World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Preview

AtomicGamer is the latest website to crank out a preview of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the expansion pack behemoth scheduled for what will most likely be a record launch on December 7th.

Most of the world has been bashed apart, opened up, redesigned, and made much more interesting, and the quests have been redone in the much more easy-to-digest style that Blizzard’s been doing the past couple of years. You won’t be running around between multiple zones, searching for two quests over in Desolace before dropping back to Stranglethorn Vale for another pair – instead, the quest hub system that’s been so popular in Wrath of the Lich King is here, along with more enhancements to the phasing system that changes the visible world around to match your quest progress. As seen in the last expansion, phasing is a fantastic system that really makes you feel like you’re making a difference, even if you’re keenly aware that every other player gets the exact same experience when they go through.

The total experience from levels 1 to 60 has been redone for all players, not just for those who buy Cataclysm, with the entire quest line for both continents revamped or just thrown out in favor of entirely new adventures. As of patch 4.0.3 this week, the world has been torn asunder by the big, bad new villain, the dragon named Deathwing, and almost all zones have been changed as a result – some drastically. When the actual expansion is launched on December 7th, a range of new features are going to be unlocked, like the level cap increase to 85, new races, new class options for existing races, and the ability to fly in Azeroth like people do in Outland and Northrend. Let’s go into some of these new features.