World of Warcraft: Shattering

[CaptainChewbacca]

So today's the day. Deathwing is waking up, the world will be laid waste, and dwarves will gain the power to cast arcane spells for probably the first time in a mainstream fantasy work.

Who's going to be checking their servers every 20 minutes? Cuz I know I am.

Bottom line:

1. All the new race/class options are now available EXCEPT the two new races, and race changes are being immediately allowed.
2. The world map is changing and new quests for levels 1-70 are appearing in the old world.
3. The portals in dalaran and shattrath are disappearing. Mages are going to be rich.
4. Apparently you can now buy faction rep tabards like you can for northrend dungeons.

No new races, no new archaeology, and no 'cataclysm' quests or zones are accessible yet. Also no flying in vanilla territories.

Interestingly, there's supposedly a year of game time between the shattering and the events of cataclysm.

[DarkSilver]

this is almost enough to make me want to restart my account.

Almost....

sounds interesting though, i look forward to hearing the stories that come out of this little event.

[Molyneux]

So today's the day. Deathwing is waking up, the world will be laid waste, and dwarves will gain the power to cast arcane spells for probably the first time in a mainstream fantasy work.

Who's going to be checking their servers every 20 minutes? Cuz I know I am.

Bottom line:

1. All the new race/class options are now available EXCEPT the two new races, and race changes are being immediately allowed.
2. The world map is changing and new quests for levels 1-70 are appearing in the old world.
3. The portals in dalaran and shattrath are disappearing. Mages are going to be rich.
4. Apparently you can now buy faction rep tabards like you can for northrend dungeons.

No new races, no new archaeology, and no 'cataclysm' quests or zones are accessible yet. Also no flying in vanilla territories.

Interestingly, there's supposedly a year of game time between the shattering and the events of cataclysm.

Damn. New race/class options are live? Time for me to roll a troll druid!

[Broomstick]

Poo!

Since my old computer blew up I haven't been able to get into WoW. THIS computer can handle message boards, but can't handle WoW at all. I am so miffed!

I am hoping to get something WoW-compatible before Dec 7, but it's out of my hands.

[White Haven]

On one hand, yay shattering. On the other hand, what inbred idiot thought it was a good idea to take down the Dalaran portals twl weeks before flying mounts are allowed in the old world? The only reason they weren't was that there were areas of the old world that were unused and unmodelled, which was half of the point of Cataclysm, so...why not flight? It's a throwback to the bad old days of vanilla with regards to getting around.

Ah well, at least I have Crusader Aura.

[Highlord Laan]

On one hand, yay shattering. On the other hand, what inbred idiot thought it was a good idea to take down the Dalaran portals twl weeks before flying mounts are allowed in the old world? The only reason they weren't was that there were areas of the old world that were unused and unmodelled, which was half of the point of Cataclysm, so...why not flight? It's a throwback to the bad old days of vanilla with regards to getting around.

Ah well, at least I have Crusader Aura.

My Shaman is going to fucking weep. On the plus side, my DK is Frost specced (Pale Horde) and I intend to start a new character to see everything fresh, so the pain of slow travel won't be quite as bad.

For my friend though, she doesn't care. "I'm a Mage. I'll make a killing being a raid taxi."

[Darksider]

I have a serious question about this expansion.

How much does it alter the ability to enjoy pre-cataclysm content? I like the Warcraft storyline and universe, I've been a fan of the series ever since I played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans on a friends computer back in grade school. I've always wanted to sign up for WOW and complete the quest storylines that finish out the stories of Illidan and Arthas, but now with the whole game changing it seems like I might not be able to do that.

I guess what i'm saying is that it seems like i've waited too long to play WoW and now it seems like there's no point in it. Everything i've learned tells me that the battles for Illidan and Arthas can't be solo'ed, and who's going to want to group together to do those quest chains now that cataclysm is out?

[Highlord Laan]

I have a serious question about this expansion.

How much does it alter the ability to enjoy pre-cataclysm content? I like the Warcraft storyline and universe, I've been a fan of the series ever since I played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans on a friends computer back in grade school. I've always wanted to sign up for WOW and complete the quest storylines that finish out the stories of Illidan and Arthas, but now with the whole game changing it seems like I might not be able to do that.

I guess what i'm saying is that it seems like i've waited too long to play WoW and now it seems like there's no point in it. Everything i've learned tells me that the battles for Illidan and Arthas can't be solo'ed, and who's going to want to group together to do those quest chains now that cataclysm is out?

Old World Azeroth is dead. Old content in the base game ares is no longer accessible, except (maybe) through the Cavern of Time, and even then it's only in a very limited fashion.

Illidan is hardly ever seen anymore by anyone as he's old-content raiding, but he's still there. Aside from a minute number of lore updates (the biggest being Blizzard finally officially kicking Draenei to the curb to appease screeching feces-throwers on the forums) Outland is still in one piece, and must be played in to at least level 68, as 60-70 content should still be Outland-specific.

Northrend will still see plenty of players, but good luck getting anyone to group up for Arthas, or Icecrown in general for that matter.

[Kuja]

BITCH! DEATHWING COMIN UP THE HELL RIGHT NOW! SHOOT IM IN THE HEAD! SHOOT IM!!!!

GRAB THE SHOTGUN! YOU DON'T NEED TO LOAD IT WE DID THAT SHIT FOR YOU!!!

WHAT ARE YOU PRESSIN SELECT FOR? YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO MAKE A PROFILE!

BITCH DEATHWING'S IN THE ROOM! HIS AXE IS ON FIRE! HE KILLED YOUR PARENTS!!

SHOOT IM IN THE HEAD! SHOOT IM IN THE HEAD!!!

BITCH THIS AIN'T A CUTSCENE PRESS A! PRESS A!! YOU DON'T GOT TIME TO SMOKE A BOWL YOU'RE STILL PLAYING!!

JUMP, GYPSY! C'MON JUMP!

THE KING'S DAUGHTER BEEN KIDNAPPED! IT'S UP TO US!

*phootphootphootphoot of a dozen hunter tranquilizing shots*

Huurrr dragon... *thump*

[White Haven]

Kuja, you are a crazy fucker, you know that?

Hmm, what'd they do to the Draenei? I didn't notice anything... ?

[Kuja]

Server maintenance has been extended to 5:00 PST. Argh.

I guess what i'm saying is that it seems like i've waited too long to play WoW and now it seems like there's no point in it. Everything i've learned tells me that the battles for Illidan and Arthas can't be solo'ed, and who's going to want to group together to do those quest chains now that cataclysm is out?

On my server, at least, there's a fairly strong community of raid groups who go back and do old content, up to and including Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau, the last two raids of the BC era. With the massive shot in the arm we're going to get with Cataclysm gear, I won't be surprised at all when people start running the Wrath-era raids as well when they have free time.

[Kuja]

Kuja, you are a crazy fucker, you know that?

Hmm, what'd they do to the Draenei? I didn't notice anything... ?

That's exactly the point. They haven't done anything with the draenei at all since BC. And unfortunately, it looks like worgen are largely going to go the same way.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Really nothing is happening to the Draeni. Apparently not even DEATHWING will go to the Exodar.

Edit: There will still be people doing icecrown, if for no other reason than raiders will still want to get shadowmourne.

[Civil War Man]

The Draenei apparently do play a larger role in Cataclysm, in that they actually have a presence in several zones. Velen supposedly makes appearances in Swamp of Sorrows.

I did find his contribution to the pre-Shattering event to be funny, though. All the Alliance faction leaders are discussing the earthquakes, and Velen basically goes "Jesus Christ it's a lion the apocalypse! Get in the truck spaceship!"

As for entire factions of the game basically disappearing, the Ebon Blade is more jarring. The Draenei had a fairly inconsistent presence from the beginning of BC, basically only showing up with the Aldor and occasionally dealing with the Broken (as opposed to Blood Elves being everywhere). Meanwhile, the Ebon Blade were showing up almost everywhere in Northrend, but after the Shattering the only Death Knights that seem to make an appearance at all are Thassarian and Koltira, and that's just one quest chain that takes place in a single zone.

[Broomstick]

Northrend will still see plenty of players, but good luck getting anyone to group up for Arthas, or Icecrown in general for that matter.

Oh, please - there are entire guilds devoted just to vanilla raiding. Even among ones not devoted to it, they often hold a "vanilla night" or a "BC night" every so often. (Mine does "old content" raids twice a month, for example) If you really want play specific content it is certainly possible (outside of one or two items) to do so. It may take a little effort, but so what? I expect we'll start having a "Wrath night" as well now.

The biggest obstacle to fighting Illiden is that he wasn't seen much during BC, despite being a big bad guy. For Wrath, though, Arthas keeps popping up all over. You can't avoid him. And one questline that has always been soloable features a battle between Illiden and Arthas

[Steve]

Hrm, I might activate those seven free days after all....

[Broomstick]

You might want to wait until a few days past December 7 - both new major patches (today) and new expansions may be buggy for a couple days. Wouldn't want to lose time to server bugs.

[Ghost Rider]

Well, now I will have millions of Gold. Ah, the glory of the auction house and finding what will be the biggest thing come raiding or even what is the hit while leveling.

Who the hell would go back to Northrend raiding?

For KT back when he was hard? Nearly no pickup groups because you needed 40 people not to fuck up on one of the longest raids. In late TBC, sure...because the one of a kind sword was awesome, artifact staff not so much. Most never saw AQ, let alone beyond that.

For Sunwell? When you got mid ranged Wrath gear, sure. Depending on the gear, a few top rated did it for 1-3-5 people after the nerf in TBC. At late game Wrath we did it solely for people who never made their character. Because even brain dead gerbils could defeat M'Uru with Ulduar gear, but most of guilds never made one step into Sunwell.

For Arthas? We had pick-up groups for Arthas at least 5-6 months ago, and a good many succeeding. Hell, I didn't know of a server that didn't. Heroic? Not so much because heroic Arthas would rape any group since it requires people not to drool.

For achievements? Sure, depending on the skill of the people. With what they are showing as baseline epics? It'll be easier, but drooling retards are still not going to do things like getting out of Sindragosa's LoS for the achievement.

[Minischoles]

I'm already prepared. 25 daily quests sitting in my quest logs, over 100 hours of flasks and food buffs, my bags are completely clear apart from my 2 sets (balance and resto). I know the new zones practically off by heart, and i've already got 310% flying. Last year I was hampered by the release date since I had essays and shit due in the same week, but this time i've got nothing for well over a month.

Money wise i'm already gold capped on 2 characters, but I suppose the new money will be quite nice. My druid is an elixir specced alchemist and an enchanter, so the early raiding content is when I really make my money, when everyone is paying through the nose for enchants and flasks to go for server firsts. Only problem is, my grinding character is a little behind on when it'll get leveled.

I'm with GR on Northrend raiding, who the hell would go back there? it's not going to be like Sunwell, where after Ulduar you could steam through it with like 10-15 people and not care about any mechanics.
Any T7 content is pointless, people might go back to Ulduar for the mount - but with such a low drop chance, you're clearing an entire dungeon for a very low % drop rate. It's not like going and killing Kael for Ashes. ToTC, people avoided that as soon as they fucking could.
ICC is still going to be a massive time investment, and you won't be overpowering it until you get some good gear. And even then, Arthas will still wipe a group that can't handle infests or shadow traps. And again, the mount is such a low drop chance, what would be the point?

[Broomstick]

...or some of us just want to go back to look at the pretty scenery, complete of a certain category of achievement, or yeah, just hang out with our friends for a bit.

Don't let it shock you too much, but my guild recently went back and did AQ and Molten Core. Just for the hell of it. Because some of us haven't forgotten how to have fun without making it a hellish grind. If going back to old content once in awhile isn't your cup of tea so bit, but don't knock the twisted perverts who find it enjoyable. To each their own.

At a certain point some folks who are level capped but not crazy-ass raiders will go back to see the content they didn't get to before. I didn't get to the end raids of vanilla until after the first expansion simply because I hadn't had time to reach it before BC came out. I did want to see it, so I found a group that was going there and joined them. No big deal.

[Ghost Rider]

...or some of us just want to go back to look at the pretty scenery, complete of a certain category of achievement, or yeah, just hang out with our friends for a bit.

I'll cover the achievements later. But for scenery? What scenery?

Ulduar was it for anything unique. And that is when you entered Ulduar proper, since the outside wasn't that much change in mob look or scenery.

One was either something you already saw OR more green to the average undead Northrend area...with green rivers!

Or the same dungeon except with a floor shattering ICE CAVE!!!!!

Or the finale of Ice Tunnel/Green+Orange Tubes/Balcony/Red glowy area with BEs!!! And for the finale? A flat ice cap area. As much as I loved how much smack Arthas talked, his zone was by far one of the shitter areas in terms of design. Compare it to Sunwell. Oh, but had airships going at it...which is fun that first time.

Seriously, if your guild wants to go back to that, it's easier to fly to other parts of Northrend or go through a five minute dungeon run. If it's for the challenge? Then aside from Professor Putricide on Heroic and Arthas on self same...you can have your family pet roll his/her face on keyboard. It'll have the same feel but less boring for you.

Don't let it shock you too much, but my guild recently went back and did AQ and Molten Core. Just for the hell of it. Because some of us haven't forgotten how to have fun without making it a hellish grind. If going back to old content once in awhile isn't your cup of tea so bit, but don't knock the twisted perverts who find it enjoyable. To each their own.

My guild did the same for the same reason. And stuff your attitude. Northrend's raid needs at the last 5-6 months were a joke. The reason most never saw the older stuff when relevant was because the grind was fucking absurd. It required some insane hoops to jump through to get geared to attempt most of it

At a certain point some folks who are level capped but not crazy-ass raiders will go back to see the content they didn't get to before. I didn't get to the end raids of vanilla until after the first expansion simply because I hadn't had time to reach it before BC came out. I did want to see it, so I found a group that was going there and joined them. No big deal.

Yes, and again...Northrend isn't even anywhere near the difficulty. In fact most people did pug a great deal because aside from Heroic modes(which were for people who wanted the challenge) and Yoggy a rolling cat could do a lot of it nowadays.

As for achievements? Unless you're masochistic, gear won't help. Fuck for half the achievements I could give unlimited health/mana pools and guilds still couldn't get them since a great deal requires absurd levels of team coordination and deep knowledge of said the fights. So it becomes an issue of wasting time, learning how the fight works so you can do the coordination battles or compensating said fight because now you kill the adds too quickly for the achievements.

Honestly that sounds worse then doing them when they came out. At least then, one just had to learn said fight.

[Ghost Rider]

I'm already prepared. 25 daily quests sitting in my quest logs, over 100 hours of flasks and food buffs, my bags are completely clear apart from my 2 sets (balance and resto). I know the new zones practically off by heart, and i've already got 310% flying. Last year I was hampered by the release date since I had essays and shit due in the same week, but this time i've got nothing for well over a month.

Hell, the only thing I've seen to do is see if you can max gold on how many alts.

Money wise i'm already gold capped on 2 characters, but I suppose the new money will be quite nice
My druid is an elixir specced alchemist and an enchanter, so the early raiding content is when I really make my money, when everyone is paying through the nose for enchants and flasks to go for server firsts. Only problem is, my grinding character is a little behind on when it'll get leveled.

Oh early raiding is easily the best time. Save all the materials need and use the bare minimum. Exploit parts of the AH of even older stuff that people go for (I store blacksmithing mats because I know when the new base level epic comes out...yes the people will freak, want their own BS and then realize they don't want to hunt for Outland/Northrend stuff).

There is so much opportunity when raiding starts for massive money. To be honest, I love the scrolls for enchants. No longer waiting for my customers, just slap onto the AH, decent price and watch the people buy.

I'm with GR on Northrend raiding, who the hell would go back there? it's not going to be like Sunwell, where after Ulduar you could steam through it with like 10-15 people and not care about any mechanics.
Any T7 content is pointless, people might go back to Ulduar for the mount - but with such a low drop chance, you're clearing an entire dungeon for a very low % drop rate. It's not like going and killing Kael for Ashes. ToTC, people avoided that as soon as they fucking could.
ICC is still going to be a massive time investment, and you won't be overpowering it until you get some good gear. And even then, Arthas will still wipe a group that can't handle infests or shadow traps. And again, the mount is such a low drop chance, what would be the point?

What is worse is the needs for said mounts.

One is from Zero helper Yogg, which for an unprepared group with wipe and wipe and wipe and wipe and cause general frustration. It's not killing in phase 3(which is fun with even the new tank pardigm) but getting to it. Insanity will make most guilds scream when they realize...they cannot get rid of it.

The other is from Heroic Arthas. Ah, Infest and Shadow Traps...let alone the rest. Even 200K+ HP won't help when that thing is more then 75% of the field and people are dropping off into the abyss.

[Broomstick]

Seriously, if your guild wants to go back to that, it's easier to fly to other parts of Northrend or go through a five minute dungeon run. If it's for the challenge? Then aside from Professor Putricide on Heroic and Arthas on self same...you can have your family pet roll his/her face on keyboard. It'll have the same feel but less boring for you.

Why does it piss you off that some people enjoy the game more than you do? I really do not understand your attitude.

My guild did the same for the same reason. And stuff your attitude. Northrend's raid needs at the last 5-6 months were a joke. The reason most never saw the older stuff when relevant was because the grind was fucking absurd. It required some insane hoops to jump through to get geared to attempt most of it

And, whether you believe it or not, for the casual player - you know, people who don't have hours every day to devote to the game - they DO want to see some of the end game raid content, but it takes them much longer to get there than it does you. For them, Wrath's endgame requires "some insane hoops to jump through to get geared to attempt most of it". I realize it offends some of the old-time 8-12 hour a day "Wow is my life/job" people to think that someone with an actual life gets to see the inside of the precious, precious endgame as SOME point, but that's what keeps selling the game to people who aren't obsessed with the game.

At a certain point some folks who are level capped but not crazy-ass raiders will go back to see the content they didn't get to before. I didn't get to the end raids of vanilla until after the first expansion simply because I hadn't had time to reach it before BC came out. I did want to see it, so I found a group that was going there and joined them. No big deal.

Yes, and again...Northrend isn't even anywhere near the difficulty. In fact most people did pug a great deal because aside from Heroic modes(which were for people who wanted the challenge) and Yoggy a rolling cat could do a lot of it nowadays.

Which seems to be contradicted by some of the Epic Fail I witnessed and had to endure in pick-up groups.

Honestly that sounds worse then doing them when they came out. At least then, one just had to learn said fight.

Again, why does it bother you that some people enjoy parts of the game you don't?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Servers are up. Stormwind looks amazing, and I'm tooling around the world grinding Gilneas rep and picking up new flight paths.

[Steve]

You might want to wait until a few days past December 7 - both new major patches (today) and new expansions may be buggy for a couple days. Wouldn't want to lose time to server bugs.

Sadly, it'll expire on December 1st. So I have to sign up for it by next Tuesday.