The Cataclysm. Do you like it so far?

[Karathyriel]

Hey people,

like everyone knows, I started playing WoW again, shortly before Cataclysm hit the shelves.

I chose to start completely from scratch, playing a tauren hunter on a realm I never played before. Yesterday, I've finally hit level 85. I really liked the changes that were part of the new expansion. I enjoyed the new quest lines that seemed cleverer and more like an actual story to me, than they used to be. I do like the looks of the equipment stuff, a good mix of classic and WotLK, away from those colorful pieces in TBC. Although I don't really enjoy T11... Especially the hunter set. But that is just a matter of taste, right?

And I have to admit, the best zone there ever was: ULDUM! Man, I so enjoyed the quests, the scenery and I really loved the Harrison Jones quests. All those gags and ideas taken fom the movies: SUPER AWESOME!

And you? Hit the level cap already? What did you like best?

Cheers,
- Karathyriel (or better call me Ashone now! )

[erwil]

Uldum, was and is simply amazing. I do wish they had thrown in more dailies in there so it wouldn't be an area just for farmers.

Twilight Highlands I like the least. It all seemed cool in beta with the Dragonmaw and all, but now that I'm done leveling on two toons, I just don't see a reason to go back, even for the dailies. >.<

I adore the new mount models and pets. Questing has improved so much and I enjoy the cinematics.

Archaeology I currently poke with a 10ft stick. Now that I have the Sandstone drake, I'm not planning to give it another go before Blizzard makes some changes to the profession (it should be relaxing fun in the background, but it'd still be great to be able to turn some dig sites off).

[Karathyriel]

Oh yeah, the little videos that told the story while you were questing!
Absolute total awesome sauce!

And I really liked those pop-up quests!

[Saturo]

I like the questing, the leveling, all that. But what I really don't like? How they dumbed everything down. I miss a lot of my spells, a lot of my spells OLD effects, I miss the old talent trees, I miss not being able to just randomly click while speccing and still coming out with something okay, and I hate some of the players that started in WOTLK/Cata. The kind that punch the sheep. The kind that corpsecamp me and then get their asses kicked by my guildie that then relog and call me all kinds of derogative words, and most of all the kind that have absolutely no idea how their class plays.

I don't like being 85. I liked being 23 more. I liked being 84 more. I liked leveling my engineering more.

[Comett]

In general I've loved Cata more than any of the other games (except perhaps vanilla but I'm not counting that as I didn't experience high end content first hand but I wish I had!). However ... you made me go look at the hunter T11.

Omg. Murloc. No. NO.

If I did not love my hunter so much, seriously, that set would almost lead me to play one of my alts more. Druid? Yes, it's gorgeous! Shammy? Not bad! Priest? Beautiful! The only ones that are ALMOST as bad as the hunter one are warriors (giant rock shard aka unicorn horn on head) and perhaps mage (though it would look hilarious on a gnome).

Well at least the murloc set matches those hideous boots we get from Hyjal argh. ARGH DX My Cataclysm love has ended.

Edit: Ah, thankfully I was misinformed. There is worse! Warlock looks like a deformed treant was molded to their head. Prot pally looks like one of the Cheem tree people from Dr Who. Rogue looks like a cross between a galaxy and those space trader dudes from BC. All hope is not lost. Or perhaps the fact that there are uglier looking helmets than murlocs means hope HAS been lost.

[Royi]

I LOVE popup quests myself Super easy, I also like those quests with the red ! (you generally get a new popup quest after killing a mob). Those are neat too.

I need to do more Uldum I think, I just have Harrison Jones quests to do, but then I have nothing else unlocked. After Harrison Jones do you then unlock those Schlottz's quests? Theres a whole area southwest that doesnt offer me anything right now.

Only down side I think is that it might be that quest eligibility might be a bit too phased for me. It seems that some zones only have one starting quest line in order to do all the others... but overall its not that bad,

[erwil]

Cackle. I actually really like the murloc theme of the hunter set. Would love to have it on my hunter some day. But the most awesome looking sets are definitely the warrior and mage one. My fiancee, who happens to be our main tank, absolutely adores the warrior set and he can't wait to get it completed on his warrior. x)

The pop up quests are great, really like the way they work. Although I do like picking up little shoes and seashells to get the quests, but I'm usually pretty terrible when it comes to looting (lost one epic item to a friend because I was too lazy to go through the corpses xD ).

I'm not too big fan of the "wotlk players", those who started in wrath and who try to run heroics with the same mentality as in the previous expansion (aka. gather as many mobs as you can and aoe tank them, no cc, and not waiting for healer's mana). I'm happy to not have to pug since I have the chance to run heroics with my guild instead, but I keep hearing stories every day where people still try to live in the old ways of wrath. I'm more than glad with the way heroics work now, I've really missed CC from bc, and wouldn't mind if there was even more of it in the future.

[Comett]

I have to admit, as hideous as I personally deem it, I'm going to rejoice in half normal, half heroic T11 Murloc-esque armour that makes me resemble a firework. Also going to have to "show helm". If it's gonna be bad it has to be bad the whole way xP

[Cozzene]

As a hunter, yes. Don't get me started.
As a healer, I want to stab most people in the eyes with shrimp forks. Wtt 1 resto sham, lvl 85, solid 333ish gear, for 1 85 healer priest.
As a tank, I... won't be tanking.

[Tudyk]

(I think I have to pay somebody from McDonald's if I say this but ...) I'm lovin' it.

Only did Vash'ir (on my druid, GOGO SEA RAT!! <3), Hyjal and part of Uldum (on my hunter) so far but the zones are pretty, mining nodes are plentiful and the quest chains are actually things I WANT to follow, just to see how they turn out. I also like that killing strange ugly beasties tends to give you a quest to kill MORE strange ugly beasties, just for the heck of it. That made me giggle. While the phasing still feels a little clunky (particularly in the goblin starting area, where questgivers changing phase forced me to WoWhead to read the quests I was on), I still like the fact that it feels like a zone actually changes as you progress through it.

Maybe I'm just a sadist ... but I LOVE the instances. Most of the stuff I've run has been with my beartank, my little brother (priest) and his wife (mage), both of whom don't play very regularly (they JUST hit 80 before Cata came out). It's a TON of fun to sit down with them and watch TankSpot vids and discuss strats for bosses and even the best way to execute trash pulls. They'll most likely never get to raid, so having something for them to do that's actually engaging and challenging is a very appreciated change from Wrath. Granted when my hunter PuGs instances, they usually involve at least two wipes due to people refusing to believe that "run in to pull and hit every AE button I have" isn't a viable strategy. But even then ... being in a group that sticks it out to LEARN SOMETHING and actually GET BETTER in the name of progression always puts a smile on my face, even if I do have to pull out Jeeves mid-run.

My druid now has thrash, and FINALLY feels like a proper AE tank again. <3 Oh and big big <3 to Aspect of the Fox.

Also .... no Cata rare-killing meta-chieve. Yay! It doesn't stop 'em from getting killed for no good reason, but at least there's not half a dozen people actively hunting my would-be pet. =D

[cowmuflage]

Only done the sea place so far I really love it.

Of corse wotlk players are nitwits. I mean they think Bm is just about Exotics lol and when you tell them those are a new thing they act like you are lieing.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Yes all of us WotLK players are nitwits.
I wish people wouldn't generalize like that.

I started in WotLK. Lucky for me, my boyfriend got me into the game and he's been playing since vanilla. He made sure I learned my classes and introduced me to sites like EJ and MMO-Champ. Often times I will do a full set of research on a class I'm just beginning to roll. I know I'm in the minority, but still, it'd be nice not to have all WotLK players lumped together. There were bad players in BC and Vanilla too, just more people look at those expansion/game through rose colored glasses. >_>

Anyway, OT: I like Cata so far. My druid's my only 85 at the moment and I'm learning to bear tank on her (really loving the mechanics). For the most part, my guild runs randoms together and we'll get maybe like, one PuG in the group. (Had an enhance shaman the other day that refused to help CC the Adepts in VP and believed you could just burn down a group with two of em in it.)

I've enjoyed most of the leveling experience. I would say, that when my druid was still boomkin, I felt gimped in Twilight Highlands because anything more than one or two mobs and I would be lucky to survive (and it happened often that mobs would spawn on top of me while I was questing). I think I died there more than any other zone, however, the intro questline into Twilight Highlands was probably my favorite in the game so far.

[Saturo]

I said SOME of the players, Tyger. Sorry if that offended you. But, sadly, a lot of the WOTLK players do suck. Obviously I have no problem with the ones who can play, and those who obviously try their best I tend to help too. It's the ones that spam AoE all over my sheep, that can't control their aggro worth shit and who just spam the spell with the flashiest animation.

[Lupis]

Personally, I've loved near everything this expansion had to offer. It's all very nicely done.
For quests- two things I really love. No, three.
1. You're no longer "That guy". NPCs depend on you. Instead of going out and gathering firewood, you're out being the hero. You're the important one. It really draws you into the quests.
2. No more "Kill all these mobs, come out of the cave, then go ALL THE WAY BACK IN to kill the mob at the end!" quests! 'Nuff said!
3. Each zone is basically one giant chain quest. As much as this can be annoying if you want to keep a quest, I've adored it. Each zone has a definite feel and theme to it, and the quests go along with this. Even the little quests tie into the big chain.

For dungeons- I love how hard the Heroics have become. You need to know what you're doing.
Now, I'm not a fan of how long some of them are...

Overall, I've loved it. I tend to see the games like this - Vanilla WoW was a prototype, a test if you will. They didn't know what they were doing, but the base of the game was great and they knew it could be amazing.
BC was... experimenting. They tried a few new ideas, and... um... failed a few ideas. Still, they were seeing what they could and couldn't do with game mechanics.
WotLK, they were starting to figure things out. They knew how to make quests fun, and how to make the player more engaged. They added the Dungeon Finder (FINALLY) and that was a huge milestone.
Cata, they know what they're doing! They make all the quests fun and engaging, the zones creative, and everything interesting.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I said SOME of the players, Tyger. Sorry if that offended you. But, sadly, a lot of the WOTLK players do suck. Obviously I have no problem with the ones who can play, and those who obviously try their best I tend to help too. It's the ones that spam AoE all over my sheep, that can't control their aggro worth shit and who just spam the spell with the flashiest animation.

It wasn't a comment aimed directly at you, just something that frustrates me in general.

[Skyshot]

So far I love it. My favorite expansion thus far. I love the new pets, the look of some of the armor/weps, the new zones and revamps of the old ones. My favorite quest hub while leveling alts has to be Stonetalon (horde side) for the story there. While it does take a sad turn, the plot completely sucked me in and the ending did not disappoint. At 85 I would have to agree that Uldum is my favorite for both the quests and the very Egyptian look of the zone. My favorite spot in Uldum is Cradle of the Ancients after you complete all of the quests for the zone. The lush, coastal oasis is my favorite fishing spot now. :]

Let's see... Favorite instance so far: Halls of Origination. The boss encounters are fun and the place just looks amazing.
(Oh the pranks one can play with that elevator... lol ;D)

[TygerDarkstorm]

I love Halls of Origination as well. =D

Tanked it for the first time last night (had healed it once previously); I just love all the different mechanics and the overall look and theme of the dungeon. ^_^

[erwil]

HoO here as well. At first I moaned a little because it was fairly long, but after doing it a few times, I'm really enjoying it. Love the look, bosses and their mechanics. I'm also big fan of Brann so it's a bonus. <3

[cowmuflage]

I have only done black rock but i liked that quest chain there. I remmber saveing that gnome way back in upper black rock lol.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I think HoO and any of the Brann/Harrison Jones stuff would be great for any Archaeology RP toons out there.