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- Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
- Release Date: Dec 7, 2010
User Score
Mixed or average reviews- based on 814 Ratings
User score distribution:
Positive: 375 out of 814
Mixed: 137 out of 814
Negative: 302 out of 814
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Dec 11, 2010I commend Blizzard on having truly shown me the lengths they'll go to to make money. It's a simple matter of fact: Cataclysm has reworked ALL of old Azeroth, adding new quests, new dungeons, reworking old dungeons, and creating such "cinematic" experiences, that one would be a fool not to buy this game! Unfortunately, all this loses its luster when you realize something: this game has become so putrescently easy, that all this content is meaningless. Your out the Dark Portal and into Burning Crusade in a few short days. The leveling in this game has been turned into a joke. The quests are easy, and rather than feel enjoyable, it feels like you rush through this game to get to the end-game content. I see people giving this game 10's because they level so fast, but what's the point of reworking the first sixty levels if all you're going to do is fly by them? Is that supposed to be impressive? That in a week you can be having fun in Burning Crusade? Hardly. Next is the graphical quality. Now, it's a bit of a taboo subject when it comes to WoW, because the game's so old, it's more "vintage" than it is "horrible" looking. Unfortunately, I fail to see the validity in that arguement. If a game looks bad, it looks bad. Blizzard reworked the water, and it looks fantastic. And that's about it. Everything else in this game is a congealed texture-filled mass of color that falls short from "impressive". The new character models look sometimes laughable (the Goblins especially), and the Worgen "mount" form was so rigid looking, that it feels like a shame they made them run like wolves, and not like, you know, wolf-MEN. As in, anthropomorphous, bipedal wolves. You play a worgen so you can walk on two legs, otherwise you could use Beast Vision and see through your pet's eyes if you wanted to play just a plain old wolf. The other thing that nobody seems to mention is that, the lore has been so destroyed, it's appalling. Tauren use the sunlight? Well then how are they Paladins? Unless the sun and the Holy Light are the same entity? But then, why can't Orcs and Trolls be Paladins? I mean after all, if their Shamanistic ways cause them to revere the elements, including the sun, then they, too, should be imbued with the Holy ways of the Paladin. Right? Well, of course not, because that's too much work for Blizzard. And Night Elf Mages? Oh, you mean the original race of magic-casting elves that branched off into Night Elves and High Elves? Because here's a nifty lore tidbit for you: there can't be Night Elf mages. They lost their ties to the arcane schools of frost and fire. They use nature now. But hey, if it gets Blizzard these resplendant reviews from the bleeting sheep that gave this game a ten simply because it gives them content that hardly lasts half a month, then by all means, rate this game a perfect ten. For those with some foresight, however, I implore you to look beyond this game for one simple reason: You know what happens in World of Warcraft. Say all you will about the new quests, but in the end you're just reading a block of text, hopping into some played-out vehicle quest, or using some flashy spells that make you incredibly powerful to complete the quests. It's the same stuff you've seen, except now it takes even LESS time to reach level 85. So why even redesign the first 60 levels if you outlevel it super fast anyways? Because it makes Blizzard money, and in the end, this isn't "WoW 2" as someone so ignorantly stated, this is "WoW: Less Content, Faster Leveling." I mean, ask yourself. They redesigned the quests and the areas, but is the content still the same? Is there AS MUCH to do? No. But the quests are flashier, so it gives you the ILLUSION that you're doing more. Besides, you level so fast, there's no need to go outside of the basic chain of areas to level, i.e. Elwynn, to Westfall, to Redridge, to Duskwood, etc. But no matter what I say, the fact of the matter remains: love is blind. If you couldn't stop playing Vanilla, or Burning Crusade, or Wrath of the Lich King, then nothing I say will matter. But if you've been on the fence about this game, then I implore you to disregard it. Read these positive reviews, and you'll see they all say the same thing: flashy "new" content makes for a great game! Just wait until the progression drought kicks in, and you wait for the new set of raids, just like Vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King. Then you can make all the alts you want. See how long THAT lasts. Just remember: all that glisters is not gold. If there were ever a way to physically show that, all you'd need do is show someone Cataclysm's box. And let's not be ignorant, like Plagiarmaster, and mistake my first sentence for an authentic compliment. It's sarcastic. A joke. Much like this game.… Expand
Dec 7, 2010Every area has been redone, and if not completely redone, then slightly convenienced. The quest flow is amazing now! Start a Human and go thru Elwynn, Westfall, and Redridge. By the end of the three regions, each with their unique stories (well Elwynn is much the same), you will agree with me. Much better than classic. Everything continues to grow as the years go on
Dec 9, 2010There's multiple ways to go about reviewing Cataclysm.
The actual event, and the content itself that was distributed for free is utterly excellent and some of the quest chains are so well excecuted that the quests would have you believe that it's been written like a standard, non-mmo while still maintaining excellent functionality. Under that rule, Cataclysm is a solid 10/10.
Unfortunately, that is not the only thing to consider. What "Cataclysm" is, as a boxed product, is a meager amount of content that costs as much as a full priced game. £30 for a couple of extra zones and a couple of new races is just utter robbery which they will easily get away with. It's unjustified to give out such little content for such a high price without using the reason "We want the money and we can get away with it".
So it depends on your stance on Cataclysm. Do you interpret the game as being one solid package, including the content which does not require you actually own the game this review is based around, or do you base it upon the game you are receiving in the box? As far as the boxed copy goes, it's a solid 5/10 for extremely poor value for money. As far as the full content including free content goes, it's a solid 10/10. If you don't own Cataclysm, just get yourself patched up to 4.0.3a and you can enjoy the majority of the content for free without paying a penny.… Expand
Dec 9, 2010Well. Honestly it depressed me that within 5.5 hours of Cataclysm's launch, somebody already reached max level. Blizzard spent around three years developing this, this is by far their worst expansion yet. All they did was re-skin Azeroth and call it an expansion. Have fun in WoW guys, im out for good.
Aug 25, 2011This is the worst expansion to date. Plain and simple. Why do we even level anymore? What is the point. There is no challenge, it is just something you have to waste your time on before you get to the actual gameplay. You are learning nothing during the leveling stage, except how to kill 10 of this, and bring an npc 12 of that.
Jan 10, 2011I will start off my post with a complement. Some of the new zones are beautiful: Vash'jir, Uldum, and Deepholm in particular. But if they were marketing the fact that they "destroyed Azeroth," well... that is a huge stretch. The Shimmering Flats (now called the Shimmering Deep) is the only place which has changed significantly. All the other zones are essentially the same minus a ridiculous amount of extra flight paths, and small sections of burnt up and/or regrown portions of old zones. Some zones didn't change at all.
Instances are the same as they've always been despite peoples' arguments that they require more crowd control. That is false. Every new expansion that has come out has required some sort of crowd control because their gear is not on par with the scale of difficulty. Give it 6 months and some high-end raid gear and people will revert back to "tank and spank" mentality. But the worst part about dungeons, raids, etc. is the fact that the group makeup has been exactly the same in this game and in every other MMO. Dungeons: Tank, healer, 3 dps. Raids: Scale up the ratio of dungeons. For crying out loud, can't anyone come up with something original for once?
But the worst part of the expansion has got to be the PVP. I'm not even sure what the actual names of the new battlegrounds are because I've nicknamed them "Simple Arathi Basin" and "Warsong Gulch 2." Aside from looks, the only difference between Arathi Basin and "Simple Arathi Basin" is that you fight over 3 nodes instead of 5. There is no logistical difference between Warsong Gulch and "Warsong Gulch 2." They basically took Warsong Gulch and divided the two sections with a river. World PVP is also no different. People queue up for Tol Barad every couple hours, some AFK, some actually play, and Horde typically win because they outnumber Alliance on most servers. And as far as the "fight" for Tol Barad is concerned, it's essentially a mix of Arathi Basin and Wintergrasp, but without tanks. Archaeology will bore you to tears and yes, you will get cool rewards for doing it but it's even worse than fishing. Lastly, there is nothing "MASSIVE" about this game or any other "MMO" these days. Maybe I'm feeling a little dejected about the MMO genre as a whole but I simply don't find 10 vs. 10, 15 vs. 15, or even 20 vs. 20 very massive. Then again, all the games who babble on about Hundreds vs. Hundreds or THOUSANDS vs. THOUSANDS have performance issues and fail horribly. As far as PVE is concerned, I also don't find 5 mans, 10 mans, and 25 mans massive either.
Meh... I guess I just expected something a little better from Blizzard this time around, given all the hype. I'll give it a 3 because I really enjoyed some of the new zones--aesthetically speaking--but I've already cancelled my account and no, you can't have my stuff.… Expand
Mar 13, 2011The World of Warcraft has changed for the better it is more streamlined and far more easy to to follow, the game now explicitly tells you the best spots to be at your level. many see this as hand holding and an absolutely massive blow the the game's quality i find that rather absurd making a game less confusing is not making it worse and in some ways not even making it less difficult but rather simply less tedious. Another aspect of the game that i find highly improved is they way gilds have been reworked. Lets face it this is an MMO you are supposed to play it with others complaining that you can not solo parts is like complain about the lack of race race cars in a fighting game. This gives a guild actual benefits and rewards you for advancing your guild making the for a more cohesive game.
My only complaint is that Outlands and Notherrend are absolutely untouched even a slight touch up to the 2 would have been a nice change of pace.… Expand
Dec 9, 2010You've gotta love the morons giving it a low mark because "all they did was reskin Azeroth", acting as though that's a trivial matter and unimportant. World of Warcraft Cataclysm revolutionizes the way we think about expansion packs, and manages bring something any fan of the MMO can enjoy.
World of Warcraft is starting to age. Or, at least it was. The graphics are still beautiful, but the model-count is noticeably low compared to any modern game. The previous expansion managed to upgrade the game, creating new zones, new content, new features, and featuring better gameplay. Burning Crusade introduced the flying mount and improved PvP, whereas Wrath of the Lich King spiced of questing with linear interactive storylines and added the oh so appreciated Looking-For-Dungeon tool. Nevertheless, the core of the game, the 1-60 experience, was left in the dust. The vistas in that region were uninspiring, the quest chains lackluster. Dungeons were long and tedious, and it all felt so, out-dated. People have long been bringing up the subject of a World of Warcraft 2. Obviously, nothing lasts forever, and eventually Blizzard would have to create a sequel. Blizzard managed to solve nearly all of its problems with their most recent release: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
Unlike the previous expansions, which were additions and upgrades, Cataclysm is the first real update. It really is WoW 2, but without the problem of a split-player base. Before I go in depth, it's important to define what Cataclysm is. Technically, the $40 you pay only gets you the Goblin/Worgen, 80-85 content and the ability to fly in the Old World. That's only because the majority of work the developers put in is already there for everyone. Adding the Shattering of Azeroth makes this the most hefty expansion in WoW's history, arguably one of the greatest undertaking of any expansion in gaming history. Nearly every single World of Warcraft zone from 1-60 has been completely rehauled. Cutscenes and recurring characters make quest chains enjoyable. Vehicle segments and creative mechanics are mixed in to prevent tedious questing. Graphics have been upgraded, especially view distance and water effects, making for breathtaking vistas. This is the first time since 2004 that I've really felt excited to level. Blizzard took everything they learned from BC/WotLK and used it to optimize the Old World. This content alone deserves great recognition.
The Goblin/Worgen are two extremely different and extremely interesting races, much more so than the Blood Elves, and especially more so than the Draenei. Goblin as wacky and funny, whereas Worgen present a completely serious storyline. Playing both offers great unique experiences.
The 80-85 zones may not contain as much content as the previous xpacs, but each one can completely hold its own. Hyjal is a lore-lover's paradise, and Vashj'ir is absolutely incredible. Deepholm is a true warzone, and Uldum, my personal favorite, contains everything that is awesome about Ancient Egypt. I have yet to reach the Twilight Highlands, but I have a hard time seeing them being a disappointment. The quests are not all perfect, and there are quite a few generic ones, but ultimately these are some of the most entertaining zones in the game. While WotLK was undoubtedly a financial success, ultimately many "hardcore" players felt disappointed. Far too much of its content was either too easy or too simple. Vanilla raiding wasn't perfect, but doing a dungeon in Wrath was just boring. The tank would run through one group at a time, AoE-tank them, and move up. In that regard Cataclysm really is seeking out those older players. The dungeons have just as much flair if not more so than the other xpacs, but they possess the feel of a Vanilla/BC dungeon. Pulling different groups of adds requires thinking beforehand, and the group must watch out for patrols. Once again crowd control becomes a near necessity, something I almost forgot about in WotLK. Best of all, I have yet to encounter a tank 'n' spank boss. Each boss has its own unique abilities, many of them being very intuitive. If this is how the 5-mans shape up, I simply cannot wait to start raiding content.
Other features in Cataclysm are the guild progression system, which I could go into much detail about, and the new professions. I'm running out of room, but both add new layers of complexity to the game and are very welcome.
Overall, Cataclysm is a huge thing. It is easily the biggest expansion considering the Shattering, and manages to take what was learned from the previous xpacs and add some of the old lost flair from vanilla. There is literally something for everyone. Blizzard clearly shows that they know their market, and the Cataclysm is easily a solid A+, 10/10. Your $40 may only get you the last bit of the Cataclysm, but you can hardly complain about getting so much for free.… Expand
Dec 16, 2010The game gets a 6 for some lovely new zones, a fun reworking of Azeroth, but essentially a failure to move forward in terms of gameplay or design. In other words, it is more of the same old endless grind. If you enjoyed it before, you will enjoy it again. It's worth a trip to fly round Azeroth, enjoy a couple of the new zones; but it is not fresh and not innovative.
The new high level world content is fun while it lasts, but quickly finished. After that it's the same old sit in a city and wait for dungeons to pop, pray your gizmo drops so you can do a more difficult version of the same dungeon; grind reputation, grind honour, grind justice points by endless repetition.
I can't wait till we see a new breed of MMOs which emphasize dynamic change, and interaction in a living breathing world, rather than a treadmill of instances and limited battleground. A game which focuses upon random surprise, rather than perfecting scripted predictability. A game which finally shatters the - go to quest hub, kill 10 of these, 10 of those, 10 of the other.
Cataclysm makes strides here - some of the new quests are fun. But too many repeat the same old formula. Basically, get it, play for your month, and then delete.… Expand
Jan 3, 2011First impressions are 10 out of 10. That is the reason so many critics rated this game so high.
But after your first month of play, you will realize that nothing changed. The end game is identical to wrath of the lich king. If you were hoping this expansion would add something new and fresh, you will be disappointed. Nothing has changes at level cap. If I could, I would go back in time and skip this purchase.… Expand
Feb 23, 2011Before I begin to say anything about Cataclysm, I will say that Blizzard should be applauded for tackling the semi-herculean coding task of rewriting, revamping, and rebuilding much of the code from Vanilla WoW. What they have been able to pull off successfully, and with relatively few bugs compared to what there COULD have been is nothing short of astonishing.
That having been said, here is my take on Cataclysm summed up in quotes made by myself or various guild members. (I was in beta, so some of the quotes were made based off the beta time.)
"Wow, the worgen starter zone is sweet! Now if only they would fix the bugs..."
"Oh my, the quests in Vash'jir are nuts! The zone is gorgeous and it has so many cool stories!"
"Vash'jir is a pain. I can't handle all the 3D attacks. WoW is a 2D game, they should've kept it that way."
"Some of these new quests for starter zones are awesome! The stories really rock!"
"Hmmm, so there's a few plot holes here that don't mesh with lore...wonder what manufactured or forced lore Blizz will introduce to fix THAT one."
"The water effects rock! Now why did Blizzard not fix how bloody cartoony this game looks...cmon!"
"OMG, the dungeons are HARD! Seriously, all these idiot Wrath babies have NO idea how to CC!"
"Dungeon finder ruined the game..."
"Sweet, the Harrison Jones stuff is a lot of fun! Too bad there's no rep and it's a dead end after Brann."
"Blizzard so screwed up, making it so hard and twitchy to handle some heros and most raids."
And my personal favorite.
"It's while doing Archeology that I began to realize how LITTLE there is to do in WoW once you're max level and don't need to do heroics. If I wanted to level an alt, I wouldn't have a main...And I want to raid, but it's not raid time...so what do I do? Run around watching a blinking light next to a telescope...I'm done."
This sums up very well what Cataclysm is. It's an attempt by Blizzard to suck in more and younger players (and to an extent give old players something new to do) by a more "enjoyable" starting experience from 1-60. After that is the dryness (dungeon grind) of BC, followed by the worn out quests (and dungeon grind) from Wrath until you get to 80 (not 78). After that it's a continuation of the relative breeze it is in WoW to level compared to most (if not all) other MMORPGs. 80-85 should not take more than 3-4 days if played casually for 3-4 hours maximum per day. The quest content is a continuation of the themes that were started in WOTLK, involving vehicles, seemingly random encounters, cut scenes, and other aspects that are somewhat perfected. However it does not make up for the complete lack of depth in content from level 80-85, and the abysmal existence that becomes 85 endgame. What Blizzard did do was make CC required again. They also made boss encounters more intelligent than those in Wrath of the Lich King. However, these boss encounters are nothing compared to some of the Vanilla/BC encounters where you TRULY had to play intelligently due to lack of taunts and agro wipes. Between this and the over-simplification of the talent system, the things about WoW that actually allowed you to feel like you were roleplaying or building your own character have largely been removed.
The over-emphasis on the Dungeon Finder has, as well, weakened many of the more casual guilds, and even some of the stronger ones, at least on my server. Many people have forsaken trying to work together as a guild to reach certain levels and have instead focused on themselves and gearing alts.
Which brings me to my final point. WoW developers know that they have nearly no end-game content worth a pinch of salt. They know it so much that they, during WoTLK created gear that would be able to be sent to an alt and used to level faster, both by having great stats and XP bonuses. What this did is effectively negate the necessities of LEARNING the classes you play before you hit endgame. They also MOVED many key spells or abilities and put them into places at much higher levels. The logic for this escapes me, as some of these skills are literally game-changing if you don't have them to learn with. Imagine being a tanking class and trying to learn how to tank, only to find that a particular skill that is absolutely necessary for holding threat on groups of mobs is not available until you are almost in the 85 range. How are you to learn to utilize said skill without first making it a very unpleasant experience for players you group with? Blizzard seems to have forgotten that the game does not begin at the next expansion's level and they have left many players wanting to actually have the RP in MMORPG experience. In the end, all that WoW:Cataclysm does is the same as Wrath... do all your rep and heroic grinding, then log into an alt and do the same thing...until you can do a raid...and once the raids are done or downed for the week, there's nothing more to do except alts again.… Expand
Mar 16, 2011Someone wake me when I can actually care about the story. Seriously. It has been wrung in so many directions it feels like they're just hanging ornaments on a dead christmas tree. Moving on to something more interesting.
Aug 14, 2011I recently made a new character on a new server starting from scratch to see what it would be like and for something different. WoW is brutal to new players. It's a very long 85 levels during which PvP is absolutely broken, dungeons are boring and dumbed down, people will harass you for not having Bind on Account gear (which levels with you and is more powerful as a result) and it's a repetitious sequence of hit this button followed by this one about a million times. There is no variety, though the places look different the sequence is the same, every time. Once you get to 85 you find yourself underpowered and so far behind it's an even longer grind just to catch up with gear to play where everyone else is. This part is much more difficult because people won't take you with them where the good gear is and won't PvP with you because you didn't start the new season on day one (so, you can never catch up in rating). The system is designed so that first come, first server and all else just miss out. The other major problem I had with this game is the support. The staff is not knowledgeable about what current issues are or how to fix them. Blizzard also openly supports racism, despite their claim to the contrary, by allowing people to name their characters with racial slurs. Their policy clearly states that they do not allow this and to report names if seen, but nothing is ever done about it and the offensive names remain. A simple search of their website reveals literally hundreds of characters named after racial slurs, either directly or thru letter substitution, IE. q for a g (also against their policy, supposedly masking words by altering spelling isn't allowed).… Expand
Dec 11, 2010Goblin's missions were pure fun (I even forgot that I was playing WoW), but when I came to Orgrimmar, I lost my interest in playing. I think Cataclysm came too early, but also I do believe Blizzard will make it more valuable later with some big patches
Dec 15, 2010"Keridor" you really got the true perspective of this. I rarely read honest and real critic words about World of Warcraft and what it has become. Especially after Cataclysm has been released.
I dont want to rewrite what already has been written. So I will keep it short. This game has become something that only is there for taking the last money out of the "blind" people who belive the game is really giving something new. There isn't anything NEW to the game. Just easier way to endgame and do all the same thing over again. A few new changes. Nothing new to the mechanics or the core of the game.
Dont get fooled guys. Don not let the high score or other blinded reviews get into you. It's a waste of time...
Realize the fact. And think for yourselves...
Enjoy other great games out there.… Expand
Mar 10, 2011World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Average User Score: 5.6
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Image
Even before this expansion WoW started to feel as if you were being funneled into where they wanted. With all the options of characters and things you can do I cant help but feel I'm being forced to do what Blizzard wants you to do. The free world experience is lost. Everything is too structured now, dumbed down. The rebuilding of Azeroth seemed completely pointless, new content very insignificant. To me it feels like a money grab, an opportunity to bring in more players and increase the player base but at the same time alienating smart people who know better. I was a DAOC veteran, thus have a high expectation in terms of a MMORPG. I like complex items, complex skill system, and true character customization. I feel as if Blizzard is limiting many options and streamlining everything in order to make WoW more mainstream. I enjoy things like Open world PvP. I like the ability to become a lone wolf and scour the land for an opponent like the old days of DAOC, but in wow it is very structured. It feels like the "facebook game" of MMO's now. I am severely disappointed in the direction they have taken WoW because they have in my experience worsened the experience for smart players not enhanced. WoW is now a game for kids, as an adult I feel it is embarrassing to be associated with it, and more of a liability. Plus the Wow world is getting very old very outdated, there is a reason their making a new MMO....aka "Titan"… Expand
Mar 11, 2011After looking over the critic reviews, I'm simply speechless. An average rating of 90 speaks volumes of how much credibility these reviewers will have for me in the future. I've been a subscriber to World of Warcraft for several years and game was at one time to best of breed. Things change however, and Cataclysm is the culmination of a grand company changing course and direction for the worst. The content developed for Cataclysm was decent, certainly within the bounds of expectations. However, it was shallow and introduced a new philosophy of developers determining "how" players should have fun rather than allowing players to creatively determine their own methods of enjoyment from the game. Part of foisting philosophy and arrogance on the player include a higher focus on guild play, grinding and progression. This expansion introduced bugs and issues not typically found in Blizzard products. Community management has fostered a great deal poor gamesmanship and bad behavior. Horrible expansion and a marked change in direction for Blizzard.… Expand
Apr 26, 2011People have been speculating what it would take to bring the behemoth that is WoW down for years. Turns out, it's not the competition. Blizzard has done everything they could in the latest expansion, Cataclysm, to kill WoW slowly, painfully, without remorse.
Cataclysm has a new quest design that is linear. You pick up a quest, it sends you to the next and so on until a zone is complete. New quests don't show up until previous quests are complete, so there is only one way to do things. In order, every time, on every toon. Thankfully there are only 5 new zones of quests and the level cap has only been raised 5 levels so after you've seen the new quests, doing them again on you alt won't take long.
That brings up another point, Cataclysm is short. Blizzard redid the entire 1-60 leveling process and tries to tack that onto Cataclysm. The fact is the 1-60 experience was NOT a part of Cataclysm, is not included with the new content and costs nothing extra to see. So, if you want a new toon no need to upgrade. Unfortunately the new questing is done in the same theme as the expansion, so you only need to see it once and after it's done there is never any reason to return to that area.
In fact, once you finish any quests in an area, there is never any reason to leave a city. Thanks to linear questing and automatic queues the WORLD of WoW might as well not exist anymore. It's just a hassle to run through on your way to a raid. Not that raiding is worth doing. There are two difficulties hard and professional raider. The average PUG (Pick Up Group) can't clear more than a couple bosses. People don't form pugs even on the busiest servers anymore. Guilds that play together all the time even have trouble clearing the raid content now due to the difficulty with the number of guilds clearing heroic mode nearing 6 months after release in the tens nationwide. Yes, coming up on 6 months of working on the same raid and only a handful of groups have cleared it in the entire country. Let that sink in. Would you like to try a game for 6 months straight and still not beat it?
The loot tables are pitifully small, the game play for all classes was redone completely and in many cases (I personally play 4 toons at max level) made worse or completely broken. New content has been very slow to arrive. The first content patch, 5 months after release, is simply a second presentation of two old raids converted to 5 man instances, one of which (Zul'Aman) wasn't even changed according to the interview with Scott Mercer. So, it's not new mechanics like they promised, it's in fact just rehashed old content just like Onyxia was. Populations on servers are in decline, the new patch 4.1 won't change that. If you haven't already bought Cataclysm save your money. It would be more aptly name Catastrophe, though I suppose the damage was cataclysmic. In the end Cataclysm is a boring, repetitive grind of daily quests and endless waits in queue's (there is a bug for battlegrounds where the queue won't work that had been in the game since Cataclysm's release), with nothing really new or fun to do. New content is slow to come and is being sold as much more than it truly is. WoW is dieing, sad but true.… Expand
Sep 1, 2011A horrible expansion to a game that was already in a very bad state. Nothing positive can be really said here, its buggy, half asses, counter-creative, grindy, boring, ugly and clearly rushed expansion, with half the conent the previous expansions had. The fact it was generating hype for over an year, doesn't help at all, it makes it an even greater disapointment.
Dec 21, 2010What a hoot this new expansion is. For those Wrath players, just patch up and enjoy the grand majority of the (not very good and reasonably buggy) content for free. For those people who are still on the fence about WoW, just don't bother. BC and WoTLK were great additions to the game, but Cataclysm is the equivalent of taking 40 dollars and burning it. "If we can't reuse it, we won't bother" - Blizzard… Expand
Dec 22, 2010Cataclysm represents the end of the road for me in World of Warcraft. Blizzard has finally removed any and all challenge from the game. Leveling my pally from 80 to 85 was a joke as it was impossible for me to die. There wasn't a single quest that gave me a second of concern. After getting to 85, I began leveling a worgen warrior and, being unable to heal myself, I did die a few times but only at the lowest levels. Once I got some half-decent gear, leveling became a dull, dull grind. My guess is that Blizzard decided that with Cataclysm WoW would no longer be a game for adults. Their focus must be on 8 to 10 year olds. I can't think of any other age group that could find any hint of a challenge in the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah - lots of new quests and the graphics, while still a bit cartoonish, are very detailed. The overhaul of Stormwind is pretty amazing. But Wow isn't a game. It's nothing more than a way to kill time.… Expand
Mar 3, 2011They just went overboard and changed way too much about this game that made it epic.
Don't waste your money or your time. Locked in talent trees, increased homogenization of classes, grindy guild levels and rep, and so much more have sent this game to the pits. I loved the way this game was during Wrath. It wasn't perfect, but it was a ton better then what it has changed into this expansion. Some are even calling it half an expansion for the high level players. I don't know what possesed Blizzard to go with All or Nothing changes like they did. It's odd that they think they either do this or that, but fail to see the middle ground. Sadly, WoW has lived its life. I am VERY certain that this game is heading more and more downhill. That sad part is that so many WoW players are so desperately addicted they are more then likely going down with this ship while the rest of us move on.
But hey, it had 6 years in the spot light, and that is a heck of an acomplishment. No amount of hotfixes or patches for Cataclysm will bring it back to what it once was.… Expand
Jul 29, 2011I ended up quitting in April, but came back to do a review because i read that WoW lost 600k subscribers. (derp) Anyways, i WAS an extreme WoW fanboy for like 6 years. I played the email beta in early 2003. I've seen every game diminish in potential. Cataclysm did it for me. No ACTUAL new content. Get to 85 asap, grind dungeons and pvp. Once you're all geared up... well that's it.. time to re-roll. I actually found myself sitting in Orgrimmar alt tabbed out doing other things, that's how bored i was. That's another thing, you get so bored because you just sit in main cities waiting for queues. Not like there's any world pvp anymore.â… Expand
Nov 14, 2011Oh i remember playing this game for hours. I sat through the Ball crushingly difficult game that was Vanilla WoW and made Grand Marshal. I sat through burning crusade arena, where those who did BT were on Top and did ok. I even stomached wrath's failure. But this. This was the end all. They took everything out of the game that gave it what little challenge was left, and flushed it. Instead of people having to play for awhile to actually learn whats right and wrong, blizzard sits down and holds your hand through it. This has taken the community from the small amount of elitist douchebags, to everyone being a douchebag. Every Tom, Dick and Mary from the internet comes on here to spew fourth their trash and say that the game is still hard. Even though guilds cleared "Heroic" versions of the raids in the first week and i even made 2500 in arena in the first week of a season. I thought I could stomach it. Oh yeah. The revamped quests and zones really caught my attention at first. I was liking what I saw. Then after the first week or two, you realize its just the same zone, it truly changed little. And even though they changed the zones, they still refuse to do a graphics update for anything. It's still on the same engine from years back. But the age is starting to show. Drastically. The only thing that would keep you playing, is if you have any friends who still do. If not, you have to suffer the peanut gallery. Its truly astonishing that people can still be bad at this game at how easy Blizzard as made it.… Expand
Dec 17, 2010One thing I have learned about 50% of WoW gamers is they are never happy. I look back and see The Burning Crusade reviews and alot of the reviews are negative, so when Blizzard changes their approach to the next expansion you're still not happy. So what do you all tell Blizzard: "The Burning Crusade was way better go back to that", and so they did and you still f****** complain. All I can say to you is, if you hate it so much why are you still playing!!!? World of Warcraft is a great game, so either stop complaining or f*** off and play something else.… Expand
Jan 1, 2011Cataclysm is just the same old stuff. Sure Azeroth looks different and now, but nothing has changed. Original Wow, and BC where 1,000 times better. They actually took skill, time, effort, and knowledge to be good at. What Blizzard has done with WotLK and Cata is almost a shame to WoW. People hit 85 within 8 hours of the release, so leveling was a complete joke. Blizzard tried to make instances harder, but the only people they were hard for were people who joined during WotLK. If you were an original or BC player these instances were a breeze because we know how to CC. When it comes to raiding people should not be able to clear raids the first day they are released. The Tuesday of the raid release patch I logged on and instantly saw someone with 6 epics. People had the Drake mount you get from raiding in the first week. That is just a joke. PvP doesn't take skill like it used to. It's who can do the most burst damage. Most PvP arena teams don't have healers anymore because of the whole mana issue, and lets face it, only being able to heal for 10-15k with most heals is a joke when people crit for 20k+. I've been playing WoW for 6 years now, and the only reason I'm still playing it is because I hope that Bliz will changed it back to original and BC some day. People giving this game a high rating are the people who came into it during WotLK. The original WoW players know this game to be a shame. I have yet to find anything good about this game. I'm going to go back to Starcraft 2, and wait for the release of Dead Space 2 in a month. GG Blizz...… Expand
Dec 9, 2010This expansion is exactly what Blizz needed to do. I could not even bring myself to level a new character in WoW because of the boring old world content and/or quests that are so out of the way that they aren't worth the time because there are a bunch of juicy quests all together. Cataclysm, unfortunately, still has quests that are out of the way but at the speed I was leveling, it didn't become a reasonable drive to go up to that part of the map and do the quest. From Gilneas to Ashenvale the questlines are full of immersion and with Blizzard's new and improved phasing, its like what you're doing as the character is affecting the world. An MMO that I play that finally gives the illusion of time flowing through the game. To this extent, I give Blizz two thumbs up.
I haven't played through all the new zones but I must say that the time Blizzard put into this particular expansion is beautiful. Although stay away from Uldum unless you really have a good graphics card or you have turned down the graphics because Uldum will thrash and slash your framerate.… Expand
Dec 17, 2010Waste of money, and even worse, a waste of valuable time of my life.
Dec 9, 2010Despite some regrettably annoying bugs, this expansion reigns in a far more cinematic experience than previous MMORPGS have ever before tried. The phasing technology is amazing and allows for a great questing experience. Something of a change of pace, early leveling zones include extremely long chain quests with no alternative. Either you do you the chain quest, or you don't do the zone. This can be frustrating, but it pays off in the end with new, wonderful cinematics and unique and engaging questing experiences.… Expand
Feb 1, 2011I love World of Warcraft. I have played for over four years and have 11 level 85s.
I am not criticizing Cataclysm. I loved the new zones and the questing, but...
I think Blizzard is really shoving guilds down our throats. Yes, in WOTLK, if you wanted the absolute top of the line gear, you needed to be part of a raiding guild and spend the time. Fine, but if you did not want to raid, there were still quite a few ways to improve yourself through heroics, PvP and achievements and still have fun.
Now, everything from achievements, to PvP, to heroics are guild-centric, so as a solo player, your options for advancement have been pretty much destroyed.
I have raised all my alts to level 85, but now what? I hardly got my guild (consisting of my alts) to level 3. So many of the achievements are guild related. Doing heroics with a Pug? Impossible. Rated battegrounds without being part of a PvP guild? Can't do that either.
So you get to 85 and that is it, nothing more to do unless you are willing to join and spend the time with an active guild. And what do I have against guilds? The drama, the power games, etc. Why play a game to reproduce the idiocy that takes place at the workplace?… Expand
Feb 12, 2011First let me get things clear. My first impression of Cataclysm was great! I loved the new zones and some of the quests were really fun (i even did the new Hillsbrad quests on my lvl 85 and they were really fun). However after a month of playing you realize that you are doing the same thing you have been doing in Wotlk. Grinding for gear and money. The changes to raids and dungeons are minimal (except for more CC and added difficulty) but nothing really new.
Now say this game was for free (buy Cataclysm for 30/70 euro and rest is free) this would be a great game. But the current content is just not worth paying a monthly fee for, especially if you have already done most content in Wotlk, Cataclysm is just more of the same. Blizzard had a real gem on their hands with WoW but it is really showing its age. WoW Vanilla/BC/Wotlk were great games and really fun to play but Cataclysm just doesnt cut it anymore for me. The reason i gave this game a 3 is mostly because i think its just not worth the 13 euro per month + 30/70 one time fee.… Expand
Feb 25, 2011I was really looking forward to cata, and when it finally arrived I started leveling. In the beginning it was a bit crowded, but good fun anyway. Mount hyjal, deepholm, uldum, twilight highlands, 85! Leveling turned out to be way too quick and way too linear. After 3 days I was 85 already, and now what? Grinding dungeons/heroics for gear and emblems, just like in wrath. Farming mats for professions/flasks/food, just like in wrath. Learning and mastering raid encounters, just like in wrath. Cata is EXACTLY the same game as before, just with other surroundings. I started playing wow when wrath was just released, so this is basically my first expansion. I don't know if this is what wow expansions should be like, but it is a real disappointment. Yes, they changed all the old zones. So what? A level 85 character has no reason at all to go there, except maybe for the new profession archeology, which must be the most boring thing in the game, even worse than fishing. The new raids are challenging at times, but again more of the same: spread out, stack up, kill adds, don't stand in this, do stand in that, dispel that, interrupt this, etc. And then there is the failure called Tol Barad and blizzards laughable attempt to 'fix' it by rewarding the attacking side 1800 honor for a win. I mean, seriously? Leveling professions is too easy, new talent trees and stats are too simple, phasing is annoying (especially when farming nodes disappear and reappear), dungeons are hardly ever fun (except stonecore, which is pretty good)... So is it all bad then? No, I did really enjoy the goblin starting zone, Stonecore is good, leveling in Uldum was fun. Is it enough to make a good game? No. Most critics must have only played this game for a few days, cause that's when it still seems like a good game. Earlier this month I canceled my subscription... time to move on to better games...… Expand
Mar 4, 2011Not the best of expansions. The game is focusing more on the hardcore players, and making less content for the players that dont have 20 hours+ a week. Disappointing if you ask me. The world remake was good no doubt, and the quests are funny, but end game content is too time demanding.
Mar 7, 2011Jeez. What happened Blizzard? We used to have so much fun together. You've changed, and I don't think I can live with it anymore. Why don't we just agree that you've changed, I've grown up, and the flaws you refuse to fix after three face lifts have gotten between us, ok?
Aug 24, 2011World of warcraft was untill the release of patch 4.2 an awesome game to play, blizzard is at the moment actively RUINING the gameplay wich did already scared away 1 milion subscribers, if they want to recover this they should listen more to their players and less to their developpers.
Nov 10, 2011Game is incredibly boring, there is nothing, absolutely nothing to do! And it so easy, catered to dumb people so every mouthbreather can kill boss on heroic. That leaves you with cleared raid in 2 hours and you dont have play this game again for next 7 days. Seriously MMO game that u only need to play 2 hours to do full end game content, what is that? Ofcourse there is no doubt to blame Activision for it who destroyed Blizzard with they greed for money. R.I.P. WoW 2004-2009… Expand
Dec 23, 2011For all you Lego fans out there you can sort of get this I hope. Its like Blizzard had worked for years on building the best castle ever, making every piece perfect, and constantly adding things to make it more outstanding. Then one day they decide Legos are childish and knock the whole thing down and start from scratch without the creativity they had before. As a player since vanilla, the difficulty is non existent, the quest chains are done in 30 mins, epics are practically free. I would have rated this game higher, but they took away old content forever, preventing nostalgia from taking place in game. I understand times change, but Blizz could have pulled this off if they hadn't removed so much from the otherwise perfect masterpiece that was the World Of Warcraft. I look forward to Blizzards future games such as Diablo 3 and the others in the Starcraft series. But ill always feel bad when it comes to WoW. Mourning what could have been. Heres to a great game that was finally destroyed by over ambition and greed. I will truly miss this game more than i've missed some deceased family members. Goodbye WoW… Expand
Dec 4, 2011There are no words in the English language to describe the failure that is this expansion. The term "welfare" epics is probably a start based on their direction they're taking this game when it comes to the difficulty of instances and raids. The real fun of engaging challenging game mechanics and tough encounters are a thing of the past, even for heroic version fights. And don't get me started on the story and lore that they have mangled so incredibly. When Chris Metzen was confronted about the lingering unfinished story at the Throne of the Tides, he basically buried it and said it was going to remain that way. This entire expansion was rushed, worked haphazardly, and completely trashed on any sense of story telling and fun. I've been a blizzard fan since I was 12, but they're making it real easy for me now to turn my back on them.… Expand
Dec 29, 2010I'm a long-time player of WoW and I had been looking forward to Cataclysm; after purchasing it on launch day and getting at least one character from 80 to 85, I feel comfortable giving it a 7.
There's not a whole lot to this expansion to be honest, it feels more like half an expansion. The questing zones and content are beautifully crafted, but it's very linear; quest content completely holds your hand in a "go to quest hub 1 / pick up 3 quests / kill mobs / turn in quests, get a cutscene and move to quest hub 2". Between the heavily-optimized questing model and the over-use of phasing, a lot of the time it feels like you're playing a single-player game. However, it is technically well done, it's Blizzard quality all over after all. There are tons of little bugs everywhere, but it's fairly minor.
Dungeons are a little wonky when running them the first few times; everything is new for everybody, so that's to be expected. The rehashing of old content doesn't sit well with me personally, I can see why they do it and why it's viable, but it's a bit lazy to me.
I'm completely excluding the revamping of the old world here, that's not technically part of the Cataclysm expansion itself (it was made available to everybody in a huge patch prior to launch).
Cataclysm itself is fairly skimpy on content once you reach lv85, hence why I feel like I got half an expansion. Not down-right terrible, but not as great as it could have been either… Expand
Mar 5, 2011I have been playing World of Warcraft since its release, lots of changes have happened and 3 expansions later we have arrived at Cataclysm. For me, Cataclysm looked great, it seemed that WoW was going to move up another step in the MMO ranks. For me, its the same old stuff, to get to 80-85 its tons and tons of quests. The story line...well, I kept doing so many quests I started to just accept the quests without reading them. If your an avid WoW fan you will love it. If your new to the game, there isnt any reason to buy Cataclysm unless you want a different looking avatar (Worgen, Goblins). The new starting zones are beyond great, the story lines are VERY well done. But thats just until level 20ish, when your around level 80-85 the quests just keep coming and there seems to be no end to it. If your looking to advance the next levels in WoW go for it. But once you hit the level cap, its the same old story of PvP and 5 man dungeons and play your eyes out until you have the correct gear score to do 10 and 25-man raids.… Expand
Nov 9, 2011I'm writing this review late after this games release. But, since I played it it deserves an opinion. First off the Original WoW was amazing, truly a work of art game. Burning Crusade was even better and another great success, but then comes Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm... With the games increasing popularity lead to a decline in the player community being filled with Trolls, greifers and elitist jerks. Also Wrath and Cata are poor in comparison to the previous versions. What makes Cata worst of all is Blizzard tried to squeeze more juice out of old lemons. By that I mean they took the old version and recolored it, including OLD dungeons forcing you to replay what you already had before for loot. Plus, doing Heroics where the wait time is 30minutes+ is unbelievable.... what am I suppose to do for 30 minutes? pick my toes and if I afk while i wait it drops you from the Que! This is ridiculous and is a LAZY excuse on Blizzards part. Further more Blizzard haste to be the most money hungry developer out there currently pioneering the way for $60 games with Star Craft II. I will never buy anything from Blizzard again. I also will add I cancelled my account 8 months ago after years of playing.… Expand
Mar 17, 2011Boring, another rehash, let's get something NEW going on...the changes were minimal and not impressive. The only thing Cataclysm brought was a click on the cancellation of my account button. I think I am done with Blizzard, though maybe I will check out Diablo 3...we'll see!
Dec 11, 2010For people rating this game low, I think you need to read the review from GAMEPRO posted on here that is from a hardcore WOW freak who's been playing for 6 years. I find it hard to believe any of you could experience all of the new content in less than a few days. Also note, as big as this game is there's obviously going to be some kinks that need to be worked out and play balanced, which I'm sure will happen in the coming months as players give their input (both new and old players). They fix/polish each expansion for 2 years or so. How can someone complain after their review fully admits there is a LOT of content (Keridor - "t's a simple matter of fact: Cataclysm has reworked ALL of old Azeroth, adding new quests, new dungeons, reworking old dungeons, and creating such "cinematic" experiences, that one would be a fool not to buy this game!"), then comes back to say it's defeatable in 1/2 month. How could you possibly know in 3 days? LOL. Everything's been redone, new quests, dungeons etc but you say there's less content. Which is it? Myself I don't think I'd be able to write an true review for months (discounting the fact that the game will undoubtedly change quite a bit in the next year+). The gamepro guy wrote two reviews (one for newbs, the other for hardcore players). Right now I'd say the game is a 8.5 or so but I'm rating it a 10 to make up for silly reviews that freely admit there's a lot of new content etc then rate the game as if it's a complete mess. I'm wondering if they work for a competing product or something (neosyth) :) Let's face it, Blizzard has certainly been killing off the competition for 6 years or so. I haven't played every MMO but I can't name another one that I'm afraid might suck the life out of me if I'm not careful. This game (as all Blizzard games I've played) makes me lose sleep. A lot of sleep. :)
The whiners should read the above review and maybe re-evaluate after a few weeks. There's no way this game rates less than 6 even if you don't like some of the new changes etc. That's just ridiculous. If $40 upset you that much, perhaps you shouldn't be buying games. You can start over as new characters and go through the game as a whole new experience. Isn't playing the new characters part of new expansions experience? If you're totally blowing off half the new content you really did waste your money I guess and perhaps, missed 1/2 the point of the new release. Good luck finding a better MMO.… Expand
May 17, 2011I dont get it. IMO Wotlk was a biggest success in wow history. I mean during this expansion wow had more then ever subscriptions and people online. And what they did, instead of listening majority of gamers that actually played the game they listened to few whiners in forums. Cataclism expansion was exactly what it mean to world of warcraft. They killed everything that was fun. Few fast heroics after work? I dont think so.. with 40mins queue time and dungeons themself taking forever. Pugging raids? not anymore. Diversity of what you can do in game? not really... btw how can you call it expansion when there's less things to do in game then before. Add to this unbalanced pvp, dead world outside major cities, less people online, forcing people to create alts, removing 10/25 as different lockouts, no fredom whatsoever in new lvling zones. Grats to blizzard for destroying game that was close to perfect. I canceled my sub month after release of this $%%^$. One point because archeology, since it was quite cool and something new. Anyway cata is dead for me.… Expand
Dec 22, 2011Worst expansion in wow history, Broke off my addiction and I must thank for that.
Nov 10, 2011I played this from the beginning. It was amazing when it was released but cataclysm required little effort to play. Everything in the game that made it fun for me was dumbed down beyond belief and it took little effort to gear for everything so I found myself sat in SW just waiting on queues to actually do something. PvP just seems to be overlooked constantly and well has been a joke for ages now. Un-subscribed which is a shame cause I used to love this game and with their new expansion on the horizon its not getting any better.… Expand
Dec 13, 2011Being a player since 2005 and playing all the expansions of WoW I have seen changes I like and some I don't like. I am appreciative of the effort Blizzard has put for in changing the environments and trying to make old content new again for players; such as myself, but, in the end is just repetitive. I am not looking to be "wowed," no pun intended, but I would like Blizzard to come up with some new boss encounters. Now before I get the "Have you even played this expansion or done that fight," I want you guys to really think about it, its the same mechanics over and over again. One to two players tank the boss or NPC, and the rest of the group tries to not stand in AOE. While I will admit the FL Rag encounter was fun and with the drop of 4.3 patch the Deathwing fight is very entertaining but everything before that was made extremely easy by nerfs or just a boring mechanic (in regards to4.2 FL patch.) I have to comment on the Looking For Raid feature that has been implemented in 4.3 Patch. I think Blizzards thinking was that it is a great way to get the average player to end game content and get them gear. On the flip side it annoys the hardcore raiders because it makes them seem like they don't have anything to look forward to and that they are not achieving anything when they do it on 10 man or 25 man normal/heroic. While I am well aware that the gear is different and content is harder; I don't think people should be given an easy pass for end game raid content; this was already done in part with Tol'Borad. I do believe Blizzard's heart was in the right place but the implementation was some-what off. I also feel that there needs to be a challenge implemented into these Looking for Raid groups, steam rolling each boss in new content should not be achievable in the first week of a brand new patch. I personally would like to see a little more challenge!… Expand
Dec 8, 2011I remember when this game was fun. Blizzard actually made attempts to balance pve and pvp content. Now, they have completely made it clear that they don't care about the pvp community. Classes remain overpowered for months at a time rather than being fixed within a month. Furthermore, the developers continue to display a lack of intelligence by continuously making poor tweaks to classes and gameplay mechanics. The community continuously gives suggestions to the developers about various ways to improve the game, such as separating pvp and pve abilities and making certain abilities change depending on what kind of zone they are in. Blizzard continues to refuse to implement such a change, and continues on their hopeless act of attempting to balance two parts of the game that are always going to be in conflict. This game is past it's prime, it is time to shut it down.… Expand
Dec 20, 2011This expansion has turned out to be the same old iteration of reskinned bosses and monsters, a loot treadmill devoid of community and a massive award to the "Give it to me now!" crowd of gamers. The plot and story weakly hold together at the best of time. The various talent and attribute systems have been watered down to the point of complete homogeneity. The only reason this expansion earns a 4 out of 10 is it's continued unique art styles and the two new races (worgen and goblin) that stick to game lore.… Expand
Aug 6, 2012WoW is a great game, but this is not a great expansion. The storyline is really boring and Deathwing is very impersonal antagonist. In BC and WotLK the antagonists were very well known and loved Blizzard characters: Illidan and Arthas.
Also the overall style of the expansion is rather cheesy. The new Thrall seems more like a coward than a legendary orc hero.
Some of the new areas indeed look nice - but because they're split all over the world there's not really a nice connection between them like in the two earlier expansions. And there's not a main city which would serve as a whole server's meeting place and a place to hang out.
To sum up, the Cataclysm was a huge disappointment. The original "Warcraft-feel" is gone. The storyline's not interesting anymore. BC and WotLK had a lot of influences from earlier Warcraft-series games, such as Warcraft 3. Cataclysm doesn't.… Expand
Apr 11, 2012Outdated graphics? Check. Re-reusing old content? Check. Boring grinding? Check. Screwing over everyone that played and spent a lot of time on the previous expansion? Check. One of the most redundantly stupid and offensive community in the world? Check. Not listening to that community for better or worse? Check. Still shaking the class balance around like its a pot of scrambled eggs? Check. Slapping on 80000 extra health for all classes? Check. You still want more? Okay then.
Giving away level 80's including gear, mounts, gold and flight-paths, completely screwing anyone that earned level 80+ over? Check. Unbalanced arena matchup? Check. Crossclassing? Check. Rapidly losing a huge amount of subscribers? Check A decrease of user ratings by 40% over a year? Check. Money-grubbing overzealous company that has most of its staff leaving? Check.
I will laugh HARD once they release MoP which will have roughly 20% approval by the end of next year.… Expand
Mar 28, 2011I have played world of warcraft on and off since vanilla, I stopped playing the first time about 5 months before wrath of the litch king came out, I have noticed a very disturbing pattern with blizzard lately which kills the game completely for any gamer that knows that there must be a challenge to make a game decent.
These Two statements sum up the game completely:
1. "Vanilla and Burning Crusade had lore that was quite good, Wrath of the Litch King took this lore and smashed it with a hammer into 4 pieces, cataclysm takes the 4 pieces and throws them into a blender with other ingredients not food related, this is a smoothie you don't want to drink. 2. World of Warcraft is mmorpg for newbies to the gaming industry. Here are the issues the game has. They removed all of the elements that actually made the game challenging, if you look at vanilla vs cataclysm vanilla always wins the challenge debate. Cataclysm rebuilt wow from the ground up, its not a good thing. Some games are better if you do not make massive changes which turns a game into a kid friendly environment. There is another common issue with blizzard, they say they will find a way to prevent twinks or make it so they cant do much but they turn right around and give players more options to do so, I am always getting one shotted unless I'm 60+ so doing any type of pvp before 60 is out of the question. Only chance I have at those levels is to go get my weapons enchanted and of course get a ton of Bind to Account (BoA) gear, no reason the game should have BoA gear anyway. Their attempts to balance the game have outright made me laugh beyond anything I have ever seen, the big issue is that they listen to all of the kids who have barely started gaming and not the ones who have been gaming since the 70s or 80s. On top of this they almost directly ripped off League of Legends abilities for abilities so there is little to no ingenuity anymore from blizzard. Vanilla WoW was incredible, challenging in every aspect and every casual player could play it and get ahead. Burning crusade comes and a good 20% of the pvp appeal was lost in the patch about a week before it was released (e.g. the beginning rank system which I know they are going to add back but wont be similar or challenging to get ranks.) Wrath of the litch king comes out, makes everything extremely simplified and adds in new stats to gear which means that pvp gear is no longer useful for pve and vice versa meaning its an attempt to get players to spend a lot more time in a game that should only have half the longevity. Now cataclysm comes out, everything is so simplified even an 8 year old can play it and learn quickly, the learning curve went from average to well below average in terms of how hard it is to learn. Real gamers know that we need a challenge to be content with a game, we know that games are worthless if we are not being pushed to get ahead in the game. Cataclysm removes all of these aspects from the game meaning there are more challenging games on the market with better PvP and PvE most of which are free to play. There have been studies that showed that the average amount of subscribing world of warcraft accounts that had characters over 10 was roughly 70%. This means that 30% played the game for a few hours and quit because it was just too boring. Here are a few examples of games that have better pvp... Perfect World International (free to play better pvp at higher levels) Global Agenda (Buy once no monthly charge - even though the game is just as bad as wow) Dungeon Fighter online (free to play) Air Rivals (free to play space craft game) Zero online (diablo 2 but in mecha style form) Games that have better PvE: Lunia Online (free to play) Global Agenda (see above) Battle of Immortals Perfect World International Dungeon Fighter online Zero Online Air Rivals Everquest Classic (thats right, old game but still better) Many others I cant actually list here due to character's remaining issues. Games worse than or equal to WoW in all ways: Vanguard - Saga of Heros Everquest II Hellgate London Guild wars (about the same in many ways in terms of longevity) Point being go play something worth 55 dollars if you are going to spend 55 dollars, not something that is worth 5 dollars to buy (e.g. cataclysm) and worth no monthly fees since blizzard does a terrible job at maintaining and managing the content for the game. My advise, wait for Diablo III, Dungeon Siege III, and Rift.… Expand
Dec 26, 2010For what it adds to the game, this should probably be rated a 10. Getting to max level is easier than ever too, so that's a huge plus. However, seeing as Blizzard made no indication on the difficulty increase to the average user thus nothing can be done without a guild or a decent group on your server, I'm left wondering why they made random heroics in the first place. As always with these kind of games, while the gameplay can be fine, the community ruins any enjoyment I could get from it.
PS - They said they wouldn't nerf heroics, but they're going to have to before everyone quits from not being able to get any done with random bad players.… Expand
Dec 28, 2010No more sense in this game. It's become "keep giving me your money because we're so good at marketing". Billions of dollars and Cataclysm is what a regular player gets after paying that much for years? It's a joke already, it's been a joke since the nerfs to Kael'thas, Illidan and Kil'jaeden. And blizzard kept it a joke **** around with naxx v2.0. Cataclysm is the example of how you shouldn't continue a game. 1 for the effort of trying to steal my money and life again.
Blizzard keeps pressing greed at every "green" they see. Not mine for sure.… Expand
Dec 28, 2010Blizzard did a good job revamping the entire old Azeroth but Cataclysm isn't fun at all, to be honest, it is quite FRUSTRATING.
Heroics are much harder, which is fine because that's what Heroic means, but it gives those casual players that queue in the Looking for Group system a terrible experience since they will probably not be able to finish one single Heroic dungeon with Pick up Groups.
The worst thing, however, is the new profession Archaeology. It's all about random number generation, yes, pure luck. Things that relies on insane random numbers will create a terrible injustice situation: A very small amount of players will be getting rare items by doing just a couple of "solves" (this is how you create an item via Archaeology) while a huge amount of players will be trying to get the same exact item by doing the same thing over weeks and yet they might never get the item. There is no sense by doing this since Archaeology is certainly the worst professions, it is time spending and not fun at all.
It is quite impressive that Blizzard's staff is composed by the greatest game developers around the world that have enough time to develop games and their mistake on this last expansion was just insane as others failed grinding MMORPGs out there.
If you are a HARDCORE player that don't think about anything other than playing World of Warcraft, this game is just for you.
Don't play this game if you think you also have a life.… Expand
Jan 5, 2011no... no... no... no... and... surprisingly... NO! This is desperate, so this is just utter tripe.. itn is dismal, bad, no story -line and to many problems to list!
Mar 3, 2011Ok cool. Its another wow expansion that adds a fairly good amount of content for your money but overall it grows old very quickly. Its the same old wow. GO here, quest, get max level, enjoy the endless gear grind until next expansion. Rinse-Repeat. Save yourself the trouble.. Play wow for a few months maybe like 2-4 then once uve played through a few raids etc quit. Cus its the same concept over and over...… Expand
Mar 25, 2011I loved World of Warcraft for a very long time- I joined only a few years after release. I went happily along, playing on the same server and faction for six years or so. Then along came Cataclysm- Cataclysm by no means is a terrible expansion, it has nice new features and so forth- and it changed everything. Just as promised, Blizzard changed tons of things in old Azeroth, making the leveling experience fresh and new. I grabbed the game before it released, and was ecstatic to see all the new things. I cruised to the level cap, loving how much more experience and content was required to be completed before one could reach the level cap. The quests were designed uniquely and it seemed as though this chain of fun which I was climbing would never end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------But, unfortunately, it seems that all things end at some time. Once I hit the level cap, I felt the general feeling of overwhelming-ness when you lose your direction. Endgame is always fairly nonlinear. So I spent some gold, gathered up the blues I needed, leveled up my Alchemy and was finally ready for heroics. I ran a few, and sure, they had some new encounters and they were difficult enough, but that was it. No, really, that was about it. There are probably some nice PvP things in Cataclysm, but I was never a huge fan of the WoW PvP. ------------------------------------------------------------------- So I basically went back to doing the things I liked to do in WotLK (which, though not particularly original, was a very nice expansion pack in my opinion). Suddenly I realized that my subscription was about to run out, so I decided to sever the recurring effect because I simply had nothing to do. The end game was so dry- most of World of Warcraft has these neat intricacies all over. Cataclysm doesn't. Not to me, anyway. By the time I had reached 85 I was only a little bit away from having completed all the quests in all but one of the new 80-85 zones. There aren't many little interesting things to do in Cataclysm like there were in the past. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I suppose my review will not wholly apply to most readers, primarily because they would be interested in starting World of Warcraft and my opinion results from the fact that I have played World of Warcraft in the past. One of the main things that frustrates me about Cataclysm, though, is all the changes. My joy from MMORPGs seems to stem from my knowledge of the game. I like to know the name of that city, how to do all those quests, where to get that, who has that, the fastest way to this place, all the easter eggs, all the glitches, all the secret exploit-to-get-to zones and so on. By redoing the old Azeroth, Blizzard annihilated the base on which I had built my knowledge. Nothing had the old mystique that it used to. I used to think, "Wow, I remember that this was like this way back in Vanilla. This is so cool." I loved to get the old factions' reputations up to the max and get all the mounts and so forth. That sort of bewitching feeling, even when few players were still around, was so cool. But it all vanished, and my love for WoW is greatly diminished. I feel like developers should not try to do this to their games, the destruction of good content is depressing. ---------------------------------------------------- Perhaps Cataclysm will interest the new and growing group of people who are new to MMORPGs and joining WoW for the first time, but it has certainly left me disappointed. Perhaps it's for the best, though.… Expand
May 8, 2011I guess it's just the game showing its age but wow is far past its best. The game world is now looking increasingly redundant and the only active areas of the game are now instanced. The end game content is reasonable but nothing special and the huge revamp of the low level world seems to have taken away from interesting and exciting developments in the end game play. I would likely still give wow the thumbs up for new players, there is very little reason for long time players to like this.… Expand
Apr 15, 2011This expansion drove me away from the game for good. I had all but given up playing prior to this because of the player base in WoW, but, the game was fun, and that's what kept me in it. The great thing about WoW was the sheer amount of things to do within the game. With Cataclysm, my hopes were up with all the pre-release patches and quests and I tirelessly did them. Then release.
I dug in pretty fast, but, something wasn't right. The essence and soul of the game was gone. New abilities were not so much new abilities, but revamped old abilities, and new tradeskills were abhorrently tedious. Leveling wasn't that difficult, and the underwater zone, though intriguing at first, became a task to deal with. And there in lies the whole truth of the expansion: It's just not fun! It's task upon task upon task, everything is phased, so if you were logged on 30 minutes before a friend, odds are, you're not in the same phase and can't group together.
I gave up fast, merely 3 weeks into the expansion, World Of Warcraft finally up and died in my mind. There's no need to go back, it's a cumbersome, loathsome beast of a game now, and with every expansion, prior advancement means nothing. I replaced all my epic end game gear with greens IMMEDIATELY. No doubt about it, random world drops were far better than anything I had from downing the Lich King. Just sad.
This expansion was so bad, and the playerbase is so immature, it's actually turned me off to all MMO's, not just WoW. It takes something special to accomplish this.… Expand
Sep 26, 2011WoW: Cataclysm is hard to rate, and really it should be divided into two separate games. One is the new 1-60 content, and the other is the end-game. I would give 1-60 an 8 and the endgame a 4 so they average to 6. Now obviously, if we make comparisons, since all reviews are a form of comparison, the closest thing we can compare Cataclysm to is Wrath of the Lich King, which I thought was a tremendous expansion and I gave an 8. I know WotLK's content endgame was pretty easy (well, very easy), but that wasn't why I like it. WotLK's endgame dungeons had some very interesting environments, dungeons and lore. Lore. That is what is really missing with Cataclysm. You feel with endgame that you are simply going through the motions. There's nothing really unique or significant with design, architecture, or anything else. The gameplay is almost exactly the same as the previous expansion, with the exception that they put crowd control back in, and has been essentially the same throughout the series, so how do I rate the game on that aspect? It really is the world-building, the quests, and what you're hero accomplishes in his adventures against the Lich King, the Old Gods, and the Burning Legion that makes WoW entertaining, and I feel that Cataclysm ultimately failed to deliver the sense that you're character's actions have any sort of impact with endgame so far. There's just no depth to it. That said, I would spend all my time with Cata leveling from 1 to 60, because the new quest areas for new characters *were* developed with a sense of impact and interest, and some of the quests you just cannot miss (Badlands). So there's my summation. I don't know how helpful it will be if at all.… Expand
Apr 19, 2011A lot of the user reviews focus on the levelling experience in Cataclysm. Personally I'm not too concerned about the difficulty of levelling, as long as it's tolerable. What's really turned me off this game I have played on and off since vanilla are two things:
1. The blatant content recycling. Sure, it's "revamped", and the recycling of Azeroth is in some places quite impressive and interesting. But raiding in Blackrock Mountain, again? Killing Ragnaros, again? Taking on Zul'Gurub, again? Love it or hate it, WoW's primary selling point has always been raiding, and I believe this expansion adds the least to raiding from an overall game experience point of view.
2. Dungeons are the least fun they have ever been. In my personal experience (mostly tanking), some heroics are harder than raids. Combined with the inevitable cross-realm PUG experience forced on all but the largest guilds by the dungeon finder, this makes gearing up for the end-game content that isn't something you've already done on normal mode while levelling a pretty painful experience. The new guild features are awesome but you're still forced into dealing with bottom-feeders from other servers you'll never see again. The community and fun of dungeon crawling is gone.
I've played the PVP and PVE aspects of the game to death now, and I agree with many other reviewers that this expansion offers the least to what is a tired, old horse. Shoot it and move on.… Expand
Apr 30, 2011I *may* still be a WoW addict, but it seems less likely by the day. I haven't even downloaded the 4.1 patch. Why? I'm bored. Cataclysm revamped all the old world zones, redoing most of the quests! Cool, but they also made it absurdly easy to fly through them in a bare minimum of time. Why spend so much effort on giving the leveling process a facelift, only to be done with it so quickly? There is this persistent rush to end-game, and when you get there... there's very little left to do. Particularly if it's with the same character you've reached end-game on in previous expansions. There are achievements! Got 'em on my main, minus a fair bit of the ones requiring a raid. I really have no desire to get them again on another character, just for the sake of having them. Dungeons! Heroics! Have all the gear I can possibly use for an upgrade from them... on 6 or so toons, and their offspecs. PvP! Okay, really. I *know* Blizzard is in a constant struggle to balance PvP, but I just don't see it ever actually happening. Ever. Happens I have few-month-long moods where I really want to PvP, so I do it anyway, balanced or not. Well, since the massive battlegroup merger, and the faction changing for a fee thing, my beloved Horde *massively* outnumbers the Alliance. This leads to absurdly long queue-times for battlegrounds, and the inevitable sitting in Orgrimmar, waiting, that goes with it. Gets a bit old. Raids! Yes, I enjoy raiding, but you can only raid so many times per week. What's left? Professions? I have all of the professions maxed on various characters, except for archaeology. Which, as another reviewer quoted, involves staring at a stick with a blinking light, and *massive* amounts of travel time. /Yawn. So, we're left with leveling another character... again. Well, I've definitely got that covered--I have two accounts with max character limits on one server alone. Leaving me with absurd things like 3 priests, and 2 lvl 85 prot paladins, etc. Why? Well, not counting the fact that it's about the only thing left to do, I actually *like* leveling. Well, yay, there's new content for leveling up to 60. I've done all the new quests, on Horde and Alliance toons. It goes by too quickly, and I just end up with yet another 85 that I can't bare to delete, but probably won't play very often. As for the whole concept of "cata dungeons are hard!", they were moderately difficult initially, especially in comparison to the ones in Wrath, but, last I was playing they were easy mode again. Really, the dungeon-finder hp/healing/damage bonus is nice, but with 208k hp (with that bonus) and good avoidance and mitigation, I really didn't need CC any more. Yes, you still have to do appropriate things to compensate for various boss mechanics, for the most part, but it really had gone right back to "tank grabs a group, we all kill it, next!" from Wrath. For a little while, there was a hint of challenge. Now I don't care if you're hitting my target or not, I'm not gonna lose threat to you. That's just the tanking standpoint. With two accounts full of toons on one server, I *do* do other things, and I'm still bored. The new zones are interesting the first time through. Vashj'ir added in the element of needing to look above and below you, instead of just around you on a plain, but it loses its shiny luster of newness rather quickly. Most people find the zone pretty, but annoying. I only know of two people who don't hate it. The constant chain of cinematics in Uldum is an interesting twist the first time through, but after that, it's incredibly annoying to try to skip the cutscene, and find out you don't get the quest update, and have to go back and actually sit through the whole thing again. Also, an annoying facet of questing in the lvl 80-05 zones is that, with the ability to fly in the old world, the new zones were designed for you to fly in them. That doesn't sound problematic at first, but it massively affects mob spacing. You kill one mob, and then run just a bit too long to get to the next one, or you have to mount up, hop a short distance in the air on your flying mount, and then kill the next mob. Over all, the content is visually appealing, in the same WoW style, but the "new" parts get old pretty quickly. That's a gripe I have about the game as a whole, actually. Content gets outdated *fast*. Sure, you can do a Vanilla raid at lvl 60, because you can actually zone into the raid zone, but good luck finding other level appropriate people to do it with. Everyone wants to zoom through them on 85s. For luls, I soloed most of Kara shortly after Cata came out... on a holy priest. Sure, it's got the amusing "look what I can do" factor, but like everything else, it loses its appeal rapidly. If you don't mind using WoW as a giant chat room for weeks on end while waiting for major content patches, then you won't have a problem with Cata. It's pretty, but it's nothing truly new.… Expand
Jun 13, 2011Opinion of this game (and particularly about this expansion) will greatly depend on the type of player one is. Cataclysm (and WoW in general) is a perfect MMORPG for those new players that have limited and scattered free time (aka Casuals). For them it offers well polished, rich and fairly entertaining content that lasts for quite a while, the graphics engine is fairly outdated, but still the game looks positively alive, much more so than ANY mmorpg out there. The only problem is a complete lack of higher difficulty option, the classes have many skills but very straightforward, the quests and even dungeons are easy, not challenging even for completely new rpg players. Some will like it that way, many wonâ… Expand
Nov 11, 2011WoW gets worse with each expansion it releases (except Burning Crusade). The only reason i liked Wrath of the lich king was because i was a holy paladin and was the most powerful healer class in dungeons. Cataclysm is the decline of WoW, and Mists of Panturdia will be the final nail in the coffin. Seriously Blizz? a pvp based expansion, with pandas. Just do the people that still play the game a favor and get rid of subscriptions.… Expand
Jan 6, 2012Another garbage xpac for a garbage game. They could have improved the game, instead they put a glossy finish over broken content that's been there for seven years and say, 'oh look, those enemies that were once bears are now scorpids, brand new game!'.
You're fighting black dragons, again, Ragnaros, again- it's the same old grind with better looking fire graphics. Only real new thing is the underwater zone- which is a sliver of the 'new' content anyway.
Best of all, they made pvp even worse, I don't know how but they did it- healers are even more ridiculously OP, crowd control has been buffed through the roof- they essentially took every bit of feedback on what makes pvp bad and doubled it.
The best part about Cataclysm is the goblin starting area- that is just fun. Sadly, once you're done that, the game is a steaming pile of dung.… Expand
Make this washed up recycled garbage stop raping people of their money. Grind, grind, raid, grind, grind, raid. No story, failmode MMO from 1976 when computers were as big as rooms. Every single ounce of this game is little more than recycled content from every other mmo before it and after it. The only time something new and innovative is put into the game is when they are stealing ideas from up and comers.… Collapse
Dec 29, 2011This game **** the franchise up... **** everything up. WoW Classis, WoW Burningcrusade and Lich King was 10 worth! But then they released this one and they changed everything from start to scratch! The game has gone simply too easy. You never hang around the mountains and look at the moon and trees anymore because they made a new TBC system, so you don't have to search for group members anymore. Any child can get to the highest level and the best gears... any person can find a group in no time and do dungeons and that stuf... but the harder the game was, the better and addicting it was! That's why WoW is **** in my meaning these days.. These 3 things **** it up: New Fast TBC system High drop/loot rate on mobs Fast leveling People don't hang around anymore and discover the parts of WoW anymore(because they find group members very fast with TBC) they don't look for people to cooperate with...… Expand
Jul 14, 2013I played this game for a long time and i all ways loved it! I all ways thought that this game easily deserved a 100/100. Sadly the new expansion "Mists of Pandaria" did not turn out as well as i thought but all the other ones were good and i can't wait to see what new expansion comes out next! :D
Dec 14, 2010Overall much better than vanilla wow and the previous expansions, for the most part, but they made the game way too easy. My suggestion would to make the game more story driven so player's can feel more involved, and to make the game more challenging, to not just breeze through levels just to get to the end game. They changed many things for the better, and some things for the worse. Overall though, I would still give this expansion a 10, and very much worth getting if WOW is you're thing.… Expand
Dec 11, 2010huge amount of content added, significantly improved graphics plus questing is now more fun, quests are more imaginative. Worgens are the epitome of cool. Blizz have some exceeded my expectations again. For the Alliance!
Jan 16, 2011For a bit of background about me, I played WoW extensively when it first came out (cleared Naxx) then played a bit when TBC came out (mostly arena) and quit at level 78 with WotLK.
I came back to Cataclysm after seeing beta footage on Youtube and having it pique my interest. I had lost my account at that point, so I needed to start from scratch.
The game blew me away almost from the get-go. I was absolutely stunned with how much I enjoyed it, especially remembering the agony of leveling before. Almost every zone has a story, some small tale that you affect, brilliantly using the phasing mechanic to make you feel like your actions impact the zone.
The entire game felt fresh and new, many small things were added to make learning things easier. No more training defense and weapon skills, notifications when you can learn new moves from the trainer, improved interfaces, spell alerts etc. etc.
I had a perpetual blast from 1-60, but alas that's when the magic abruptly ends. Being a casual gamer, I played maybe a 2-3 hours a week, and levels 50-60 (which pre-cataclysm used to take ages to complete) now take about 1/2 hour per level un-rested.
At level 60 this joyride comes to a screeching halt, and outlands and beyond. All of a sudden after having fun, rewarding, half hour level ups it takes about 2-3 hours PER LEVEL. The quests in the outlands starting zones give LESS exp than old world level 55 quests. The quests are also much further spaced out (meaning more travel time) and overall not as fun (kill 10 of x and 20 of y). I am currently level 69, and went to Northrend. That place hasn't changed much either, and I will not be continuing my "adventures" much longer.
If I was to give out a recommendation for this game, I'd say that you should just buy the original WoW and play through leveling to 60. The expansion content is only necessary if you want to play goblins/worgen/blood elves/draenei or want to continue beyond level 60.… Expand
Dec 10, 2010The reviewers that write that this is just the old Azeroth re-skinned. Think again. People should actually play the game instead of hating on something. What Blizzard has done is simply amazing. They have reworked almost every zone, including the quests. In every zone there is something amusing, fantastic, or funny to experience, and this is just the stuff they have offered for free. The new dungeons are amazing to look at and offer exciting encounters that go above and beyond the normal expectations. The level experience is finally in line with the community expectations of the game. The game has always been about the end-game content (supported by the firm foundation of lore) There will always be people who irrationally complain about this game. It just means more room for the rest of us to enjoy a fantastic and wonderful experience.… Expand
Dec 15, 2010Before I even start let's get something out of the way. Yes, i'm a WoW fanboy. But I like how some people, such as Keridor, imply that if I love WoW then I'm blind because it's bad.If I like this game, or any game for that matter, it's because that game was good enough to merit my appreciation. I think people throwing around the 1 scores are no different than people throwing around the 10s. It's just different extremes. I give this expansion a nine because I believe it deserves it. The one complaint I hear most is about levelling being easy. Yes, it is easier now. If you like hardcore grindfests than WoW wasn't your game to begin with. But WoW has always been about the atmosphere, and as the game evolved this became an even stronger point. Levelling now is about the experience. And yes, there is a lot to do. The new archeology profession is perfect for lore freaks like me who love to explore the world and delve into its secrets. The new zones are fantastic and you'll be fighting epic battles before you reach level 10. That's not a bad thing. The NPCs and factions inhabiting the world have more of a presence. Blizzard have added life into a game that was already brimming with it. Furthermore, like it or not, the max level is 85, not 60. So while getting to 60 is significantly quicker, this is only part of the way.
If you've never played this game and you feel like giving it a go I definitely urge you to, and don't listen to people who are either too excited or too bitter to give an honest opinion. Declarations such as Blizzard only wanting money are childish. This is a company that for years has proved time and again that they care not only about providing a service but about the products they stamp their name on.
Get the game or don't, the fact is this is the best MMO out there today for people who wants to have fun. If you feel like trying out MMOs this is definately the place to start.… Expand
Dec 18, 2010World of Warcraft has gone so far but this new addon makes it go right over the top with the new races like the werewolf race and the goblen race. The new land the put in makes every thing you know about World of Warcraft changed, but it can make it harder to get around some of the times but not alway. Overall this new addon makes old players and new players come to World of Warcraft. I hope you found this helpful.… Expand
Jan 2, 2011Cataclysm is great fun, if you have the time for it. For new users, the expansion has improved the leveling experience so that it feels cohesive and flows better. The use of in-game cinematics also makes the whole experience much more fun and immersive. There really is no better time to get into the game than right now, IMO. Be warned, though, that the user base tends to be a bit sociopathic. Just try not to let random players being mean ruin your fun, and you'll be fine.
For users that are already into the franchise, views seem to be mixed. I actually found leveling from 80-85 to be much harder than previous tiers, but then again I'm not geared for dealing damage--I'm geared for healing as a paladin. Your mileage may vary here. Leveling from 80-85 didn't take much time at all. That being said, I hate leveling, so this is a good thing. The new zones are also amazing, using brand-new quest mechanics with great story lines. One of my favorite zones in the game is one of the new ones--Uldum. Pretty much all of the content I've played has been spot-on.
Here's where my low score comes in. I found that once I hit 83 and began to do semi-max to max level content, difficulty increased steeply. (Again, because I'm a healer, YMMV. Healing difficulty has certainly sharply increased.) I found that very jarring, personally, because earlier content is very simple to complete. Groups in the 80-85 range must be coordinated if they want to get through heroic dungeons, and to some extent regular dungeons. While this is much less boring than the Wrath model of dungeon running, it takes much more time. Most heroics take groups on my server around 3-4 hours to complete at this point in time. My server (Zangarmarsh) is about average on the side of progression--not good but not bad, either. I can imagine that it would be better or worse, depending on the server.
Since I'm working, going to college, and raising a (currently) 1-year-old girl with my husband's help, I simply do not have time for that much gameplay in a week. The Wrath model would have allowed me to keep playing, but sadly, this was not to be. Since the only way for me to get gear to raid would be to run one regular dungeon a day for a very small amount of currency to get gear, my estimate gear up time is going to be several months. I think perhaps I will take a break until I either have more time or the content takes less time to do.
Pros: Much better leveling experience, great zone redesigns as well as new areas, story lines generally improved, much better gameplay at max level.
Cons: Time sink at max level. Difficulty curve sharply steepens around 83 or so (at least from a healing perspective.)… Expand
Jan 10, 2011Smaller scale than the first two expansions and not as well tested. Some of the PVP content, Tol Barad - the new Wintergrasp- in particular, is very poor. Its a far cry from the days Blizzard delays the burning crusade because they wanted to releases as polished a product as possible. The concept is great and when its good it really is but it just feels far to rushed in places.
Mar 12, 2011Fun for a little while. Unless you're into raiding or other long-term grinds, this expansion brings about 2 months worth of content. Overall, least amount of content from any expansion so far. This would be fine if expansion release cycle was shortened to 1 year or even 6 months. Good stuff: heroic dungeons were a lot of fun before everyone geared out and difficulty was reduced. New zones, although few, are pretty and have story-lines.… Expand
Mar 17, 2011Putting the GRIND back in Warcraft =)
Having won over a big bunch of new players (a new market) with the success and ease of access in Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard has done a classic bait and switch. Get ready to grind your ass off if you want anything.
Please be very aware that Blizzard employees have been caught spamming Metacritic with positive reviews in order to bump up the score (which has worked nicely)
This expansion has less in it than any other expansion so far. this expansion has more "lolwut" moments in it than any other (Sphynx-Men, racist Arab midgets, a death-star pyramid, dragon rape) and its clear that blizzards primary development team are off doing something else, leaving us with the work experience guys and some retards who came in for a day trip to Blizz HQ. This game gets a score of 1 because it finally cured my World of Warcraft addiction, its just a pity that I replaced it with crystal meth =(… Expand
Mar 24, 2011This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. And then there is Cataclysm. It's THE borderline of WoW. Your experience with this game will really depend on whatever you played from Vanilla or you jumped on the train not long ago. I wasn't as excited as I was at previous Expansion Packs because I knew what summarily they bring. The new areas are really good and the stories are good, I'll sing that. I played Western/Eastern Plaguelands and Westfall which were pretty good and of course the 5 new Cataclysm zone (Yes, only 5 since the maximum level was pushed up with only 5!). I hoped they have made it harder since 3.2.0 but I soon realized how foolish I was to think this. It became so easy that you barely need to think anymore. The abilities became extremely overpowered (for Warriors at least). And Questing/Leveling was like surfing on small tides, It didn't have difficulty at all! I thought at level 85 I might find some challange but no. The heroics were again using the same system but with Points (why Points now?) and Battlegrounds used the same system with points too (at least this mostly remained like it did). So what did I do? Try out the new species (Goblin and Worgen). Wait. What are these classes? Tauren Paladin? MAGE DWARF? Orc Mage? I understand now. They killed half of WoW with the Badge system in 3.2.0 and now they killed the other half with messing the whole plot up, but this half was the one that was with Warcraft at its RTS roots too. Why would suddenly Taurens turn to the light? Dwarves are immune to magic in this way (they couldn't become mages). Even Dragon Age 2 could keep this rule. And Orc Mage.. Who thought that picking random class combinations out of the blue was a good idea? Why did they even do these combinations that completely DENIES THE LORE!? And there are the "merely a setback" characters. In Burning Crusade this was a great idea and it might made you smile in WOTLK, but It's extremely overused here. Hogger, Ragnaros, Nefarian, Onyxia, Cenarius (Yep, It makes the orcs' victory at Ashenvale completely meaningless). Oh, and Cairne is dead who was the leader of the Tauren since Warcraft 3 and got killed in some quest. Ultra Great,really... And what's with the constant instance repeating? I mean, Naxxramas was a great idea. But now they use Zul'Gurub, Zul'Aman and old bosses up again? I hope you were happy with your Amani War Bear because soon everyone will be running with that one all around. At least there are some more positives, It makes puts some character into the story which haven't done anything before : Matthias Shaw of the SI:7, Prince Anduin and It welcomes some new ones. I don't know what this expansion will bring up later but I'm not sure I'll resume playing it during the summer because It's so nerfed (they made it so easy) that I might play a week if I resumed It and then I would be jumping and talking in a Capital City. So to sum this one up: If you are new on the train, you might like it but if you are a veteran, you'll want to deny this as being part of Warcraft. For the later one I can only say what i said before, go to Vanilla or any private server that is before the 3.2.0 patch. And if the previous got bored of It or doesn't like it too, They might wanna check the previous games too.… Expand
Mar 20, 2011I've played WoW since vanilla, and my favourite 'era' is tBC, now I expected Cata would make a big difference, but now I feel like I'm being served the same meal over and over again; And although I love the game I must say that I have become quite bored, especially with the quests. Someone would think that at lvl 80-85 we wouldn't be supposed to gather silly things for a quest, or grind for stuff. I did like though the guilds ranks and achievs system and the fact they added qs on entrances of dungeons. After leveling my druid to 85 I felt I was bored to lvl the rest 7 lvl 80ies. I started doing some qs on my priest then gave up and started using only the dungeons system to gain xp. My overall feeling is that the game has made it's circle, graphics and gameplay need more than just a make-over for this 6-7 year old game. Really, one thing I hate most is eating the same dinner for a third night!… Expand
Mar 24, 2011I've played WoW since the start,I must say,It seems Bliz could care less about there loyal players. Cata is just more of the same,With MORE downfalls,Like the other guy said,Its to the point where they are shoving a guild down your throat.I have been in succesfull guilds,beat WotLK etc,but it gets really old. Try to advance your gear after 85 without a guild?? haha laughable.This may be fine if you dont have any kind of a life(or are a kid living with mommy) But other then that guilds are just a pain in the ass anymore.And i think its because Wow IS mostly kids living with mommy now,At least thats how immature most of them act that are in decent guilds.Its really pathetic.Also,every expansion uses the SAME boss models and icons,just changes color/size etc.. Dont waste your time with this,Unless your a kid,then you may fit right in.â… Expand
Apr 19, 2011I've been playing WoW since beta, it's eaten away years of my life but that's finally over with the release of this expansion. My first impressions of the game I'd give it a 7/10. First entering a zone, I find myself aboard a boat during an exciting cinematic when a giant squid tentacle comes down and destroys us. All of a sudden we're under water. Now this was quite the annoyance being under water for 2 of my 5 levels as the angles get really ridiculous, finding where you need to go with the bugged mini-map also makes for quite the aggravating experience. I slightly enjoyed the rest of the zones a little better, but I wont go into too much detail about that. The new dungeons are terrible and completely not enjoyable by any means. Dungeon Finder destroyed server PvE, as everyone uses it instead of making a group that is actually capable of finishing a dungeon, you get a bunch of noobs who waste 20 minutes of your time by wiping on the first boss and leaving. Now, I'm more of a PvP person myself. PvP is one of the aspects of the game that had kept me going for as long as it has. It's progression was exciting for me up until WotLK, then it became quite dull with the insta-gib combos out there. It was more so who could kill who in 2 seconds over actual strategy. With the release of Cataclysm it completely destroyed this 1 remaining love of the game that I still had. The new battlegrounds are HORRIBLE. I did my fair share of the grind getting all my blue PvP gear aside the weapon. It was more of a job than something enjoyable -- which it used to actually be. Classes are unbalanced, resilience is a joke. Arena is more of a joke now than it ever was. This expansion really put the nail in the coffin for me. After years of playing this game with quite a bit of enjoyment, the rides finally over. The magic this game once had, is finally lost.… Expand
Jun 30, 2011WoW is so boring this days. PvP is always unbalanced forcing players to endless cycles of grind. You must grind your level, grind your gear... Its a big waste of time and money. End game players are some kind of cheap labor to Clan Leaders now. I would not waste my money and free time with this game.
Apr 21, 2011I was a hardcore WoW player since Vanilla. I was a GM of a top 10 raiding guild on my realm. For over 5 years years i have loved this game. Gosh, all the good times we had! Especially killing the LK on 25man, that was fun! However, Cataclysm made me stop playing, and to eventaully close my guild and cancel my account. I hate the class changes, the new trees, the new dungeon lock out modes (10 and 25) and overall, the entire game has become more like a job than enjoyable. Good luck all, I am out!… Expand
Nov 3, 2011Half-assed and overhyped expansion. Many of the features got scrapped, most of the content is just repainted old one, and it has worst end-game out of all of the expansions. WoW needs something new, not more of the same old crap we all saw hundreds of times already.
Aug 19, 2013I started playing WoW a few months after release and continued playing fervently up until WotLK was released. I still played on and off casually during WotLK, however, still thinking the game was fun, but I just didn't have enough time to play as much anymore. I bought Cataclysm on the day of release to try it out and had a few thoughts on it. First of all, the game became a total joke (even more than before) where every quest or NPC was some silly pop culture reference, which I found to be a turn off. An entire zone was based off of an Indiana Jones movie! I made it to level 85, and quickly found myself bored by the PvE content. On the bright side, they added a talent to fury warriors that allowed me to pull aggro constantly during normal 5 mans and not die because of the increased chance to parry. This was very useful and enjoyable while DPSing, as paying attention to aggro became too tedious. In fact, it was at this time that the best part of Cataclysm stood out to me: huge explosions of large yellow numbers, more yellow numbers than I had ever seen on my screen before as a warrior. Maybe years of WoW playing just burned me out, or maybe Cataclysm sucks. If you really want to buy the game and try it then decide for yourself, but I'd say its worth passing on unless you really love the WoW universe.… Expand
Dec 31, 2011Cataclysm finally made me stop playing WoW for good.
As a player that experienced Wow from its release ive noticed that the game got more accessible, easy, casual and generally dumbed down with pretty much every content patch and addon. This already got critical at wrath of the lich king. While in classic or burning crusade a good 50% of content could be considered as in some way fun or "challenging" it is down to like 5% now.
Back then there was an actual chance of not completely finishing an instance, even completely failing, or of only killing a certain boss and leaving the rest of the instance untouched because it was too difficult etc. Actually completely cleaning an instance like Stratholme or TDM was pretty satisfying.
There is nothing left like that anymore.
Even daily heroic instance quests are more like a time consuming annoyance than a challenge now, the only challenge left the game manages to deliver are a few hardcore achievements like for heroic raid instances. Again even these ones can at some point just get picked up by everyone after blizzard once again nerfed the raid instances or released new content with better items allowing anyone to easily raid past instances without any difficulty left in them. Pointless.… Expand
Jan 27, 2012As far as making the game more attractive to new players goes, Blizzard has done a wonderful job. Anyone who has played WOW from earlier expansions will be severely disappointed by the lack of anything remotely resembling difficulty in the new content.
Feb 17, 2012Classic: 9 TBC: 8 Wotlk: 7 Cata: 5. I enjoyed this game in the past it was an innovative change to the gameworld. Maybe im just getting tired from this game but let me explain why it becomes less fun from a pve perspective. Right now in cata for example the dps difference is mixed as usual each patch but between top spec and lowest spec is 30% while they pulled the synergy together. In my logic if synergy is pulled together the difference in dps should be very tiny. It seems the big numbers are making their system flawed, if some class is slightly scaling different the result in the end is huge because the numbers has grown big in this game(doesn't count only for dps). You can say you raid not to gain gear but for fun, i kind of agree with that. But nevertheless gear is a part of raiding. Raiding itself is fun for a while but not for a very long while and the system of raiding hasn't changed much. I don't like how much effort you must do for your gear. Since wotlk but more strongly in cata the fun value of gear has dropped dramatically. Now you must theory craft longer (mainly for reforging) to search out which stat setup is best for you which is a lot to work on besides the enchanting, and gemming where a large amount of time (and occasionally gold) is needed each time you get a new gear piece. Its feels like a tough job to do. And gear totally lost its value, in classic epics were really epic but its going slowly to the exact opposite of that epic feeling. Example you did Blackwing Decent or Bastion of Twilight Heroic mode and you had gear from those raids, and then as a reward they give you Firelands NORMAL with better gear?!. Its like your doing heroic raids for nothing. Besides raids heroic dungeons are fun but you get a bit bored of them before the 1st patch in the expansion appears and you got to do with them the entire expansion besides only a few new ones that come out. And the mechanics in the whole game are to repetitive.… Expand
Mar 26, 2012the game is getting old and you can see it in front of your eyes, it does not have the fresh feel when you play t, last 3 years were a disappointment. Blizzard is rapidly loosing money and getting overwhelmed by other MMO's like Guild Wars 2 in the future. Not worth the time playing it
Jul 21, 2012This has absolutely got to be the worst expansion that Blizzard has released so far for WoW. It has slowly gone downhill since TBC. I'm writing this on July 21 2012 and first of all, the last content patch was November of LAST YEAR. Now, this might be acceptable to the uber casual player, but for the rest of us, this lul is simply unacceptable. Now, Blizzard has said there will be no content patch until 5.0, and who knows when that will come out?
Anyways, I mentioned the uber causal, who is even more casual than the normal casual. This person plays maybe half an hour to a couple of hours a day and may be satisfied with the direction this game has gone. Why? First of all, you can get Valor (the currency used to buy the end of the line epic gear) capped in one night by running three insanely easy and short dungeons. Secondly, you can clear Dragon Soul (the latest raid dungeon) in roughly two hours, IF that. Thirdly, it takes only 1-2 weeks to get to level cap in extremely linear fashion with almost no challenge posed whatsoever; monsters, aka creeps, post little threat, and if you choose to level up via Dungeon Finder, the dungeons are incredibly short and easy, again posing no challenge. So what happens once you hit 85 in 1-2 weeks? You can buy blue PvP gear from the Auction House to bypass the ilevel requirements of the most relevant three dungeons. Once you do that, you can easily gear up for raiding in a matter of days, and then, like I mentioned earlier, once you actually get to raid it's only for a couple of hours a night, unlike the previous expansions, where it could take 3-4 nights of raiding. People might say this change is good, but what else is there to do in the game once you valor cap in a night and finish Dragon Soul in the next night? A whole 5 days of nothing until it resets on Tuesday and you rinse and repeat. I guess you could PvP, but PvP is horribly unbalanced. At least back in The Burning Crusade there were balancing hotfixes like every week, now PvP is completely dominated by rogues, death knights, resto shamans and other classes.
Mists of Panderia looks like it's turning out to be even worse when it comes to catering to the uber casual player base, so I'm going to skip it. I'm stuck in the Annual Pass that I stupidly got last December, but I guess that's what cancelling a credit card is for, right? There ARE better games out there!… Expand
Dec 22, 2010Ill split this up into 2 parts. I want to first discuss how the good the game is if you just continue on your level 80 and get to 85. I would say its a pretty good experience. Hell, i think its the best they ever did in an expansion! However, even though making a new character and leveling it up in the new redone area's of the world is fun... it's the same thing through 60-85. So you're really only getting the oldest zones redone. No Northrend, no outland. If you're a WoW fan like me, i would defiantly pick this game up, even though 60-85 is the same process.… Expand
Jan 31, 2012Join free trial for 7 days! Yay and download a game within these 7 days (tried to change firewall, tcpip options etc.)
No money or anything for you Blizzard.
And yes. This. Is. A bash review.
Jan 2, 2011This expansion does so much to bring life into this game, it's incredible they only charge you $40 for it. There's is a lot of content here for everyone. The casuals, the alt-maniacs, the hardcore and the not so hardcore. As far as end game goes, I feel Blizzard hit a nice balance with dungeon difficulty, not being as easy as Wotlk but not as punishing as the harder TBC heroics. Good too see so much work is and quality is still coming out of Blizzard.… Expand
Dec 22, 2010As usual, a lot of outrageous scores of 1 drag down the overall score. Somehow, the simple concept that a review should not only be a reflection of your personal preferences eludes these simple folks. But I digress.
So far, Cata has exceeded my (low) expectations by a large margin. Questing is much more focussed, mostly due to breadcrumb quests laying out a clear path on. Normal 5-man instances have been quite challenging, partially due to the overhaul of class mechanics, and partially because of mob and boss abilities. They've also been great fun, epic fail PUGs notwithstanding.
The goblin starting quests are a blast, and offer an experience way beyond any older low level content.
The new zones wring out every last drop of graphical delight offered by the ageing engine. After stepping back into WoW from other (non-MMO) games, it struck me as incredible simple looking. However, after only a couple of days play, I've come to appreciate the immense amounts of work which has evidently gone into the new content: textures, layout, general feel, etc. Just look at Deepholm, then tell me how bad this game looks. Technically, other MMO's are ahead in the engine department, but none of them offers the quality of artwork available here.
As or claims of the games being too easy: I'll put that down to kids sticking to faceroll DPS classes/builds. Try tanking/healing, then come back and tell us how easy it has become.
Furthermore: the balance of green vs. blue vs. purple gear seems a lot better, more like vanilla WoW - when epic actually meant epic.
I can't speak for endgame content yet, but from what I've seen and read so far I'm not worried as to the quality. Same goes for PvP. So my score is based on leveling and normal 5-man instances, and should be read accordingly.… Expand
Dec 20, 2010Every area in this game has redone, and it started with a new battle or something. The new characters the worgens and the gobilins started up with a huge story, and its so fun to play for the starting. However, there is one thing obiously changed are the quests, I think the quests are a bit too easy, because of that, the gameplay seems short from 80-85Lv. I can't tell if the game is fun to play because every guy plays WoW would have different opinions about the game, like the TaiWan guys worshiped the game as their life.... But anyway, I recommend Blizzard to (incharge) the quests.… Expand
Dec 11, 2010This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Great expansion for a great game !
To be honest I was done with Wow: end-game experience required too much effort and most of all time to get the necessary items, PvP was fun but not the main reason to play this game, starting an alt was time-consuming, frustrating and all about doing the same quests and regions all over again...
With this expansion Blizzard sets the new standard: amazing new content in the old regions, amazing quest flow (reached level 20 on one evening of playy with new Worgen), slightly improved graphics, more interesting class changes.
I will get addicted again, but I won't forgive myself ever if I didn't play this game no more.
To all the low-life people giving ridicilous low scores: get a life !… Expand
Dec 17, 2010Most of the people who are giving this game negative reviews are doing so for completely stupid reasons. I mean, do these people really expect Blizzard to create an expansion that completely changes the gameplay style and experience? People want new CONTENT, not an entirely new game style. Then comes the complaining of how fast you can get to the max level. I don't think these people understand that this game is designed mostly for end-game play. It's utterly obvious, and these people can't seem to grasp that point. People don't want to spend months getting to the max level, and it would be unnecessary if you had to. Sorry, Keridor, the idea of questing for six months doesn't seem very appealing to me. As for the game itself, people are saying a very few amount of content was added, when it's exactly the opposite. Five amazing new zones and re-skinned and added features to almost all of the other zones in the game. The difficulty has been raised for heroics and raids, and the new instances look and feel great. The classes in PvP are still unbalanced, some classes will still feel useless in PvP, and some classes are ridiculous, but other then that, my experience has been FAR greater than WotLK or Burning Crusade.… Expand
Dec 18, 2010The best expansion to the WoW series, a return to "vanilla WoW" everything has been reworked, instances are actually challenging once again and you get a real feel of it being a world rather than just dalaran and dungeon lines. The new zones and quests are simply amazing and the new dungeons require actualy skill such as CC. People have to realise that rather than concentrating on new broken content that blizzard have gone back and reworked older content fixing everything that any true mmo fan would consider broken. The only negative I could really think of is making taurens into paladins. Thats just plain crazy. Giving the game a 9… Expand
Make this washed up recycled garbage stop raping people of their money. Grind, grind, raid, grind, grind, raid. No story, failmode MMO from 1976 when computers were as big as rooms. Every single ounce of this game is little more than recycled content from every other mmo before it and after it. The only time something new and innovative is put into the game is when they are stealing ideas from up and comers.… Collapse
Apr 24, 2011World of Warcraft: Cataclysm brings the excitement of a new expansion to much of the game and provides some exciting and engaging high-level content. If your account has lapsed, Cataclysm makes it worth the renewal cost. The expansion content raises the bar and re-establishes Blizzard as the reigning king of traditional MMORPGs.
Mar 21, 2011More of an evolution in terms of gaming experience, but it's the best World of Warcraft expansion so far. If you have never tried WoW or are thinking about returning in Azeroth – now is the time. [Feb 2011, p.66]
Mar 4, 2011Blizzard has undergone an extremely ambitious effort with the Cataclysm expansion, razing the familiar to the ground and building something that proves both new and inviting. And while certain balance issues are being fixed via patches, there's something good here for new players, veterans, hardcore and casual gamers alike.