Cataclysm Professions, Water Engine, NPCScan

[Boubouille]

Early happy new year! Don't do anything stupid tonight and see you in 2010!

Cataclysm - Archaeology
Today is a small recap of Cataclysm professions features!
[blizzquote="Wryxian;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/10543537977-blizzcon-09-classes-items-and-professions.html]Archaeology is the new secondary profession that will be joining the ranks of cooking, fishing, and first aid in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Archaeology allows the player to unlock new abilities and rewards by discovering ancient treasures throughout the world. Each archaeologist uses the profession to uncover clues hidden in the world around them, such as troll relics or map fragments, and decipher their meaning, enabling the clever archaeologist to manipulate pieces of the past, learning the location of a treasure cache or valuable artifact. Such artifacts are highly sought after by the Archaeology Society, and they pay in gold and items for their return. Those who have mastered archaeology can find Titan artifacts, earning special currency used to unlock character paths and allowing the player to further customize their character.[/blizzquote"]

Archaeology provides the Ancient Glyphs used by the Path of the Titans and looks like a mix of tradeskills, gathering professions, and quests. Any character will be able to train it and people with an existing gathering profession will have the possibility to track both things at the same time.

The artifacts you find are placed in your Archaeology journal, allowing you to study it to unlock rewards. According to the screenshot of the interface you will have to complete mini-quest to eventually get a reward. (In this case, the Black Market value of the axe is 30G)

The most interesting aspect of the profession remains the Ancient Glyphs and it seems that all characters will have to train it if they want to access all the new skills.

Cataclysm - Reforging
Reforging is an interesting addition to the existing tradeskills: Blacksmith / Leatherworker / Tailor / Jewelcrafter / Engineer. Each profession will have the possibility to modify your items to slightly modify their stats and replace them with new ones. Each profession get to reforge a type of items: cloth armor for tailors, leather for Leatherworkers, etc ...

For example, a Blacksmith should be able to reforge your staff to reduce the Spirit bonus to add Intellect instead (= more spell power in Cataclysm, see the stats changes). Of course restrictions will apply and you can't create a +500 intellect breastplate just by removing all the other stats, the goal of this profession is to make items potentially interesting for more classes and reduce the amount of disenchanted items.

Cataclysm - New Water Engine
Cataclysm will improve the graphic engine of World of Warcraft once again and add a handful of new effects. The most noticeable change is the new water engine and with the Cataclysm flooding a lot of zones of Azeroth, you will probably have a lot of occasions to experience it. Below are a few screenshots if you missed them.

Addon Review - NPCScan
NPCScan is one of the add-on that will make you feel guilty when you start using it (think of the first day you started using Quick Auctions)

This addon tracks all the rare monsters in the game and replace the old macros and random tricks used to find them. You do not have to do anything, just play the game and if any rare elite monsters appears next to you a sound and visual alert will be played to warn you. Of course it will make your life easier if you try to kill all the rare monsters in the game to complete your achievements, but it will also works if you're a hunter looking for a super-rare spirit beast.

Important
The addon relies on your creaturecache.wdb file to work, you cannot "find" a monster again if you already found him once. To clear your cache just go to World of Warcraft\Cache\WDB\enUS (or enGB/deDE/esES/ruRU/frFR/etc... depending on your language) and delete the creaturecache.wdb file.

If you want to make it even more easier, NPCScan.Overlay will display the spawn points of all the rare NPCs on your map and minimaps.

• NPCScan download on Curse
• NPCScan.Overlay download on Curse

[Sansai]

Time to lvl up lw!

[LavaDuck]

Bibi: boring news post, take 4!

Water looks beatiful. Should have done it sooner imo

edit: smooth UI Bibi

[NotValidAnymore]

Archaeology sounds really interesting, I hope you won't need Cataclysm for it so that we're able to experience it a bit before Cataclysm is launched... But, you know Blizzard.
Reforging is also going to be really useful.

The new water engine looks really sexy, it's probably just going to be a lot of goo for people like me who plays the game at minimal settings though.

Oh, and I'm glad you chose to promote NPCScan, it's such an awesome add-on, I used it myself to complete the Bloody Rare and Frostbitten-achievements. Plus it also works for a very special drake in Storm Peaks, if you get my point.

[Deathcold]

WTB reforging the look!!!

[Aunor]

Ok this is realy nice, cant w8 for reforging, will be awesum ( blacksmithing Main, Tailoring alt ^^ )

[MushroomBomb]

For some odd reason, I'm really looking forward to the new water engine. Water in the game right now looks so... dull :-\

Archaeology sounds like it will be fun, combining gathering with quests and all sorts of fancy stuff. Just hope it won't feel too grindy when levelling it on multiple characters.

[Pumps]

NPCscan isn't that useful. Yeah you know that there was a mob inside a huge area, but you still have to find it - and often someone else has killed it first.

And why the hell would you feel guilty about using quick auctions? Hardly.

[Dstroy]

I'm looking forward to how reforging is gonna work out, but I'm not sure if I heard the same when I watched Blizzcon.

Didn't they say that one of the restrictions in reforging was that you couldn't remove a stat and add it to an already existing one?

Example you can't remove spirit to get more int, but you can remove haste from an item and get crit instead if there ain't any crit there. I don't know if it were just me who understood it like that, or they changed opinion since that.

[Canbie]

Glad I got most of Frostbitten and Bloody Rare done before this got out there too much.

Tukemuth, Hemathion and Bog Lurker left.

[Winke]

That water is purely awesome.

[Tgd]

Thanks for the info, the whole reforging thing slipped my mind, totally forgot. But it sounds quite cool

[Medivh]

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ta_water_4.jpg

So Greymane City(or Gilneas City) seems a worgen city?

[Aous]

Water looks amazing, I wonder how much of a resource burden its going to be, or if it will even be less that whats currently used.

[thyskl]

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ta_water_4.jpg

So Greymane City(or Gilneas City) seems a worgen city?

It is (was), but the new Cataclysm races won't be receiving cities of their own. They'll have districts in their existing faction capitols. Gilneas will be a battleground.

[Goulashia]

F' me.... Why did you post that addon? Already too many people using that. It's impossible to a rarespawn in time before someone else.

QQ

Thanks for the link to that Overlay addition though!

[Deleted]

WTB reforging the look!!!

I agree

[Bravvlan]

B e e r . . .

[Tribalwar]

I can't wait for the new Archae. its gonna be cool....

The water looks sweet, no more bit map water!!!
Gonna look weird putting fluid looking things with a world that is made of bit map structures... :-X

[nikkita]

Reforging:

BS, LW, Tailoring, JC, engineering.

Shoulding they add enchanting to this list as well?

What about all the dumb people (like me) that rolled enchanting + inscription when WoTLK came and found out its 2 bad professions? yes now an argument will start about if they are bad or not, but lets face it: JC + BS is atm the best combo for raiding as a healer: extra sockets, special gems, are alot woth then the poor ring enchant, the slightly underpowered shoulder enchant, and the mana return enchant? thanks but i avoid the meta gem that returns mana cause i just don't like the idea of randomly geting mana i prefer something steady.

Blizz should start thinking how they stop making people reroll and waste time on the game threw professions and make proffessions more casual, the whole game is casual, geting epics is casual.

Reforging: all professions, secondery skill or make it a cool quest line: it makes no sence wht JC = yes reforging, enchanting and inscription doesn't. And what about alchemy? you can always spill some pots on your gear that will cause a stat change.

RP story about why reforging fits to every profession is something easy to make up. If not give the professions without reforging another option that is equivilant to reforging. Or allow reforging others gear: where you can trade reforging of items Via trade, or scrolls on AH.