Philthy

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Expansion

By PHIL PALIOS

Blizzard Entertainment, makers of the epic StarCraft, WarCraft and Diablo game universes, hosts an annual convention for fans of their games to learn about what’s new and discuss these universes.  This year’s convention began today and continues through tomorrow with a series of panels and new announcements.

During the opening ceremony a new class was introduced for the upcoming Diablo II release: Monks.  The announcement included a cinematic and gameplay reel that were quite impressive and continue my excitement for the upcoming release (which won’t be any time soon).  The biggest announcement today was World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, a new expansion for the best-selling Massively Multiplayer title that was first introduced five years ago.

World of Warcraft : Cataclysm develops the storyline of Azeroth by introducing a massive cataclysm that results in a complete overhaul of the classic Azeroth continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.  The focus is on new evils and more death and destruction, caused by the emergence of Deathwing, a vile dragon who seeks to dominate Azeroth.  New playable races were also announced for WoW: Horde has aligned with their new race the Goblins, and the Alliance has introduced the werewolf-resembling race: Worgen.

One last bit of information was revealed from Blizzard CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime: they expect to release both StarCraft II and the Cataclysm expansion in 2010.  Many new features were mentioned but not detailed, including the Archeology tradeskill and gameplay changes such as Guild Leveling.  These will be detailed in panels throughout the convention and online.  For the most information, media and updates you should go straight to the source: www.worldofwarcraft.com.

Expanded Coverage from WoW: Cataclysm Panel

Following the opening ceremonies of BlizzCon was a panel led by Chris Metzen, VP of Creative Development and creator of Blizzard’s epic fantasy worlds and lore.  This panel helped explain some of the new features mentioned during the announcement.  The most important thing that this expansion brings is a complete revamp of existing “Classic” content that hasn’t changed much since the game’s original release.  Historically it would take an entirely new release of the game to do something like this, but Blizzard has taken a unique and exciting approach to revitalize the game.

As part of the re-design all of the zones on Azeroth will be flyable, meaning that if you have a flying mount, you can explore these zones by flight, something that has previously been unavailable.  The plant-life, geography, buildings and towns have changed dramatically in many zones, some zones may resemble their former selves but most are entirely new.  During the panel screenshots were shown with before and after shots of zones like Desolace which were formerly dark and dry but now have been revitalized with grass, trees and a new coast line.  This is just one example, playing in World of Warcraft with this new release will be like an entirely new game.

In addition to the visual changes there have been changes to the levels for each zone, the flow a player takes while adventuring through zones was taken into consideration and many zones that may have previously been higher level could now be designed for a lower level and by the same token zones that were lower level could now be higher.  There was also an effort to make each zone’s level range smaller, so that players will explore more areas.  All of the zones have new quests and items, so starting a new character will not only allow you to explore new artwork and environments but entirely new storylines too.

The level cap has also been raised from 80 to 85, for this new high-level content five additional zones have been added to Azeroth that will level players to 85.  One of these zones is completely under water, another is influenced by Egyptian style.  Lots of great concept artwork was shown and these will be some of the most exciting zones in the game!

The two new races introduced with Cataclysm are Goblins (for the Horde) and Worgen (for the Alliance).  Both classes existed in the game previously but were not playable, the Goblins were known for operating neutral towns like Booty Bay.  When discussing the Goblins, Chris Metzen described their decision to be Horde by stating “There are dark days ahead and the Horde may need some comic relief, the Goblins just fit that bill perfectly.”  Concept art of the Goblin mounts was also shown, a very unique, mechanical mount that resembles a cross between a Corvette and an ATV.  The Worgen are a powerful beast and during their description a lot was kept secret but Chris hinted at the fact that it’s not where the Worgen are from that is so interesting so much as when they are from.  In addition to the new races they are also allowing some existing races to play classes that were previously off-limits.  Highlights included the ability to be a “holy cow” as a Tauren Paladin.

This expansion introduces a very dark time to the Warcraft universe in terms of lore.  While players were busy battling to fight Arthas in the most recent expansion (Wrath of the Ligh King) a new evil has emerged tearing their home world apart, so the home that they left has been destroyed.  This storyline was decided upon by the designers in the interest of ramping up the drama and heroism, “We saw this as the ultimate opportunity to put the War back in WarCraft.” says one panelist.

Guild advancement is a new concept for World of Warcraft that will be introduced with Cataclysm.  This will allow players in a guild to level up their guild, the system will have 20 levels.  Players advance their guild by doing what they already do: daily quests, raids and battlegrounds.  As their guild gains levels they will be able to put points into a guild talent tree.  This tree will give the guild new talents such as: cheaper repairs, less durability loss when wiping, and mass resurrection.  This is obviously targeted to guilds that are playing end-game content and raiding, which is what most guilds do.  These new features were met with a mighty cheer by BlizzCon attendees.

Upgrades to the game engine have allowed for new features such as phasing terrain, which was first seen in Wrath of the Lich King and will now be in many of the revamped Azeroth zones.  This technology is used to create effects such as tide; in zones with a coastline it’s now possible for the water line to change and have areas change from above water to underwater as time passes.  Another feature is seen in the new zone of Mount Hyjal where players will defend against an attack from Ragnaros; as they enter the zone it will be burning and as they progress through the quest chain fires will be extinguished.

The last feature I want to mention will be a new form of customization available to players in addition to the existing class-specific talent trees.  This system is called the Path of the Titans.  As players advance they will be able to invest points into different paths.  All classes will have access to the same paths, so the abilities gained through this system will be the same for all classes and depend on which path you choose.  Details on what exactly players can do in this system, what the paths lead to and what their themes will be are still to be announced.

This is an amazing set of features for an expansion, it’s really more like a completely new iteration of World of Warcraft.  Gameplay from beginning to end will change with new environments, towns, quest lines and items.  This type of expansion is the first of its kind for an MMO and I think it is a great way to bring dying content back to life and at the same time not require players to lose the characters they had already advanced in another time.

I’m also glad to see the emphasis on lore for this new expansion, the storyline was well thought out and is based on long-standing WarCraft ideas.  Each quest area seems to be trying to tell a story, so it will be fun to explore these new quests and discover the new stories.  As a casual gamer I’m much more interested in the artwork and lore presented in games like World of Warcraft and Blizzard is continuing to deliver some of the most amazing art I have ever seen as well as fascinating story lines.  I am sure gamers with a similar style to mine will really appreciate the epic design presented in Cataclysm and more hard-core gamers will be happy with the new leveling content not to mention several new dungeon and raid instances.

If you’ve never played World of Warcraft before this expansion is quite relevant because it’s going to change the majority of the game from levels 1-60 as you explore Azeroth and you may find the new design quite compelling.  Cataclysm’s only competition is the “old world” of Azeroth which was a great work of art and design but I believe from what I saw during the panels that Cataclysm is even better.