World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Leaf wrote:

Siheld wrote:

Well, the dwarves we play, are ironforge dwarves (yes I know we can play whatever clan we want, but still, starting as shaman in coldridge seems weird to me.
It also seems so hard to realise, with people having the expansion, and people not having it..
as for the goblins, i just hate them.
and well, it just seems weird to see them on horde side, it just doesn't feel right..

A lot of combinations with the class/race are possible, but a lot of things don't feel right..

A lot doesn't feel right because we haven't even heard the explanations yet. We've gotten a few hints, such as the conversation between two Taurens in-game and a quest where a High Elf requests an audience with Tyrande to offer her the services of a Mage.

Well, explanations can be given, but still just like Avior said; the ereder-history had to be re-written just so that draenei could fit in with the allaince! I don't need more farfetched history/stories in Wow.
The Highborne in Darnassus seems okay, since Kaldorei have a connection with arcane, and yes the conversation between the Taurens about them following the moon to much seems fine aswell, but still.
The best thing about the given rumours is the Azeroth being flood part; better name:

World of Warcraft

The best part I would say is that Gnoems get their city back. :D

I totally agree!

Gnomeregan to the gnomes and the echo isles to the trolls!
I'm getting sick of those ale drinking, smelly, fat dwarves!

Totally.

But... why would allies get Worgen... and.. Horde little ugly Goblins...? That´s just not fair.
And Undead Hunters... I wiould love it.. but it´s kind of a lorelol, since I doubt Forsaken would be able to be in such a connection with living nature, as to tame and control beasts. And when you think about the whole master - pet bond thing.. mmmnope.

Daidrax wrote:

And Undead Hunters... I wiould love it.. but it´s kind of a lorelol, since I doubt Forsaken would be able to be in such a connection with living nature, as to tame and control beasts. And when you think about the whole master - pet bond thing.. mmmnope.

*cough* http://www.wowwiki.com/Nathanos_Blightcaller *cough*

Go say hi to Blightcaller in EPL and you'll see a Forsaken Hunter. Well, technically he is a beast master, but hell.. Goes for the same thing. he has pets.

Edit: Tsk. Leaf beat me to it. Damn swede.

Quintilius wrote:

Edit: Tsk. Leaf beat me to it. Damn swede.

<3 :D

I call for a Venture Company guild!

Am I the only one who thinks many will roll Goblin for their bank alts?

Doesn't the House of Sylvanas peepz love the idea of Undead Hunters? New kind of Dark Rangers for you to RP.

I hope believable class quests and NPC trainers will be placed in the starting zones for the more "unorthodox" class combinations. A Wildhammer representative to smack the knowledge in your heads would work. I need some kind of event before they put a Mage Trainer in Teldrassil though. Everyone who knows about Night Elves knows that they wouldn't let mages (let alone Highborne) into their lands without good reason (according to the RPG books, they rarely let Alliance into their woods despite being allied).

I actually agree with many things in this... Some of the class things fit well, as human hunters. Tauren Paladins? Well, to be entierly honest, taurens are the most "honorable and just" race in the whole WoW. For the Naaru to bestow the power of the light upon them... why havn't they done so already?
Undead hunters ain't much of a problem either. Just what class would Sylvanas be? There's no real reason why undead couldn't tame (read:kill) animals and use them as their obediant pets. No connection to nature needed.
Dwarf shamans? Dwarfs are really much more attuned to the elements than most other races, especially the Wildhammers.

The worgens from Gilneas... have a lot of potential. I'd really like to do some RP in there. As a hordie ofc. And there are loads of possible "racial" skills. I'd like to have that part of the character increased, though balanced naturally.

Goblins? Feck no! The whole mind of goblins are sneaky bastards, profiting from both sides. That's what we have the Forsaken and Belfes for!
It's like having the Ethereum join the horde. We'd trust them with our lives... right? Seriously give us Ogres/Furbolgs/even Pandaren instead!


Garrosh replacing Thrall? It's been heading that way since he was introduced. And face it, Thrall is better cut for a diplomatic role than the leader of Da Badass Whorde. This is supposed to be a war-game, even for us playing peace-loving characters. And if Garrosh gets to be warchief, the Taurens should leave the horde. So will the Frostwolf Clan. As Saurfang put it, "I'll kill you myself." I will roll an alliance char and raid the bastard down.
Thrall, Guardian of Tristfal? Well.... It's kind of awkward... I don't really... the position is good, as a uniter and such but... keep him a shaman. An über-powerful shaman, with eyelazorz and a big magic hammer (Doomhammer looks like a rubber club bought at an amusement park).


I certainly don't mind some changes to the good 'ol Azeroth. Flooding, earthquakes, tectonic drifts yay! Razing Orgrimmar, go ahead. We'll just build another city. That's what we orcs do, we suck it up and march on.
I certainly support using the phasing system a lot more. I only see a few problems, and those are connected to RP. It's impossible to RP with someone in a different phasing, and if there's many places with phases, there will be far fewer "common zones" to meet in.
An idea: phase Goldshire! People can do a quest and it'll end up a different phase, nice and clean of lvl 10 chars.




One more thing: If Med'an is added, make him killable...

I support the last idea for sure.
But let's not phase GS like that.. the lvl 10's are often even less of a problem than the lvl 70+ >.<

I support the idea for Undead Gnome Tea-Bagger as the new class/race ...

And I obviously don't...

Leaf wrote:

*cough* http://www.wowwiki.com/Nathanos_Blightcaller *cough*

Right, I rest my case, and I´m going to get Daid a whole bunch of "IC pets".

Dark rangers as such aren´t capable of using nature and nature itself, including beasts doesn´t react to them the way it used to when they were still (living) hunters/rangers/whateveres, which makes them unable to create such a bond with nature and the beasts which live in it as they did previously. The whole master/pet almost family-like bond isn´t possible with dark rangers (this, I think would include "forsaken hunters")
If dark rangers could control beasts, Sylvanas and the ones in Howling Fjord would have one too...

As to Blightcaller.. Look at his hounds, they are called Blighthounds, and they have this nice green gassy glow above them too. It´s obvious the relationship between Blightcaller and his hounds isn´t the same as between a regular (elf for example) hunter and his pet. If it was, and he could keep them with him as normal happy puppies, why would he blight them in the first place, right?
But seeing as he´s an npc, he has some history behind him, wowwiki didn´t realy say much about it, so we could assume he did manage to bind the hounds to him through blight.

And forsaken hunters.. Hunters in general have skills (I´m talking about game mechanics) which are considered as nature spells. If it wanted to be correct lore-wise, they´d have to make them look and name them differently, while the skill would do the same thing. Also their pets would have to be bound to them through somethng else instead of the hunter/pet bond. maybe get some dark glow aboe them, so it would seem as they went corrupt of something...

But hey, who sais Blizz has to stick to the lore...? And I would love undead hunters.. I´d make Daid undead right away. *nod nod*

*rests her case*

But hey...

We've had undead priests who throw holy spells around since release of wow. If we can have this, then we can have any other fucking class/race combo there is out there. Lore is not an issue here.

eh.. who says anything about bonding with your pet?
"Attack you worthless animal, I'll feed your legs to the abominations if you don't run faster.. bahahaha"

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the next expansion for World of Warcraft. Dark and forgotten threats that have long stayed out of sight have finally arrived on our shores, unleashing a cataclysmic event upon Azeroth and now preparing more nefarius plans to take it back.

Sounds like a good way of shaking things up and making players of all levels explore the old territories. Hopefully it will also affect Northrend, seeing as it's on the same globe as EK and K.

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Level Cap
The level cap in the next expansion will be slightly lower than expected this time around; 85.

This suggests Blizzard wants more room for expansions before hitting the level 100 cap. With less leveling to do (along with the revamped leveling listed below likely to increase the speed and ease of leveling), leveling a new race remains appealing for new and existing players alike.

Leveling from 80-85 should be a much bigger deal, the idea is to make sure that gaining a level really means something and doesn't make you feel like you just have 4 more levels to go.

Makes sense, both from a game perspective and a business perspective. I guess that if this is true then there are 4 more expansions to go before we see the end result they are aiming for.

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New Classes
Cataclysm doesn't introduce any new classes to the game. Instead, Blizzard have offered more race and classes combinations to players. The Some of these have alreadly been datamined from the 3.2.2 Test Realms. The An Injured Colleague quest and it's new Night Elf counter-part help to introduce the lore for these new race and class combinations, so we can probably expect to see more of these for some of the less traditional ones.

* Human Hunter
* Orc Mage
* Night Elf Mage
* Dwarf Mage
* Blood Elf Warrior
* Dwarf Shaman
* Undead Hunter
* Tauren Paladin
* Tauren Priest
* Gnome Priest
* Troll Druid

Human Hunter - About time!
Orc Mage - Makes sense, seeing as they have warlocks
Night Elf Mage - Makes sense to a certain extent, though I'd have been more inclined for the Alliance to gain High Elves and for them to have mages.
Dwarf Mage - I'd have gone for a new class that is Dwarf specific, Rune Mage. Fits with Dwarf lore and can still have similar aspects to standard mages.
Blood Elf Warrior - About time!!!
Dwarf Shaman - Fits with the Wildhammer lore
Undead Hunter - Not too sure about this, unless the hunter kills his potential pet before reanimating it and then taming it. Either that or they start labelling rabid bears as being undead.
Tauren Paladin - NO! Just NO!
Tauren Priest - Makes some sense in the grand scheme of things, though does point away from the Earth Mother roots of the race. Possibly bring Grimtotems into the fold for this?
Gnome Priest - Well, they needed a healing class so this makes sense from a gameplay perspective. However, from a lore perspective I'd have thought that they should be able to be paladins too if they can gain power from the Holy Light
Troll Druid - Makes sense, especially if they link it in with the Taurens rekindling it and linking it to part of the Elven evolution.

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New Races
The events of the cataclysm has caused two new races to seek new allies. The Goblins for the Horde and the Worgen for the Alliance.

Goblins
Deathwing once again sought the services of the goblins, as slaves. Unable to refuse such an offer, the goblins were enslaved by him. A large group have resisted however. With their previous homes devastated by the cataclysm, they escaping to an island off the coast of The Barrens. As they strive to recover, they come across an Orc captured on an Alliance ship and rescue him. The Orc turns out to be none other than Thrall himself, and in return offers the Goblins a place within the Horde. These events are carried out in a quest line, allowing players to experience first-hand the reasons behind the Goblins' shift from neutrality.

Fits with their background, though leaves the question open about Ratchet and the rest of the Cartel's holdings. Taken over by another cartel perhaps? Or maybe they are all destroyed as part of the cataclysm.

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Worgen
The cataclysm has cracked open the Greymane Wall, finally revealing what has happened to the kingdom of Gilneas and its citizens. With the Worgen curse taken hold, they have found a partial cure, allowing thme to retain their Human minds even when transformed. Venturing forth from Gilneas and seeking help from the Alliance, they have decided to join them, to combat the new threats of Cataclysm.

Gilneas will make extensive use of the phasing system (much like the Death Knight starting area), to show what happened while the kingdom was cut off from the rest of the world and lead up to present day.

Worgens will have two forms, a Worgen form and a Human form. Players will be able to customise the look of both forms.

Makes sense that they rejoin the Alliance, so long as the story gives a decent reason for the leadership's turn around after leaving in the past. Definitely like the idea of phased levelling through the story too.

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New Content
Cataclysm will be the first expansion not to introduce a new continent, instead making use of previously unreleased zones and revamping existing ones.

Classic Azeroth Revamp
A cataclysmic event caused by Deathwing and Azshara will change the face of Azeroth as we know it. Most of the new content for Cataclysm will take the form of a revamped Azeroth, taking advantage of newer additions to WoW such as phasing and daily quests. Most of the quests and mobs in the classic zones will also be redesigned to make leveling less painful. With the revamp, a greater narritive and sense progression will be offered to players. Some zones and dungeons will change drastically to fit this, e.g.,

* The Barrens will be split into two separate zones of two different level bands.
* Azshara will become a low level (~10-20) zone.
* Some of the zones like the Thousand Needles will be flooded.
* Durotar is wrecked and apparently Orgrimmar could be destroyed. A new Orc city is rebuilt over the course of the expansion.
* Gnomeregan will be part of the expansion as well and gnomes might be able to reclaim their capital. (The last part is still unconfirmed)
* Wailing Caverns will be become a lush tropical area as a result of the druid's magic.
* The Blackrock Spire will erupt and a new version of Blackrock Mountains will be available, apparently Ragnaros will be back too.

The Barrens will be split into two separate zones of two different level bands - Makes sense, given the size of it atm and the multiple FPs

Azshara will become a low level (~10-20) zone - Why? And, if Azshara is becoming a part of the story then wouldn't making this a 70+ area make more sense, or at least separating it out a bit so that the Western half is the same level as atm and the 2 arms are made 70+?

Some of the zones like the Thousand Needles will be flooded - Like this, especially the idea of swimming across the gaps between the peaks for those sub-60

Durotar is wrecked and apparently Orgrimmar could be destroyed. A new Orc city is rebuilt over the course of the expansion - Would fit with the whole story around Garrosh taking over and pointing the Orcs in a more violent direction than under Thrall. But would the new city still be in Durotar?

Gnomeregan will be part of the expansion as well and gnomes might be able to reclaim their capital (The last part is still unconfirmed) - Like the idea of this, though would like to see them revamp the instance so that the Gnomes have regained as far as the safe zone and so you have an instance inside the capital

Wailing Caverns will be become a lush tropical area as a result of the druid's magic - Still a dungeon?

The Blackrock Spire will erupt and a new version of Blackrock Mountains will be available, apparently Ragnaros will be back too - More fun in BRM? Sounds good!!!

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In the aftermath of the cataclysm, and the new conflicts on the horizon relief efforts can be found in many zones and new open PvP areas similar to Lake Wintergrasp.

Whilst WG has been good, I'd rather they create more reasons for proper world PVP

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Flying in Azeroth
Part of the redesign of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor is the introduction of flying to the two continents, allowing access to many new areas and quicker travelling across the large continents.

As a curious person, I'm all for greater access to areas of the map!

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Classic Dungeon Revamp
Redesigning Onyxia's Lair in Patch 3.2.2 was just the first step. As most of the leveling will take place in revamped areas of Azeroth, so too will the dungeons, allowing players to use them to level from 80 to 85.

Ony's been revamped?
Certainly, some of the vanilla endgame dungeons being fiddled with would be good as they are currently only used for reminiscing. It would be far more efficient if they were upgraded a bit and altered slightly in content alongside other new instances so that they still have relevance.

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Unreleased Zones & Dungeons
With the addition of flying mounts to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and the redesign of many zones, most of the previously unreachable or incomplete zones will now be made available to players. This is where most of the new content from 80 to 85 will take place. Some of these are,

* Hyjal (present)
* Gilneas - The Worgen starting Zone.
* Uldum


It is unclear if the old Goblin locations such as Kezan and Undermine will be included in Cataclyms with the revelation of the goblins' plight, but several new islands have also been risen from the seas by the events of Cataclysm, some on the backs of giant sea turtles and whales, with the addition of several underwater zones.

What about Grim Batol?

Regarding the Undead Hunter I'd like to quote the following and go on from there.

Gurfang wrote:

Undead Hunter - Not too sure about this, unless the hunter kills his potential pet before reanimating it and then taming it. Either that or they start labelling rabid bears as being undead.

I agree. However I'ma bit reserved as to how much effort I can expect from Blizzards part at this point. I mean, if they do make the new class/race combinations more than just slapping on said new class to the respective races then sure, but I can't help but to be doubtful that they do anything more than just an in-game quest/conversation that solidifies the the change lore-wise (hurr).

Gurfang wrote:

Gnome Priest - Well, they needed a healing class so this makes sense from a gameplay perspective. However, from a lore perspective I'd have thought that they should be able to be paladins too if they can gain power from the Holy Light

Maybe they get trained by the Night Elves and thus gain power from Elune. :o

Gurfang wrote:

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Flying in Azeroth
Part of the redesign of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor is the introduction of flying to the two continents, allowing access to many new areas and quicker travelling across the large continents.

As a curious person, I'm all for greater access to areas of the map!

Agreed, I love exploring. Though... that said, exploring won't be anything special anymore. It'll just be to mount up and fly to wherever. No more intrepid expeditions into the unknown and so on (read: Indiana Jones/Lara Croft/etc.). :{

Leaf wrote:

Regarding the Undead Hunter I'd like to quote the following and go on from there.

Gurfang wrote:

Undead Hunter - Not too sure about this, unless the hunter kills his potential pet before reanimating it and then taming it. Either that or they start labelling rabid bears as being undead.

I agree. However I'ma bit reserved as to how much effort I can expect from Blizzards part at this point. I mean, if they do make the new class/race combinations more than just slapping on said new class to the respective races then sure, but I can't help but to be doubtful that they do anything more than just an in-game quest/conversation that solidifies the the change lore-wise (hurr).

Gurfang wrote:

Gnome Priest - Well, they needed a healing class so this makes sense from a gameplay perspective. However, from a lore perspective I'd have thought that they should be able to be paladins too if they can gain power from the Holy Light

Maybe they get trained by the Night Elves and thus gain power from Elune.

Gurfang wrote:

Quote :

Flying in Azeroth
Part of the redesign of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor is the introduction of flying to the two continents, allowing access to many new areas and quicker travelling across the large continents.

As a curious person, I'm all for greater access to areas of the map!

Agreed, I love exploring. Though... that said, exploring won't be anything special anymore. It'll just be to mount up and fly to wherever. No more intrepid expeditions into the unknown and so on (read: Indiana Jones/Lara Croft/etc.). :{

Re the UD hunter - Yeah, it'll probably go that way in the end. But we can hold on to hope while this is all just guess work.

Gnome priest - doesn't really fit with their lore. I'd be more inclined to believe it if they became a techno-priest, but they won't do a WAR and have racially-specific classes.

Exploration - True, that it's no longer got the funny feeling of being naughty. But just think about the new places for RP and settlements to use.

Gurfang wrote:

Re the UD hunter - Yeah, it'll probably go that way in the end. But we can hold on to hope while this is all just guess work.

Gnome priest - doesn't really fit with their lore. I'd be more inclined to believe it if they became a techno-priest, but they won't do a WAR and have racially-specific classes.

Exploration - True, that it's no longer got the funny feeling of being naughty. But just think about the new places for RP and settlements to use.

Definitely going to hope Blizz puts some effort into it, both regarding the Gnome Priests and the UD Hunters.

Yah, a lot of people will be able to RP in settlings that were only meant as eye-candy when you flew by on a flight path. Such as the cliffside farms on the Iron Forge mountain face that's pointing towards Menethil. :D

blah... I won't go and make individual comments about all that was written. But overall, I think it sounds like a lot of fun. But I'm known for trying to be overly cheerful and optimistic, when others rather spend their time pointing out flaws and what they don't like

One of my favourite points was a rebuilt Orgrimmar. That place is awfully designed as it is now. Especially from a rp point of view. A new, freshly designed town will be waay better, almost no matter what they do to it. Yay for that!


And.... and... I kinda like the idea of getting to play a goblin.

The only reason I don't like Goblins (the race not the idea of them being Horde or even playable) is that they're have clown feet that will make foot gear look like a joke and that they're ugly. Horde doesn't need races that are cute or whatever, but it would still be nice to have a small cute race in the Horde -- yeah, I know.. I just like Gnomes and want a Horde version. But the clown feet at least!!

From an RP perspective it'll be a laugh seeing the change in relationships between the Warsong Blades and the Ashen Order/Grey Wolf Tribes. As to a Goblin and a Worgan, those might be nice, shame you can't opt to choose which faction you'd join. Horde Worgan and Alliance Goblins!

i've been thinking.
a lot of people wouldnt want to have Garrosh as their boss, so maybe when he kills cairne there will be a civil war and garrosh will be a raid boss in the parts of Orgrimmar that are still there. then maybe saurfang becomes the warchief and baine accepts that and the taurens stay in the horde.

Lots of speculations. I like the idea in every single bit just because its a change.