My experience with Cataclysm has been a strange mix of satisfaction and disappointment.
Like some others, I came back to the game shortly before the world-transforming events hit. I wasn’t especially interested in revisiting my old characters (including my then-level capped 80 druid) so I cast about on making yet another alt and settled on a warrior. My previous attempt with the class was a level 19 Draenei that didn’t quite manage to get out of the starting zone. Playing the character was a slog.
By the time I had rejoined Blizzard had made some changes to the class that significantly affected (and improved) low-level play. The new warrior is now in the mid-40s and but for time to play, would be even higher. Much of the play has been duoing with RobotPants’ priest or ‘that guy that smites things in 1.5 seconds’ as I like to call him. Our biggest challenge has been trying not to outlevel content. The XP curve is now whack, as the kids say.
I also remade my dwarf hunter and got him into the low 30s. Once I got him into Arathi I began to lose interest, as the changes to the zone didn’t strike a chord and I ran into the problem of outleveling my gathering profession (herbalism), forcing me to go back to lower level zones if I wanted to keep pace with it.
I did the intro quests for the new 80+ zones on my druid but never went any further as I had no keen desire to solo with him, so I can’t comment on what the post-80 game is like.
I obviously don’t raid or run dungeons, either. That part of WoW (or any MMO) has not held a lot of interest for me.
Once Cataclysm officially rolled out, three of us in our small, somnambulist guild created Worgen characters. We quickly played through to level 13 where we found ourselves dumped in Darnassus. So much for a 1-20 experience (was that actually promised this time? I can’t recall). The experience left me feeling completely disconnected from the character, which, like all Worgen, has a face frozen in permanent snarl. Rywill has talked at length in this thread about his thoughts on the Worgen starting zone and I’m inclined to agree.
There is too much phasing and it is too easily broken. I often was able, with little effort or even intention, able to see the man behind the curtain, so to speak. The progression felt rushed, as if taking in the sights was implicitly frowned upon. Explore? No, just push forward to the next phased event and quest-with-a-gimmick (and yes, some of those quests were perfectly enjoyable). At times the experience seemed to work against being in a small group, a baffling design for a MMO in my opinion. Gilneas felt more like a studio backlot than a supposed city and in the end when you get sent to Darnassus, that’s pretty much what it amounts to.
I deleted my Worgen once I had completed the main questline associated with Gilneas. I miss the top hat a little but that’s all. Snarly-faced wolfwoman didn’t do much for me, otherwise.
I also made a goblin and the starting zone for that race pretty much takes the MMO-as-amusement park approach to world design and runs with it literally. The first five levels you spend more time racing around in vehicles and doing silly things than you do playing as your actual class. On the one hand, the noise, action and sheer over-the-top design is exhilarating. On the other, it doesn’t feel much like an MMO at all. Is that good or bad? I still can’t decide.
Once I got my character off to the jungle where the ‘real world’ begins, I stopped playing because I don’t really care for playing as a goblin. That’s a me thing and not a Blizzard thing, though.
Being able to fly through the old zones is neat.
I was mildly disappointed in how they changed the airfield above Ironforge once it was inevitably opened up. I’d have preferred just having it as a place to explore with maybe a few quests to having it be part of a dedicated quest chain.
My hunter encountered more ‘rare’ (silver) enemies in the first 20 levels of the game than I think I’d ever seen in total on all of my characters prior. Is this by design?
The highlights for me have been some nice changes to existing zones and quests and the improvements that have made my warrior a much more enjoyable character to play. Everything else has been a bit of a wash.
I wonder how well Blizzard will do with bringing in and keeping new players as well as holding onto vets. The game is so streamlined and directed now that there were a number of times where I felt I was playing the MMO equivalent of a corridor shooter. It’s not a bad thing per se, I’m just not sure it scratches the itch I have when it comes to an RPG.
