After shipping players off to a new continent and even an entirely different planet over the last couple of years, Blizzard has gone full steam ahead with the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion, which brings the world's most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game back to its roots. And then it takes those roots, grinds them up, and serves players an entirely fresh experience in the world of Azeroth. Join GameSpy columnist and WoW-head Leif Johnson as he travels through this whole new world (of Warcraft), exploring new zones, beating new dungeons, and enjoying what may turn out to be the happy medium to unite diehards and casual gamers alike.
Almost two weeks have passed since my mage hit level 85 in the wake of Cataclysm's release, and he still doesn't have a single epic-quality item on him. I'm cool with this. It's certainly not because of a lack of trying; on the contrary, I've come dangerously close to missing several deadlines on account of my newfound semi-addiction to World of Warcraft, and I've wasted away many hours that any responsible writer would have spent writing. I happily blame Cataclysm's new challenging five-man dungeons for this. While Cataclysm's leveling experience is largely easier than any previous expansion, its endgame dungeons make you work for the best gear, and provide a challenge that's been missing for a couple of years now.
Compare this with my experiences after reaching the level cap in Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft's previous expansion, toward the end of 2008. I distinctly remember my fellow guild members dragging me into a heroic (AKA high-difficulty) instance only seconds after I hit level 80, all while chattering about how I'd enjoy not having to spend five hours in a dungeon for a paltry chance at loot. I, for one, was terrified. I'd largely missed The Burning Crusade expansion out of boredom and burnout, and, as a hardcore veteran of the game's far more challenging initial release, I steadied myself to get my squishy caster ass knocked from Northrend to Kalimdor by foes I was not prepared to handle.
Disappointingly, it didn't happen. Players barely better-geared and experienced than I plowed through the insect hordes in Azjol-Nerub. Players laughed when I tried to use my mage's Polymorph spell, which temporarily disables an enemy by turning them into a sheep (or other similarly innocuous creature) for a few seconds. We finished the instance after spending barely more than 20 minutes inside, and I even walked out with an epic-quality wand that noticeably improved my damage. Not too much longer, my friends said, I'd be ready to take part in raids -- the large-scale instances where many different players work together toward a common goal. And they were right. Months later, when I leveled my warrior tank to level 80, I simply bought an uncommon-quality plate armor set off my server's auction house, and was leading groups through certain heroics within minutes. When major bosses fell for the first time, the news usually went ignored, since it was all but guaranteed that dozens of other guilds would down the same boss within the week.
Things like this don't happen in Cataclysm, much to the horror of players who were spoiled by Wrath's easy epics and largely casual-friendly instances. Long-neglected crowd-control abilities, such as the aforementioned Polymorph spell, now enjoy widespread use... and many boss fights require a level of communication that's long been absent from the game, even among players familiar with the instance in question. No longer can you simply jump into a heroic dungeon after reaching the level cap; heroics require a certain gear level before players can enter them. No longer can you queue for a random instance without ever having been there; Cataclysm instead makes you find the dungeon's in-world entrance before you can use the queuing tool. Such measures ensure that players don't rush into these new challenges unprepared, and they also ensure that new players can find their way back to the instance if the whole group dies (or "wipes") while inside. The item level itself is only a guideline: Even though my guild's main tank had reached the heroic item minimum days ago, he only recently acquired enough gear to confidently enter a heroic instance for tanking.
Owing to my weird hours, I'm often forced to run instances early in the morning, when most of my guild members have gone to bed. I'm thus usually stuck in pick-up groups (or PUGs) with four other random players from other servers, and it's here that I find the most remarkable reactions to the new instances. In one popular post on Blizzard's official forums, for example, a player argues that the new heroics simply aren't PUG-able, while a host of players echo his sentiment. Elsewhere, a player posts anonymously that he's quitting the game unless heroics are made easier, to which other players chastise him for reaching such a conclusion only days after Cataclysm's release. These are both two voices in a chorus.
