I was pretty sad, not that I don’t think cataclysm looks great or anything, but I had seen the leaks and spoilers and was kind of hoping they were wrong.

Cataclysm is though, the most anticipated expansion for me of any of blizzard’s games(unless I can count the 2 sc2 expansions and the inevitable diablo3 expansion 300 years from now). I just wish they did more for world pvp (and queuing up for a zone that only allows 100 people per faction is not world pvp).

>>Come on, I’m a New Yorker. We are starting to get used to explosions.

most tasteful joke ever

When i first saw the preview trailer here in Belgium….i only had one word.
‘POST APOCALYPTIC AZEROTH WOOOOOOOO!’

This is why i liked Everquest 2, your playing a guy who survived a horrible event and you need to pick up the pieces….in a fantasy setting!

The Gobbo’s and Worgen are very interesting additions to play-ible races and i really want to know how the inner workings of the Horde will be.

This will be my 4th time too :(

I was completely nuts for it. Cataclysm. Hell yeah.

I’m a fan of every part of the game, but while I love Northrend and Outland, Azeroth and Kalimdor, just have this awesome nostalgia and their own archaic feel. Its always been cool doing something old world. (Even if annoying not being able to fly, but hey that just makes it more mysterious since you can’t see EVERYTHING)

The world getting destroyed and getting to see what has happened to the world and the people? Awesome. Leveling a new Character through everything completely revamped? Hell yeah.

Another thing thats extremely exciting.. is just how Blizzard has gotten at what they do. Each expansion has brought better and better things. And even though Wotlk seemed like the masterpiece after all of their hardwork, you might say it has also been another prototype. After the experimental raids and quests throughout Wotlk, Cataclysm is gonna be a truly fun Expansion. (Not that the others weren’t!) It’ll feel even less like a grind, and a little more like an RPG with millions of players.

Oh snap.. and DEATHWING!

After War of the Ancients, Day/Night of the Dragon. And anything Deathwing inbetween, finally getting to see him, will be freaking great. And you know they’ll put him in the game a lot like they did the LICH KING! In the words of you Medievaldragon.. “LOREGASM!”

(I just hope they do the final raid right, I really don’t wanna kill him even though he’s a villian, he’s one of the best, but if we have to kill him, they better make it extremely epic.)

(Part 1)  ; )

MedievalDragon, first of all I’d like to say that I really appreciate the fact that you’ve put together such an extensive, wonderful site devoted to all Blizzard-related news…  Despite the fact that I registered just earlier today, I’ve been following this site for a very long time now.  I can’t even remember how many years have passed since I’ve actually had it bookmarked, but what I can state is that I’ve been visiting it regularly and have enjoyed your posts tremendously.  (I don’t know if it’s only you who runs this site, but if there is a greater community involved I’d like to sincerely thank everyone for having kept up this amazing, extensive broadcast!)

The reason why I finally registered is because I’ve been itching to shed some of my own thoughts on Cataclysm and… in actuality, the entire Warcraft lore and the (seemingly) blind direction Blizzard seems to be aiming in nowadays with WoW…  To answer your question, my initial reaction to the bellowing news from Chris Metzen was of huge excitement, then quickly followed by misinterpretation and doubt , and then finally followed by disappointment.  The sudden, initial stage of disappointment was due to the fact that I (and most everyone else I would assume) were expecting something along the lines of Maelstorm or Emerald Dream…  nothing really could have made me assume that Blizzard had anything but those in mind.  However, once I quickly began to accept the actuality of Cataclysm, I began to feel very dismayed at the actual content that began to unveil in the announcement trailer.  To me it looked like an arrangement of “new goodies” that has been hastily put together into a video and hyped up severely…  In the end, it didn’t quite capture the magnitude that I would have expected of a WoW expansion after Wrath of the Lich King…  However, as more time passed and I started to read up and find out more on Cataclysm, I realized that this expansion may be just as good as Lich King (hopefully even better… though as of now I don’t think anyone can be too sure).  The more I started to think about it the more I began to remember Blizzard’s tendency to make any of its releases as powerful as they can be.  As of now, I’ve come to think that Cataclysm is Blizzard’s “WoW 2.0” if you will…  I have a feeling that they have thought about the future of WoW and realized that it would be a bit of a stretch to push more and more expansions without having to revamp the vanilla WoW world.  Why bring Cataclysm now instead of say, Emerald Dream?  Because most content in Cataclysm is what Blizzard would have given vanilla WoW back in 2004 if they had known how this game would have turned out 5 to 6 years from now…  And come to think of it, the Lich King announcement trailer from 2007 wasn’t that impressive either until the expansion came out and we were all left speechless by how remarkable Northrend was…

(Part 2) done*

With all this said though, I still cannot escape the feeling that WoW is still in great need of a huge boost if Blizzard is hoping on maintaining its popularity for many years to come (either with something totally groundbreaking or perhaps with a next installment – yes, World of Warcraft 2…)  World of Warcraft brought a new, fresh form of entertainment in the game industry 5 years ago when it was first released, and has continued to evolve and maintain itself relatively fresh along the years.  However, the general lack of talent and innovation / slowdown in the game industry (the one we’ve started to get accustomed to more and more since the new millenium) I believe is eventually allowing Blizzard to also slow down and stagnate.  I vividly remember the old days of Blizzard Entertainment in the 1990s and how dynamic they used to be in terms of releasing groundbreaking after groundbreaking title…  Today, WoW is Blizzard’s cash cow.  I’m sure that it’s very convenient for them to have such a huge monopoly in the mmo market (although, and at the same time I’m also happy to know that Blizzard can be king even in this market).  But looking back upon the last 6 years, I think it’s obvious that Blizzard has started to slow down tremendously in novelty and dynamics compared to how they used to be…  They’ve just spent time releasing WoW expansions ever since, and as long as other companies in the industry can’t develop something that can at least compete with WoW, it looks like us gamers won’t be getting our hands on anything truly groundbreaking by Blizzard tradition for a while…

Don’t get me wrong though. World of Warcraft is still a pretty good game and Blizzard, (I like to think), still a strong company with huge potential. I grew up spending a lot of time with Blizzard games since all the way back to BlackThorne and have sort of developed an undying love for their perfect games and franchises.  I can honestly say that this company has had a huge influence in shaping who I am today…  (And I admit, Warcraft lore is my favorite out of all their franchises due to how immersive the characters and stories can be).  I’m even considering applying for an artist job at Blizzard once I’m done with college or as fast as I can complete my portfolio - that’s how much I love this company…  But like all other things in the world, the drive behind Blizzard games that are growing older, like WoW, surely cannot last forever.  Sure, there will probably be more expansions coming up, but the truth of the matter is that fans of Blizzard and gamers throughout the world are definitely in need for something new right about now…  Cheers to Blizzard.  May their legendary attributes and success from the 90s be reborn in this new decade!

I loved it. I didn’t expect it, and I love it when I almost think I know what’s coming, and they go and surprise me like this. Completely unexpectable. Also, the connection between Deathwing and the Elemental Lords; hell, it was damn obvious, and I couldn’t see it. I say this because I believe the Elemental Plane is Deathwing’s domain, the place he, as the Earthwarder, was entrusted to keep safe. Ysera has the Emerald Dream, Deathwing the Elemental Plane. He was just the jailor; pre-corruption, of course. He pretty much left his duty after he went villain.

I’m looking forward it so much, because of just one reason: lore. The lore has gone worse with WoW; don’t misunderstand me, the background is greater with each patch, but the storytelling… it’s just wrong. Too much inconsistencies, too much unexplained stuff, too much lack of lore. Too much disappointment and waste of awesome resources. I can’t explain myself why they aren’t able to tell a story properly, when the most basic points can be worked out by any basic lore-nerd.

I’m looking forward Cataclysm for a reason lore-wise. 2 reasons, to be exact. 1st, WotLK is the end of W3. No more past lore they have to care about; more or less. The age of the LK ends here and now. There are no more “free resources” to use, and the already established characters that still haven’t appeared lack the needed background to simply pop up around.

So they’ll need to take the storytelling seriously. If they don’t, the story will go to hell, and I’m not talking about Sargeras. A game has a lot of factors that make him live: gameplay, friends, story, background… but the lore has only one: story. You, Blizzard, know how to tell good stories. Tell us good stories, and quit contradicting yourself almost every time, and add lore, for god’s sake. WotLK instances are terrorism for lore (save ICC). Sartharion is the best example of lore fail.

The 2nd point is the “reduction of content”. Translated: less zones. You’d think it’s bad, but after Crystalsong sadness, I prefer to have half the zones and have them completely developed rather than having a dozen of half-made zones. I just hate it when they release unfinished content. Hope they have learned the lesson.

And that’s all. Good luck with the story, Blizzard. For god’s and lore’s sake, work it out properly. Don’t use stupid excuses like “we can’t tell a proper story using MMO format”. That’s calling your fans stupids to their faces, and I don’t like anyone calling me stupid like that.

It reminded me so much to Sir Lothar carrying Prince Varian and other children escaping the destruction of Stormwind during the First War. Many of you had different reactions to the Cataclysm announcement, but all of those most likely were positive.