Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Cataclysm: Dry your tears


So far, just as with every other expansion or major content patch, there has been tons of rejoicing and a whole bunch of QQ. To me, why not give what they are doing a chance rather than cry about the loss of complicated stats such as armor penetration etc.


Blizzard is trying to keep a 5 year old game fresh. They cant do that by doing the same thing over and over. The revamp to the stats is just a way at simplifying what you are looking for in gear. Obviously this is the end of the world to some min-maxers. To the average player, this is a blessing. You wont need to know "at what point is armor penetration better than strength" and other math. You will know that Strength is good. Intellect is good. Spirit is good. In a way, it goes back to Vanilla WoW when most gear didnt have a lot in the way of secondary stats.


On top of making things a little easier for the casual players to get a grasp on what they need to do, they are adding tons of new features that can only add flavor to the game. The Guild Talent tree and achivements seem like something that will add a lot of enjoyment even when you are doing grindy things like daily quests. If you have a certain ability in the guild talent tree, the guild bank will receive 7 percent of the gold dropped off of bosses. This is not a tax. This is 7 percent EXTRA that goes into the bank. There was a talent to reduce repair bills by 10 percent. I saw another one that was a resurrection for the entire raid. Yet another was one that lets you summon the entire raid to you.


To me, this is all just delicious variety that adds something to the game. The Path of Titans is another fun thing to customize your character. You will get to choose a new perk every time you unlock another "titan glyph" slot. There will be multiple options per slot.


There will be more customization with several professions being able to adjust gear so that you can convert one stat to another. There is also talk of there being way to change the appearance of your armor.


The ultimate customization changes that will likely be coming in are the race/faction changes. You are sick of Alliance, switch to the Horde. You are sick of being a Dranei Shaman, become a Dwarf Shaman. With these changes, there will be several class/race combos added. To me, it will be an opportunity to not be a damn NE Druid. I dont like Night Elves. And I was forced to roll one if I wanted to have an Alliance Druid. Now I will have options.


To me, this is something to get excited about. There are only going to be 5 levels added and tons of new content. The end game is supposed to open with 4 different raids.....to start. There will also be tons of 5 man content to defeat. This includes revamps of two of the best dungeons ever. Deadmines and Shadow Fang keep were epic.


There will always be people that QQ about the good ole days. They conveniently remember the good times, but forget the bad times. There was a time when several specs were not viable at all for raids or instances. You can name almost any spec for any class and there was a time that it was not really viable. Prot Warriors and Holy Priests are two obvious exceptions.


So, enjoy all the new things that is going to be offered. It is being offered to enrich your gaming experience. Not dull it. If you just cant take the pain, you can always go try Aion.

8 comments:

Vorian87 said...

personally the class/guild changes are awesome.

as has been mentioned by some bloggers and blizzard itself, they are there to make the game not just about leveling 10 levels and then spending months "farming" loot.

and what differentiates a guild from another right now? on my server it is mostly about raiding e-peen. with the guild changes planned, guilds can differentiate themselves in more ways and have being part of the guild actually mean something more besides a group of people who raid/pvp/quest/altitis and what not.

and path of the titans is a very intriguing concept that at the moment seems to be very complex (6 paths, 10 levels with at least 2 glyphs for each level)not to mention that they mentioned the possibility of tying path of titans to the dual spec feature.

and i must say, the official forums are generally a cesspool of qq and tears and namecalling. so i was very much surprised as a blizzcon attendee when entire room cheered at every class/guild/game change they mentioned such as the warlock soul shard changes and hunter focus changes. it was rather refreshing to know that the more "intelligent" people were there and not the constant naysayers.

Darraxus said...

I was right there cheering along!

It annoys me to no end when I see constant complaining. If you dont like it, dont play it!

Had an in-game friend bitching about the changes. I just didnt bother responding.

These changes will make the game more fun for a broader scope of players.

Jong said...

Path of Titans sounds awesome. Worgen is very appealing to me. Worgen melee dps would be so cool. Wish I had gone too :(

Sprink said...

Here here! This is a breath of fresh air in the whole 'oh noes' that has been the norm since mention of the next expansion. Here's to reserving judgment until you actually get some hands on experience! ^_^

Vorian87 said...

i played the "20min demo" at blizzcon for cataclysm, rolled a worgen warrior for kicks.

it was just an awesome experience. The setting, the general atmosphere, the quests etc everything is just amazing imo.

also, the human to worgen animation is very nicely done simply amazing. I wish they would do that for druid shapeshifting as well.

and lol @ the goblin racial mount. pure win!

Fish said...

I thought pretty much the same thing you did, changing stats back seems more like a return to vanilla. I think right now there is just too much going on. Now definitively that axe with STR and STAM is NOT a hunter weapon.

You play on scarlet crusade right? Isn't that a PvP server? I actually have a number of alliance toons, I don't share your distaste for NE druids, although I do think moonkin form looks ridiculous. I am curious to see what the troll and worgen forms look like. Might make balance worthwhile.

thedoctor said...

/agree

good read

Darraxus said...

@ Fish: Nah, Scarlet Crusade is an RP server so no worries about ganking unless you run around flagged on purpose.