Retrospective on Cataclysm

4.3 has been out for quite a while now, and with Mists of Pandaria less than two months away, I think we can safely assume that Cataclysm, as a package, has wrapped up.

Each expansion is like a new incarnation of WoW. While the old content is generally left alone (though this last expansion, of course, recreated much of it,) you won't find yourself grinding the same heroic dungeons or generally hanging out on the same continent as the last expansion. New level caps, new looks for gear, and new abilities, rotations, and talent systems define these expansion eras (some spec, like Protection Paladins, play almost entirely different from one expansion to the next. Even with all the "Active Mitigation" changes, Mists will be the first time I don't have to completely re-learn how to tank.)

So, with Mists, we will have the fifth incarnation of the titan of the MMO genre. But while that is exciting, I thought I would take a moment to talk about the fourth incarnation, or the "Tom Baker" of WoW (though I doubt it will live on with as much popularity.)

The big issue with Cataclysm is that it is really two different expansions wrapped into one. The two previous ones gave us ten new levels and either a new race for each side, or a new class, but other than the new starting zones (or really "starting experience" for Death Knights,) the old world was pretty much left untouched. Cataclysm added a smaller high-level questing game in the interest of revamping the entire 1-58 experience, which had been practically untouched since the game launched.

So let's talk about Cataclysm in two parts: The New Old World and Deathwing Throwing the Elemental Planes Out of Whack.

The New Old World

This is where I think Cataclysm really shined. Granted, a handful of zones were overlooked, even some that really should have seen big changes, given the content of the expansion (Silithus! The zone is all about Old Gods and Twilight's Hammer! How could they have left this the dreary, boring mess that it is? Or Arathi Highlands - where the full strength of the Alliance could finally put a stop to the relentless expansion of the Forsaken?) But most of the world was heavily refurbished, not only making leveling smoother by giving each zone an easily-followed quest chain (rather than the old "go to Tanaris at 40. Do one quest. Come back at 45. Do three quests. Come back and 49. Do two quests) but also giving the player a pretty clear path through which to travel from zone to zone. For example, an Undead character can fairly easily go Tirisfal-Silverpine-Hillsbrad-Arathi-Hinterlands-WPL-EPL-Badlands-Searing Gorge-Burning Steppes-Swamp of Sorrows-Blasted Lands, leveling up to 58 without having to suddenly figure out some good 35-45 zone on another continent.

The quests are also far more varied, and while you still have the aggravating "collect 6 bear asses" on occasion, it's much easier to deal with when there are plenty more "fly around bombing these pirates" or "swing on a rope like a swashbuckler and fight your way down into the ship."

I would also put the new races into this category. Now, while I love the Draenei (they're my favorite color, and they're space aliens in a fantasy world, and they can be either hilarious or solemnly badass) I think Cataclysm had a far better assortment of new races. The Goblins really should have been in the game from the beginning, and their insane lack of a sense of self-preservation is amusing. The Worgen are the the most badass thing in the game (well, race-wise. Death Knights are probably the most badass class,) and have an absolutely excellent starting zone.

If there are any failings within the New Old World, they are mostly within the places where it seems like they ran out of time and just kept things the same. So, Arathi Highlands, Silithus, Dustwallow Marsh and Northern Barrens probably stand out the most. That said, certain zones, such as Searing Gorge and Eastern Plaguelands, found ways to take old quests and make them feel new.

The only "problem" is that because leveling is so easy with the revamp, one can feel the wish to turn off rest experience so that one doesn't level out of a zone before its story is complete.

We also saw the first huge revamp of the talent system, which laid the groundwork for Mists' utter reworking of it. While the system did not eliminate the issues with the old talent trees, they did solve a few problems. The level 10 spec choice, with basic bonuses and the ability that came with it, contributed greatly to making you feel like you had actually done something with that first talent point. Granted, from that point on it felt pretty much the same as the old talent system, but it was a good start. (And also useful for noobs who might think that over-specialization would be bad and spread their points out across all three trees, which is totally not something I did when I first started playing...)

Deathwing Throws the Elemental Planes Out of Whack

And the Twilight's Hammer Gets Their Day in the Limelight

So now we come to this - the high-level questing and the new dungeons/raids.

Here is where Cataclysm came up a bit short. While I'm still impressed that they managed to do a whole underwater zone (I don't care what people say, I think Vashj'ir is awesome,) and some of the environmental concepts were cool, ultimately the five zones that took you from 80 to 85 were a bit disappointing.

For one thing, there was practically no difference between the Alliance and Horde experiences until Twilight Highlands, and that stops when you're about halfway through.

Also, the extreme linearity of each zone means that if you get sick of a particular series of quests, your options are to either tough it out or go level grind in dungeons. You also only ever get one choice for which zones to go to, at the very beginning. You can do Hyjal or Vashj'ir, but here's the catch: You should really do Hyjal. If you did not do Hyjal, you will not get a single reputation point with one of the four major factions (Earthen Ring is split between Vashj'ir and Deepholm, and even though it's tricky to get to the ER quartermaster if you haven't done Vashj'ir, you can just do the first quest to get the swim bonus or take a potion or two and swim down) and additionally, you can't do any of the non-raid content that came with 4.2 unless you've gone about three-quarters of the way through Hyjal.

Despite the fact that Hyjal is probably the dullest of the Cataclysm zones, it is inadvisable to do Vashj'ir (which is probably the most original and interesting.) And after that, it's Deepholme, Uldum, and Twilight Highlands.

The odd thing about the five high level zones is that their intention was to make them feel more a part of the Old World, yet their isolation from one another made them all feel more like disconnected islands, without a consistent theme.

The lack of choice is probably the biggest theme in what is wrong with this part of the expansion. At launch, there were 7 new dungeons, and 2 revamped heroics. At 85, there were only three top-level dungeons, despite the fact that heroics were tuned to the point where you really needed to grind hard on those regulars. Wrath had four regular level 80 dungeons (not counting ToC or the Frozen Halls,) but its heroics were (mostly) less punishing, and BC had seven level 70 regulars (not counting Magister's Terrace.) Of course, in Mists they're getting rid of level cap regulars, which hopefully means level 90 heroics will be relatively tame.

Anyway, things got worse when 4.1 hit, and all of your dungeoneering was syphoned into two very difficult former raids. While you could still grind valor on the old dungeons, you were passing up the better gear (and Maelstrom Crystals - remember, there is a functional difference between purples and blues beyond having better stats) for dungeons that were still pretty damn hard. But if you were tough enough to do them, you were pretty much compelled to stick only to the Zandalari heroics, and only those two, for all of 4.1 and 4.2.

Also, while the initial raiding tier had a respectable twelve bosses (thirteen counting Sinestra,) tier 12 had only 7, and tier 13 had only 8. The entire expansion had a total of 28 raid encounters, compared to Wrath and BC, which both had 50. Raiding had the same problem as the dungeons (and I actually sympathize here with Blizzard, as there was a very vocal but - I'm almost certain - tiny minority who complained at how easy Wrath content was) which was that they were tuned to be very punishing. While Naxxramas (Wrath Edition) cultivated a sort of good will with people who wanted to try out raiding (while I did run Karazhan a couple times in BC, Naxx is where I really cut my teeth as a raid tank,) tier 11 pummeled you with very hard encounters right off the bat. There was no recourse if you were having trouble, because it was the very first raid tier. While Ulduar was also difficult, if you were having trouble with it you could just go back to Naxxramas to get your guild some raiding practice.

Anyway, things got a bit better with 4.3, at least on the dungeons and non-progress front. The Hour of Twilight heroics were a return to the quick and easy (but still mechanically interesting) style of Wrath dungeons (Murozond is one of my favorite boss fights in the game,) and while there is still no "just throw me in to any level 85 heroic" option from the dungeon finder (which, I mean, come on, there should be - with greater variety of random dungeons comes less burnout) at least these go quickly enough that you don't mind running them over and over (well, ok, there is a limit, but it's much farther than the "oh, thank God I've got the gear I need from the Zul dungeons" limit.)

The raid itself - well, my guild kind of fell apart (due in large part to the ball-crushing difficulty of the 4.0 instances) so I can't really judge the encounters of Dragon Soul. It would have been nice to see cool new models and environments, but I respect some of the unique concepts - such as the lighting chains or the "back of a dragon" mechanics.

The more important thing was the introduction of the Raid Finder. Overall, I think it was a great addition. The flaws in looting will hopefully be fixed by the Mists changes (I'm sure future me will have something to complain about.) I just think it is a great step forward for the game to allow casual players to actually get to see the conclusion of the story and experience the epic battles you can't really find in a 5-man. As accessible as Wrath of the Lich King was, you weren't guaranteed to see what it was like to face him atop the Frozen Throne.

Neltharion

One last note. I like RPGs because of the interesting worlds and stories you can set in them. Now Deathwing had a lot of potential as a character. Sadly, the direction they took him in left him a bit bland.

I mean, I get it. He is so consumed by rage that he becomes a flying volcano. He's the essence of a fire-breathing dragon bent on destruction. Not only that, but he is, in a high-fantasy way, the kind of Cthulhu cultist who goes batshit and starts murdering until he's put down. It's a different kind of antagonist than Arthas or Illidan.

Here's the thing: as much as people complained about having Arthas show up all the time to taunt you ineffectively, Arthas was an awesome villain. Not only was there justification for why he didn't want to kill you yet (and, as we see in the end of the Lich King fight, he could have killed you at any time,) but the one time he does seem to go on a murderous rampage (at the end of Halls of Reflection,) he becomes a terrifying, unstoppable force that you can only attempt to evade, and not fight.

Deathwing was meant to be a terrifying, unstoppable force, but we never get to know him as a person - to see that there is diabolical intelligence behind his rampage. Now sure, he's been driven mad by the Old Gods, so maybe that intelligence isn't there. But that just makes him a less interesting villain. We could be getting out of the way of a meteor for all we cared.

In a way, I wish that we could have seen him preparing for the Hour of Twilight. We hear about the Hour of Twilight a whole lot, but never really get a sense of what it is until Ultraxion is dead and we find out we've already foiled it.

The story of the high-level zones focuses a great deal on the Elemental Planes, and we do get the sense that Twilight's Hammer is trying to throw them out of whack in Deathwing's name, but at no point do we feel that he really has a role in any of this beyond serving as an role model of someone who has given himself over completely to destruction and chaos.

Rather than playing through an extended Indiana Jones parody (and mind you, I love Indiana Jones. Well, Raiders and Last Crusade at least. You know, the ones with the Nazis,) I would have far preferred going through Titanic vaults and discovering how Deathwing plans to destroy the world. There could have been a fascinating series of quests (perhaps aided by Nozdormu) in which we see the progression of Neltharion into Deathwing. We're told there was a time when Neltharion was one of the most likable and benevolent of the Aspects, and was best pals with Alexstrasza, but even though we travel into the past, we only ever see Deathwing as Deathwing. Also, I wish the Tol'vir had been more than just boring, boring Cat-people with no personality whatsoever.

Going way back to the pre-expansion event, I liked the way that Twilight's Hammer was preying on the fears of the people - even as they were driving forth the upcoming apocalypse. Twilight's Hammer is an interesting set of villains. I think they did an all right job with them (not so much a fan of the blue & red aesthetic, purely from an artistic perspective) but it was most interesting when we were seeing things from the inside.

Regarding Vashj'ir, I wish they had wrapped up the Naga and Neptulon plot there. We still have to deal with Azshara some day, so there's definitely potential to revisit this problem.

In Conclusion

Ultimately, I believe that Cataclysm was part-noble experiment, part-necessary refurbishment, and part-disappointment. Obviously, the numbers are not in its favor - WoW hit its high point (so far, one hopes) of 12 million subscriptions during Wrath, and it fell to its current point of 9 million.

Make no mistake - 9 million is still an enormous number of subscriptions. That said, I doubt there are many who believe that Cataclysm was WoW at its finest.

On the other hand, from the perspective of a new player, who is just getting into the world and trying it out, Cataclysm offered a far more polished leveling/solo game for 1-58 content than had existed before.

We should also note that while I do think that Wrath of the Lich King and Burning Crusade brought more to the table content-wise, the mechanical changes that came with Cataclysm were nearly all for the best.

The other thing to bear in mind is that WoW is not a new game anymore. WoW became the genre-standard for MMOs, and even eight years later, it is still by far the most popular. Yet to all of us veterans (technically since Vanilla for me!) you need to work really hard to surprise us.

And let us not forget that even in the less-successful high-level half of Cataclysm, there were some real treats. The Horde introduction to Twilight Highlands is awesome. We got some truly unique environments - particularly as we delved into the various elemental planes (if you don't think Skywall is gorgeous, you have something wrong with you.) We got a number of memorable characters (I liked that nearly every Earthen Ring NPC was a character who showed up in multiple zones. How can you not love Stormcaller Myrla?) as well as a much better sense of the precarious political balance and the difficulties of fighting another faction that is not, like so many things we fight, pure evil. And they managed to do an entire freaking zone underwater? How is that not something people are crazy about?

Cataclysm - flawed, and indeed, I am glad that we'll be moving on soon, but I still salute Blizzard's effort. They earned my subscription fee.

Looking Forward, Into the Mists

We really have no way of knowing what Mists will be like. Yes, there is a Beta, but everything changes when you are actually making progress on your long-held characters. I can't imagine there's anyone who's actually farming gear or grinding VP on the beta (and if they are, they are freaking insane.)

The thing that excites me is that this time, Blizzard really has been able to focus on the endgame. The old-world revamp for Cataclysm was a huge drain on resources. Worth it, I would argue, but a drain nonetheless. Now, however, other than the Wandering Isle, they get to put all their content resources into Pandaria.

I like that they've really decided to let you play as you will. I haven't done scenarios yet, but the idea of a more casual kind of instance appeals to me. So far, at least, Pandaria seems to be a living, breathing enough setting that the people there should hopefully not suffer the fate of the Tol'vir.

They're going into pretty untested waters here, with a new continent and very little pre-existing lore, but if it manages to recapture that sense of exploration and fun, it should get back to the whole point of an RPG.