Cataclysm News from the Press Event

[Mania]

Blizzard held a press event to let the larger gaming press know more about the changes in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. The info from the press event is not under NDA (although the general alpha NDA is still in effect), which means that we can discuss it and repost it (with source links!) to our hearts content.

Various sites have posted this new info, but so far I've found that MMO Champion has a useful round-up with sources, here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1790

Some of the information is a bit surprising: the Path of the Titans feature has been removed and replaced with a new level of glyph, which means that Archaeology will be more akin to fishing or cooking rather than an (effectively) required skill for progression.

In addition, guild leveling has been slimmed down a bit with the removal of guild talents and more emphasis on gaining reputation within your guild. Check out some of the possible rewards, though: tabards, mounts, heirlooms, guild tabards for your mounts ...

And it looks like Blizzard is concentrating more heavily on the look, feel, and story in the new zones as well as changes to progression and questing in old zones. For example, Cataclysm has over three times the new quests as Wrath of the Lich King did. As an inveterate leveler, I am very excited to see the new quests!

Oh, and there's information on raids and stuff. I didn't read that part, though so I'll leave that to you guys.

[Magnakilro]

I found the "Split 25 man raid group into 3 10 man raid groups" to be interesting (According to Blizz, you'll be allowed to continue from where you left off only it'll be 10 man difficulty now...also you can merge 3 10 man groups into a 25 man for obvious reasons)

Also I liked the fact that we'll be able to join a raid with no penalty if they have killed the same bosses as you did. (Like you kill Lord Marrowgar in Icc.....your raid dies due to difficulty with Deathwhisper....you find another group in trade lookin for someone that fits your description, and they're on Deathwhisper.....you can join thier raid and continue from where you previously left off.)

[Kayb]

now all they need to do is make it so you can't link your achievements

[Mania]

Ghostcrawler spend some time yesterday clarifying some of the information from the Press Event. There were a lot of separate responses in each thread and I'm not going to quote it all here, but I do suggest checking it out if you're interested.

On Path of the Titans & Archaeology: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... No=2&sid=1 and http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... No=1&sid=1

We still think it would be cool to add some kind of post-game progression to allow for player customization, but we would have to be very careful and do it right. Nobody wanted to see a feature that felt like it delivered on half its potential. Nobody wanted to be thinking about how we were going to "fix the flawed Paths system" in 5.0. If we can come up with a design we like, then we'll try again in the future.

We have some end-game plans for Archaeology. I would compare it to Cooking, which isn't mandatory, but useful enough that nobody is surprised at the appearance of a Fish Feast.

Many of the archaeology items are stored in your journal, not your bags, so inventory space shouldn't be a big problem. While many of the artifacts are only there for rewards, the rare finds run the gamut from unique toys to usable weapons to special pets.

On guild leveling: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... No=1&sid=1

The only difference in the way we are handling the guild talents is it will be possible to get all of them instead of having one person in your guild pick and choose which ones you got. The feature has always focused on leveling your guild to unlock new perks. In fact, you're getting more perks this way than you would have if the decisions had been exclusive.

There are two categories of rewards. The perks are things earned by the guild. If you join a high-level guild, you get those benefits immediately and you lose them if you bail on the guild. They are passive bonuses and a couple of spells, not items. Separately, there are also items you can purchase. The items are yours to keep even if you leave the guild. In order to discourage guild hopping, you have to make some kind of investment in the guild. But you can still choose to leave if in the future you just find that you'd rather be with someone else.

On the raid changes: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... No=1&sid=1.

[Witrely]

I find it offending that they choose to impose an artificial rep system on guilds which are a purely social side of the game. Who are they to say which is exalted with their guild and which is just friendly?
these things may belong with NPC factions but not where real people are involved.
If one player has been a founding and leading member of a 4 year old guild how can blizzard possibly rank that player's reputation in that guild? Who are they to say?
Reputation is not just a name for a statistic parameter you can grind/farm, its also a real thing between real people.

I get the feeling that cataclysm is going to be "more of the same" instead of adding something new to pique our interests. Path of the titans was supposed to be that new thing and now its reduced to "secondary profession"- no better than fishing and cooking, something to grind in spare time.

Its like cataclysm is aimed for new players out there and trusts that those who stayed so far will stick around for lack of a better thing to do. I leveled up more than one char all the way to the top, I don't feel an urge to go leveling yet again- been there, done that. its like a game you really liked that for some reason is stuck and you don't get to see the ending movie. so you reset it and play the whole thing again a few times just for the on-the-way fun and hope this time the movie will run. theres a limit to how many times you wish to see your char pay a trainer to learn steady shot, yes?

[Vephriel]

I find it offending that they choose to impose an artificial rep system on guilds which are a purely social side of the game. Who are they to say which is exalted with their guild and which is just friendly?
these things may belong with NPC factions but not where real people are involved.
If one player has been a founding and leading member of a 4 year old guild how can blizzard possibly rank that player's reputation in that guild? Who are they to say?
Reputation is not just a name for a statistic parameter you can grind/farm, its also a real thing between real people.

I definitely have to agree with you on that one. The concept of Guild reputation baffled me as well. Just seemed...odd, for all the reasons you stated. I suppose I'll have to wait and see the specifics.

[Fael]

Perhaps by doing things that contribute to the guild will help raise your reputation? Such as crafting goods and raising your job levels, leveling alts, participating in events, running instances or raiding together? Perhaps also staying a certain length of time adds to it as well. I wonder... :\ It really seems that they don't want to pit people against eachother and take away from what guilds were meant to be about. Some specifics on how to earn Guild Rep was shared by Wowhead but it doesn't mean that is all there will be to it. Here's more details on on Guild Leveling, Achievements and social aspects:

From this forum discussion:

Guild Leveling
"I'm not demanding to have every reward, and I'm not at all concerned about guild talents, since I'm not a min/maxer. But I've been happy in my small guild for four years, and I would love the chance to show some guild pride, modest as our accomplishments may be. I would be disappointed if I couldn't get a mount tabard (or whatever) because we can't field the players to complete X raid on our own."

We want to make sure nearly every existing guild has a shot at them all. The only question will be how fast you level.

Social Aspects
"I understand not giving the GM all the power, but having a group customization would be fun. "

But why would that be fun? Let's walk through it for a bit. Do you think it would be fun to try and recruit new members because you chose the "right" talent build? Do you think it would be fun to try and argue with your members about what the right talents were to take? Do you think it would be fun to feel like you should leave your guild because they took a lot of talents that didn't affect your play style? Those were all the problems we ran into as we started implementing things. Instead of the feature being exciting, it was causing a lot of anxiety for everyone here who was in a guild. Guilds are supposed to be about friends -- not min maxxing guild benefits. There are plenty other aspects of the game where you can min-max.

"... The people that are truly interested in a guild made up of friends would have enjoyed the additional flavor that guild talents offered, but it would not have been a driving factor in their decision to remain with or leave a guild."

If the social ties in your guild are that strong, that's awesome. We didn't think it was right of us to try and put those to the test however. It's not our place to try to challenge your friendships by offering possible motivation to gain benefits at the cost of leaving the people you like behind.

From Wowhead:

Guild Reputation
The rewards that they had originally had in mind for that system, like special guild tabards and mounts (with your guild insignia on them and everything!) are now unlocked by guild achievements. Rather than buying them with guild currency, you buy them with simple gold—but which rewards you can buy is restricted by your guild reputation.

You farm guild rep by doing four things:

* Completing quests
* Doing rated Battlegrounds
* Killing raid bosses (to get credit, the raid that downs the boss must be mostly comprised of guild members—7/10 for 10-mans, and 20/25 for 25-mans)
* Earning guild achievements

Guild Achievements
Some examples of possible guild achievements were offered:

* 10,000 total quests completed
* Having a max-rank of every profession
* Having an 85 of every class
* etc.

In addition, some of the existing achievements (like the classic raiding meta) are being converted into guild achievements, to give players a reason to go back and do them. This allows players to farm achievements to help their guild's rank and their guild reputation, even if they already have them all.

As it stands now, guild achievements will be retained by the guild, even if all the members of the guild who were present when the achievement was earned have left the guild. The guild achievement pane actually lists the guild members who were present at the time the achievement was originally earned.

Guild Leveling
The whole guild talents idea has been scrapped as well. Tom Chilton talked for a while about the issues they faced—Can only the guild leader pick the talents? Do you have respecs? Who pays for them? How do you make all the players feel involved? Do you min-max builds, so that all guilds feel the same? Instead, they've altered it to a simpler system: each guild progresses normally from level 1 to level 25, and gains a new perk at each level—just like a character learning new spells. The guild menu will now show you what your existing perks are, and what the perks will be come the next guild level. No information was given about how exactly guilds would progress, but it's easy to guess at possible methods—raiding, group pvp, guild achievements, etc.

New Guild Interface (seemed neat and worth mentioning!)
Another thing I was frustrated not to be able to photograph, guilds now have a fully revamped interface with a lot of long-awaited features.

First of all, there's a new guild landing page, with a news feed—something broadly similar to the character feed for individual characters on the Armory, but for the entire guild—listing recent successes in raiding, new characters hitting max level, etc. You can also flag items as "sticky", in case you want to make sure the Message of the Day stays up there, or you're exceptionally proud of a recent kill.

In addition, the guild roster is now filterable. You can now see the professions of your guild members from the guild menu—and sort players by profession. This enables you to do things like searching for a crafter in your guild who can make the item you need, so you can easily contact them—a HUGE time-saver.

Edit: messed up the order a bit whoops! >_>;

[Kayb]

so basically, for my guild, the ONLY way to earn rep, will be via quests. which will be a massive time consuming project as it is a very small guild. So we have to wait forever and a day to have anything, while larger guilds can just breeze through it all as usual.

yep, sounds awesome.

ok seriously, why on earth can't we buy a guild tabard for our mounts with out having to earn guild rep? Like the tabard we ourselves can wear, it the cosmetic type things like this should available straight off the bat imo

[Karathyriel]

ok seriously, why on earth can't we buy a guild tabard for our mounts with out having to earn guild rep?

Because farming reputation always was Blizzards way to compensate for lack of content. And because they had no idea what else to give out as rewards that wouldn't make large guilds more powerful und left small guilds behind.

Seriously, I sometimes fear that Blizzard is running out of ideas. Not story-wise, no! Azeroth is still one of the coolest and most interesting worlds.
But how to entertain the players? Another kill-quest, another instance, another raid? That's not doing the trick.
World of Warcraft lacks some innovation, something new to keep the players interested in playing. Not a small task after 5 years. "Younger" games like Age of Conan or WAR don't have that problem yet as people playing those haven't "seen it all ten times already".

Those ideas removed were not innovative anyway. You level and skill your character, you level and skill your pet (I wonder when warlocks get talent trees for demons) and now you level and skill your guild.
You improve your skill with talents. You improve your skills with glyphs and now you improve even further with Mastery or Path of Titans (which was reduced to medium glyphs )? Where is the news, people?

And I guess that is Blizzards problem. They found out that minmaxers and raiders only make a small portion of the players and they can't go on designing new content only for them. So they made raids more casual-friendly and epics easier to get. No point in having everything designed for minmaxers again, huh? But for entertaining the non-pros they have no clue what to do. Or so it seems.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining as I am still very excited to see Cataclysm and I can't come up with better ideas myself, to be honest.

[FuzzyDolly]

What about the solo player? My main is in a guild that is running 25 man content now. I don't raid. I don't PVP. I, believe it or not, am tired of killing things. I'd love to see more quests that use brains instead of brawn. Puzzles that need to be solved. Pets that are tameable only after a several part quest line. Maybe something where you have to gain the animal's trust. Do a quest or 2 with them as an NPC (where the pet is in control of their actions), than a couple where you control the pet's action, and then the pet "decides" whether or not to accompany you as your companion. Things that we can do solo and still maintain our interest. I have no gold on my main becuase I am so freaking tired of doing dailies and grinding rep, I can't even tell you. If I wanted the monotony of doing the same thing every day for years, I'd just go to work. LOL

[Ghanur]

Seriously, I sometimes fear that Blizzard is running out of ideas.

It's not Blizzard running out of ideas, it's Activision overrun by greed!
Two years of announcements and nothing deliverd with Cataclysm.
WoW is in maintenance mode, run by a bunch of interns - Activision all over it: no investments, just milking the customers.

Its like cataclysm is aimed for new players out there and trusts that those who stayed so far will stick around for lack of a better thing to do.

It is, Activision is build around selling boxes, many boxes. The profit margin in maintaining an online world is lesser than in moving boxes.
The gamer fluctuation in WoW looks like an all time high - so catering to new (and only new) players looks good on the paper
D3 and SC2 are the games of the (Activision) future - not online worlds like WoW.

[Vespias]

so basically, for my guild, the ONLY way to earn rep, will be via quests. which will be a massive time consuming project as it is a very small guild. So we have to wait forever and a day to have anything, while larger guilds can just breeze through it all as usual.

yep, sounds awesome.

Agree... We have a tiny guild so all these things will be a long hard grind for us. Thanks Blizz for widening the gap even further and for giving people incentive to quit their smaller guilds and join the mega-guilds. Yeah, screw the small guys who worked hard to keep even a small guild going. Like when Home Depot showed up and drove all the hardware stores out of business!

[Elvirra]

None of this is live yet,right? It could all change in a heartbeat,right? Right?

Sheesh,learn to breathe,okay?

Seriously.



Kitairra

[Ghanur]

None of this is live yet,right? It could all change in a heartbeat,right? Right?

Sheesh,learn to breathe,okay?

It's public BETA - such "features" should not be there.

In your place I wouldn't hold my breath for a change to the better