So I take it all of the new quests in the old zones are only going to be available to those who buy the expansion... or are those part of a free update too?
The whole world of Azeroth will be remodeled for everyone, that includes the new quests in the altered zones. What people who don't buy Cataclysm will miss out on, is to roll a Worgen/Gnome and get their starting quests, level beyond 80 and experience the 80+ zones.
arg! this cinematic caused a chain of events that caused me to want to play again. and it just so happens that my account got hacked like TWO DAYS AGO!! so obnoxious, oh well, it forced me to overhaul my security and such, so it was probably a good thing, but now i have to wait like a week for them to unlock my account that is lame
I just made myself a trial account (hoping that it would let me log onto my lvl 80, but noo, had to create a new char and couldn't talk or whisper to anyone...), and two days later I got a "Account has been locked due to suspicious activities", I still have no idea how a keylogger could have gotten onto my comouter, and all kinds of scans show nothing. Starting to wonder if it was simply a fake hack from Blizzards side to force us to buy the authenticator.
They make enough money, authenticators are like 3 bucks (hardly their biggest draw) and hackers are better than ever these days. Blizzard would also stand to lose, well, everything if it was proven that they did anything like this. Conspiracies are sometimes convenient outlets for anger against a particular injustice, but the facts and lack of evidence make it a bit mroe mundane.
Yeah I know, I'm not really suggesting it, but it does seem odd that the number of times I have heard accounts being compromised has skyrocketed in the latest year.
Then you're lucky, and at this point possibly in the minority. I'd suggest getting an authenticator. They're cheap, and it really is happening to a distressing number of people.
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Bloody hell, would love to give this game another go, just don't know if I got time for it, I mean obviously that is a poor excuse to begin with, but the thing is (and this is true for my part) that for me to enjoy wow I need to compete, I need to have a great arena team, and a absolutly outstanding BG team that I can count on whenever I am online. I had that once, but I also played 5-6 hours each day maybe more sometimes.
That's what it took to be amoung the best in the battlegroup, I just can't sit there being a scrub and getting in the good teams in BG's and arena, then it's no fun. So I would hope that the game would not be so time demanding as it was when Cataclysm comes out...
WHat are your thoughts?
Dose wow still requiere you to sit there all day to be any good or what?
Those are a bit too subjective to answer definitively. Given proper research and prep, I think most would say you can be high level without that level of time commitment. But at the same time, you can still spend that much time on it, so it might come down to your willingness to curb your play time.
Rated BG's in Cata promise a slight de-emphasis on arena, but also a greater emphasis on coordinating BG's efficiently, and may also mean more people will be able to obtain competitive arena gear. So PvP won't be getting any easier.
From a recent interview with Ghostcrawler on Cataclysm changes and theory:
TE: Talking about storytelling in a multiplayer game. You built these characters, you built these storylines. While you have structure, they're fairly - they're more like general guidelines. Do you think that encouraging players to follow this storyline rather than making it mandatory - what I am thinking of is The Old Republic. It's heavily voiced, there are dialogue options, all decided ahead of time. Where's the impact of your character? How does your character impact a story that has to be pre-told, that is in a multiplayer context?
GS: I think the quest designers have gotten really, really clever in doing that. In the new Undead leveling experience in Silverpine, you're still really low level but Sylvanas has selected you - you're obviously someone that's going to do a lot in life (or death, or whatever). She takes you under her wing, and you're running missions for her and fighting alongside her at points and it's a pretty epic experience.
If you play WoW, you understand why that's a big deal, and even if you haven't played WoW, she's a pretty charismatic character and so it's cool to feel important at such a low level. The quest designers have gotten really good at making you feel heroic at low levels - and it's not just about killing boars, and it's not about just doing something important, even then.
TE: So many games start you off killing boars. On the other hand, there's the argument that so many people want to start off like they're living in a realistic fantasy world where sometimes you have to kill boars. Do you think that it's more important to provide a heroic experience or to provide a fleshed out, believable fantasy world?
GS: I think that heroic experience is more important. Even at low level. One of the worst things that can happen in MMOs is that you're playing it and you're not having fun and your friend is like "Oh, it will get better in about 36 hours." Dude, I do not want to play this game for 36 hours to find the fun, it needs to be fun immediately. So, the human start zone now in Northshire Abbey has minions of Deathwing coming in and - they're not Twilight Dragons, but they're orcs - and you feel right away like you're involved in the conflict. You're not just tending the farm.
...
So they're aware of more than just endgame and new content, which is refreshing. This is/was a big gripe with both WoW and MMOs in general. I doubt this fixes it entirely, but it's something.
I have to say the Shattering has been extremely impressive. The scope of the changes to the old world is much much larger than I initially expected. I started leveling a Paladin the day the Shattering took place and was blown away with the huge jump in quality of some of the zones.
For instance, Silverpine Forest used to be a joke, no one leveled there, there were few quests there and they were very generic and boring, now with the Shattering the zone is one of the best I've experienced, the storyline in the zone is great and it flows perfectly. Same goes for Hillsbrad, feels almost completely new now. The layout of the zone is the same but the changes are massive, Southshore is still where Southshore always was, but the horde took it over. Seeing this hit me pretty hard, as I remember back when the game first released South Shore vs Tarren Mill was the main area for PVP, and now it's gone.
And it's like this is almost every zone. And it's not just change for the sake of it, everything is so vastly improved that it's mindblowing that all of this was actually done for free, you don't even need to buy cataclysm, it's just the normal world now.
Anyways, it's impressive stuff. Now is the time to level a new character.
The only downside is that leveling up is almost too fast now. I started this paladin a few days ago and he's already level 46, and this is with me taking my time and reading every single quest, not even trying for efficiency. You will now be able to get to 60 without even visiting most of the zones. It's good that it's efficient now, but i feel as if I'm missing most of the world now. The upside is that it will make leveling multiple characters a lot of fun, as you could probably level 2 characters and never have them visit the same zones to level in up until 60.
The other downside is that now the quality between Azeroth and Outland has flipped. Where as before people leveled through Azeroth and were excited to get to Outland because it was such a large improvement, now people will probably feel let down when they get to outland, as the old world is now vastly superior in every single way.
Also problematic for people who are interested in the plotting of the game is that the old world now takes place post Lich King; he gets referenced quite a bit as being dead and gone. But Northrend still takes place Pre Lich King so it will be an odd transition from "Arthas is dead" in the old world to NPC's in Northrend talking about Arthas attacking their village, and Arthas doing this and that.
I really can't say enough about it though, the storylines in the quests are great now. Leveling is a blast and supremely satisfying.
huh...didn't think about that, that really would be strange, "arthas is dead...arthas is dead...LET'S GO KILL ARTHAS!" that is a problem as far as linear lore goes, but i can't think of a solution...unless they want to get rid of the last expansion and make it completely different, which a LOT of people would actually like, but most would be rather upset about i would think. that started as just a joke as a solution, but they really could have done it, but im glad they didn't, that really would be lame, i mean i missed most of the content from wotlk, as i stopped playing just after downing kealthusad and nothing more (as far as raids go)
as for the rest, im glad . I managed to take a walk through stormwind and watch all the new openings to the races before my prepaid time ran out, and im really impressed with how much they put into it, and it sounds like that is just a fraction of what they did. i can't wait to get cataclysm, and track down deathwing and get killed by him
The change to old world content was a calculated one. Blizzard is much better at content generation than they were at launch, which is the last time many of these zones were touched. So yeah, the whole game is much more polished now, with emphasis being placed on starting zones.
Alas, I hate alts and don't have time for them. I will be busy crushing 80-85 soon on my hunter, not leveling worgens and such. I do have plans to bring the DK to 85 to have the trio of roles (hunter for dps, priest for heals, dk for tank...just missing the tank atm), but I can't be bothered to level a brand new toon, changes or not.
As for the time involved, it is still 85 levels, and 70-85 will remain a grind (though I hope something is or will be done about the leveling morass between about 40-60, since Outlands lvling remains a lot of fun and fairly quick).
Cata really needs to drop, though. I'm bored as **** right now.
so, is there a lot of phasing now with the beginning quests? like, when you accomplish something that a quest is supposed to, does it appear to have been accomplished?
40-60 is great now, there is no downtime, it's just as fast as any level range now, and well faster and more fluid than Outlands leveling by far.
Also, leveling an alt is hardly time consuming now. You could get to 60 in under 30 hours if you wanted to. I do know they lowered the amount of exp needed to level between 70-80, so that should help.
KMC Community Forums
Oct 21st, 2010 05:32 PM
that is lame
. I managed to take a walk through stormwind and watch all the new openings to the races before my prepaid time ran out, and im really impressed with how much they put into it, and it sounds like that is just a fraction of what they did. i can't wait to get cataclysm, and track down deathwing and get killed by him 
