They're redoing just about all of the core systems as far as I can tell...

Not just changing how stats work this time, they're completely redoing the attribute system... As well as the talen system... And adding an alternative leveling path for post 80.  Redoing all the old content...

It's like a new game.

It makes me want to go back just to try it :(

its just you. its gonna be the same wow after the expac comes out just with a few changes

 I have to agree with the OP. I'll definitely be returning for the expansion. The changes are vast. WoW 1.8 if it isn't WoW 2.0.

Its still a class/level based game where the primary means of character advancement is through quest grinding with a raid centric end game with meaningless, no risk/no reward PVP right?

Just you, same game pretty much, different skin.

Cataclysm feels to me like the change from EQ to EQ2.

This is a ballsy move.

Originally posted by left4shaman

Your all wrong, this is just WOW progressing through the story line, Azeroth cant be safe for ever and I for one like it. 

Well besides the story changes, a lot of the gameplay changes is doing nothing more then watering down this already dumbed down game.

Originally posted by left4shaman

Your all wrong, this is just WOW progressing through the story line, Azeroth cant be safe for ever and I for one like it. 

i agree with ya, it seems like that way

Yeah it sounds cool, but when you think about all you're going to do is fly around and look at the new scenery.. it'll be cool for a week.. but then.. who cares? You've already been there.

Seems like they are trying to pull in new players while spitting in the face of the vets who will have no real use of going back to these places unless they decide to level up yet another one of their growing number of alts. Sorry.. just being mr. negative :p

Originally posted by Kyleran

Its still a class/level based game where the primary means of character advancement is through quest grinding with a raid centric end game with meaningless, no risk/no reward PVP right?

Just you, same game pretty much, different skin.

Not really, It does kinda seem like a 2.0. Actually its more a wow -2.0. The game gets easier every update.

Itemization Changes

* MP5: This will be removed from items and replaced with Spirit. All healers will be given a meditation-like ability.
* Spell Power: Spell Power is being removed from items as well. Don't panic, we'll be improving Intellect so that it provides mana and Spell Power.
* Attack Power: We're removing Attack Power from items as well. Instead, we're allowing Agility to provide the necessary Attack Power for leather and mail wearers. Strength will provide the appropriate amount of Attack Power for plate wearers. This means leather and mail items will no longer be desirable for plate wearers.
* Defense: The Defense statistic is also being removed from items so that players no longer have to worry about juggling around "the cap." Tanks will receive the necessary anti-crit from talents, like Survival of the Fittest.
* Armor Penetration: This ability is too confusing and "mathy." It is being replaced with Mastery, a stat that makes you better at what you do. More on that later!
* Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.
* Block: Block Value is being removed. Blocking will now always mitigate a percentage of damage.
* Stamina: Players will notice more Stamina on gear as Defense, Spell Power, Attack Power and Armor Penetration are removed.

Hunter Changes

# Hunter's mana is GONE!!!
# Hunters now use focus, no longer care about intellect or mana regen.

I think this was how it was in alpha. But people are so use to hunter having mana this is a huge change. That's like rogues going from energy to mana. Was still around, but is a huge change in both gameplay and itemization.

Rated Battlegrounds

* Rated Battlegrounds will be an alternative way to get arena points.
* Each week, one of the BG will be the Rated Battleground of the week. Winning in this battleground will improve your rating and give you points. Losing will not lower your rating.
* New PvP titles will be added, as your rating progress you will unlock higher titles. If you earned a PvP title you will keep it.
* When a Battleground is rated for the week, its normal non-rated version will still be available.
* The amount of Arena Points will be limited to prevent grinding.
* You will also earn guild level by playing these rated battlegrounds with your guildmates.

Guild Leveling

* Guild experience is earned through multiple ways, players leveling, killing bosses, leveling professions, PvP victories, reputations.
* Each guild level rewards you with one talent point, these talents affect the whole guild. The top 20 earners of the guild will contribute to the guild experience for the day.
* Some of the guild talents will allow you to remove reagent costs from spell, get increased gold drops, summon your entire raid, rez your entire raid after a wipe, automatically transfer a % of gold dropped by bosses to the guild bank. Guild talents can be reset.
* Once your guild reached level 20, the guild experience becomes a currency and let you buy things like mounts, professions plans, banners, potions, rare reagents and guild talent respecs.
* Anyone can learn a guild profession recipe, if you leave the guild after learning it you will loose the recipe and it will be transferred back to the guild bank. Guild heirlooms also work the same way and are bound to the guild.

Mastery system

* There are too many talents right now and a lot of them are boring and just give passive bonuses. (1% hit bonus, etc ...)
* The goal is to make talents more fun and useful, Body and Soul or Juggernaut are a good example.
* The old passive bonuses will be automatically added to your character through the Mastery system as you spend more points in a talent tree. Spending a lot of points in Fury will give you extra crit, etc ... this will be implemented for all classes.
* Mastery bonuses will lower energy cost, increase your armor penetration, etc ...

Lot of this changes how gameplay works. Even 3.2 change how characters advanced. PvP leveling etc. The game will change drastically in Cataclysm. Sadly I feel it's not for the better.

Originally posted by natuxatu

Yeah it sounds cool, but when you think about all you're going to do is fly around and look at the new scenery.. it'll be cool for a week.. but then.. who cares? You've already been there.

Seems like they are trying to pull in new players while spitting in the face of the vets who will have no real use of going back to these places unless they decide to level up yet another one of their growing number of alts. Sorry.. just being mr. negative :p

lol, i think its gonna be more than just flying and seeing new stuff, i heard that durator will be very different, and the landscape will be very different for most areas, so even though we have been there, im sure its gonna feel different and have some new things, i cannot be positive but im sure thats what they're aiming for...new context...rather than just ooh...come back to azeroth to fly!!!!

Casuals will love it... and to be honest, I'd rather take this revamp of the whole world thing than yet ANOTHER landmass that basically only caters to high level players.

Originally posted by Methos12

Casuals will love it... and to be honest, I'd rather take this revamp of the whole world thing than yet ANOTHER landmass that basically only caters to high level players.

yeah exactly!  i mean i think i loved the original wow the most of all of them, it was just pure fun and now its gonna be even different...feel like a new deja vu in a positive way!

Originally posted by greed0104

Originally posted by Kyleran

Its still a class/level based game where the primary means of character advancement is through quest grinding with a raid centric end game with meaningless, no risk/no reward PVP right?

Just you, same game pretty much, different skin.

Not really, It does kinda seem like a 2.0. Actually its more a wow -2.0. The game gets easier every update.

Itemization Changes

 

* MP5: This will be removed from items and replaced with Spirit. All healers will be given a meditation-like ability.
* Spell Power: Spell Power is being removed from items as well. Don't panic, we'll be improving Intellect so that it provides mana and Spell Power.
* Attack Power: We're removing Attack Power from items as well. Instead, we're allowing Agility to provide the necessary Attack Power for leather and mail wearers. Strength will provide the appropriate amount of Attack Power for plate wearers. This means leather and mail items will no longer be desirable for plate wearers.
* Defense: The Defense statistic is also being removed from items so that players no longer have to worry about juggling around "the cap." Tanks will receive the necessary anti-crit from talents, like Survival of the Fittest.
* Armor Penetration: This ability is too confusing and "mathy." It is being replaced with Mastery, a stat that makes you better at what you do. More on that later!
* Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.
* Block: Block Value is being removed. Blocking will now always mitigate a percentage of damage.
* Stamina: Players will notice more Stamina on gear as Defense, Spell Power, Attack Power and Armor Penetration are removed.

Hunter Changes

# Hunter's mana is GONE!!!
# Hunters now use focus, no longer care about intellect or mana regen.

I think this was how it was in alpha. But people are so use to hunter having mana this is a huge change. That's like rogues going from energy to mana. Was still around, but is a huge change in both gameplay and itemization.

 

Rated Battlegrounds

* Rated Battlegrounds will be an alternative way to get arena points.
* Each week, one of the BG will be the Rated Battleground of the week. Winning in this battleground will improve your rating and give you points. Losing will not lower your rating.
* New PvP titles will be added, as your rating progress you will unlock higher titles. If you earned a PvP title you will keep it.
* When a Battleground is rated for the week, its normal non-rated version will still be available.
* The amount of Arena Points will be limited to prevent grinding.
* You will also earn guild level by playing these rated battlegrounds with your guildmates.

Guild Leveling

* Guild experience is earned through multiple ways, players leveling, killing bosses, leveling professions, PvP victories, reputations.
* Each guild level rewards you with one talent point, these talents affect the whole guild. The top 20 earners of the guild will contribute to the guild experience for the day.
* Some of the guild talents will allow you to remove reagent costs from spell, get increased gold drops, summon your entire raid, rez your entire raid after a wipe, automatically transfer a % of gold dropped by bosses to the guild bank. Guild talents can be reset.
* Once your guild reached level 20, the guild experience becomes a currency and let you buy things like mounts, professions plans, banners, potions, rare reagents and guild talent respecs.
* Anyone can learn a guild profession recipe, if you leave the guild after learning it you will loose the recipe and it will be transferred back to the guild bank. Guild heirlooms also work the same way and are bound to the guild.

Mastery system

* There are too many talents right now and a lot of them are boring and just give passive bonuses. (1% hit bonus, etc ...)
* The goal is to make talents more fun and useful, Body and Soul or Juggernaut are a good example.
* The old passive bonuses will be automatically added to your character through the Mastery system as you spend more points in a talent tree. Spending a lot of points in Fury will give you extra crit, etc ... this will be implemented for all classes.
* Mastery bonuses will lower energy cost, increase your armor penetration, etc ...

 

Lot of this changes how gameplay works. Even 3.2 change how characters advanced. PvP leveling etc. The game will change drastically in Cataclysm. Sadly I feel it's not for the better.

This I see as great changes. I always think it is stupid for a game to have so many redundant stats. Brilliant for one game maker to go back and stream line their game instead of making it more clunky over time such as Everquest. That game is filled with legacy garbage stats.

The more I read the more I think someone in charge is really doing good things. I always thought they were adding too many new stats pasted on the original game. This is great news.

Originally posted by qombi

 

This I see as great changes. I always think it is stupid for a game to have so many redundant stats. Brilliant for one game maker to go back and stream line their game instead of making it more clunky over time such as Everquest. That game is filled with legacy garbage stats.

The more I read the more I think someone in charge is really doing good things. I always thought they were adding too many new stats pasted on the original game. This is great news.

Mp5 I get. But attack power and spell power? Was it to hard for people? I know they was not useless or redundant. Why? I play a rogue, main spec mut so I tend to stack a lot of agility. Buddy of mine is combat he tends to stack a lot of AttP. What blizzard is doing is what they have been doing since the release of TBC, killing any form of uniqueness in this game. And Defense is now only anti-crit through talents, no more rating?  None of this was clunky at all. Hitting 540 was an accomplishment, removing these further dumb's down the game.

If you wanna remove "rebudant" stats then do it this way. Merge Spirit and Int, why not, both caster stats. Agi and Str, both melee stats, and leave stamina alone. Dumbed down enough?   I wouldn't be surprised if this was to happen. In the end every class will basically operate the same, that was pretty much said in a video interview when asked why a new class was not in this coming expansion.

I'm guessing you are one those people that had trouble balancing stats. ARMOR PEN IS HARD TO DEAL WITH. It's cool sooner then later this game will be right where most of the terribads want it. Rolling your face on a keyboard for success.

Uniqueness</3

These changes are fantastic.

It'll be like vanilla WoW v. 2

Originally posted by greed0104

Originally posted by qombi

 

This I see as great changes. I always think it is stupid for a game to have so many redundant stats. Brilliant for one game maker to go back and stream line their game instead of making it more clunky over time such as Everquest. That game is filled with legacy garbage stats.

The more I read the more I think someone in charge is really doing good things. I always thought they were adding too many new stats pasted on the original game. This is great news.

Mp5 I get. But attack power and spell power? Was it to hard for people? I know they was not useless or redundant. Why? I play a rogue, main spec mut so I tend to stack a lot of agility. Buddy of mine is combat he tends to stack a lot of AttP. What blizzard is doing is what they have been doing since the release of TBC, killing any form of uniqueness in this game. And Defense is now only anti-crit through talents, no more rating?  None of this was clunky at all. Hitting 540 was an accomplishment, removing these further dumb's down the game.

If you wanna remove "rebudant" stats then do it this way. Merge Spirit and Int, why not, both caster stats. Agi and Str, both melee stats, and leave stamina alone. Dumbed down enough?   I wouldn't be surprised if this was to happen. In the end every class will basically operate the same, that was pretty much said in a video interview when asked why a new class was not in this coming expansion.

I'm guessing you are one those people that had trouble balancing stats. ARMOR PEN IS HARD TO DEAL WITH. It's cool sooner then later this game will be right where most of the terribads want it. Rolling your face on a keyboard for success.

 

Uniqueness</3

You do realize they're reworking all the talents to work in favor of  what you want to play, not what is best for raiding/pvp. This is, of course, if Blizzard pulls this off.

If they do, this will play into the "uniqueness" of classes and their mechanics by allowing people to play what they want to in regards to class, race, and spec.

Dumbing down stats isn't going to hurt the game at all when it comes to uniqueness. It's just going to make choosing your armor a bit easier. A classes base stats are still going to be fairly different from one another. As is their mechanics.

Path of the titans is a realy nice new thing, offers advancments once you hit level cap and its managed so a no lifer cannot max it out in a week, you can only progress so much each week.

You have to join 1 of 5 cults each worthsip a different old god titan, no one cult is better for hunter or priest so your not pressured into joining a certain cult. 

You then use the new archeology profession to find/collect artifacts, once you find enough artifacts of the same type you can examine them and its info is added to a new ingame jornal, you can then take your new found knowledge to your chosen cult and your earn favour/exp, earn enough and you unlock a glyph.

There are 10 levels (not all unlockable at launch), and each level you earn a glyph, these are additional to your normal glass glyphs.

The glyphs you can socket are not the same as your class glyphs, they are not class based.

sorry for the bad quality I took the screen shot when not in full screen, best I could do =D

any changes at this point in wow are very much welcomed. the game still has and will always have balance issues, abd the adding of the races is much needed flavor to WOW and also the new class/race combo distribution..

mp5, spell power, and attack power I can understand.

What's old is new again - these stats weren't originally in the game at launch (well, they were but were rather exotic and only found in tiny amounts on a few very specific items and sets).

Vanilla WoW stopped at UBRS though and the devs back then realized that abilities scaled very poorly with stats (particularly for casters) so all these semi-redundant stats crept it to fill the gaps as the raid game expanded, then became institutionalized with TBC with them everywhere (as well as haste, etc).  Even defense and block, they're core stats now but back in ye olden days nobody even thought about them until you started getting into post-launch, high-end raid content that wasn't originally part of the game.

Stat rebalancing seems, to be me, to be part of the overall push to bring back the feeling of vanilla while maintaining the accesability they've built up since then.  As was said in another post, it's very ballsy but I think it'll pay off - lots of former WoW players are watching this one with a lot more interest that WoTLK.  As most people who have ever played WoW have quit, they only need to bring back a fraction of this potential playerbase to keep the train on the tracks.

Originally posted by theratmonkey

You do realize they're reworking all the talents to work in favor of  what you want to play, not what is best for raiding/pvp. This is, of course, if Blizzard pulls this off.

If they do, this will play into the "uniqueness" of classes and their mechanics by allowing people to play what they want to in regards to class, race, and spec.

Dumbing down stats isn't going to hurt the game at all when it comes to uniqueness. It's just going to make choosing your armor a bit easier. A classes base stats are still going to be fairly different from one another. As is their mechanics.

 

 

I'm assuming you're talking about the mastery system.

* The old passive bonuses will be automatically added to your character through the Mastery system as you spend more points in a talent tree. Spending a lot of points in Fury will give you extra crit, etc ... this will be implemented for all classes.

I don't see where there will be any difference then there is now. People will still follow cookie cutter builds the only difference is more points may be free for other trees considering the passives are being taken out and placed in benefits of your current spec.

Although my point was not that they was dumbing down stats (but I still feel they are). It's the fact that they are killing any sense of variety. Choosing armor is already easy. Pick and choosing gear is so simple now that most of the time all you have to look at is the item level and it's an upgrade.