seemed like I had nothing to do outside of raiding and there was simply no reason to leave SW/Org. So many of my guildies and friends left due to the same boredom and the game just died a bit for me. Came back full time for MoP, found a new guild of great people and absolutely loving it again.

[pyrostorm9001]

I was really hyped for Cata. DW had the potential to be one wicked SoB. I remember him as the guy (human form) who played devils advocate and manipulated people from the background like some demented pupet master, while in dragon form he was a force to be reckoned with.

Cata felt all over the place, and not just the zones (i can get over that easily enough) but the story too. It felt they were constantly changing gears towards the end goal. I was expecting more in your face old god action. Everything just seemed to fall apart after BoT and Black wing decent felt out of place story wise but was quite good raid encounter wise.

Uldum felt like a waste of perfectly good space. Al'Akir was nice, but i wanted to go in and under those pyramids and explore in some sort of underground labyrinth and learn more about those cat people and if there was any connection to AQ or what not.

Speaking of AQ what happened to that C'thun flash back thing that appeared on the PTR at some point?

oh and dont get me started on Abyssal Maw!

[Dakia]

Cata was actually pretty decent. Until the nerfs to heroics, FL and DS, it was on the right track.

[Mawnix]

I was really hyped for Cata. DW had the potential to be one wicked SoB. I remember him as the guy (human form) who played devils advocate and manipulated people from the background like some demented pupet master, while in dragon form he was a force to be reckoned with.

Cata felt all over the place, and not just the zones (i can get over that easily enough) but the story too. It felt they were constantly changing gears towards the end goal. I was expecting more in your face old god action. Everything just seemed to fall apart after BoT and Black wing decent felt out of place story wise but was quite good raid encounter wise.

Uldum felt like a waste of perfectly good space. Al'Akir was nice, but i wanted to go in and under those pyramids and explore in some sort of underground labyrinth and learn more about those cat people and if there was any connection to AQ or what not.

Speaking of AQ what happened to that C'thun flash back thing that appeared on the PTR at some point?

oh and dont get me started on Abyssal Maw!

I think they didn't release Abyssal Maw because it's going to have something to do with an upcoming expansion.

[Kilperch]

Cataclysm was bad for a few reasons:

1. The raids. Cataclysm's raids were (for the most part) uninspired and uninventive. They didn't try to feel epic or tell a great story. AQ40 felt epic. When you entered that raid, you felt like you had to save the world from something really evil. Same thing from Ulduar. And Sunwell. Nothing we got in Cataclysm gave that feeling (for most of us).

2. The lack of content. Put simply, they put all their time and money into revamping the leveling zones. As a result, we got very little in the way of post-launch patches.

3. The recycling of content. Cataclysm gave us the worst patch (in my opinion) this game has ever seen: Patch 4.1. Instead of giving us new content, they removed old content (ZA and ZG), changed it slightly (removed bosses, mechanics, etc) and then tuned it for level 85. Not only were these "new" 5-man instances buggy, they were also competely insulting to a large part of the community that had seen both of them already in raid form.

4. Poor storytelling. The way the goblin and worgen stories were told was pretty lazy, but the best examples of horrible storytelling could be found in the Rise of the Zandalari patch and in the main villain himself, Deathwing. So many inconsistencies, plot-holes and errors made with the characters... it was as if the expansion was written by Chris Metzen's son as part of an elementary school project.

[Arcilux]

Well, considering Ret is strong right now and Mists Heroics are like Wrath except much better (imo), why don't you resub?

It wasn't so much power, I just didn't care for the holy power mechanic. It just felt like at 80 I had to completely relearn my class and start over. I'm not saying it was a bad change, it just was something that made the game more chore than enjoyable for me.

I have been tempted a few times to resub and give it another try, but I just can't justify spending the $55 to get back in and see if I like the game or not.

[Mawnix]

It wasn't so much power, I just didn't care for the holy power mechanic. It just felt like at 80 I had to completely relearn my class and start over. I'm not saying it was a bad change, it just was something that made the game more chore than enjoyable for me.

I have been tempted a few times to resub and give it another try, but I just can't justify spending the $55 to get back in and see if I like the game or not.

Completely understandable. Some people have simply outgrown the game.

[Aqua]

/cracks knuckles

First off - the begining of the death of 25 man raiding. Being one of the only 25 man guilds since vanilla on our server (even survived after 40) really murdered us for trying to recruit people.

Secondly - I LOATHED the heroic dungeons... they were way too long and slow moving. I FULLY admit this is because I had an action-packed year of Wrath-LFD awesomeness. I fully admit that Wrath completely changed my standards of the game that I played in Vanilla/BC. Wrath LFD taught me that you don't need to slam a car door on your head for an hour to have fun.

The zone stories were VERY lame... and the one zone I was looking forward to was Uldum - After experiencing Storm Peaks, I couldn't imagine how an Egyptian Storm Peaks would be like... I never thought they'd turn 90% of the zone into nothing but a Raiders of the Lost Ark lampoon. >_<

After that, it was an absolute LACK of quality content. I left for a year and only came back for 4.3 when I heard they brought back the dungeons to Wrath-style play. First off... they didn't. They instead introduced 3 dungeons at Wrath-difficulty that were a) not dungeons, just funky events - two in Dragonblight! >_< and b) were locked into their own separate queue, so you burnt out of them INSANELY quickly! I didn't burn out from Wrath-LFD dungeons because I had 15+ dungeons in my random queue. I could go theoretically 5 days at 3 dungeons per-day and not see the same dungeon twice in wrath.

Deathwing was a stupid joke... especially if you were a fan of him in the books like me. The way he's in the books vs the way he was in the game was 250% different and contradicted many of his key characteristics. The fact he is a willing pawn of an Old God goes completely against the point of his character.
In the books, he was a paranoid mastermind manipulator hatching complicated schemes. In the game, he's a brainless Godzilla flying around who's cunning masterplan was to fly around and burn random patches of land.

In Wrath - I got to see everything of Arthas. Why he became who he was... his corruption... see him grant powers, betray allies, and hatch a plan that ultimately involved me. Deathwing I saw jack squat of. No origins... next to NOTHING that told me of what his character was about at all.

Wrath also had another thing going for it... a unified theme for the expansion. Nordic mixed with Titan/Roman styles. Cataclysm was an insane bunch of unconnected zones that seemed very disjointed with no real feeling of being in one place or overall theme.

And don't get me started on the story... Thrall suddenly getting Super Shaman Powers inexplicably overnight. Malfurion Stormrage waking up and going totally neutral despite his people getting murdered in Ashenvale, and DON'T get me started on the Alli/Horde design imabalances. Even Blizz admitted they lacked on the Ali side in order to get the game out... particularly with the Worgen.

Seriously, I could go on and on... I really REALLY could not understand how they could follow up something as cohesive and epic as Wrath with something as abysmal on almost ALL fronts as Cataclysm. It broke more than the world... it broke the game.

...Well that saves me a bunch of time, good on you sir.


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