World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (of awesome)

So the latest rumours about the latest expansion have been announced. Looks like the World of Warcraft developers are taking the game pretty much a full circle back to Azeroth and back to the old kingdoms. Cue the usual whinging about lore this and arthas that, and something about paladins (either over or underpowered). Thankfully it looks like Blizzard have grown a massive set of balls and are set to tear the old world apart and remake it which is significantly awesome. Lots of angry “lorefags” are complaining because now the story isn’t what it used to be. These are the same people that probably ended up having a psyhciatric assesment after trying to kill themselves because dumbledore died in the harry potter books and now everything wasn’t the same. Incidentally anyone reading this who is angry at changes to the story, welcome to the world of storytelling, you know where things progress and advance and change. If you want something to keep you happy here is a short story by myself  “two people met and fell in love and lived happily ever after, no kids, no change of jobs, no nothing, they did exactly the same thing everyday for 74 years until they died at the same time, because if one died before the other it may have almost have made it different, they both died in their sleep, no excitement at all…”

Anyway, now that i’ve set up protection against the crying morons, the following are the details that have been released so far, with a bit of personal opinion and commentary, also be sure to check out the trailer as well before you head down to the details.

Two New Playable Races
Adventure as one of two new races–the cursed worgen with the Alliance or the resourceful goblins with the Horde. This is going to result in several million bloodelves switching back to alliance to join the newest “cool” race.

Level Cap Increased to 85
Earn new abilities, tap into new talents, and progress through the path system, a new way for players to improve characters. Looks like we are either looking at very long levels which have a true meaning rather than just tearing through more shorter levels. Either that or its 5 levels by current standards and then the alternate progression kicks in. Should be interesting.

Classic Zones Remade
Familiar zones across the original continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms have been altered forever and updated with new content, from the devastated Badlands to the broken Barrens, which has been sundered in two. Fucking  awesome addition and a real change and progression in the storyline, so far its been kinda predicatable and linear, all of a sudden all the old shit is being wrecked and basically you get the nostalgia of old zones, with new content. One of the first instances of a real world being changed by a disaster in an MMORPG.

New High-Level Zones
Explore newly opened parts of the world, including Uldum, Grim Batol, and the great Sunken City of Vashj’ir beneath the sea. Sounds like it could be interesting, there are very few details about these, but I would assume Uldum and Grim Batol are going to be dungeons, with Grim Batol a likely candidate for a raid.

More Raid Content than Ever Before
Enjoy more high-level raid content than previous expansions, with optional more challenging versions of all encounters. Im left wondering wether this is a full implementation of Normal/Heroic and Easy/Hard modes into all dungeons.

New Race and Class Combinations
Explore Azeroth as a gnome priest, blood elf warrior, or one of the other never-before-available race and class combinations. Something that has a lore fags crying a bit, but I think it will add a fresh twist for people who want to reroll by giving them a few more aesthetic options.

Guild Advancement
Progress as a guild to earn guild levels and guild achievements. This I am interested in, just curious about the rewards and if there will be possible guild rankings for guilds as well.

New PvP Zone & Rated Battlegrounds
Take on PvP objectives and daily quests on Tol Barad Island, a new Wintergrasp-like zone, and wage war in all-new rated Battlegrounds. Rated battlegrounds is definately a plus, because although the arena is good as a PvP challenge, warcraft was always about War, and 5v5 hardly constitutes to a war.

Archaeology
Master a new secondary profession to unearth valuable artifacts and earn unique rewards.  An addition everyone can enjoy as it should be available to all as a secondary. Hopefully will be intresting and unique.

Flying Mounts in Azeroth
Explore Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms like never before. Something that was previously labelled as “unlikely and technically difficult.” At least it shows blizzard were happy to listen and happy to provide.

And much, much more…