MMORPG.com's resident ranter, Adam Janovyak, is ready to take on the unavoidable: World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion. Adam raves about Cataclysm becoming the overwhelming force in his life right now, though maybe not for the reasons you think. Cataclysm has given Adam fodder for The Rant. Check it out and then rant yourself in the comments below.

Here is what I’m mad about right now, Cataclysm. It’s consumed all of my senses. It’s everywhere and I can’t get away from it. I really didn’t want to write about it at all. I started and abruptly deleted ten different articles, honest to god. Nothing was flowing from my creative faucet (see? Lame!), I just wasn’t feeling it. Every single website I went to, including this one, had articles and banner adds that just sent the Cataclysm disease raging inside my system. No amount of vitamin C or penicillin could combat the illness.

Read more of The Rant: Unavoidable.

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Originally posted by Yilelien

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Thank you for this great article.

You know what I am tired of... I am tired of writers who write about how they feel forced to write about Cataclysm... if you don't want to write about it, then don't... there is plenty of other news in the MMO world that you can find something else to write (rant) about....

Whether you like WOW or not, it is a great day when MMOs in general get the amount of media saturation that Cataclysm has generated. If it wasn't for WOW, there would be a lot of MMO start up companies that couldn't get the venture capitalist to invest in their small fledging game..because of WOW, we get the good sandox games and see the industry grow as a whole and evolve...

Selling 3.3 million copies on opening day is good business for all MMO companies, period.

@negacrowbar +1

i see ads for all manner of f2p games that are "unavoidable" all over mmo related sites like mmorpg.com. every new mmo release gets hyped up and talked over and so on, and yet i don't hear qq rants about how writers don't want to write about them.

if you don't like seeing wow ads, simple fix, use adblock and no script. no more wow ads.

Glad you got that out of your system.  Personally I like what they did.  Blizzard revamped the game.  The kill ten rats quests are still there,  but there, dare I say, more meaningful to the quest/storyline.  

The questing has been improved dramatically and makes more sense in a linear fashion.  They've added more tension between the Horde/Alliance (imagine it will help world PvP), the artwork has been redone and has a richness to it.  Even the UI has been improved.

Is the game easier, yes, but it's fun.   They've made it much more convenient to get to a bank/AH in the major cities. Quests inside the instance instead of hitting various points around the world to complete (very easy).  Crafting has never been hard, that hasn't changed. 

I haven't tried the rated BGs or new instances yet, but  the underwater zone is pretty fun.  Flying in Azeroth - pure awesome.

I'm not a WoW-fanboi in anyway.  I actually disliked it and took three times trying it to play, but to give Blizzard credit they've put out a FUN game.  

Agree'd with this article 100%, I wasn't expecting much from Blizz when they announced Cata and still today I don't. WoW isn't a bad game nor is Cata, but when you have all these sites completely selling themselves out and wetting themselves on how good it is or it was going to be it gets annoying as hell. All it is now is just a race from 1-60 than a somewhat dull but small quest grind from 60-80 then at 80 you start seeing new content and new storyline and all that good stuff. Personally, from what I've seen while doing 1-60 was a big leap for Blizz, it seemed like they focused more on the end-game content which isn't a bad idea but makes the game get boring extremely quick. Now for all those hardcore fanboys who rage and troll those who may insult or even bash their game, I'm not saying that I can get all the achievements or waste my time playing and doing heroics and all that shit, what I'm saying is generally WoW is still lacking in other aspects not just the same old gameplay that has been seen since Burning Crusade. In all honesty, Cata is and will always be in my eyes, another expansion just as Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King were. And Author is right, game was overhyped. Nuff said.

The way I see things is that it's good for Blizzard but bad and may be getting worse for the MMO genre as a whole.

Honestly these "Rants" are getting old fast for me. I got to wonder though why do so many people think that a new class will somehow revolutionize the game for more than the two or three weeks it takes them to master it? Is adding a new class REALLY going to change the game THAT MUCH? Woulden't it be a bigger deal if they, I dunno, reworked the mechanics on all the existing classes to make them play like somthing from 2010 not 2004?

Granted Blizzard always does a good god with it's expansions, but really can't call Cataclysm a true expansion, the expansion part is minimal this time around. Like you said this is more a face lift and rework of some of the content.

Writing about a certain mmo even if you moved on from it however many months or years should not stop you from reviewing it, as long as you feel you wrote a honest articale, then feelings shouldn't really matter.

You call that a rant? hehe ... head on over to the Mortal Online section of the forums. Those guys make ranting an art form (albeit a negative art). I have to say though, half of this article is about deciding on writing the article is a smidge lame :)

Look honestly he said his peace , like mostly i said .

If you dont like negative feature about a product .

And need to illusion yourself this is the best MMO ever , WAIT YOU DONT !!

its the CURRENT  best MMO ever , dont skip the CURRENT .

Now you need to boost how much fun it was , yeah it was fun but cataclysme didn´t change a thing .

Its the same old game and story , if you like WOTLK you liked TBC you liked WOW you will LOVE cataclysme .

If you hate it , then nothing in for you but a short play time of fun .

Fun cause of the quests , most people dont play city of heroes , if you did you already recognise all the system used in going rogue , has come back to cataclysme .

You recognised the voice over cinematic part thats going to be introduced in SWTOR on a massive scale .

There is nothing new to cataclysme cause end deal , if you quit before , you aint going to stick around in the  end .

Cause same old gameplay of endgame , its all about GEAR !!!

Once you are done with gear you wait around till next expansions or arena or whatever , for the next set of gear .

You like it , you have fun with that system , nobody complaining you to change :)

Originally posted by Holgranth

Honestly these "Rants" are getting old fast for me. I got to wonder though why do so many people think that a new class will somehow revolutionize the game for more than the two or three weeks it takes them to master it? Is adding a new class REALLY going to change the game THAT MUCH? Woulden't it be a bigger deal if they, I dunno, reworked the mechanics on all the existing classes to make them play like somthing from 2010 not 2004?

 

 Y'kno I 've got to agree, I understand that this "rant" thing is all opinion, much like all the other columns written here, but the other ones tend to have..information.  They offer up tidbits of knowledge about a game or discuss experiences while playing, y'kno, it seems like gaming NEWS..sorta.

These rants just seem like someone trying too damn hard to pretend to be ranty about something.  Tihs one was in particular very weak.  I mean no matter what you feel about WoW, bitchin' about how you didn't want to write about something for the first entire half of your column is just sloppy.

The rants column could go away and I honestly wouldn't care one bit, they're increasingly becoming a massive waste of time.

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Granted Blizzard always does a good god with it's expansions, but really can't call Cataclysm a true expansion, the expansion part is minimal this time around. Like you said this is more a face lift and rework of some of the content.

Writing about a certain mmo even if you moved on from it however many months or years should not stop you from reviewing it, as long as you feel you wrote a honest articale, then feelings shouldn't really matter.

Whats minimal about the expansion? It has more content, dungeons, and raids than either of the two previous expansions. Theres a new profession, two new races, and finally a form of guild progression (as silly as it is after the nerf). Why is Cataclysm not a true expansion in your opinion?

People will be quick to label those with similar sentiments "haters", but, in reality, the opposite is true. In the maybe-not-quite immortal words of Uncle Ben, "With great power comes great responsibility." In this aspect, Blizzard has shown themselves to be the self-centered slackers some of us over the years have suspected them to be. Frankly, I get pretty sick of seeing people treat Blizzard as some sort of latter-day demigods regardless what kind of drek they glean and recycle from less-successful ventures.

Face facts, Blizzard doesn't create. They copy, coat with glitter, and market the hell out of the efforts of more innovative developers. While tooling through Cataclysm, I can recognize characteristics of the products Blizzard scavenged to create their latest financial triumph. Heck, why do you think Blizzard reversed course and allowed people to mod the UI?  They let someone else develop, then incorporate it into the core game, and slap their own name on it while the starry-eyed modders continue to do their work for them. Don't forget that it was also Blizzard who started the trend of adapting the free Bitorrent client to use for downloading patches. A penny saved...

Blizzard has no incentive to do better as long as they have worshipping fans who are willing to keep playing and paying. Some of us would like to see Blizzard live up to their own potential, but as long as they're making obscene amounts of cash, it will never happen. Sad, but true.

Eh Janovyak, pay your sub and play.

Crapping on the game in a passive aggressive manner looks silly when the next thing you do is play it.

Is it me, or have the past 4 WoW related articles have the same generic picture of a Tauren shaman running a BG flag?

Originally posted by theartist

Eh Janovyak, pay your sub and play.

Crapping on the game in a passive aggressive manner looks silly when the next thing you do is play it.

 So, in your estimation, would his piece be more legitimate if he were positioned as someone outside the game who was only relying on the accounts of others to base his opinions? Playing the game and then pointing out the shortcomings isn't silly at all.