Man I hate the period after the new year, with christmas in the rear view mirror, we usually enter a dry period in gaming until late feb/march with precious little titles being released, so I thought i'd catch up on my backlog and continue review games from the past, today iv'e decided to continue reviewing the World of Warcraft Expansion, since i'm chronologically up to Cataclysm, what better time than now?
So lets jump right into the shattering of the world as we review World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
Pre Story Shenanigans
First and foremost before we get into the story of Cataclysm it's important to note that Blizzard heavily Retconned a lot of the story in Cataclysm before it was released and as such a lot of it didn't make sense in terms of the motives of Deathwing, so if it seems confusing, that's because it is and the original lore of the game was scrapped in favor of.....whatever the hell Cataclysm eventually became.
Without going to deep into it, essentially Blizzard retconned Deathwing into being basically an insane dragon bent on destroying the world, as opposed to the previously developed lore of being driven insane by the Old Gods, who were hellbent on stopping the Legion in it's conquest of Azeroth through their many invasions, including The Lich King and aimed to kill off the population of Azeroth so that the scourge couldn't be used to take Azeroth, it's also important to note that Deathwing was initially hidden in Grim Batol, not deepholme as Therazane would of been able to keep him imprisoned forever, but nvm that lets actually go to the story.
Setting and Story.
After regaining his strength from the previous war of the aspects with the other dragons, Deathwing or Neltharion the Earth Warder, decided after the defeat of the Lich King now would be the time to attack Azeroth and bring about the "Hour of Twilight" a mysterious prophecy that heralded the ending of all creation, breaking through the barrier of the elemental plane of earth, Deathwing caused the Cataclysm, an apocalyptic scenario that forever reshaped the lands of Azeroth but quickly realized how much the world had changed since he was last on the surface, the heroes of Azeroth had spread to every inch of the planet and the dragon aspects had taken a secondary role.
Heading to Blackrock mountain, Deathwing found the corpse of his son, Nefarian who had been slain years ago by the heroes of Azeroth, owing to his extensive knowledge of the black dragon race he reanimated his son and ordered him to create the strongest mutations of the black dragonflight he could, Nefarian almost as insane as his father reanimated his sister, Onyxia, he also traveled to the Twilight Highlands in search of his old mate, Sinestra, who had also been slain, reanimating her she began to repopulate the Black Dragonflight and spread over Azeroth as quickly as possible.
While his brood prepared his soldiers, Deathwing also traveled to the elemental planes to convince the elemental lords to reject the pantheon, the titan race of creators, and to join him in conquering the planet that was rightfully theirs, the first to join was Ragnaros the elemental lord of Fire who had been defeated when he attempted to surface in Azeroth, the second was Al'Akir, the elemental lord of Air, the next was Therazane however trapped in deepholme and setting in rage at Deathwing for shattering the elemental plane of earth, Deathwing decided to skip her and go straight to Neptulon, the elemental lord of Water.
Unable to reach the Abyssal Maw by himself, Deathwing enlisted the help of the Naga who also served the old gods, however Neptulon rejected Deathwing and the naga as they are a pollutant on his realm, because of this rejection the naga sent Ozumat a giant tentacled monstrosity to kidnap Neptulon, unfortunately Blizzard never got around to actually writing what happened with Neptulon and stated his "story was finished" all though we would later come to find out he was planned to be rescued in the Abyssal Maw raid that was never completed.
However there were worse problems, the rift that Deathwing had caused at deepholm near the Maelstrom was collapsing and dragging Azeroth down with it, Thrall headed to the Maelstrom and attempted to stabilize it while the heroes of azeroth searched for the pillars of the earth in deepholm to repair it on their side, while thrall was travelling in the seas he came across the remains of the goblins of Kezan, whose homeland had been utterly decimated by the Cataclysm and offered them a place in the horde.
Likewise on the other side of the world the violent earthquakes were felt in Gilneas, the walled off city, suffering from a terrible plague that was transforming them in violent wolf like creatures Genn Greymane the king of Gilneas ordered the construction of the wall during the 2nd war and cut all ties with the Alliance, however it wasn't until the afflicted gilneans, now called Worgen began to regain their sentience that Deathwing caused the Cataclysm, sundering Gilneas and allowing the Forsaken to attack them for the first time in decades, with the help of the night elves, they fled to Darnassus and joined with the Alliance again.
With the horde and alliance still at each others throats and the looming threat of Deathwing and his brood the world teeters on the brink of destruction as the new horde warchief Garrosh Hellscream begins a brutal war all across Azeroth the Alliance attempt to hold back to elemental planes that have joined with Deathwing, likewise fighting the Cult of Twilight, a crazed cult helping Deathwing and the Twilight council to bring about the Hour of Twilight and the destruction of Azeroth.
I'm going to leave it here as there is a lot more story to get through and i was hoping to just set the stage for the Cataclysm and what has taken place since Wrath of The Lich King.
The New Zones.
Cataclysm had the distinction of bring some very old zones into the game for the first time, some where loved and some were very much hated so lets take a look at some of the zones and look at their reactions.
Mount Hyjal
Mount Hyjal has been in the game since vanilla but was never introduced until Cataclysm, one of the most prestigious and storied zones, home of the world tree and the site of the defeat of Archimonde, Ragnaros has burst through the crust of the elemental plane of fire and set the forests on fire as well as making a push to claim all of Hyjal and bring doom upon Kalimdor.
Players overwhelming enjoyed this zone as we had been waiting a long time for it, it was also home to the raid instance of the Firelands and during 4.1 was a daily hub for the Molten Front that people fought through before the invasion of the Firelands.
Vash'jir
Vash'jir was once the home of the night elves before Queen Azshara made her bargain with the old gods transforming them into the hideous naga, also home to the entrance to the Abyssal Maw it was supposed to be the stepping stone for the inevitable Abyssal maw raid however Blizzard never finished it so the zone was only ever used as a leveling zone.
Most players hated Vash'jir owing to the fact that it was entirely underwater and hard to navigate, personally I enjoyed it however a lot of people really disliked Vash'jir in it's entirety and as such Blizzard has never done another underwater zone since.
Deepholme
The elemental plane of Earth was torn apart when Deathwing escaped, shattering the world pillars and leaving chaotic magic spread across the zone, the leader of Deepholme, Therazane has attempted to restore order to the plane but with very little success as the continuing magic spreads chaos everywhere and the entire plane becomes unstable after the shattering.
Players were rather indifferent to Deepholme as it was a leveling zone with only one instance most players enjoyed the aesthetic of the zone but it was never really anything more than a place to level and to camp a very rare mount spawn, it would of been nice to see it fleshed out a bit further.
Uldum
One of the most mysterious zones ever created and talked about in warcraft history, the base version of Uldum had been in the game since vanilla like Hyjal but had never been introduced or hinted at until Cataclysm, the Lost city of Tol'Vir held many secrets and the open deserts and plains hid many enemies, after Al'Akir aligned himself with Deathwing the Tolvir split into factions and began a civil war against those that followed Deathwing and those that didn't.
Uldum was largely well received as it was a zone people had talked about for years before seeing it, it held the Throne of the Four Winds raid where you would face Al'Akir and had many unique models and questing hubs for players to explore.
Twilight Highlands
Hidden off the coast of Loch Modan and the wetlands, the twilight highlands have been used by the dwarven clans since before written history, now the cult of twilight has staged a violent uprising with the twilight council to claim them and set a staging ground for a war against Ironforge, the dragonmaw orcs have also continued their war with the dwarven clans as well as the horde, alliance and the twilight hammer.
Twilight Highlands was again largely well received due to it's storied past, great zone layout and quest design, it the Bastion of Twilight raid that saw players finally confront Cho'Gall and Deathwing's mate, Sinestra, however since it was one of the last zones to level in, Twilight Highlands was often used as a place to farm raiding mats.
The Dragon Soul Raid.
Upon facing all the challenges of Deathwing and The Twilight Council players finally faced Deathwing himself in the Dragon soul, Dragon Soul was located in Dragonblight in Northrend that was used for the previous expansion, it was said that the Hour of Twilight would begin in Dragonblight when Deathwing impaled himself atop wyrmrest temple allowing the old gods to break free from their shackles.
Thrall reforged the Dragon Soul, a legendary artifact capable of sapping the power of a dragon aspect, as the heroes of Azeroth battle their way through Deathwings most powerful Lieutenants, Thrall, along with other dragon aspects finally unleashed the power of the Dragon soul, weakening Deathwing, the heroes of Azeroth attacked Deathwing before finally bringing him down near the Maelstrom, celebrating their victory Deathwing emerged from the Maelstrom, now horribly mutated by the chaotic energies of Deepholm set about causing the final cataclysm and shattering Azeroth.
With their last bits of power, the dragon aspects along with the heroes of Azeroth defeated Deathwing finally but at the price that the Dragon Aspects were now almost powerless as they used nearly all of their power to defeat Deathwing, stating that the "Time of the aspects is over".
Critical Review and Reception.
So while the story was a little janky it wasn't why Cataclysm was so poorly received, mainly through class design, bad end zone design, and the beginning of what would later be known as the "casualization" of WoW, classes were reworked to become almost homogeneous with each other completely destroying unique class feeling, likewise the content was so few and far between, coupled with the fact we lost raid tiers because of it, it was overall poorly received, likewise the final raid instance, Dragon Soul was not properly designed to be an End Expansion Raid and dragged on for almost a year when most player had finished it within a month.
However it wasn't until the next expansion, Mists of Pandaria that people began to realize how much they hated Cataclysm, the groundwork laid in Cataclysm would eventually lead into the worst expansion of the franchise(Not Mists of Pandaria) the removing of the unique feeling of the classes, coupled with very easy raids made people unhappy as Blizzard was coming off the back of 2 amazing expansions, this felt very rushed and incomplete and had very poor development and design, while the zones and leveling were fine it was the end game that people had a problem with, one that I understand all too well.
You have to understand that the previous expansion, Wrath of The Lich King was very well received in terms of scaling down the difficulty of the game, Cataclysm took a bit too far in the sense that the game world had become almost boring to play as people were now hanging out in cities 24/7 and would only really be seen in the world when they were either leveling or when they needed to go to a raid, again this would lay the groundwork for some of the worst choices in World Of Warcraft.
Personally I didn't have that much of a problem with it, after 8 years of hardcore raiding I enjoyed the more laid back approach Cataclysm had but I do understand why people were angry, for 8 years the expansions had been about adding to the game and improving it whereas Cataclysm seemed to only be taking things away and making them easier, then in Mists of Pandaria people realized just how devastating Cataclysm was to the game and would be for another 5 years after it.
Whatever the feelings are, objectively it was a pretty bad expansion from a team that was known for its amazing quality and Cataclysm would serve as the beginning of dark times for World of Warcraft, one that was only rectified last year with the release of Legion.