Well, it's official: World of WarCraft Cataclysm incoming

[Civil War Man]

Besides, the surface of the planet is being cracked open like a fugging eggshell. At what point do you just say "fuck it" to the old conventions and start throwing everything against the wall in the hope that something will work? That's why I don't see night elf mages ( or any of the new classes) as corruptions of the old racial lore, I see them as what I think Blizzard intended them to be: an act of sheer desperation.

I think the reason most people thought "lolore" (at least, why I did) was because Night Elf Mages were directly responsible for the world getting cracked open the first time by the Burning Legion. Then another Night Elf Mage preserved the Well of Eternity, thereby paving the way for another Burning Legion invasion, at which point he decided he might as well just become Evil full-time. Then one of his Lieutenants (this time a Blood Elf Mage) orchestrated a third Burning Legion invasion.

So I mostly think "lolore" because the Night Elves decided to forget their past 10,000 years of bad experiences regarding Mages in their ranks. Of course, it may very well be a realistic portrayal, because it's not like Humans possess much historical insight, either.

[Ford Prefect]

Still waiting for Diablo 3

Man, am I crazy or does the Monk look like the most entertaining class in any Blizzard game? He's like ... teleporting Bruce Lee, only bald and with a massive beard.

[Oskuro]

Regarding NE mages, at least some time back the lore stated that if Night Elves were to wield arcane magic, they would irreversably transform into Sun Elves. Guess that part has been retconned.

[Stofsk]

Still waiting for Diablo 3

Man, am I crazy or does the Monk look like the most entertaining class in any Blizzard game? He's like ... teleporting Bruce Lee, only bald and with a massive beard.

I hate the beard. I hope when it comes to customisation you can opt to ditch it.

My god I hate that beard. But love the idea.

[Civil War Man]

So I have come to wonder something about how the Worgen are going to be written. Apparently a Gilneas apothecary comes up with a formula that allows someone with the Worgen curse to regain control of themselves. So you have a group of mindless killing machines who manage to regain their autonomy and rejoin society at large.

Will Worgen quests be
A: Like the Forsaken, where even though they are free of the worst parts of their curse, they decided to be blatantly evil anyway.
B: Like the Forsaken should have been, where they focus on atoning for whatever they may have done when they did not have control and trying to prove themselves to be a worthy ally.

Taking all bets.

On a side note, it'd be pretty hilarious to do the Silverbrook quest chain as a Worgen.

[Ghost Rider]

Still waiting for Diablo 3

Man, am I crazy or does the Monk look like the most entertaining class in any Blizzard game? He's like ... teleporting Bruce Lee, only bald and with a massive beard.

I hate the beard. I hope when it comes to customisation you can opt to ditch it.

My god I hate that beard. But love the idea.

If it comes with customization...hopefully it'll be deeper then WoW's.

The monk is an interesting class, but I am hoping they scale every class decently. Diablo 2 had the problem that at the end, only a few could hang and everyone else was there to take up space.

[Stofsk]

If it comes with customization...hopefully it'll be deeper then WoW's.

I don't know how WoW's customisation goes, but you're right and they're also supposed to be gender selection as well (hopefully that means the female monk isn't bearded Though I wonder if she'll still be bald?)

The monk is an interesting class, but I am hoping they scale every class decently. Diablo 2 had the problem that at the end, only a few could hang and everyone else was there to take up space.

There are so many variables inherent to long term gaming that it would be impossible to predict what power disparity there would be between the various classes at higher difficulties. Diablo 2 sort of showed that, as nobody is a better (and safer) melee fighter than the Barbarian (highest HP with Vitality investment, meaning he can tank; highest damage with high-end skills, like Beserk and/or Whirlwind, and Beserk has the added bonus of providing 100% magic damage that can't be resisted by monsters and even ignores the dread Iron Maiden curse from Oblivion Knights - the only monsters immune to Magic Damage are the Unravellers from Act 2 but only on Hell difficulty, and it wouldn't be hard to smash them using a normal attack or Concentrate instead), or ranged/crowd control class than the Sorceress or Javazon (Javazons with Lightning Fury do absurd amounts of damage, and you don't even need to synergise the skill), and nothing is as broken as the Hammerdin (Paladin using nothing but Blessed Hammer and synergised completely - ridiculous amounts of damage that like Beserk, is unresistable by 99% of all the monsters in the game - hell I think Blessed Hammer can still kill Unravellers - and is a caster, and can still tank because Vitality provides higher HP than for any other caster class). Necros who also focus on nothing but skellies can also pretty much cruise through the game and let the skellies kill everything.

At the moment, it looks like Barbarian in D3 will retain the same role it had in D2 (ie tough and safe melee character who isn't all that fast but will have huge protection and damage potential) while in comparison, I've heard it said that the Monk will be a bit of a glass cannon (obviously we don't know how true that is until we see the end result), and might be the 'paladin' type class for D3 (Paladins were strong but their best utility was as party leader, because auras were super useful). Wizards are basically Sorcs so they don't seem to do anything new, other than the new spells. I still predict they will be the crowd-control specialists. Witch Doctors have so far not interested me, as they appear to be Necros but as you said, not with skellies but with zombies. Still, worth a play anyway.

Now I wonder what Class 5 will be! (Fingers crossed the Rogue makes a comeback, but probably won't be called a Rogue and won't be tied to the Sisters of the Sightless Eye - but one can hope I guess)

[Darmalus]

Orgrimmar destroyed in the expansion?
Orgrimmar destroyed? No. Given a bit of a make-over and a bit more iron in its spine (so to speak)? Yes.

Hurray! I was hoping this would happen in WotLK, with the Lich King's attacks, but better late than never.

[Oskuro]

Orgrimmar destroyed in the expansion?
Orgrimmar destroyed? No. Given a bit of a make-over and a bit more iron in its spine (so to speak)? Yes.

Hmmm, I was under the impression it was going to be blown up and a "New Ogrimmar" of sorts opened somewhere else. Also, is it true that they guy Thrall leaves in charge has the utter gall to Spoiler

kill Cairne?!

Poor old man, players already gave him much grief, and now this.

[Minischoles]

There were rumours flying around about it getting destroyed, as well as Cairne getting killed (all came from mmo-champion, which as usual proved to be pretty close to the truth) the Cairne thing is still speculation I believe, and Orgimmar isn't being destroyed, but if you watch the trailer for Cataclysm, you do see the main entrance covered in scaffolding and being beefed up.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I'm just looking at the new look, and wondering where will we be fishing?

[Oskuro]

In the lava, of course.

[Broomstick]

Well, sure - there's already lava fishing in Shadowmoon Valley for one of Barlowe's daily fishing quests

[Ghost Rider]

Hell...that lava is green. Fish in WoW live anywhere.

My only saddened part is that the new Ony drops basically old Ony loot...but upgraded. And I reminded how fucking piss poor it is all itemized. To some, it will be "Look ONYXIA!!!!". For some raiders it'll be "SHE DEP BRETHS MOAR!!!" For me it will be "Oh good, larger slot bag, and....ummm...I still have Quel.".

Though with the expansion I will say my bit of "Such and such was merely a set back!" is my main dislike. Ragnaros, at least, was even explained in game at being less then full power. But I will give Blizzard this...they have gotten fucking better since Vanilla, regardless of what fucknuggets think original WoW was fun. Replacing the world can only be a good thing to shut those rose colored bitches to actually move on and realize that WoW had a shitload of problems in the 1-60 stages that I hope to never do again(and yes...I have filled out everything and plan to delete whomever I am really not using for a Human Hunter.).

[Oskuro]

Just watched the video, and I have mixed feelings about the whole world going Burning Steppes/Searing Gorge on us. Oh well, it'll make levelling alts a bit less dull, although I'll probably miss a lot of the old content. Oh, wait, no I won't, I'm so fucking anal I essentially did every quest in Azeroth save for the high end raids and AQ opening chain. Pity I won't get Thunderfury to match my Quel'Serrar, unless they upgrade her.

And I'm sad to see the old Blackrock instances go (they were cool, even if a bit unnerving at times), but at least Ragnaros, who is cool as hell, won't be bested by wanky frostbolt mages... for a while at least.

[Sharp-kun]

And I'm sad to see the old Blackrock instances go (they were cool, even if a bit unnerving at times), but at least Ragnaros, who is cool as hell, won't be bested by wanky frostbolt mages... for a while at least.

They said at Blizzcon that they're going to try and keep as many of the old instances as possible, but some may have to go. BRD etc may well remain.

[Oskuro]

I love that "keep as many as possible", like it's not their game and they can do whatever they like

I've always thought (before they opened) that the Caverns of Time might have been a great excuse to allow access to old content for those who might not have played it (like the opening of AQ, or now the pre-Cataclysm content). Oh well.

[OmegaChief]

City of Heroes pulled off the whole "Use Time Travel to go back and run any content you've missed" so it might be a possibility, if the Blizzard guys want to at least, though I'll admit there's still one Task Force(A series of challenging linked missions for larger teams that usually involve figthing tough signature characters) that isn't available through all that Time Travel

[Oskuro]

Woah, that's part of Ouroboros? Neat. and yes, if someone else has done it, it's possible it'll end in WoW. Blizzard are quite Borg-ish in that regard (not that I complain much)

[Mr Bean]

Woah, that's part of Ouroboros? Neat. and yes, if someone else has done it, it's possible it'll end in WoW. Blizzard are quite Borg-ish in that regard (not that I complain much)

Ouroboros in City of Heroes lets you go back an experience any mission content in the game(Provided it's an arch), you get a temporary power reduction to the level appropriate for the content and a teleport to the start of the mission arch. Since everything in CoX is scaling this means depending on your difficulty setting(You can pay a small fee to make your missions more or less hard) you can say Flashback from level 50 to level 14 with all the powers you had at level 14 then fight level 14, 15 or 16 enemies depending on how you set your difficulty.

And you still get any rewards or badges for completing that mission. Anyone teamed up with you when you start gets the same reduction in power so you could bring a team of 30's, 40's and 50's and they would all be Level 14. The only limitation is you must be level 25+ to get into Ouroboros to begin with. And of course you can quit whenever you want which automaticly exists you from whatever mission you were in and back to 50 or whenever you go.

[Oskuro]

So that means I can keep playing the characters I have parked in hopes of getting people to play the "raid" missions and get the badges? Epic. I thought Ouroboros was just instances themed after the setting's backstory.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Can't they just use phasing to allow >80 characters to explore pre-Cataclysm content?

[SirNitram]

Can't they just use phasing to allow >80 characters to explore pre-Cataclysm content?

They could, but dear god, alot of the stuff(1-60) is badly made. Running through Durotar-> Barrens compared to Eversong -> Ghostlands REALLY illustrates it.

[Oskuro]

Agreed on the point that a lot of the old content is boring, and was boring even the first time through (I hate the barrens with a passion). Still, phasing has its limitations (you can see the pre-event wrathgate set-up before you get close enough for the post-event to show up, for example), so having the old world as a "time travel" instance wopuld be better. Specially because that way you don't need two servers for both continents, and more importantly, you can justify prohibiting flying mounts in the old content (unless they decide to fix the non-flyable areas, but that's not likely.)

The only thing I'm worried about is that, with all that lava, most of the world might become dull, having a single theme all throughout. Hope not.

[SirNitram]

The best thing about time travel is there's already an in-game supporter for this. The Caverns of Time just gets a new tunnel or so on. Pesky Infinite Dragonflight!