As previously reported, a new expansion is coming to World of Warcraft, and it’s going to change everything. Most of what was discussed during the panel will be lost on those not familiar with Warcraft lore, but to those that are, it’s some pretty crazy stuff.
One of the things that has been speculated on was how Blizzard was going to handle Azeroth’s destruction of zones, whether they were going to have the Cataclysm happen using the phasing techniques used in Lich King or not. Well, it appears that, while phasing will be taken up a notch, whether you buy the expansion or not, Azeroth will not be the same as it use to be.
Unfortunately, the new races, the Goblins and Worgen, do start at level 1. Their starting areas, however, are said to be even better than the Death Knight’s and will last up to level 15.
The Goblin’s racial ability is the Rocket Belt, which has many functions, including Launch Forward and Reverse Disengage. Worgen have Darkflight as their racial, which is described as a sprint ability.
New zones were also discussed during the Cataclysm panel. The Sunken City of Vashj’ir, an underwater zone, makes an appearance south of Tanaris. Blizzard assures everyone that they’ll make sure playing underwater isn’t annoying. To help with this, they show seemless switching between fighting and moving around, along with the announcement of underwater mounts. Seven other new zones are being added as well, along with all the things they’re doing with old world zones for higher level content.
One of the biggest things they’re doing with the old world is literally ripping The Barrens into two pieces, with part of it being revitalized by Naralex from the Wailing Caverns. Southshore has been taken by the Horde. Mount Hyjal is under siege, seemingly by Ragnaros. This will be a heavily phased area, and will be a leveling area for 80′s.
The guild leveling system that was shown earlier had more light shed on it. The current plan is to have 20 guild levels, with every member contributing to their advancement via raids, dailies and battleground skirmishes. High level guilds will receive perks, such as guild talent trees, cheaper repairs, less durability loss after a raid wipe, and what they describe as a “mass resurrection”, which brings back an entire guild after a raid wipe.
Next to be shown was the Archeology secondary profession. With all the destruction going on after the cataclysm, there are plenty of ruins to explore. The research you do will eventually lead you to the new type of character progression Blizzard is introducing: Path of the Titans. This is said to have multiple paths, not limited by class.
Another change to character customization is the “Mastery System,” which has been put in to reduce some of the complexity of the talent trees.
The last thing to be discussed was PVP. An island prison off the coast of Eastern Kingdoms, Tol Barad, will be a PVP zone and the major hub for dailies. Combining aspects of Wintergrasp and Quel’Danas, both factions want this area and will battle it out there, with the time in between being used for daily quests. The winners in the battles get extra daily quests. An Arathi Basin type battleground was also shown, called Battle for Gilneas. Players fight in the streets of the city, taking control of different districts. My favorite part of this portion has to be the rated battleground system. It’ll give players that only do battlegrounds for their PVP needs access to the rewards that the arena players get.
Well, this is certainly enough to get me to renew my subscription again. Blizzard always seems to pull me back in.
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