Cataclysm Press Event

Well yesterday the world got one step closer to Cataclysm with a bunch of info on the outs. I'll give you my opinion her and inform you on some of the developments.

Path of the Titans Scrapped

Now I know a lot of people were looking forward to this as a way to make your character truly yours. My opinion of this is if they couldn't implement it correctly I don't want it in the game. If their is one thing I hate is like mini patch after mini patch to fix things that were implemented poorly. Does anyone remember how awful this was during classic WoW?

So instead what are they doing? Well they are overhauling inscription. There will now be three tiers of glyphs. Major glyphs as we have now used to enhance core abilities and granted a major glyph spot at the level caps. Really how they work now. Minor glyphs which are small enhancements and these will be kept the same. The change will be that they are promising that all classes will now get a use out of their minor glyphs. Lastly, they are adding medium glyphs. The way these are being explained are cosmetic changes to non core abilities, to make lets say "fun" changes.

Guilds

No talents, no currency they have been scrapped.

The talents have been scrapped, because you would have got everything anyway when your guild leveled up. So blizzard is now the one who decides the order in which you get these perks. The currency is being replaces by rewards as you earn reputation with your guild and as it levels up. Yes I said reputation. My take on it is the more you do with your guild(raid, pvp, instance, etc) the more rep you will get. One of things they have mentioned is tabards for your mounts to make them more guildafied.

They are also changing the guild UI to display the XP of the guild and the current achievements and boss kills you have. Also the guild roster will display members professions for easy access for everyone.

Raids and Dungeons

Grim Batol's Bastion of Twilight is one of Cataclysm's entry level raids. There will be five bosses, with the end boss being Cho'gall. Defeating Cho'gall on hard mode will reveal another step in Cataclysm's Lore.

Skywall's Vortex Pinnacle is another 5 man, a flying palace in the Elemental Plane of Air. Flying mounts will work, but there will be no flying combat.

War of the Ancients has officially been announced as the Caverns of Time instance. Although which timeline is unsure. This though will not be released with Cataclysm it will be a future content patch. My guess is the way Mount Hyjal worked.

Players locked to a 25 man raid will have the option to split your raid ID into three parts, so you can split into three smaller 10man raids. All three raids will pick up at the same point the 25man raid stopped. Once split, the raid cannot be made back into a 25 man. Also, while 10-man raids were intentionally easier than 25 man raids in Wrath, that is not the case in Cataclysm.

Raid IDs will not be as strict as they are now. If your raid fails but you find another raid that has killed the same bosses, you can leave your ID and join theirs. This has also been explained as you can join a raid that has closed more, just not less. Algalonish encounters are not going away; there will be many more of them for both 10 and 25man raids. At this point there is no talk of a new TRH to pretend you killed such bosses.

Lastly 25 man raids will provide more loot per player about 50% more.

Zones

WoW does Egypt is still planned. Uldum will be this place, a cat-like race known as the Tol'vir will be introduced here.

Deepholm the place where Deathwing has been resting or rebuilding, depending upon who you ask. He has broken through Deepholm and then through the Maelstrom. Maybe this means they will get into some of the lore in regards to this.

The Skybreaker and Orgrim's Hammer are in Deepholm, though the Skybreaker has appeared to hav shot down Orgrim's Hammer.

PvP

Two new battlegrounds. Twin Peaks and the Battle for Gilneas. More planned in future patches. Twins peasks will be a Warsong type capture the flag with the base graveyard and a midfield rez point.

Rated battlegrounds will only be played against other raided teams. There is also a cap on the Conquest points you can earn per week no matter how many you play. The rewards will work like Arena rewards with titles and mounts except the Battleground mount will be a ground mount.

Archaeology

Archaeology's focus will be on showing off the lore of the game and learning Azeroth's history. Players will find two types of artifacts one being Lore artifacts. The other will be cosmetic rewards. This profession will be entirely optional just like the other secondary professions.

I like this since now there won't be this mass of people searching for all these artifacts at once, and really the people that want to know the history and the story will be doing it.

Other Notes

Garrosh is acting Warchief. He has moved his throne room to the Centre of Orgrimmar and the Valley of Wisdom is now the Tauren District.

Deathwing opens a can of whoop ass on the park in Stormwind, destroying it. No word on if the druid trainer survived.

Heirloom items will be able to be used by Goblins and Worgens. That is the heirlooms that are currently in the game, but these items only work up until Level 80.

That is pretty much all the information in pointish type form. For the most part I like the changes. I am interested what kind of things I can do with the Medium Glyphs, what the Cho'gall event is and of course the need for a Tauren district.

To finish I just want to say something to a reader and a guild member of mine that has decided to end his WoW Career. Whirl keep chasing those BIG NUMBERS.