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Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

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  • Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

    Some info posted on the forums at work. I'm not sure where the info came from so I can't provide a link. Will probably need to be several posts and will probably be backwards...lol

    Quote from Blizzard staff


    General
    • Level cap will be 85 because developers wanted to focus on the right things: redoing Azeroth and providing more end-game content.
    • A new guild advancement system will let you earn guild perks and level a guild through 20 levels with points to spend in a talent tree. You will access abilities such as cheaper repairs, less durability loss on wipes, or mass resurection.
    • Phasing can now add and remove terrain based on your progress. Coasts will be progressively more flooded depending on how far you are in a storyline for example.
    Path of the Titans
    • Talent trees won't be extended, you will just get 5 more talent points.
    • The Path of the Titans will let players follow a path (not restricted to classes), this is a new talent system with new skills and passive abilities.
    • A mastery system is being added as well, a lot of talents will be reworked to be more fun. The point is to get rid of a lot of the talent skills and not make you spend all your points in a talent tree just because it gives you more damage or higher crit chance.
    Archeology
    • Archeology is a new secondary profession, not many details about this one but we'll probably hear more about it in future panels.
    Deathwing
    • Deathwing, the leader of the Black Dragonflight will be the main vilain of the expansion.
    • Deathwing heard the whispers of the Old Gods after the arrival of the Burning Legion, he eventually grew very powerful and also became very very crazy.
    • His plan was to catch the Alliance and Horde unaware with something so massive that it would bring up the Elemental Planes.
    • The Elemental Planes were created by titans to contain the elementals, they weren't happy with this decision and some of them like Ragnaros got really angry.
    New races - Worgens
    • Other races were discussed for the alliance, but the developers really felt that the alliance needed a monstrous race and horde needed something fun and tiny.
    • Genn Greymane closed the Greymane Wall to block the Scourge's plague. Gilneas got nervous as the Scourge progressed to the south.
    • Arugal was a patriot, he called the Worgens to battle for Gilneas but eventually was surprised by how dangerous what he called down was.
    • Worgens are from somewhere else ... or even someWHEN else. They have a wolverine temperament and spent a lot of time trying to contain the beast within.
    • Racial - Visciousness - +1% damage.
    • Racial - Dark Flight - +70% run speed for 10 seconds.
    • Racial - Abberation - Duration of Curses and Diseases reduced by 15%
    • Racial - Flayer - Skinning skill increased by 15.
    New Races - Goblins
    • Goblins are a technological race from Kezan, their society is broken up into trade cartels run by trade princes. They are new factions and not the ones you can already see in game.
    • The Cataclysm hit Kezan really hard and it's possibly destroyed. The goblins are now refugees on the Lost Isles.
    • As a goblin you start as a neutral cartel and eventually join the horde as you progress through the questlines.
    • Racial - Best Deals Anywhere - Always receive the best discount regardless of faction.
    • Racial - Pack Hobgoblin - Calls your personal servant allowing you bank access for 1 minute. 30 mins cooldown.
    • Racial - Better Living Through Chemistry - Alchemy skill increased by 15.
    • Racial - Rocket Barrage - Launches your belt rockets an an enemy, dealing fire damage. 2 min cooldown.
    • Racial - Rocket Jump - Activates your rocket belt to jump forward. 2 min cooldown.
    • Racial - Time is Money - 1% increased attack and casting speed.
    Old World
    • We all left a little part of ourselves in Northrend and the old world will be much darker than it was to make heroism and brotherhood more meaningful like Warcraft should be.
    • Every zones will be revamped with new quests, items, and art. The old world will be a brand new experience and you won't have to deal with the annoying agility/spirit quest rewards anymore.
    • Azeroth is now flyable. Pretty much all the zones will be changed to some extent, some of them like Elwynn Forest won't change too much but others like The Barrens will be sundered in two by Deathwing.
    • The Wailing Caverns are now a lush and verdant Area.
    • Desolace now has a lot more waters and a lot of plants can be seen in the screenshots.
    • The Horde finally conquered Southshore.
    • Auberdine was destroyed and the night elves have set up a new camp north of it. Garrosh wants to expand the horde and has built a fortified camp at the south of the zone.
    • Stonetalon has been cleaned by the Goblins, Azshara will be the new Goblin zone, and are using quarries in the mountains of Azshara to build their town.
    • Apparently Orgrimmar will be rebuilt and reinforced with steel, it now looks a lot like Garrosh strongholds...
    • Undercity has been redesigned to be flyable, it now looks much more impressive from the outside.
    New Zones
    • 7 new zones will be added : Twilight Highlands, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, Gilneas, The Lost Isles, Sunken City of Vash'jir.
    Starting Areas
    • The Worgens and Goblins starting zone level goes from 1 to 15.
    Vasj'ir
    • Sunken City of Vashj'ir will be an underwater zone and was the home city of Lady Vashj before the original sundering, this is a gateway to the Abyssal Maw. Going through the Abyssal Maw will take you to the Elemental Plane of Water, even if the zone will be underwater you will be walking on the sea floor here, new underwater mounts will be available and should have the same speed as normal flying mounts.
    Deepholm
    • Deepholm will be the new hub of the expansion, you will have portals here to let you teleport to Hyjal, Uldum, etc ... The Twilight's Hammer now serves Deathwing and have brought him back to full health in the Temple of Earth at the center of the map.
    • Deepholm isn't really connected to Azeroth, the connection is where Deathwing emerged from the ground.
    Uldum
    • Uldum will have at least two dungeons and is heavily inspired from Egypt. The sea at the west of Tanaris was just an illusion created by the Titan and Uldum is actually a brand new zone. It is rumored to hold a super weapon. Uldum is also the home of the Tolvir, a race of stone-like cats created by the titans.
    Plane of Fire
    • Ragnaros used the cataclysm to come back from the Plane of Fire where we sent him and is now sieging the World Tree in Mount Hyjal to burn it down. Malfurion is back from the Emerald Dream. The whole zone (Hyjal) will make extensive use of phasing.
    Twilight Highlands
    • The Twilight Highlands will feature Grim Batol, Deathwing literally broke open Grim Batol as he emerged from the ground. This is the new Twilight's Hammer base in Azeroth and both Horde and Alliance will have a new port town with boats here. The Red Dragonflight is still here but has been pushed back to the west of the zone near the Wetlands.
    Dungeons & Raids
    • The Firelands will be a new raid dungeon, it will let you go to the Elemental Plane of fire and visit Sulfuron's Keep, Ragnaros will be here and he's really pissed.
    • Uldum will feature two new dungeons, the Lost City of Tol'vir and the Halls of Origination (a titan city)
    • Grim Batol will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.
    • Skywall (Air Elemental Plane) will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.
    • The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep will be back in a brand new level 85 heroic version.
    • Blackrock Caverns will be a new level-up dungeon located in Blackrock Spire. This is an entirely new dungeon, new art, new creatures, new everything.
    Player vs. Player
    • Battle of Gilneas will be a new battleground where the objective is to control the city by controlling as many districts as possible.
    • Tol'barad will be a new PvP zone and will also be the most important daily quest hub. Just like Wintergrasp a battle will happen every few hours and the winning side will get access to the Tol'barad Prison and extra daily quests, the really profitable ones.
    • Rated battlegrounds will be added to the game and should get you the same rewards as Arenas.
    • New arena maps will be added.

  • #2
    Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

    I'll post the rest of it later if I can find the thread again now.

    Thanks for fixing my posts.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

      continued post from D


      Quote from Blizzard staff


      Stats simplification
      What we were finding is that in many cases things had just become so complicated that players were not making intelligent decisions based on their knowledge of how various stats benefited them. That sounds like what you wanted to have happened, but it really wasn't. Instead players would pull up a BiS list, or plug the item into a spreadsheet. If the answer was "upgrade" they equipped the item. We could pretty much just give the items a name and art and make all the stats not displayed.

      If you were one of those players who picked up a piece and understood how armor pen vs. attack power benefited you or whether defense was still worth collecting after you had hit crit immunity, then you were in the minority. Hopefully we can get back to a system where eyeballing an item's stats has some chance of being right.

      Guild Leveling System
      Guild advancement is based on the performance of the top 20 producers within the guild. If you have a small guild of 20 (or less), then every person's contributions will count.

      [...] If you have some down days, it's not going to affect the guild progress adversely. If you have great days, you'll be up at the top. Keep in mind, this is a great way to not penalize large guilds for having a lot of members and it's also a great way for small guilds to not feel as if they need to mass recruit to keep up with the larger guilds both.

      No new classes for Draeneis
      We didn't set out to slight the draenei. As I said on the first panel, we just didn't think any of the missing classes fit them.

      [...] While we picked some race/class combinations that were on the edgier side of things, that does not give credence to all potential race/class combinations. Draenei have a very well-rounded complement of class selections as it is, and none of the remaining classes are where we want to take the story at this time.

      Terrain changes in old zones
      The terrain is not guaranteed to change in every zone, many zones are likely going to stay the same terrain-wise but the questing will get the clean up.

      Reforging
      It's too early to go into a lot of detail on the new features, but the basic idea here was to make an undesirable drop possibly more desirable. It still shouldn't compete with gear that is actually itemized for you.

      As an example, letting someone turn stamina into a dps stat is something we'd be unlikely to do (or at least impose a lot of restrictions) since that lets you turn an undesirable stat for most characters into something good.

      Think of reforging more as a consolation prize or as a way to work around things like hit caps, and not the kind of thing that clever players are going to be able to use to vastly min max their character power.

      Leveling easier in low level zones after the revamp
      Yes, there are technically fewer brand new zones and fewer levels to level up through - but - in return for this there is a much cleaner leveling experience from start to finish and many other things. Think of it like this, would you rather have this cleaner leveling system, the guild leveling system, and the new path of the titans max-level progression system or more zones/dungeons to level up through?

      We want to hear your thoughts on things especially since we are doing something very different this expansion, but if things don't become constructive the thread will be locked.

      Cleaner leveling system? Are you referring to how the zones are being redone (i.e. Lordaeron zone level revamp)?
      Yes. The new system will avoid requiring you to run back and forth between continents to find the right quests to do. Instead there will be a natural flow all the way through.

      Also, are you guys going to increase the speed of leveling again, or is that remaining constant?
      Hard to say, just making the system flow better will probably speed it up, but I am not sure that the actual number of experience points needed will change.

      And with that in mind, lets say I roll an undead. What incentive do we have to explore say, Kalimdor? If I am a newbie starting out, and I can do everything by skipping along zone to zone in sight of the Undercity, doesn't that kinda kill the whole "big world" feel?
      This goes into the "your choice" category. Would you prefer to hit all the zones in Eastern Kingdoms like Arathi Highlands and both of the Plaguelands or swing over to see what has happened in Stonetalon Mountains and Desolace? You can enjoy one area with one character and then hit the others on another too. We like the idea of giving players more options.

      Druid
      Treants
      Treants do fine damage, but it's not terribly exciting. It's nothing that couldn't be accomplished by a spell that just did damage instead. The water elemental (less so the other elementals) and the shaman wolves are more interesting temp pets. (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/1938...w-youuuuu.html)

      Paladin
      Tauren Paladin Mount
      Tauren would certainly look strange on an armored charger, wouldn't they? We're keeping this in mind. You'll see. (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/19377...lly-mount.html)

      Draeinei Paladin Mount
      We're thinking about this, too. (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/19377...lly-mount.html)

      Rogue
      Daggers
      We drop daggers in raids. The only people who are super interested in them are Assassination rogues, but they have fallen behind Combat. We might boost Assassination without buffing its burst. Probably not through a new talent. (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/1937...is-a-joke.html)

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

        This first part sounds like it might be part of a patch before the XPAC

        Quote from Blizzard staff

        Raids & Dungeons
        The concept of Ulduar teleports will be back in future instances including Icecrown Citadel. Developers do not want you to have to run for hours just to get back to a boss after a wipe.

        Cross Server LFG
        This will let you PUG 5-man instances and search for groups through multiple servers.
        It will come with its own reward systems. If you're the leader of a PUG and complete the dungeon succesfully you will be rewarded.
        It should be out for patch 3.3.0.


        Icecrown Citadel
        Icecrown Citadel will have 4 floors.
        It will be a 10 and 25 players raid with 12 bosses
        Waypoints / Teleporters are being reused here because the instance is really big.
        You will fight Sindragosa, the ultimate Frost Wyrm. You will also fight Arthas.
        The instance is built around the spire where the Ice Throne sits.
        At the 2nd floor, you will have to board an airship with your faction leader and race against the other faction to reach the 3rd floor. You will eventually board their ship with rocket packs and catapults to fight them.
        The 3rd floor seems to be the biggest one and will feature 3 wings
        The 4th floor is where you will fight Arthas


        Icecrown Citadel - Dungeons
        The Icecrown Citadel will also feature a 5-man dungeon.
        It has 3 different wings and feature 8 bosses in total. You will have to unlock the 2nd and 3rd wings through an epic questline.
        You will fight alongside Horde and Alliance heroes.




        Cataclysm
        4 Raids : Grim Batol, Skywall, The Firelands, Blackwing Descent
        Dungeons : Grim Batol, Uldum, Deepholme, Skywall, Abyssal Maw, Blackrock Caverns
        Old World Heroics: Deadmines, Shadowfang Keep


        Abyssal Maw (LVL 78-82)
        Abyssal Maw is one of the two 5-player dungeons located in the Sunken City of Vashjir. It will be non-linear.
        It's a giant vortex in the center of the zone, getting near the vortex will pull you down to the elemental plane of water.
        The dungeon will be on the ocean's floor. You will be able to see the ocean through windows in the dungeon and will make an extensive use of the new water effects in Cataclysm.


        Halls of Origination
        Halls of Origination will be a non-linear dungeon with elevators to access higher floors. It will feature 7 bosses.
        This is one of the first 5 players dungeon located in the lost deserts of Uldum
        This is the ultimate titan dungeon, it will feature a lot of titan's lore and you will meet Brann Bronzebeard once again here.

        Lost City of Tol'vir
        Exterior 5-man dungeon


        Blackrock Caverns
        Blackrock Caverns is an entirely new instance located inside Blackrock Mountains. It was a good occasion to reinvent a fan favorite.
        It is now an off-site base for Deathwing and it's now occupied by the Twilight's Hammer. You will find out why the Twilight's Hammer is here and what they want here.
        It will feature new art, loot, and creatures. The Beast still lurks ...


        Blackwing Descent (Raid)
        Nefarian will return in this instance. This is an entirely new raid inspired by the original Blackwing lair with new loot, new art, new creatures.


        The Firelands (Raid)
        The Firelands is the Elemental Plane of fire. You will fight Ragnaros again here and you will finally fight him at his full strength.


        Onyxia 5th anniversary
        Onyxia is back with updated encounter mechanics. You will find new and updated loot here based on the original items with improved stats.
        Onyxia's 310% flying mount "Brood of Onyxia" is going to be a very very rare drop.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

          please post links to original post in the begining of your post. thxs.






          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

            she cant post that info its a govt site so it has to be copied and pasted

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

              Originally posted by Blaster*MFA*
              she cant post that info its a govt site so it has to be copied and pasted
              not link to where she copied and pasted from but the original site where the information came from.

              in other words if it came from a wow site since its a dev making the statement.

              this is needed so people just dont start copying and pasting info from any forum that might not be correct.

              thxs again.






              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

                she got it from forums where she works and copied and pasted from there. That info was not posted by the orginal poster.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

                  Originally posted by Blaster*MFA*
                  she got it from forums where she works and copied and pasted from there. That info was not posted by the original poster.
                  gotcha, oh well






                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Cataclysm - The Next XPAC

                    there's a lot more info, but i give up because it's blocked me posting anyway. delete the thread, i don't have the original source since it was posted by someone else on another forum. it does come from a reliable source just knowing the person who posted it /shrug

                    Comment

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