Okay, the lands of Azeroth have updated last Wednesday, and I am impress... nay... Overwhelmed by the new quests that have been added. In the few areas that I have been to, I have started considering Cataclysm something I have never thought of any of the other stages in WoW: A worthy successor to WC3 story-wise. Vanilla had no real story behind it, TBC made mockeries of every character and WotLK finally showed some development but had weak characterization and nonsensical plot twists. All that seems to be in the past; The new, improved quest mechanisms allow for a story which is both challenging and intriguing. I have only played a few areas thusfar (Beginning of Durotar, teldrassil, tirisfal glades and silverpine forest), but all have been improved in an unimaginable way, with especially Silverpine taking the cake, with its epic war between the worgen and forsaken. Again, this game is the true successor to Warcraft 3, with solid stories, intriguing characters and challenging game-play. I salute Blizzard for making such a wonderful game and hope that the new zones are as amazing as the old ones. addendum 1: It is odd to note that one of the characters who gains the most development is you; the player. You get a backstory: veteran of the northrend campaign (which you will have a flashback to in the forms of lvl 70-80) Addendum 2: With every forsaken presence in the world updated visually, undercity feels very outdated. Kind of a shame, but it will get a flight part soon. Addendum 3: Holy ****, there is a quest where you give out quests. That is a prime example of both humour and development of your character. You are no longer a noob. You izz vetran!
This, you finally get the feeling that you're playing the next part in the series, and no longer meaningless "gather x amount of herbs for my dog" quests anymore. My fave part of the new experience. NPC's finally actually seem to remember what happened in the past. All hail phasing!
Basically it amounts to the world changing as you do stuff. For an example, you do a quest to conquer a city and after you finish it, it will appear to you as a friendly town, complete with shops and inn. Sometimes characters die and phasing removes them, such as with [insert spoiler here], [insert spoiler here] and [insert spoiler here]. It's also used for great effect in large battles, where you slowly encroach on the enemy land. I have to say that in some cases, the phasing now stands out by its lack of presence, such as with the naga on Echo Isles. Edit: woops. Shouldn't have spoiled stuff. Hope no one saw edit2: another nice new effect is your look changing for certain quests, like a forsaken apparatus being strapped to your back during quests where you analyze slimes. And there is the sidescreens for target quests, displaying your target and some info. Finally we can appreciate the work Blizz puts in looks.
Thumbs up for the gimmick quests which make the levelling much more fun (though looks like everything's gotten WAY easier). More of a normal quest but love the one where fighting cultists can give you demon form for a while, or raptor hatchlings gnwing at naga's face ^^ Weird thing they did with talents now, but cat at lv8 ftw.
I also gave it a try on a friend's account and was amazed at it's awsomeness... If I wouldn't mind paying that monthly fee I'd deffinitely play some cata since I think it's gonna be the best expansion of wow, by far... It's been like 3 years since I cancelled my original account and ~6 months since I last payed for a month's time on a friend's account I played on for some time to try wotlk and I don't think I'll do it again. It's not the amount of money(which isn't neglegible but with very good management it's affordable) but the fact that you have a feeling "I'm paying so I have to play this since it'll go wasted otherwise" which forces you to only play wow(insert any other mmo) in a way. Plus I don't like gear races. in starcraft if you don't play for 2 months you'll be rusty and there will have been a few new strats around perhaps, but you won't be handicapped because of your absense, but in MMO's it's not the same thing which is something I don't like... Despite these, I do think that cataclysm will dominate this year, since it's really an awsome work... I keep track through friends who play, and if it were not for these objections I'd deffinitely play it...
WoW isn't a gear race anymore. Blizz was being silly and put vendors everywhere which allow you to buy the previous raiding tier, so you're never more then 1 content patch behind after a little bit of farming.
Teldrassil, the NE starting zone, is largely unchanged, until the last quest, which is absolutely epic. And then you get to darkshore. Hey there heaps of dead questgivers from pre-cata, how was the flooding of your village?
