World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

(+) The old lands of Azeroth were refined to great effect:
* Zone design and lore is more interesting
* Quest hubs are more plentiful and feel more organic, major cities and population centers were redesigned to be more practical and useful
* Phasing, cinematics, real time events, RTS segments, and guided narratives make it feel more like a modern RPG hybrid and less like a MMO
* The new game experience has been streamlined, flowing much more coherently levels 1 through 60

(+) The slight graphic updates and introduction of DirectX 11 effects make the game look far better than you might expect - especially for a clearly aging engine with cartoonish art design and direction

(+) There is an absurd amount of quality solo and small-group content in the new post level 80 zones

(+/-) The class and mechanics changes, overall, were well thought out. They made the game even more accessible, early advancement more fun and rewarding, and the general gameplay more elegant. However, customization is limited and stunted. The last leg of levels, 81-85, leave you feeling like you're putting in time and gaining levels without growing in power or versatility

(-) Too much homogenization between classes, defined by role, has occurred. Class and spec combinations that once felt unique have been altered in a ham fisted way, now functioning in an essentially identical manner to others

(-) Cataclysm is short on raiding content. What's present feels uninspired and rushed - many dungeon and raid bosses are copies from past expansions wrapped in new skins/assets

(-) Changes to healing mechanics have rendered the role formulaic and rote

(-) Despite the smorgasbord of content the "grind" (repetitive activities that must be performed ad naseum for reward or advancement) has been ramped up far beyond anything I ever thought I would see in a WoW expansion. This terrible design approach is pervasive, affecting everything from dungeon progression to tradeskill advancement - particularly the new Archeology skill

(-) There is a gigantic gulf in difficulty between normal and "heroic", or advanced difficulty, dungeons. Many tedious mechanics are introduced, mistakes are far less forgiving, there are too many enemy abilities that kill instantly or nearly instantly, and the time required to complete a single dungeon has been extended from a sensible 20-30 minutes to an hour or longer. It's not uncommon to invest hours in a dungeon only to have the other players give up out of frustration - leading to no one seeing any kind of reward or advancement for their efforts

A symptom of the poor heroic dungeon design is an ugly social atmosphere. Players quickly grow short tempered and irate. The sense of gregariousness and community is abandoned, replaced by single minded greed as players squabble over any perceived reward their hours upon hours of grinding might, on some off chance, grant them. It's a terrible and sudden shift that ruins the game and drives players away from a substantial chunk of content.

Blizzard keeps introducing changes that exacerbate the issue, rather than alleviating it. And they apparently do so to spite their customers, as feedback has been overwhelmingly negative towards all of their recent developments. As a result the heroic and raiding community has sharply declined since the launch of Cataclysm. It has been distilled down to small, unsavory cliques of elitist and socially awkward players - the kind that, prior to WoW, could only have been found in the darkest corners of the grindiest and most unfun MMOs of 2000-2003.

--- Conclusion ---

Cataclysm is a lot of fun for new players and those looking to experience the rebuilt world of Azeroth. Blizzard has shown that modern game design and techniques can work in MMORPGs. It's worth the cover price for the hours of quality gaming it provides to new and old players alike.

However, the wheels come off as you approach "the end game". The game transforms into a soul-sucking trial of banality and tediousness - seemingly designed with cold and uncaring calculation to make players unhappy and question their enjoyment of the genre as a whole.

World of Warcraft came along in 2004 and dragged this genre out of relative obscurity, leading to hundred million dollar MMO budgets and prime time advertising campaigns. So it's ironic that here, in its twilight, Blizzard has abandoned the casual players that made it a success and transformed WoW into a ghoulish doppelganger of the MMOs it conquered long ago. Do they intend on courting the types of players that reigned over those archaic fossils of MMO past....and their insignificant subscription tallies? One can only wonder how Blizzard can do so much right in a game, just to turn around and essentially soil their own hard work.

I played WoW for six years and loved it. I downed most raid bosses while they were still relevant, achieved very high-rank PVP (and later Arena) titles, and was even satisfied as a casual player for over a year when my work schedule was rough. Then the Cata beta came along. Over the course of nearly half a year, I dutifully tested every bit of content available and experienced more of Cata than most people have on live, even now. And I hated it so much that I permanently left the game.

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Having participated in previous betas, I was struck by the difference in tone this time around. Developers rarely responded to constructive feedback, no concerns were ever addressed with in-game changes, and the bug reporting and suggestions feature was broken for months. The game was clearly going to go live as the developers envisioned, reality be damned.

So what did beta testers take issue with and the developers ignore?

1. Questing. The quests are fun, but mostly only the first time around as the new "on rails" design requires each zone be done in the exact same order - no choices, skipping, or jumping around. Leveling is also too quick. It took longer to get from level 70 to 75, let alone 80. Even at a leisurely pace, it takes only days to get to...

2. Level 85. Cataclysm raid bosses are split between several raids, but don't be fooled - Naxxramas alone featured more bosses than all Cataclysm raids combined. Cata also has the fewest at-release dungeons of any expansion thus far, profession-related quests which pale in comparison to previous expansions, and few daily hubs. You get to 85 too quickly, and then there's nothing to do besides...

3. Heroics. They are too long for too little reward. For a mandatory (for progression), daily task for the entire expansion, two hours is an outright chore (and it's often still over an hour in epics). Dailies on multiple chars + raid-prep gear grinds = recipe for boredom. But the biggest problem with heroics is...

4. Healing. Universally maligned during the beta, all five specs now have identical playstyles where one spell is spammed ad infinitum. There's some variety when raid healing, and your overall healing done per spell may vary, but one spell will dominate your time spent casting. To ensure hour-long queues, Blizzard also targeted the other vital group role...

5. Tanking. Skill- and control-based mechanics have been replaced by DPS-like rotations. Tank cooldowns are now along the lines of "Reduce damage by 10% for 10 seconds" - you don't even notice you've used a special ability. The changes to tanks and healers were part of a bigger problem...

6. Homogenization and loss of replay value. If you have one tanking or healing class, you have them all. The differences are superficial, and with few talent and glyph choices, even DPS classes all provide essentially the same experience. Every instance is the same, every character is the same, every day is the same - the game feels like a second job instead of an escape. There was only one thing left to screw up...

7. PVP. The imbalances are worse than at any point in WoW's history, and that's saying something. Tol Barad is an unmitigated disaster, with mechanics that were so poorly thought-out that it's mind-boggling. The "new" battlegrounds are quick clones of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin (Battle for Gilneas even displays AB node names at the start of games, to make it clear just how little work was put into it). Rated BGs are regular BGs with 90-minute queues.

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The hype coming from Blizzard simply does not resemble the reality of the game. The talent/glyph revamp made things more cookie-cutter instead of less. Homogenization not only made the game less enjoyable, but did not help at all with balancing - nearly every patch (and sometimes hotfixes, too) features massive (30-50%) buffs/nerfs.

Blizzard's greatest misstep was blaming players instead of admitting their mistakes. They've convinced half of the population that the other half are unskilled whiners, causing a permanent rift in the community. The devs are in a lose/lose situation now, as they'll lose players if they don't make changes, they'll lose players if they do make changes, and there will be caustic bitterness in the community no matter what.

After so many years and so many attempts by other companies to create a "WoW-killer," it is a hilarious irony that WoW has itself become a WoW killer.

Update (06/07/2011) - I check community fan sites every so often to see what the state of the game is, and things continue to get worse. They've announced premium subscription services (paid in-game features), confirmed that every new raid tier this expansion will have around 7 bosses, and scrapped the Abyssal Maw, among other things. Cata lost 600,000 subscribers in the first three months after release. At that rate, 2.4 million subscribers will have been lost by the end of the year. But with D3, GW, SW and other games due out this year and Cata having the slowest content release schedule of any WoW expansion, 3 million (1/4 of all WoW players) is a safe estimate. Sadly, this may be the end of WoW.

This is the Worst Xpack that blizz ever came out with! I have been playing WOW since 2005 and I never thought anything would ever make me quit. I was one of the Biggest WOW fans their ever was. I bought all the books, comics, and collectables. This Xpack is mostly like having a second Job only its less fun. You have to Grind 5 times as hard for items just to be able to raid. there is no new content most of it is revamped old content. The new dificulty level has turned the community against itself making doing anything with out a guild a very painful experiance.

The gear is horible to look at, and there is very few dailies to keep you occupied. The raids are mostly set up for the top eliete whom play the game,leaving the casual player base behind. The blizzard Dev team never listens to the player base, they even removed the suggestions tab from the forums. The things the player base have been asking for for years have been completely ignored. The Avitar models are the same since the game came out in 2004.

The game engine is the same it was in 2004, only the environment in the xpacks are new giving the illusion that the game has improved graphics. If you are a new player too the game you are going to be paying well over $100.00 to get all the xpack including this one for a game made in 2004.

The game is loaded with bugs and most of the original devs working on wow have been transfered to the new Titan MMO blizzard is working on thus making the game even more buggier. The GM`s do not pro actively police the servers allowing people to activly bot and gold farm / mat farm / honor farm for items.

The devs have completely lost touch with the community all the requests that have been asked for by long tearm veterans have been completly over looked such as more charecter slots, updated Avitar models for example.

The 2 main specs Tank and Heals have been designed in a way that makes most players fustrated to the point that they have been either shelved by players or exploited for ingame gold for runs, or the ever so popular its my way or ill boot you from the group attitude. This elietest attitude is a complete turn off for new players due to no one giving the new player a break in a dungeon its either you know what your doing or we will vote kick you.

Blizzard put alot of effort into revamping Azeroth for new players, but anyone over lvl 60 will rarely see it due to LFG que`s never having to leave the city. Not to mention that the dev team has essentially made the community an ANTI new player game. If you are a new player be prepared for a sound tongue lashing from the elitests. If you are lucky they will just vote kick you with out calling you every explitive in the book.

The thing that really agrivates me the most is when they took all of our creativity with our classes and made them all cookie cutter spec's... i mean common Actiblizzion why on earth would you take away every thing that we could call special about our classes. now its like playing tick tack toe with your self. and with pvp or as i call it PVCC there is absolutley no fun in it you are constantly frozen stunned and did i mention frozen.

Shared raid lock outs GASP now you can only chose between a 10 man or a 25 man, they only took away stuff only to take more away. And i want to pay $15.00 a month for this? really Actibliz?

There is no events during the year other then the same old holiday events that have been going on since vanella. The only really fun events are the ones that herald the new xpack that brings a reason to the new xpack. So you are spending time grinding dailys, doing the same dungeons and raids over and over and over again. There is simply no creativity comming from the devs team.

In my opinion Actiblizz is just keeping the lame horse alive long enough to have incomming revenue to fund their Titan MMORPG. there is no way any company would let a major game that millions love go this far down the toilet. Actibliz is their own worst enemy, i will never buy another game from them again.

last but not least if you are a parent avoid buying this game for your children at all costs, the community is the absolute worst cesspool of filth, and depravity that the internet has to offer. There is things that you will see, hear, and read that will make you cringe to the point that you cant beleive that someone would be that awfull. The player base almost goes out of its way to be as discourtious as they can possibly be making one wonder why the hang are they playing a multiplayer game in the first place, unless it is their intention to be there just to be mean to others with no recourse for their actions. there are a few in the game that are nice but most of them are leaving for other games.

All in all I thought that there would have been virtually nothing that would have made me quit WOW I was completly addicted to this game but this xpack was so bad it made me quit cold turkey and I never even felt bad about quiting.

BUYER BE AWARE: this xpack is the worst XPack i have ever seen. Blizzard should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this. They are a wonderful company and I have never seen them release any game this bad!

( edit 11/20/2011 ROFL @ pandas and Pokémon )