World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
The biggest news out of the convention this year was the announcement of Blizzard's 3rd expansion to their wildly popular MMO. A lot of big changes. First of all two new races, Goblins for the Horde and Worgen (think werewolves) for the Alliance. A bigger surprise was that both races' starting zones were playable at Blizzcon, although you started at level 6 as Blizzard wanted to hide some of the story unveiled in the level 1-5 experience.
As a Goblin you find yourself dead and being jumper cabled back to life on the Lost Isles, very reminiscent of the jungle coast of Stranglethorn Vale. Your first quest is to save goblins from rescue pods in the water, here you can see some of the graphical improvements of Cataclysm, the water effects are much better then they are now. Goblins have some very interesting racial bonuses such as a rocket boots that can be used to leap forward (think of the reverse of a hunter's disengage), a rocket belt that can damage enemies, maximum gold discounts regardless of faction and a bank that can be summoned every 30 minutes. Goblins will be a very popular race choice for the Horde I suspect.
As a Worgen you start out in stocks in Gilneas, with two humans debating whether you are to be spared or be killed. The Worgen starting zone has a dark, dreary feeling like that of Silverpine Forest. You quickly set out to find ingredients for a potion to keep your animal side in check. Worgen can shapeshift at will and but doing so imparts no bonuses, entering combat automatically forces you into your werewolf form. Their racial abilities are a bit underwhelming, a dash like (speed boost) ability and a skinning bonus, I suspect their racials will be changed before Cataclysm launches.
The expansion will also bring a complete revamp of the starting 1-60 zones (60 was the original level cap in WoW). The name Cataclysm alludes to this. As the black dragon Deathwing erupts into Azeroth, whole zones will be radically altered. Desolace, once a desolate wasteland transforms into a lush jungle zone. The Barrens has been split in two (see the picture below). Higher level zones like Azshara become low level zones. Flying mounts will finally be allowed in the "old world." This completely changes the leveling experience for World of Warcraft, an excellent idea for Blizzard to keep existing players and attract new ones in the face of fresh MMO's coming to the market next year. Blizzard also is promising all the quests and quest flow have been streamlined to improve leveling and travel (so no more running across the continents for a single quest) New race/class combinations will be allowed as well (Tauren paladins, holy cow!).
Along with the zone revamp, major changes to all the classes are coming as well, with Blizzard's "stat simplification." Believing some stats were becoming too "mathy" (the developers' words not mine), a large number of stats are going away including: mana per 5 seconds, attack power, spell power, armor penetration and defense. Simplification extends to classes as well. Warlocks will no longer have to collect soul shards, instead they will get a mechanism inspired by the Death Knight's runes (3 soul shards per fight) and hunters will no longer use mana.
Also as expected for the expansion the level cap has been raised, this time to 85. With it comes new 7 new zones and new dungeons (including at least one underwater one), along with some familiar faces, such as Ragnaros. Prepare to journey into the elemental planes!
Lot's more was announced, such as a new secondary profession Archeology that allows your character to improve once you reach level 85 by following a Path of the Titans. And Mastery, which gives you passive bonuses as you progress in a particular talent tree. And reforging, which will allow certain crafters to alter stat allocation on items. Guilds will be able to level up and gain their own talent trees, allowing guilds to gain perks like reduced repair bills. Again lot's of information, way more then could fit into an article like this!
