After playing around this past week and finishing all of the quests in all of the new cata zones except Vashj’ir, I feel ‘somewhat qualified’ to give my opinion on the highs and lows that are out there. The bottom line is that Blizzard went all out to provide the McDLT of MMOs. Readers who have no idea what a McDLT is should go ask their parents now or more likely just wiki it. Go ahead. I’ll be here when you get back.
For a MMO, it’s a rather curious dichotomy. The hot side (hard core raider EXTREME!) and cool side (the casuals) can both find entertainment in abundance, but there’s a very obvious divider between the two.
On the cool side, there’s thousands of new quests that are all designed to be completed in ten minutes or less. Not much time? That’s ok. Pick it up, play with it, put it down, and walk away. These emphasize ‘fun’ over ‘immersion’ with a large number of quests that are nothing but blatant nods to popular culture. That’s not to say they aren’t good—but there’s an obvious shift from the Vanilla way of thinking that required hours of time invested and trips across the continents to find the Magic McGuffin or collect plot coupons. The only really negative thing I can say about them is that there’s little to no difficulty at all and in a way it cheapens the victory. Gone are the “recommended group size: [3-5]” quests. If a quest has you fighting an elite, there –will- be a way to weaken it to normal levels or there will be NPC intervention to assist. Aside from 2 deaths to Barron Geddon in Hyjal before I “got it” and “swallowed by giant worm” in Deepholm, the only deaths I took exploring the entirity of That Which is Not Tol Barad (see later) were due to random disconnects and server crashes. The only ‘must group for’ quests are some dailies in Tol Barad and the Crucible of Carnage arena fights in Twilight Highlands.
The dungeons are where it starts to get challenging. I’ve been actively avoiding PUGs this expansion due to extensive queue times (up to an hour), but even with guild runs they aren’t a simple blaze through everything, gather half a room and nuke it to death with AoEs. Crowd control is –necessary- and welcome. It isn’t unusual to see ‘sheep pulling’ now, where the mage pulls a group with polymorph and the tank picks up the aggro from the incoming pack as the mage scurries to a corner. This is where the wheat begins being separated from the chaff and communication skills become vital.
On the hot side, you have heroics and raids—mobs hit for quantities that are nothing less than obscene, but the rewards are the highest available pve gear. Not to be left out in the cold, the pvpers now have rated battlegrounds—and good scores there AND arenas are required for top tier pvp gear. The latter has the interesting side effect of making ‘normal’ BGs a smidgeon more friendly to casuals. (but just a smidgeon. You still find a much higher mouthy asshole to skilled player ratio in any BG compared to the rest of the game.) I’ll share the story of the Guild’s First Cataclysm Raid some other time.
Any way you go, something for everyone.
Now, as far as the zones themselves, each zone has an entertaining “introduction” that is a once ever movie and/or phased event that starts the player into the main quest theme. Each zone has one central storyline with several converging story arcs that held my interest to the point where I finished all of a zone’s quests long after I had gotten the loremaster ‘completion’ achieve for each particular zone. They are well-written and very compelling with elaborate cutscenes and movies aplenty.
In deference to players who haven’t blazed through the content, I’ll go against my usual style and keep spoilers to a minimum.
Mount Hyjal — I honestly didn’t think that much of the area at first. It’s mostly a foresty/mountainous (shock!) zone and it is the only place I’d seen that required a player to explore a little to find quest givers. The overall arc introduces the player to the Twilight Hammer (the ‘bad guys’ of the expansion that you face in every zone) and involves the player in rescuing, aiding, and assisting druids in returning the animal gods to Azeroth. I really got into the zone after I came back after doing all of the others. Zone Highlights: the Joust homage, chucking bear cubs from a tree top to a trampoline, and giving a speech to inspire graduating Twilight Cultists.
Vashj’ir — From the moment I was shipwrecked by a giant octopus, I fell in love with this lush and beautiful underwater zone. Within a few quests you’ll get the ability to breathe water and later on you’ll get a seahorse steed so you can finally live out those Aquaman fantasy scenes you’ve harbored your entire life. The biggest highlights are the naga quest lines where you possess the body of an ancient naga battlemaiden and explore the zone’s lore firsthand.
Deepholm — Possibly my least favorite zone. The entire zone is one ginormous cavern which vaguely reminds me of Icecrown in a ‘large, uninteresting’ features sort of way. There’s a plethora of dailies that unlock eventually and the lavascale catfish swim bountifully here, so I keep going back regardless of my distaste. The main plot arc is repairing the “World Pillar” which was broken into three convenient chunks when Deathwing escaped.
Uldum – Far and away, this zone is my favorite. Ever since Vanilla when I saw those massive gates in Tanaris, I wondered what lay past them. Now six years later they have opened into an Egyptian wonderland. Those who followed my previous “Blog in the Desert” know I have an unhealthy love affair with this sub-genre and it pandered to every pore in my body. Camel mounts? Amusing quests? Dozens of quests that involve Harrison Jones, famed archaeologist? Over a dozen movies and cut scenes? The only hate I have here is for some buggy and poorly implemented phasing that will hopefully be fixed within a month. Main plotlines are the Harrison Jones lines (which are exactly as awesome as you expect, constantly upping itself on “epicosity” until one runs out of superlatives) and a war between factions of catlike centaurs and the Twilight Hammer.
Twilight Highlands – I started out disliking this dimly-lit foresty zone, mostly because it starts out in a battlefield a la Borean Tundra, but quickly turned into my second favorite once I met the Wildhammer dwarves. Rife with humor and amusing quests the dwarves kept me going until I quickly became drawn into the Alliance’s last stand against the Twilight Hammer, at one point standing toe to toe with SI:7’s Mathias Shaw as we did what had to be done. Highlight? “The wedding.”
Tol Barad – This zone has a level 85 requirement to enter and it’s necessary. There’s actually two parts to the zone: Tol Barad Peninsula and Tol Barad itself. Each have a number of daily quests and serve up vast amounts of pain. The mobs spawn at ungodly rates and deal massive amounts of damage quickly. Add to that the zones are flight restricted and you have all the makings of mage pancakes. I don’t have an issue with the difficulty of the zone—it’s nice to have a challenge while killing rats, I just wish the respawn rates were a bit more…normalized. The daily quests seem to cycle through a small variety so it isn’t the same ten rats day after day. Also, the quest rewards give ‘commendations’, a zone-wide currency used in conjunction with reputation to acquire nifty epic weaponry and toys.
That’s cata in a nutshell. Join me next time for Cataclysm Edition Part 3: Dungeon Diving
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