More News From Blizzcon About Cataclysm Expansion

Now there is way too much to cover to be sure.  Information about Cataclysm is simply dwarfing everything at Blizzcon so far.  We are in the process of coming up with a better way of presenting information that is class specific without repeating ourselves and without just regurgitating every single blue post in its entirety.  In reality the folks at Blizz announce things a little schizophrenically.  So there is no real rhyme or reason to the press releases we’re getting.  But we’re sorting it all into more usable segments.  Plus, the folks at Blizz don’t worry too much about spelling and grammar in their posts.  We know it’s a little odd to correct a quote, but we just couldn’t stand it, so we cleaned up the worst bits.

Here is all of the general news that doesn’t fit cleanly into a category like”Hunter” for instance.  We’ve collected these bits out of four different blue posts – enjoy!

• Level cap will be 85 because developers wanted to focus on the right things: redoing Azeroth and providing more end-game content.

• A new guild advancement system  will let you earn guild perks and level a guild through 20 levels with points to spend in a talent tree. You will access abilities such as cheaper repairs, less durability loss on wipes, or mass resurrection.

• Phasing can now add and remove terrain based on your progress. Coasts will be progressively more flooded depending on how far you are in a storyline for example.

So who are we trying to kill anyway?

• Deathwing, the leader of the Black Dragonflight, will be the main villain of the expansion.

• Deathwing heard the whispers of the Old Gods after the arrival of the Burning Legion.  He eventually grew very powerful and also became very, very crazy.

• His plan was to catch the Alliance and Horde unaware with something so massive that it would bring up the Elemental Planes.

• The Elemental Planes were created by titans to contain the elementals.  They weren’t happy with this decision and some of them, like Ragnaros, got really angry.

Old World

• We all left a little part of ourselves in Northrend and the old world will be much darker than it was to make heroism and brotherhood more meaningful – like Warcraft should be.

• Every zone will be revamped with new quests, items, and art. The old world will be a brand new experience and you won’t have to deal with the annoying agility/spirit quest rewards anymore.

• Azeroth is now flyable. Pretty much all the zones [sic] will be changed to some extent.  Some of them, like Elwynn Forest, won’t change too much; but others, like The Barrens, will be sundered in two by Deathwing.

• The Wailing Caverns are now a lush and verdant Area.

• Desolace now has a lot more water and a lot of plants can be seen in the screenshots.

• The Horde finally conquered Southshore.

• Auberdine was destroyed and the night elves have set up a new camp north of it. Garrosh wants to expand the horde and has built a fortified camp at the south of the zone.

• Stonetalon has been cleaned by the Goblins.  Azshara will be the new Goblin zone, and they are using quarries in the mountains of Azshara to build their town.

• Apparently Orgrimmar will be rebuilt and reinforced with steel.  It now looks a lot like Garrosh strongholds.

• Undercity has been redesigned to be flyable.  It now looks much more impressive from the outside.

New Zones

7 new zones will be added : Twilight Highlands, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, Gilneas, The Lost Isles, Sunken City of Vash’jir.

Starting Areas

The Worgens and Goblins starting zones levels go from 1 to 15.

Vasj’ir

Sunken City of Vashj’ir will be an underwater zone and was the home city of Lady Vashj before the original sundering.  This is a gateway to the Abyssal Maw. Going through the Abyssal Maw will take you to the Elemental Plane of Water.  Even though the zone will be underwater you will be walking on the sea floor here.  New underwater mounts will be available and should have the same speed as normal flying mounts.

Deepholm

• Deepholm will be the new hub of the expansion and you will have portals here to let you teleport to Hyjal, Uldum, etc.   The Twilight’s Hammer now serves Deathwing and have brought him back to full health in the Temple of Earth at the center of the map.

• Deepholm isn’t really connected to Azeroth, the connection is where Deathwing emerged from the ground.

Uldum

Uldum will have at least two dungeons and is heavily inspired from [sic]  Egypt. The sea at the west of Tanaris was just an illusion created by the Titans and Uldum is actually a brand new zone. It is rumored to hold a super weapon. Uldum is also the home of the Tolvir, a race of stone-like cats created by the titans.

Plane of Fire

Ragnaros used the cataclysm to come back from the Plane of Fire where we sent him and is now besieging the World Tree in Mount Hyjal to burn it down. Malfurion is back from the Emerald Dream. The whole zone (Hyjal) will make extensive use of phasing.

Twilight Highlands

The Twilight Highlands will feature Grim Batol.  Deathwing literally broke open Grim Batol as he emerged from the ground. This is the new Twilight’s Hammer base in Azeroth and both Horde and Alliance will have a new port town with boats here. The Red Dragonflight is still here but has been pushed back to the west of the zone near the Wetlands.

Dungeons & Raids

• The Firelands will be a new raid dungeon.  It will let you go to the Elemental Plane of fire and visit Sulfuron’s Keep, Ragnaros will be there and he’s really pissed.

• Uldum will feature two new dungeons, the Lost City of Tol’vir and the Halls of Origination (a titan city).

• Grim Batol will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.

• Skywall (Air Elemental Plane) will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.

• The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep will be back with brand new level 85 heroic versions.

• Blackrock Caverns will be a new level-up dungeon located in Blackrock Spire. This is an entirely new dungeon, new art, new creatures, new everything.

Player vs. Player

• Battle of Gilneas will be a new battleground where the objective is to control the city by controlling as many districts as possible.

• Tol’barad will be a new PvP zone and will also be the most important daily quest hub. Just like Wintergrasp, a battle will happen every few hours and the winning side will get access to the Tol’barad Prison and extra daily quests (the really profitable ones).

• Rated battlegrounds will be added to the game and should get you the same rewards as Arenas.

• New arena maps will be added.

Guild Leveling System

• The idea behind the guild leveling system is to make people want to be in guilds and make people feel better about being in a guild. The goal is to take that feature and make it the best they can. (Guild Talent Trees, etc …)

• You will be able to create guild heirlooms with the new guild leveling system, you can buy profession plans and anyone in your guild can wear that item, it will scale with level.

Raids & Dungeons

• You can’t get Frostmourne because it would take control of your soul. Frostmourne would be playing your character, not you. The weapon has an unique fate and the encounter is going to be mega.

• There won’t be any option to do Onyxia at level 60 anymore after the revamp in 3.2.2.

Cataclysm

• There isn’t any plan to prevent ganking in the contested zones of Azeroth, even with flying mounts available here. This is just part of being on a PvP server.

• They can’t spoil the Thrall / Garrosh storyline, but with the cataclysm raging everywhere, what do you think the world’s mightiest shaman would need to do?

• Northrend and Outland won’t really be affected by the Cataclysm but some of the areas will be updated for the expansion. For example, you will be able to level up Archeology in Outland.

• XP in Battlegrounds need to be fixed because there is a lot of XP leeching in the 71-80 Brackets. Once it’s fixed, it will be improved across the board.

• Multi-passenger flying mounts could be added in the future. They might also allow crafters to craft 310% flying mounts if they already completed an achievement rewarding one.

• Every healer class can now dispell magic, the niches will other debuffs.

• Engineers might be able to craft bows in the future.

• If you already own a 310% mount, you might be able to boost the speed of all your 280% mount to 310% just to let you use the one that you prefer.

• Casters will finally get a Legendary item in one of the first raids of the expansion.

• Cataclysm will change the ways abilities are learned. Abilities ranks are gone and ability will just scale progressively with levels instead.

• Most of the Talent Trees will be changed dramatically, a lot of the passive bonuses will be removed and talent trees should be more fun. (No more “Hurray! Level up! I just got 1% more hit!)

• You will never be able to cleanse the Corrupted Ashbringer.