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World of Warcraft: Questioning Cataclysm: A Look at Mount Hyjal
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In this week's World of Warcraft: Cataclysm preview, MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller takes a look at the Mount Hyjal zone. Mount Hyjal is probably the area that most level 80s will want to head to on the expansion's release. Find out what Garrett discovered about Mount Hyjal in his Cataclysm preview.
So in continuing previews of Cataclysm, we wanted to take a look at Mt. Hyjal. The zone really is the first place that many level 80s will venture to when the expansion opens. I transferred by shaman over to have a look around the zone and learned that for all of the new features coming with Cataclysm, WoW remains WoW as we have known it for the last six years.
Check out the Mount Hyjal zone preview.
Comments
I think a major reason for the "greens are better than your old epics" is that new players, levelling up, will not stop and do multiple raids to get the purple gear to do the first zone in Outland, repeat to do the first zone in Northrend, etc. They will do a few dungeons here and there, maybe get some blues and purples, but will mostly just level past the vast bulk of previous "max level" content, and arrive at Cataclysm's level 80 zones with a mix of items, all "good enough" to let them fight the level 80 content on its own terms and start earning the properly-scaled items. If the "new" green items are inferior to last expansion's raid items, some players may feel "forced" to go back and raid for the "right" gear. This way, with each expansion, players who exhausted all the old top tier content and players who just levelled into the "new" content are on an equal footing, both when it comes to PUGs and PVP. If last-expansion purples were better than new expansion greens, you'd have a hard time finding a group if you hadn't done the prior content to its conclusion.
well I mean are we talking level 264 epics or 200 epics, I couls see greens being item level 220 or so, but an item level 285 green just does kinda suck, I think the epics should last you at least till after the first zone, being replaced with blues, then again, there are only five levels this expansion.
I'm not saying OMG I'm quitting cause of this, just saying, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Vlt-lpVOY
My Thoughts on Content Locust
I don't mind the idea of the greens being that good in comparison to the raiding gear. You eventually were going to have to replace it, why not sooner than later. What lizard wrote makes sense as well, what about the people who want to level from 1-85 without having to stop and raid old raids just to be able to do the newer areas. I did raid, and I have a decent gear score, and I really don't mind that my gear is getting replaced. Everyone looks the same now for each class, and the greens will just change that up a little until the 85 raiding.
The resetting of raid gear is the only good thing about raising the level cap.
When they started raising it, I knew the game was just going to go downhill.
And it did.
Not a fan of treadmills.
That's really not a very glowing review. "More of the same", "less exploration and more handholding", "obvious reset button". The only good things you had to say were the gankings... and seeing Geddon around. And I'm assuming that if any of the old MC bosses are killable, it's probably in solo quests. Oh yeah... that'll satisfy the nostalgia.
I haven't looked back since quitting more than a year ago. Cataclysm won't change that.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
I dunno why you guys set yourselves up for dissappointment like this. With the recent track record of the way blizzard keeps their mules bringing in more cash. This should not be a surprise at all, obviousely they are gonna make your gear useless from the start or on par with the lowbie gear. It's a double edge sword. On one side it helps people who didn't have the time to get that epic gear to catch up only to fall behind again when they reach max level while the players who spend their 8 hours a day have to continue the trend to get this gear so they can do it all over again....
WoW is a good game but ffs I don't understand why people play it. I played the game during vanilla and after BC launched I dropped the game like the bad habbit that it is. I'm currently playing casually other games and dealing with life, it's way more rewarding to have fun in my opinion then to sit their like others said on this "treadmill" that Blizzard is setting up over and over and over again.
I think MMORPGs is a genre that is doomed to repeat itself untill the consumers break the mold and show with their money what they want. Which is obviousely not happening because the consumers have the attention span of a squirrel and the attitude of a 7 year old denied of candy.
But I guess to each man his own. Just hope that 10 or 20 years down the road when you look back at when you were in your prime and looked at yourself spending god awfull amounts of time on this game, that you have no regrets. That you can tell your grand kids of this game and not feel like the biggest tool worse then the ones on MTV.
but hey this shouldn't come as a big surprise Chilton managed t o kill Ultima Online. Now this thing will be the first expansion made by Chilton and Ghostcrawler just look at the heavy PVP focus.
Its sad cause WoW used to be really nice at the highend game.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
The Dude!
/bows
Jeff Bridges rules.
On topic, though...
I wonder if the reviewer got to see anything about a cave entrance that looks strikingly similar to the one for Onyxia's Lair. I was checking out the Mt Hyjaal area in the WoW Map viewer, and noticed that Onyxia's Lair seemed to be located off that area. It's down at the end of a deep ravine.
Was curious if that cave is still there, if it had been turned into something else, or perhaps removed completely.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I had to check.. sure enough, I am on the MMORPG.com forums, the only place in the universe games like AOC and Warhammer get rated higher than WOW.
A couple points
1. WOW has 11.5 million subscribers - Do not expect them to EVER change their basic gameplay. When a game is folding and closing servers (ie War and AOC), then you can expect them to change gameplay drastically. Why would a game that is going strong suddenly do a major and drastic change. Cata is going to sell 4 million copies the first 24 hours it is released, similar to WotLK. You really expect Blizzard to mess with the formula that got them there?
2. World pvp - Are you kidding.. if you read these forums, you would think world pvp doesn't exist. And now the reviewer is compaining about getting 'ganked' by someone who is 2 levels higher than him. This is exactly what pvp players want. They want pvp to happen in zones that are appropriate for their level. Imagine that, people who are doing quests in a zone are actually fighting with people from the opposite faction doing the same quests. Praise the old Gods, world pvp is back!! And not the crap where lvl 60 characters are overrunning a lvl 20 zone (southshore).
3. Gear reset - This has always been debatable. It comes down to two choices. Do you want players to level for 3 weeks and every time they turn in a quest, they never even have to look at the quest rewards because nothing will be an upgrade? Or do you want players to upgrade their gear right away? My understanding is that the best gear in the game right now will last you until level 83, or you get blues from running non-heroic instances. I am not sure the ilevel of the reviewer (probably 200), but most players have ilvl 232 gear at least, which won't be replaced in the first zones. ( Also to point out, My Hyjal and Vash are both 'starter' zones in Cata - they are the same level similar to Borean and Howling in WotLK).
I think Blizzard did it right with the gear upgrades. People with raid gear will have an advantage while leveling through the entry zones, but they will also have to actually check the quest rewards, because there is a chance there could be an upgrade. By the second zone, there will be sporadic upgrades and a lot of 'maybes' because of the mastery stat. As a raider with ilvl 250+ gear, I am so happy that I don't have to level all the way to 85 without getting an gear upgrades or without being able to be excited about quest rewards.
So they name it Cataclysm and say everything changes, but the more I read about it the more it looks like it's going to be a lot more of the same.
Every now and again I start to feel a little nostolgia for this game, then I start looking at the WoW forums and into addons and what they make you do for gear these days and it all comes flooding back in why I stopped in the first place and that stops me from going back.
I'm still on the fence whether or not I'll bother trying it this time around and if it's really going to be a lot more of the same odds are good I'll pass.
If for a month every post on this site ended with a dude highlight vid there will still be plenty to left to watch. Bravo to you sir and +1.
I don't know what's everyone so worked up about. The epix u got will probably take you to at least half way to lvl 85. By that time you should be getting into dungeons and getting blues, which will take you to 85, when you will start doing raids again. Is it so hard to follow?
Would you prefer that you missed all the really cool dungeons and skipped right to the raids? Is that what people want?
Everything you said only makes me glad that I am no longer playing this game. It is heartbreaking to see this happen to the world.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
WTH are you talking about?!? Don't get your fanboi underoos in a bunch.
1. The number of subscribers does not equal good gaming decisions.
2. The reviewer was not complaining. He says a couple time that he accepts his choice of server types and wouldn't change it. Just that he forgot what it was like. Additionally, I wouldn't say "world pvp is back". It will be there only while leveling, and then it's back to group finder, insta-porting to dungeons, and just plain never leaving the safe cities. World pvp remains dead.
3. In WOTLK, my lvl 70 arena gear didn't need replacing till about level 74. This seemed right to me. If the raid gear is immediately trumped by lvl 80 greens, that is a waste. Those with great current raid gear should see the benefit of it being stronger than the new greens. Your conclusion paragraph I agree with. I would just like some level of confirmation that this is actually the case.
i fully support " gear reset" in all mmorpg when an xpac comes out.it encourages new blood and means you can roll alts and not worry about been too under geared.raiders anyhow will change their gear very soon .EQ2 does not really do this meaning the best quest items you get are not even close to old raid gear 10 levels lower.maybe this is why eq2 has much less players trying out the game.
Time gnomes... 11 expansions later and 100 more levels added... it just continues with "nothing" new >.<
little known fact. a hyjal map has always been in the files on your machine.
we used to enter it by climbing over mountains, but later could only view it with 3rd party software. emerald dream is there, too.
I'm sure there are still youtube videos of it.
More like widely known >_>
Since there are only 5 levels in this expansion and several stats are being completely removed from gear, a hard-reset (your purps are teh sukk nao) was very much in order.
5 levels it approximately 2-3 days game time, cube pendant, there may be less even
1. Because people don't get bored on same old? Haha, ever heard fashion? People get bored stuff very fast. I think major point why so many casual is still playing is socials but that won't last.
2. That's not world PvP, that's GANKING. There won't be any world pvp like vanilla since everyone will quickly lvl up max go with raiding and BGs. Fact that Blizzard made lvling even faster and people are moving zone to zone on increasing speed will make it even less possible. Also since WoW end game is endless gear hogging fest(nothing wrong with it atleast you have goal unlike in some games) that world PvP has never really supported aka what's a point wasting time killing horde/alliance here when you can do it in BG.
It's easy to say that Catalysm will sell millions but I hope it won't. It's time to move on, try something else and perhaps do some innovation. I will be wrong.
With this change they shoulda gone back to level 60 since there is less talents. 80 odd levels puts off new players but 60 seams more doable.
Yeah it was at the end of our guild 40 man Nax run, where were were 11/12, when a guild mate posted a pic of a BC green quest item. That sucked!
Now when I quit playing epics were damn candy and handed out. I think people will be fine..