WoW Expansion Beta - First Reactions

After puttering around for a few hours, mostly taking SS's (soon to be added) and attempting to take video (which failed, boo... will retry that), the first reaction to Cataclysm is this: it is much, MUCH further behind in development than Wrath of the Lich King was when the beta was announced. And rightly so - it's not just creating a single (but massive) new area and tacking on a few things here and there - it's a complete overhaul of the majority of the game as we know it, which is a much more intensive process than building something up from the ground.

Gnomeregon has been touched, but not completed. The hostile mobs outside of the city are friendly, like the Dun Morogh to Ironforge. There's nothing inside yet, or at least not in the first few main hallways, but you can mount up and ride around. This is going to be especially nice when the city is fully open, because it is still as huge and confusing as ever.

Flying in Azeroth may be one o the biggest comforts of the game - you get to see parts of the terrain that you never really noticed before. Before Cataclysm, players are confined to the rocky walls of whatever land they are in; now you see that these areas that seem land-locked really butt right up to the ocean or an inlet. It's not a huge change design wise, but it gives the player a much more cohesive feel to the land than we previously had.

Stormwind is the biggest shock so far. It's still the same city, in some regards, but it's been redone in a way that will unsettle long-time players a bit. The front gate seems untouched, and as you fly over the city (which is rumoured to soon be taken out so that the Old World cities don't feel as empty as Shattrath did even before WotLK) most of it seems the same. The first change you see is over old town - the command center is no longer in a stone building, but in a grassy area tucked into a rocky nook. Same people, some place, different design.

For some reason, the humans have decided to honor Varian Wrynn with a massive statue... even though he is still alive, and really didn't do anything in WotLK other than show up and act like an emo kid with a temper problem for the majority of the expansion. Maybe he does something in Ulduar that I've missed, but I don't see why he gets one when, if anyone, Llane deserves such a devotion. Yea, I know, there's one of him in the keep, but... yea. It feels to me like the Statue of Jane in Firefly, erected without taking the full story into consideration.

Anyways, the rest of the keep: it looks more like Stormwind Harbor in the design of the area. The main keep has been pushed back, and now the throne is at the back of the hall instead of at the center. To the sides, the PvP rooms have been made to look much more like strategic war rooms, like in Dalaran, and those two empty rooms that were sitting around doing nothing now are closed off by wooden doors... still doing nothing, but no longer taking up resources. The little courtyard off the hallway is still there (I agree with this... one of the most interesting quest lines is in there, and I would hate to lose it even though it doesn't really make sense after WotLK), but now opens up to a pond/park and a farm.

In the middle of Stormwind comes an area that makes it feel much more like a lived in city than simply a commercial area. I think it's labeled the outskirts or something similar, and the architecture reminds me of the Tudor style houses so popular in England. There's also a graveyard in the city, and rows of smaller graves line a path up to a large tomb that is modeled off Uther's tomb in the Western Plaguelands. This hasn't been completed, so I have no idea who it is for at the moment, but maybe Bolvar Fordragon? Mm speculation...

Th Mage Quarter is overgrown with trees. It took me a second to figure out why it felt so much more closed off than usual, but the little trees that have been around there for years are now full grown, massive trees like in Elwynn Forest. It makes sense, since plants grow over time and all, but it's a detail that I never really thought about. I love it; and I think we're going to see a lot of little changes like this that show the passage of time in the world that has been so static (growth-wise) up to now.

Okay, so anyone who loves the park area of Stormwind, I warn you to brace yourself now: It's gone. Not removed by developers for a different area, no.... it's been destroyed by a dragon! That entire neighborhood is in flames, a massive chunk of the cliff has fallen away and buildings are falling into the sea, and what is left of the stone in that area is charred and smoldering. Personally, I love it. They've added so much else to the city that something needed to be destroyed, and as much as my druid lady loves the park I'm kind of glad to see it go. However, I do need to figure out where she's going to train now; I'm hoping all the druid trainers are not on Kalimdor alone.

The city overall has been outfitted for war - canons in towers, more war equipment on the dock, etc. There's a much more serious feeling to the city than before; this is the second time Stormwind has had to rebuild itself, and it feels like they decided not to cut any corners this time around.

However, there is one thing long time players have been waiting years to have answered: what happens with the portcullis and the instance entrance behind it? Does it lead somewhere? IS a second instance added to the city? Does it have something to do with the expansion?

Nope. It's a fountain. A cute lion head spitting water into a shallow pool below, a simple decoration in the city. Yes, groan in frustration, curse at Blizzard for toying with your hopes all these years, let it all out. It's the first step to recovery.

This got a lot longer than I originally intended, so I'm going to cut it short. I'll post soon on the Worgen starting area, and hopefully I'll soon have a video capture program to get some real-time action shots. I'll also be toying around with embedding pictures from my Picasa account, but I need to pay for that before it'll host anything for me.

Anything you want to see or hear about? Let me know, and I'll do my best to get something for ya.