WoW: Here I Go Again On My Gnome

Do you have a comfortable pair of shoes that you keep around and wear now and then? Maybe for long periods of time, addictively? Especially when they get upgrades like new races, graphical overhauls, a new crafting profession and high-level content, and receive Cataclysmic reconstructions of their game worlds? Are we even keeping up any semblance of talking about shoes anymore?

In a recent interview with Kotaku, John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, mentioned that SOE has been considering a Cataclysm-style reboot for Everquest II. He explained that while he has confidence in EQ II's player base and success, he still has a lot of praise for Blizzard's latest expansion: "I think World of Warcraft is looking great...it's going to bring a lot of people back into the game; they hit the reset button."

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By a lot of people, he probably meant STRGamer (and 3.3 million other people), as we've logged in to our accounts after a long, Burning Crusade-induced hiatus and are happily grinding away in Azeroth again. I received a free "return to Azeroth" trial and got suckered in to resubscribing after figuring out how the heck my character works again, and Brian's had a similar experience without the free trial.

You've probably already read about (or are playing through) all of the massive changes included with WoW's latest expansion, beginning with the pre-patch destruction and reconstruction of Azeroth's landscape (and flying mounts in classic areas!), restructuring of talent trees and starter areas, new race/class combinations, and a bunch of graphical upgrades. With Cataclysm, you've also got two new races to muck around with, an increased level cap and 80-85 content, a new profession, guild advancement, new PvP battlegrounds, and a host of new dungeons and raids for you to /ragequit your guild over because they gave the tier 10 boots to some other noob who doesn't know how to manage aggro.

Why are we excited about this expansion more than we were about previous ones? Simply put, because it's a completely new game. We've both dabbled in free welcome-back trials now and again, but haven't played WoW consistently since the Burning Crusade. Blizzard's first expansion typified the kind of grinding, repetitive quest structure that we had become accustomed to and bored with from the vanilla experience. The following entry, Wrath of the Lich King, looked a lot more promising and exciting, but was mostly higher level content and would require us to finish the BC expansion first. The thought of killing 30 clefthoofs in Nagrand just to get to Northrend took a back seat to anything remotely interesting at the time.

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However, Cataclysm is offering more than enough to bring us back into the game. We're finding that Blizzard has implemented a smorgasbord of streamlined features into their flagship MMORPG that they've learned from six years of updates, third party addons, community feedback, and industry trends. Some of these updates have been around for a while, like quest tracking, in-game voice chat and cross-server dungeons and battlegrounds. Others are more recent, such as the revamping of classic areas, new and engaging quest structures that are story-based, varied and funny, and an increase in the use of phasing, which really makes you feel like the actions you take have an effect on the game world around you.

All of these elements and more have changed the overall game experience significantly enough to draw us back to Azeroth. Sure, we had to grind through the BC content (who knew that such a drab and desolate area like Netherstorm could be so drab and desolate?) to get to the much improved WotLK areas, but we're now finding it to be completely worth it. The implementation of location tracking makes questing infinitely more manageable, without having to run around endlessly looking for the right mobs or spamming the Trade channel with "ware do u get [12 Felboar Tusks] ne1 no ware u get them??!!11"

The WotLK and Cataclysm quests themselves are better designed by far, having more varied objectives in more centrally located areas, continually leading you to the next quest hub without making you feel like you're drudging around in one place for too long. I also can't say enough about the battleground finder tool, which allows you to join cross-server PvP battles and earn XP among players of your own level bracket. It's a great way to jump into some player-vs-player action at any time without having to worry about if your server has enough people online for a match, and encourages PvP at all levels rather than just for the endgame.

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None of these features are new to the MMO scene. Games like The Lord of the Rings Online have established a reputation for well-designed and immersive story-quest content, Warhammer Online offers the most streamlined in-game PvP matchmaking that we've seen so far, and things like quest tracking are commonplace to most MMORPG's nowadays. Still, the fact that Blizzard is committed to continually improving World of Warcraft and even completely overhauling its core game experience is noteworthy. Not content to sit on their laurels with 12 million players, they're making a smart move by updating their game's scope and graphics to remain competitive with advances in the industry, and we think it's pretty worthwhile. The changes Blizzard has made to the core WoW experience and the additions brought by the expansions as a whole, especially Cataclysm, are more than enough to get us excited about resubscribing.

In addition to the new features and high-level content, the new starter experiences are jewels compared to some of the slogfests we trudged through in the early days. All of the classic zones have been revamped in some way, and most notable are the Gnome and Troll starter areas, which are completely new and worth rolling an alt to experience. These poor saps were homeless until the world exploded, and now have fun and interesting areas of their own to explore.

Even more exciting are the new Worgen and Goblin races, who really demonstrate the work and detail that Blizzard's designers have learned to implement since launch. The Worgen, basically Alliance werewolves, have a spooky Victorian-esque beginning area with a great use of phasing and a dark, immersive storyline. Goblins, the Horde's comic relief answer to Gnomes, are wheeling and dealing merchants and engineers with a funny and lighthearted starter area to match. Both are totally worth checking out, especially if you're playing an alt or new character through the revamped 1-60 experience like we are.

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Another interesting addition is the Archaeology secondary profession. Somehow, even though I'm generally not into crafting, I've gotten back into leveling my primary professions on my main as I play through the higher level content. Probably because I'm crazy. But because I've slept on crafting for a while, I've had to revisit a couple of classic areas to grab some materials and level up my gathering profession, and took up Archaeology at the same time. The concept is simple: the Cataclysm has unearthed tons of artifacts in Azeroth, and you can find the pieces and put them together to make new items and learn about the world's lore and history. This basically adds up to you finding dig sites on your map, running around and using a survey tool to triangulate on an artifact's position, digging it up and adding it to your collection to make new stuff. It's really quite fun and a great way to explore the remade areas with a higher level character and learn more about the world's lore.

WoW's lore, once convoluted and nigh-impenetrable, remains complex but is actually quite interesting, especially if you're into backstory. If you're the kind of gamer that clicks through quest text to get to killing mobs, you'll obviously be right at home with the new quest content. But if you're like me and 10 other people, and like to read quest text, you'll find that quests are more interestingly written and either fit in nicely with overarching themes in the goings-on of the world or are entirely meta and tongue-in-cheek (the D.E.H.T.A. quest line in Northrend, which revolves around druids fighting against animal cruelty and the infamous questgiver Nesingwary, comes to mind).

Some gamers might decry Blizzard's ventures into streamlining their MMORPG as giving it the "easy button," and simplifying it to the point of making it "for babies." Our response to this claim: cool story bro. We originally left the game, and have left others, when the core game experience became too repetitive, boring or grindy to keep our ADD attention spans satisfied. It's lured us back because Blizzard has eliminated the archaic aspects of the game while increasing everything that makes it exciting and entertaining, streamlining the whole experience and simply making it fun again.

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In his interview with Kotaku, Smedley related that he has a lot of respect for Blizzard because "they don't make massive mistakes...They have the goods and they know it. So why not take a risk like [Cataclysm]?" I think this is a valuable and germane assessment. Blizzard knows they're working with gold, and are prepared to make changes to their product to keep up with other advances that have become commonplace in the industry. Many companies are offering new and interesting takes on the core online game experience, and the MMORPG scene remains excitingly competitive with the types of games coming down the pipe.

We're excited for games like Rift and TERA, which we keep confusing with one another, for their promises of polished MMO experiences and interactive combat, and Star Wars: The Old Republic for Bioware's touted story-based experience and cover system. If NCSoft makes good on its ambitions for Guild Wars 2, we might see a completely different type of MMO with its launch, and I'm more excited for that game than I was for George Michael's "Twenty Five" album (seriously, that's a lot).

In the meantime, Blizzard is aware that it has a great thing going, and is taking great steps to ensure that its product keeps up with the times. Say what you will about the megalith and its hold over the MMO market, but they know how to make polished games that keep us coming back for more. We're certainly not the only ones who keep putting on our WoW shoes every now and again, especially when Blizzard keeps outfitting them with rockets and giving us tons of more fun things to do with them. We're not fanboys, except about LOTRO, and SPvTW, and also Men's Pocky, and we tend to jump around to whatever MMO suits our fancy alongside our PC and console gaming habits, so for WoW to keep bringing us back in says a lot about their work. Shoemakers FTW!