One thing that WOTLK did exceptionally well but Cataclysm fails at

[Deleted]

Play some Warcraft 2. Also for Grom Hellscream. Two most awesome characters in that game.

[Arrowstormen]

and thats just it, we saw all across northrend all that the lich king created, all undead creatures and raised things, all of it was result of him, and even some none undead threats were riled because of what he was doing. He was even refered to by yogg Saron in his vision, prompting his place as the villian there.
As a lore fan I can say I know enough about deathwing seeing what he's done in the past. But looking at it from a none lore fan, who's going to be more well known as the antagonist, the lich king, who was everywhere, or deathwing, whos.. well... just in a few places.

Deathwing pretty much broke the world, and burn zones randomly.

[Mutilate]

Who's Deathwing?

This. and way to give credit to who really wrote what you copy pasta'd OP.

[312guiltyspark]

WotLK felt like game with actual story, Cata feels like poor payed work. where you do same thing over and over again without any sense.

well to be fair im happy with the raiding in cataclysm, the fights (heroic who cares about normal) are challenging yet fun at the same time - and the style of raiding (for me healing) is much much better than wotlk. but i do agree that the general storyline seems a bit lackluster, only wish they could have linked the new raiding style with the kind of storyline we had in tbc and wotlk.

[~Valen~]

I laughed at the point about Lady Gaga! :P

[underdogba]

No matter how much The LK could seem like a joke sometimes as he popped up everywhere, it was a lot better than what they did now imo.

This kind of need for suspension of disbelief is not really a liability in the genre of fantasy/science fiction. In many ways it is almost necessary in order to be able to characterize a major villain properly. If believability were enforced on this kind of fiction, basically every comic book franchise in history would be the most boring story ever -- villain emerges, superhero immediately dispatches villain, the end.

---------- Post added 2011-08-04 at 03:52 PM ----------

Lich King was everywhere, doing nothing, being a crappy Scooby Doo villain.

The same could be said about Darth Vader, from how much face time he gets with Luke.

[Conscious]

Adding subscriptions.

Oh we're talking about lore?

In that case, Cataclysm lore is really 'Wtf' to people who haven't played anything prior to WC3.

[Arrowstormen]

The same could be said about Darth Vader, from how much face time he gets with Luke.

That was only in the end, where he was turning good and stuff.

[Belloc]

Not to mention that this expansion, to me anyways, doesn't feel like it had any sense of story line. WotLK made sense even in the progression of the raids. Cata feels like HEY deathwing, ok firelands now, alright now that that's on farm we get to wonder what is next. WotLK showed LK's progress as we got closer to challenging him, but for all we know Deathwing could be off sleeping on an island somewhere.

So far Cataclysm's raids make a lot more sense than WotLK's. We've got a Twilight raid (followers of Cho'gall who is a minion of the old gods who are Deathwing's masters), a Nefarian raid (Deathwing's son), an elemental lord raid (released because of the Cataclysm) and Firelands (Ragnaros was given power because of Deathwing's actions and is connected to him through their old god's masters). WotLK had a Naxxramas with reanimated bosses (KT's phylactery was never turned over to the proper people), Ulduar (which had no connection to the Lich King at all), Trial (which is actually a pretty good raid as far as lore is concerned), ICC (obviously) aaaaand... Ruby Sanctum (which, in all seriousness, isn't even really a WotLK raid... it's a pre-cata raid).

The storyline of Cataclysm begins when you start a new character. If you're jumping in and only experiencing level 80-85 content, you're missing the story.

[adeeil]

Lol lore just put more raids out please so there is something to do.

[Arrowstormen]

Adding subscriptions.

Oh we're talking about lore?

In that case, Cataclysm lore is really 'Wtf' to people who haven't played anything prior to WC3.

I think they explain it fairly well.

Also, reading Wowpedia gives people everything they need. If people don't bother that, why do they bother about lore!

[Deleted]

I half agree, we fight the Twilights Hammer which isnt ruled by Deathwing, but rather ruled by the Old Gods.
The only thing we fight that Deathwing created himself is the Twilight Dragonflight.
If you remember i think Alexstraza or her consort said Deathwing would be in hiding to recover from the battle in Twilight Highlands, it is possible he isnt a big bad every where villan because he is in fact a playing card in the Old Gods game, they are behind "EVERYTHING" so seeing this big bad dragon that is tthe final boss, he is just an underling 0.o yeh builds that ahh crap feeling.

[Arrowstormen]

Lol lore just put more raids out please so there is something to do.

False statement.
Lore give us books, and an overall good story. And speculation.

I bet you don't know much about lore to make such a statement.

[Count Zero]

I LOVED how in Wrath nearly the entire damn expansion focuses in every way on the endboss. It really felt like a huge buildup and it was an amazing payoff to finally kill him.

I think they tried to pull it back a bit in Cat, and in all honestly most of the stuff does point back to Deathwing / his cult, but it just doesn't feel as immersive as Wrath did ... at least not to me.

[Arrowstormen]

I half agree, we fight the Twilights Hammer which isnt ruled by Deathwing, but rather ruled by the Old Gods.
The only thing we fight that Deathwing created himself is the Twilight Dragonflight.
If you remember i think Alexstraza or her consort said Deathwing would be in hiding to recover from the battle in Twilight Highlands, it is possible he isnt a big bad every where villan because he is in fact a playing card in the Old Gods game, they are behind "EVERYTHING" so seeing this big bad dragon that is tthe final boss, he is just an underling 0.o yeh builds that ahh crap feeling.

He burns zones. And he also appear in the start of Hyjal.

Oh, and Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor is kinda pissed about what he did to them. blowing them up with natural cataclysms and stuff.

[Angelfeeties]

The average casual player, which indeed is the majority of the gaming population of World of Warcraft, is not interested in hunting for the right spots to maybe see something relevant to Deathwing's lore.

And well, about the Goblin part; there is only a slight faction of the gaming population that plays a Goblin or has rolled one. I for one never rolled a goblin, and I am sure many are with me.

The "Majority of the WoW Gaming Population" are casual players, who level characters, do the quests in the zones, work on random achievements, etc. While doing this, you will hit the quest-lines in TH where Deathwing freaking duels Alexstrasza in a cut-scene. You'l also finish quests in Deepholm where it explains Deathwings backstory as the Earth Warden, his subsequent corruption during the War, his betrayal, etc. The quests in this expansion do an amazing job of explaining the backstory to Deathwing. He's not as prevalent as the Lich King was visually, as I would imagine it's kind of hard to write script for a Dragon of Deathwings size to appear in as many quest lines and instances that the Lich King did.

Not to mention, in what other expansion can this happen? Your "casual every day WoW gamer" is all: "La-Di-Da, Do-De-D.....wait, why is the sky red all of a sudden? Huh, it must just be a glit....OH GOD WTF IS THAT DRAG.....~gak".

[Conscious]

I think they explain it fairly well.

Also, reading Wowpedia gives people everything they need. If people don't bother that, why do they bother about lore!

Expecting WoW's audience to grasp obscure (not to mention dated) lore references is asking a bit much.

Considering I would bet a gold-capped toon that most of them (like 85%) have no fucking idea how this lore has played out.

[Deleted]

I agree.

However if I was to pick the One thing that WOTLK did exceptionally well but Cataclysm fails at then I'd say easily accessable raids for everyone and their alts with no schedule, you just needed trade chat and any other time than 5am.

That's what kept players in the game.

[Jagoex]

I agree that more transparency related to Deathwing is needed, but with Arthas and in Wrath, that transparency was a bit much. A middle-ground between both extremes would be nice.

Also, let me just throw it out there that Blizzard killed off Arthas far too soon. I remember the developers themselves saying that it would take 40 level-100s to kill him. Whatever happened to that blueprint?

[simfeld]

i actually agree with op completely, im not one of those cata haters that bitch all the time (in fact i love cata) but you have a really good point.