Cataclysm

[Simond]

Run to the end of the dock, sit sit sit sit sit sit, bunch of NPCs eventually roll up and I sit there listening to them talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk about how the Alliance sucks and we're all doomed. I can't even skip this shit like a cutscene. Fuck me just POINT ME AT THE TEN BOARS AND LET ME PLAY.

But the Alliance does suck. 

[Lantyssa]

Thanks WUA.  I've never had so much fun and enjoyment not playing a game.

[Shrike]

I think I missed that part. Must be the Vash crap. I just flew out there.

Heroics are a mess, though. With a good group, they can be fun. With a bad group, it's simply grim. This is still a gearing up phase and going back to TBCv2.0 isn't the answer to the issues of Wrath. 50min waits for heroics are simply egregious--very unfun.

[caladein]

I'd like to say I'm enjoying the new Heroics model, but how I'm spending my time in-game tells me that's probably not true.  I'll agree that when you have a competent enough group, it's just the right amount of challenge and fun is had by all. 

When your group can't interrupt, stay out fire, crowd control, use cooldowns, DPS properly, or even wait for me to fucking drink... not so much fun.  Add on to that, that screw-ups don't immediately lead to wipes like they might in the Wrath model.  Now, wipes are mostly long, drawn out, affairs where your group's incompetence is measured in your healer's dwindling mana bar.

That said, I definitely prefer this to Wrath heroics which were just busywork before you could do the "real challenge" of watching 24 other people unable to interrupt, stay out fire, use cooldowns, or DPS properly.  Now, crowd control is back!

[Selby]

Eh, I remember WotLK heroics being rather difficult in the beginning when we just had beginner blues and quest greens.  Just with less CC.  We just had no LFD tool that we tended to remember the idiots on our own server and didn't group with them once their reputation had been found out.  Now the population of idiots we have to draw from is bigger.

[apocrypha]

Eh, I remember WotLK heroics being rather difficult in the beginning when we just had beginner blues and quest greens.  Just with less CC.  We just had no LFD tool that we tended to remember the idiots on our own server and didn't group with them once their reputation had been found out.  Now the population of idiots we have to draw from is bigger.

LK heroics were (are) nowhere near as hard and unforgiving as Cata heroics are, regardless of gear. I've regularly run LK heroics in groups fully kitted out in blues & greens and they've been a cakewalk.

Cata heroics are pissing me off. 20-40 min queues and it only takes 1 person who won't relax and listen and do it right and it's an abandoned group. That said I am finding that conversely it only takes 1 or 2 people saying "Np, wipes happen, we're all learning these" and explaining fights and not getting all pissy when things go wrong to keep most groups going. Yeah you may replace a person or two when they ragequit the group but usually you can make it to the end.

Other problem is this all takes a long fucking time. 40 min wait and then 2 hour dungeon? Yeahhhh that ain't good for me to be sat for that long.

[Fordel]

Neither compares to TBC heroics still.

[WindupAtheist]

Thanks WUA.  I've never had so much fun and enjoyment not playing a game.

Seriously. WOTLK kicked off for me with "Thank god it's you, hero! The Scourge is attacking the fortress! Quick, kill them!"

Cata kicked off with ten minutes of sitting on a dock listening to dialogue. Then we get on the boat and the head NPC gives this big epic Braveheart speech about fucking up the Horde, and all the soldiers cheer, and I'm like "Okay the beginning was a bit talky but I have a good feeling about this!"

Then the fucking ship sinks and I'm looking at some Earthen Ring asshole who wants me to collect starfish. I swear on my fucking balls I heard this noise and logged out. I'll play another five minutes tomorrow and probably rant some more.

[Ashamanchill]

This bread crumb quest shit is really getting annoying. My buddy just reached 80 and he wanted to do the underwater zone. So he asks me, can I just go there? Nope, forst you have to talk to some shlub in Orgrimmar, then do what WUA has described, then follow the quests they give you in exactly the order they give you them in. It's not like it's even recommended, it required. As for me, I reached 83 and flew to Uldum, thinking 'boy what a cool zone, I sure wish there was a quest for me down there'. But of course there wasn't. I had to go to the Warchiefs fucking bulletin board, then talk to Harrison Jones, just so I could level in that zone.

[WindupAtheist]

It's a JRPG with GWAR shoulderpads and multiplayer instances. No you can't get on your flying mount and cruise to Damcyan without blowing up Mist and meeting Rydia first. That would fuck up the entire sequence of events to follow.

[Azazel]

I'm enjoying it at the moment, but of course, I'm dicking around with sub-60 alts, and occasionally doing the icecrown Argent dailies on my 80 since I haven't bothered to activate cataclysm proper yet. What you guys are describing sounds awful.

[Reg]

Well bear in mind that most people have already got their guys to 85 at this point. The people you're hearing from now who hate it so much are a minority.  They make some good points though and it's amusing to see their indignation. 

I'm like the only guy in my guild who still hasn't got his main to max level but I've been through the Vash'jr cut-scenes described here and yeah they're kind of awful. For all the money they spend on polish Blizzard just hasn't got the story telling skills to really do this kind of thing well.

[Azuredream]

Well bear in mind that most people have already got their guys to 85 at this point. The people you're hearing from now who hate it so much are a minority.  They make some good points though and it's amusing to see their indignation. 

I'm like the only guy in my guild who still hasn't got his main to max level but I've been through the Vash'jr cut-scenes described here and yeah they're kind of awful. For all the money they spend on polish Blizzard just hasn't got the story telling skills to really do this kind of thing well.

The only thing I thought was completely terrible in this expansion was Tol Barad.

[Reg]

Ny only real beef with Vash'jr was that it just went on and on and on.  150 quests to get the achievement.  I'm doing Uldum now and having a good time.

[Ironwood]

All the achievements are the same though - if you objected to one, it's because you hated the zone...

[Reg]

How so?  I complained that Vash'jr went on too long because it needed 150 quests to finish the zone and get the achievement. From looking at the rest of the zone completion achievements they don't seem to require anywhere near that many quests to complete.

[Ironwood]

I'll recheck, but I was fairly sure that the new zones all have a 'you've stuck it out, well done' achievement reward and that they're all 100+ quests.  I've got the Hyjal and Vashjir and Deepholm ones...

[Reg]

Oh yeah they all do. But at 150 Vash'jr is the longest. The rest are like 100 to 125 which seems shorter.  Of course for all I know those quests take longer to do.

[jakonovski]

WoW never changes, it's just variable levels of burn out. I absolutely hated WotLK back in 08, this time I rerolled Horde and so far playing 1-78 has been a blast, WotLK zones included. Loved the little bit of Vash'sdgkhzgh my Alliance dude tested.

[Simond]

My theory is that Vash'jr seems to go on forever because there's at least one false climax in there (you saved the  Hurrah! Now go over there and start again). If they'd split it into two (first half as a 80-82 zone and the real finale as an 84-85 with a "We need you to go back to vash'jr - the naga are on the move!" breadcrumb) it would priobably flow better.

Also it takes too long to unlock the first inn in every zone. I know that you can just hearth to Org and portal back but there's definitely a psychological tick once you get the chance to set your hearth - it's like "Okay, I've officially started this zone now". Mind you, quite a few of the revamped old-world zones are the same way but you're generally ploughing though that content faster anyway.

[Merusk]

I hated Vash'jir because the achieve was broken the first week. You wound up 45 quests short of the 160 you need and there was much "WTF"ing in general chat.   Also, some of the caves you quest out of were a bitch and a half to find and keep returning to.. I think I spent more time hunting them down than doing the quest I had been doing sometimes.

The linear hand holding gets a little tiresome, but if you're trying to tell a story there's not much else you can do.  Want to bitch about Half Life and it's shooter on rails problems, too? Because I can do that, I'll just have to load it up to remember exactly why I quit playing the fucker when I broke it.  It's one of the problem points of trying to do more with a game than just letting it be a game.

I agree with Simond about unlocking the inns and tack on unlocking the portals in some zones is just fucking ridiculous.  Vash'jir and Hyjal in particular.  Hell, I got the achieve for Hyjal and still hadn't unlocked the portal, so I said fuck this and left the zone.  That's some deep bullshit right there.

[caladein]

I agree with Simond about unlocking the inns and tack on unlocking the portals in some zones is just fucking ridiculous.  Vash'jir and Hyjal in particular.  Hell, I got the achieve for Hyjal and still hadn't unlocked the portal, so I said fuck this and left the zone.  That's some deep bullshit right there.

Wait, the portals in Org (or Stormwind I guess) to Hyjal?  I got that after a couple of quests in the zone as I bailed when I got friendly and had it unlocked when I wanted to go back.

[Merusk]

No, the portal back to Org/ Stormwind from those zones.

[Reg]

There's a portal back to Orgrimmar in the Cataclysm zones? Huh, I never noticed. I just left myself hearthed to Orgrimmar and used the portal back when I wanted to return.

[K9]

There's definitely one in Twilight Highlands because one of the first quests there is collecting ectoplasm or mud or something to power it up.

My theory is that Vash'jr seems to go on forever because there's at least one false climax in there (you saved the  Hurrah! Now go over there and start again). If they'd split it into two (first half as a 80-82 zone and the real finale as an 84-85 with a "We need you to go back to vash'jr - the naga are on the move!" breadcrumb) it would priobably flow better.

Also it takes too long to unlock the first inn in every zone. I know that you can just hearth to Org and portal back but there's definitely a psychological tick once you get the chance to set your hearth - it's like "Okay, I've officially started this zone now". Mind you, quite a few of the revamped old-world zones are the same way but you're generally ploughing though that content faster anyway.

I agree with this Vashj'ir should have been two zones. Also sticking the entrance to throne of the tides at the absolute end of the zone was an awful awful design decision.

[kildorn]

There's a portal back to Orgrimmar in the Cataclysm zones? Huh, I never noticed. I just left myself hearthed to Orgrimmar and used the portal back when I wanted to return.

Twilight Highlands, Tol Barad and Deepholm have portals back to the home cities. The others do not.

[apocrypha]

The linear hand holding gets a little tiresome, but if you're trying to tell a story there's not much else you can do.  Want to bitch about Half Life and it's shooter on rails problems, too? Because I can do that, I'll just have to load it up to remember exactly why I quit playing the fucker when I broke it.  It's one of the problem points of trying to do more with a game than just letting it be a game.

Except in Half-Life I didn't have a bunch of alts that had to go through the exact same stuff in the exact same order to level.

The heavy nerfing of dungeon XP makes this even worse. I *can't* just RFD-level a tank, he's GOT to do all the bloody quests.

[Selby]

I hated Vashj'ir because of how annoying finding the caves was, how annoying it was that there was NO inn for almost 1/3 of the entire zone, and most (personally) because half the "interact with the sub\etc" quests were bugged and broken the first week for my character.  Lots of "lols it worked for me" from guildies who didn't understand why I was so angry I couldn't finish a zone.  Once I got out of that stupid zone I loved the rest of the Cata zones, so it's almost like Borean Tundra was for me in WotLK - a zone I am practically forced to do, but once I slog through it the rest of the fun happens and I quickly forget it (we can debate the merits of such a "feature" in a game we play for fun elsewhere).

[Shrike]

Yeah, the cave hubs were a damned nuisance. It was generally quicker (as a shaman) to port back to SW, sell stuff, grab the portal back to Vash, then jump a seahoarse for the ride back to whatever grotto the Alliance was lurking in this time around. Lot less wear and tear on the ulcers.

Vash is excessively long. I knew there was going to be an "awakening the Ancients" thing going on, but at 160 quests? Yeah, that's a bit much. The rest were in the 120 region, so we're talking 30% longer than any other zone. Bit too much of a good thing.

I ran into breadcrumb issues on the shaman the first night. I wanted to go to Hyjal (I like night elfs, so sue me). Could not for the life of me get the druid out in Moonglade to allow me to hop the dragon. I flew out earlier from Everlook, so that might have had something to do with it. I got it worked out, but don't recall exactly how; might have been drop and reaqiure the quest. Actually, now that I think about it it was the flight thing. I skipped the NE out in SW. The DK and warrior didn't have any issues when they went out.

[Paelos]

I didn't do Vash. I started in Hyjal and I'm extremely happy that I did.

[AcidCat]

relentlessly streamlined

Yeah I'm really not feeling these 80+ zones. Especially compared to some of the revamped old world zones they just feel so scripted and linear. Compared to say Desolace, I cruised the zone on my undead hunter and had over ten quests going on all over. Compared to that the 2-3 quests you get at a time in the new zones just feels stifling somehow. There's not even the illusion of choice or exploration.

[Paelos]

I guess it depends on your POV. That 10 quests across the zone thing annoyed the shit out of me. I like to explore, but I don't like to have unconnected loose strings all over the area.

[Merusk]

I didn't do Vash. I started in Hyjal and I'm extremely happy that I did.

I did Hyjal last week on my priest and regretted it.  Despite my bitches about the length and finding the caves Vash'jir was much more fun.   Did Vash again this weekend on the rogue and stopped after the first giant seashell when I hit 82 (go go +10% xp guild perk).. much better decision.   Only problem doing that is you don't wind-up with enough rep to buy the ER tabard because Shamen are sons of bitches.

[K9]

The ER rep from quests is really erratic. You'd get one set of quests in Vashj'ir from an Earthen Ring person to slay and defend and preserve the earthen ring and get nada, and then a few quests later you'd do something completely trivial and get a chunk of rep. It's odd because you can easily get about 50% of the way into Revered with the Guardians of Hyjal just off the Hyjal quests, but not with the Earthen Ring.

[K9]

My Guild hit level 7 today, just wondering where others are at?