Cataclysm

[Merusk]

I liked four horsemen.

I still don't get why they removed the red rider of war.  Just give him a different weapon, for fuck's sake.

He was "redeemed" in one of those questlines in Icecrown so they had to remove Mograine from Naxx.

Mograine was the red rider?  He was redeemed before that, in the Dk starter area, then, when all the other DKs were freed.

[Sjofn]

Wait, I thought his dad was the Horseman and was redeemed by mumblemumble and so mumblemumbleprobablyacomicorsomeshitmumble. At least I seem to dimly recall DK Mograine dude mentioning he sacrificed his own soul to redeem daddy or some shit. I could be totally making that up though.

AT ANY RATE. I liked the Baron showing up in Naxx. <3

[Paelos]

The only thing that pissed me off about Naxx was that they STILL made you mind control mobs on Instructor in 25 man, but they didn't in 10. Praying my priests wouldn't completely cock that up week-to-week was always fun.  

[Lakov_Sanite]

[Lantyssa]

Kill it.  Kill it with fire!  (Or weedkiller.)

[Sheepherder]

AT ANY RATE. I liked the Baron showing up in Naxx. <3

But they didn't recolour him red!

How the fuck can you have the four horsemen of the apocalypse without a fucking red rider?

[Selby]

Praying my priests wouldn't completely cock that up week-to-week was always fun.  

Even worse... you HAD to have +hit gear to successfully cast that spell.  Most of our priests were healers... so hit gear was lacking and it was ALWAYS fun watching someone re-cast 3 times before the spell sticks.

And the fact that you just HAD to have 4 of a particular class in a raid for that week or you might as well go home was completely asinine as well.

[Ingmar]

AT ANY RATE. I liked the Baron showing up in Naxx. <3

But they didn't recolour him red!

How the fuck can you have the four horsemen of the apocalypse without a fucking red rider?

Remind me which rider was the dwarf that shot fire again? 

[SurfD]

Praying my priests wouldn't completely cock that up week-to-week was always fun.  

Even worse... you HAD to have +hit gear to successfully cast that spell.  Most of our priests were healers... so hit gear was lacking and it was ALWAYS fun watching someone re-cast 3 times before the spell sticks.

And the fact that you just HAD to have 4 of a particular class in a raid for that week or you might as well go home was completely asinine as well.

The best one about that (before they fixed it) was that being buffed up on that fight actually HURT your chances.  Because the Understudies were considered "Pets" once mind controlled, and Pets inherited some stats from their owner.  In this case, Resists.  Meaning that if your priests were buffed with Mark of the Wild and Shadow Protection, the understudies actually inherited a crapload of bonus shadow resist, which meant that they got a bonus chance for the Mind Controll to break early!

[Sheepherder]

Remind me which rider was the dwarf that shot fire again? 

[Chimpy]

Mograine was the red rider?  He was redeemed before that, in the Dk starter area, then, when all the other DKs were freed.

I knew he was redeemed somewhere. I just remembered that he was sitting out in icecrown as an NPC and could not remember exactly why.

In original Naxx it was "Highlord Mograine <The Ashbringer>" on his nameplate.

Baron was a fucking pansy in comparison. Mograine had a weapon proc that hit you for 3000 and then added a 500 Dmg each second for 5 seconds of unresistable fire damage. This was on top of the about 1k the hit would do. Needless to say, I got roflstomped a couple times a night while pulling him while we were learning the fight. Esp if the tank had a taunt resist.

[Sheepherder]

I knew he was redeemed somewhere. I just remembered that he was sitting out in icecrown as an NPC and could not remember exactly why.

His ghost actually wanders around in ICC.  He's not redeemed, that's the son.

[Rendakor]

Where exactly in ICC does he hang out? I've never noticed him.

[Threash]

Highlord Darion Mograine says: Father...
Highlord Alexandros Mograine says: Darion, my son.
Highlord Alexandros Mograine says: At last, I am able to lay my eyes upon you again.
Highlord Darion Mograine says: Father. I feared for your... your sanity.
Highlord Alexandros Mograine says: The Lich King tormented me without end, Darion.
Highlord Alexandros Mograine says: Endlessly, he sought to break my will, to force me to serve him, to bind me to his blade...
Highlord Alexandros Mograine says: Finally, when events demanded his full attention, he left me.
Highlord Alexandros Mograine says: The one memory, I clung to, Darion... The one thought that kept me from giving in...
Highlord Alexandros Mograine says: It was your sacrifice, my son, that again saved me from eternal peril.
Highlord Darion Mograine says: Father... For you, I would give my life a thousand times.

You can save the father if you beat the Lich King while someone is holding Frostmourne, it is actually quite moving..  You get a red dk mount from Darion, a teleport to Dalaran neck form Jaina, a music box that plays that cool song "Lament of the highborne", a frost dwarf transformation from Muradin and a very very very shiny tabbard from Uther.

[Rendakor]

Oh, you see him if you get the Shadowmourne box, cool.

[fuser]

RVINE, Calif., Oct 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft(R): Cataclysm(TM), the highly anticipated third expansion for the world's most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game*, will be released starting on December 7, 2010. The expansion will be available on DVD-ROM for Windows(R) XP/Windows Vista(R)/Windows(R) 7 and Macintosh(R) at a suggested retail price of $39.99 and will also be offered as a digital download from the Blizzard Store. A special Collector's Edition packed with bonus items will be available exclusively in retail stores for a suggested retail price of $79.99

Official now

[Paelos]

Fuck. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Day before my B-day.

I knew they were shooting for x-mass.

[bhodikhan]

December 7th.  Pearl Harbor Day. 

Those guys from Blizzard are attacking on December 7th. Quick. Encrypt the message and get it to Washington.

[NiX]

Gah, I can't seem to find any info on whether or not there will be a new pack or if Cataclysm contains any of the old expansions or even the full game. Anyone know?

[Chimpy]

Expansions from Blizzard require the previous expansion to play. They usually sell a "with all expansion up to this point" box for like 40 bucks around the time they release the new expansion (at least they did at Wrath).

[Rasix]

edit:  Chimpy beat me to it.

[K9]

Previous expansions would be implied anyway since you won't be able to level to an appropriate point to access the new areas. You can still play in the old world and enjoy the benefits that aren't tied to new areas or levels without the expansion though. As I recall you don't need wrath to use glyphs for example.

[Paelos]

New motto for the Cataclysm release: "We are not prepared!"

[Rendakor]

You could probably just buy Cata if you had vanilla and level a few goblins to 60.

[Nija]

Is there a good summary for people like me who:

Played release for 8 weeks and then quit
Played burning region for 4 weeks and then quit
Played liche king for 4 weeks and then quit


Basically, I want to know if it's worth $40/mo for one month.

[Ingmar]

Summary:

- Entire old world 1-60 content redone
- New content added for 81-85
- 2 new races
- talent trees redesigned
- new archaeology secondary profession

That's basically the TLDR version. There's plenty of new stuff but if you didn't delve that deeply into it the first time around it may not be all that striking a difference, I don't know.

[Rasix]

Expansion packs don't come with free months, do they? So, essentially it's $55 for one month.

I'm not really planning to play long. I just want to mostly level up a goblin through the new 1-60 and maybe get one character to 85.  I'm not sure it'll hold my interest much past that with how restricted my gaming time is.  Really easy for something shiny to distract me completely.

[Rendakor]

They're redoing the entire old world, updating the quests to match the quality found in WotLK; also changing is most of the geography. They're adding Goblins (H) and Worgen (A), and many new race/class combos (human hunter, troll druid, etc). They're also adding a few new BGs, rated BGs for PVP progression, as well as removing rating requirement from most PVP gear.

If you enjoyed the game when you previously played it, I think you'll get your $40 out of it.

Edit: beaten!

[Nija]

Thanks for the summaries. This info is better than anything I could find via google. Most of the stuff I was finding was very very specific and geared for current players or people who keep up with tier whatever.

I'm not sure I'll buy it at release, but I will end up playing. The release date is quite funny. I have nearly 2 months off work, starting this Friday at 5pm. I return to work on Dec 6th.

I think that's a sign to not buy it. It wouldn't be pretty trying to get back into the swing of things, workwise, while staying up until 3am poopsocking in wow.

[Chimpy]

You could probably just buy Cata if you had vanilla and level a few goblins to 60.

If the activation code did not require a WotLK level account to work already, maybe.

[Azazel]

With the currency changes I've read about - conversion of Valor and Heroic tokens and so forth to gold, Triumphs and Frosties to "hero" or whatnot - and similar happening to honor points and stonekeepers shards those goblin coins from Grizzly hills and etc etc, can anyone tell me if:

1) Heirloom "PVP" items will still be available? ANy idea how much they will cost (I noticed my honor is at the 75k cap, but I don't have enough AV/WSG/etc badges to do anything with it)

2) Any idea what (if anything) is happening to Champions' badges from the Argent Tournament? I'm wondering i I should keep saving for a Hippogriff, or if I should just spend them on the lower-tier vanity mounts or possibly a piece of Heirloom gear.

[SurfD]

With the currency changes I've read about - conversion of Valor and Heroic tokens and so forth to gold, Triumphs and Frosties to "hero" or whatnot - and similar happening to honor points and stonekeepers shards those goblin coins from Grizzly hills and etc etc, can anyone tell me if:

1) Heirloom "PVP" items will still be available? ANy idea how much they will cost (I noticed my honor is at the 75k cap, but I don't have enough AV/WSG/etc badges to do anything with it)

2) Any idea what (if anything) is happening to Champions' badges from the Argent Tournament? I'm wondering i I should keep saving for a Hippogriff, or if I should just spend them on the lower-tier vanity mounts or possibly a piece of Heirloom gear.

From my understanding all the old PvP heirloom items are still there.  Current honor conversion rate is something along the lines of 2000 Old honor (30 Stonekeeper shards) = 50 new honor, with an honor cap of 4k.  So you can use that conversion rate to figure out how much they will cost.

As to the Champion seals, I cant see they would touch those, since they are unique to the tourney, and you have to do a LOT of work unlocking the various factions to buy stuff with them.

[Rendakor]

1) Heirloom "PVP" items will still be available? ANy idea how much they will cost (I noticed my honor is at the 75k cap, but I don't have enough AV/WSG/etc badges to do anything with it)

The AV/WSG/etc badges you speak of are now quite useless; all PVP gear (aside from the WG rewards) costs either Honor or Honor and Arena Points. The only remaining use of the old PVP marks is to convert into honor at the old PVP daily quest givers.

[Azazel]

Yeah, I haven't looked at those or cared about them since the end of BC, where the only way for my playstyle to get upgrades was via PvP. Once the conversion comes in, I'll just cash what little of them I have left in for extra honor. Any idea how much the Heirloom PVP stuff will be? I can't access MMO-champion from work.

Good to hear about he Argent badges, I guess. I'll be able to do a week's worth of trial of the crusader till the patch kills the PUG game and then just do dailies, even post-80 to get my griff. :)