MMORPG.com World of Warcraft Correspondent Kristi Studts writes her own person wish-list for Blizzard's recently announced Cataclysm expansion.

Announcements during Blizzcon are designed to fuel the fires of the masses, and the folks at Blizzard are masters of the art. The throngs went wild over the news that a huge Cataclysm would rock the world of Azeroth and with it would come some slick items, two new races and enough quests to keep us all busy for another couple of years.

I'm probably most excited about the Worgen class. Playing a werewolf looks like a wild way to spend an afternoon or so. The starting load looks decidedly medieval in its architecture. A bit of old-world Germany is an excellent setting for an ancient, secretive wolfen clan. Gilneas should turn into an intriguing haunt for those a bit disgruntled with the Alliance like King Greymane is.

Read My Wishes for Cataclysm

epic drops on dailies?!?

my god isnt the game easy enough ? 

id play wow again if the game was actually challenging again and and I'm not talking about boring and unfulfilling hard modes.

Remember when seeing someone in full epics was rare? that's when wow was a great game...

I'd love it if PvP had an option to sign up on your own server specifically or for battlegrounds or in the multi-server BGs.  Would take quite a while longer for a BG to pop but you'd be fighting against people you know and detest like in the good old days.

In general PvP needs to be better.. the only way to be in the best gear is to raid or be in the top few percentile of arena teams.  Need moar to do that actually rewards.

Originally posted by Azzkicka

Remember when seeing someone in full epics was rare? that's when wow was a great game...

what ever happened to the orange "epics"? I can remember seeing people link them every once in awhile in Stormwind...

You mean legendary weapons? Aside from Illidan's twin Warglaives theres a bow and mace now.

World of Warcraft used to have this sort of diversity. From 1-60, there were ultra-rare recipes that only dropped in specific places, there was a huge diversity in recipes, there were Horde and Alliance only recipes and recipes that strongly favoured one faction, you might need to head out and search for rare ingredients from specific enemies, professions had to work together to get things done, and everything about crafting basically had a huge deal of variety. Compare current-day Engineering and you get the idea on how old-skool WoW crafting was.

Point being: They gave up on it once and I'll eat my shoe if they reinstate it. Heck, I might even resub! The same goes for the 3-day-to-max leveling curve and class diversity ("take the player, not the class" only served a general dumbing-down of the populace, if you ask me). In the end, I'd like to be able to make a unique, notable character by other means than raiding. I'm not much of a raider, but the average WoW player isn't half as dedicated a crafter as I.

The ideas presented look fun! Not only is it not asking a lot from the developers, but I absolutely love the thrill and intrigue of uncertainty and an element of wild and uncontrollable.

Thought 1: Being able to bribe vendors sounds like a fun idea, especially when we know there are players out there who like to take risks, and probably with gold to burn too. I think it would even more "realistic" if the bribe wasn't always gold. Items needed to bribe vendors could be drawn from lore, as to what traditionally is valued/needed by that particular class or in the specific area.

Thought 2: Daily quests should include variety, whether it's changing the items required in a turn-in or simply have a mystery reward as an option. I especially like the looting rum idea; got a good hearty laugh out of that one. "But why is the rum gone?" lol... Ghost hunting sounds intriguing too.

Thought 3: Having uber gear to pwn your opponents isn't the only factor that should attracts players. In fact, I think quite a few players now are disillusioned by how quickly the gear they work to obtain become obsolete as the next patch introduces even "better" armor and weapons. I am one who believes that players should be able to brag about rare items obtained through random reward through things that they are already doing. Players should be rewarded for making discoveries: pathways linking places or some secluded corner who one travels to because it's out of the way. Recipes or gear (even if it's just for show, mostly) from dailies mystery reward option could be unique, and it would draw players to compete and keep trying. Of course, to keep players from exploiting unique recipes, the items made should be binding or can only be made every so often and/or at certain times.

Anyway, these changes would definitely draw me back in the game ;-)

Some decent ideas, I can't say I'm really looking forward to this new expansion thus far however.

I love the ideas you threw out.

One that I've been thinking about recently deals with us PVP folk.
As of now, we have basically nothing unless you're a high end arena player.
The battlegrounds get no love now.  Our gear is crap and we have no weapons at all (arena doesn't count) unless you're 60.
This is a feature of the game that completely fell through in my opinion once WotLK came out.

Give the battlegrounds some love! 
Raiding is just horribly boring for me and I don't understand why battlegrounds is so limited now.

 

Originally posted by Fortenc

I'd love it if PvP had an option to sign up on your own server specifically or for battlegrounds or in the multi-server BGs.  Would take quite a while longer for a BG to pop but you'd be fighting against people you know and detest like in the good old days.

In general PvP needs to be better.. the only way to be in the best gear is to raid or be in the top few percentile of arena teams.  Need moar to do that actually rewards.

WoW Battleground PvP'ers have been treated as the red haird stepchild forever. Those of us that don't afk deserve gear every bit as good as a "raider", "arena" player. We pay the same fees and put in just as many hour and fight oponents that actually "think".

Raiders can have their pre-made plans because the mobs and bosses ALWAYS do the same thing.

But too the above quote: I played in the "Good Old Days" (singel server BG). It could take ans many as 5 hours for an AV to pop up. That was no fun. I made it too (Commander/Lt Gen) in the old system. You had to PvP a LOT every day or lose your ranking to the guy or gal just beow you on the leaderboard. No fun.

Wow, lots of errors in this article. Let me see if I can find them all.

“I'm probably most excited about the Worgen class.”
Worgen is not a class, it’s the new Alliance race.

“Blizzard's mastered the art of phasing in Cataclysm.”
Phasing was mastered in WotLK.

“This time around the entire world of Azeroth is remade when the cataclysm strikes. I've been waiting for this for a long time. Warcraft has all this environment that is lost when you get past level 55. “
Vanilla wow went to level 60.

“The only reason anyone returns to the capital cities is for the auction house. It was a phenomenal waste of space when there were so many golden opportunities to lure the higher level characters back to the original lands and the dead zone known as the Outlands.”
Cataclysm is not touching the Outlands

“It seems to me the slant of Warcraft has become raiding in the last few upgrades and expansions.”
Did you even play Vanilla WoW?

“Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against uber Raiders. Nothing at all. Good for them that they can assault Ulduar on a nightly basis. Blowing through OS 25 man in 10 minutes is an outrageous feat. I get it. I dig the bragging rights and the economic opportunity involved. But, I also think that the players into PVP or just questing ought to be offered the same or equivalent rewards.”
If you are not raiding or doing arena why would you need equivalent gear?

“Just because a player doesn't specialize is instances or full blown raids, they're play shouldn't be penalized. There ought to be some sort of reasonable alternative.”
You expect to get raiding gear for PvE without raiding? Why would you need it, if you don't raid?

“PvP players get the short end when it comes to gear. You can build up a ton of honor points to get epic pieces but it isn't close to the arena gear or the stuff you can earn with emblems. Obviously, the gear needs to be different, but it should be comparable. I don't think there needs to be a penalty attached to players that don't choose to raid.”
You expect to get arena quality gear without doing arena? Why would you need it, if you don't do arena?

“Yeah, I know, there's going to a boat load of serious raiders screaming at me. They deserve better gear, they do harder content. Let's take those raiders, pull them into a round of Wintergrasp, and see what happens against the purist PvP players. Same with the elite arena teams and run a few rounds of Arathi Basin and find out the end result.”
Why are you trying to compare apples to oranges? PvP and PvE are 2 different games. Sure you can wear PvE gear to PvP and PvP gear to PvE but you won’t do that well.

“I'd also like to see some wild dailies. Show me some epic drops on these things periodically. Why not throw in a purple every once in a while? What would it hurt? It would definitely make the players working it for all possible on the dailies.”
They do offer purples for doing dailies. Ever heard of faction rewards?

“Speaking of dailies, can we please have more than six or seven of them? My God, I could seriously die of boredom if I have to make another friggin' meatloaf in Dalaran. I mean, just the Cooking skill alone deserves an easy 20 quests in the rotation.”
There are dozens of dailies to do, if you don’t like doing the cooking ones go do a different one.

“ I've got a Blacksmith that would kill for some highly unique recipes. The only things available are the standard "if you're Exalted with" or if you've killed some high level boss business. C'mon Blizzard, open up the realms. Have us stumble upon something bizarre in the Barrens or Ratchet. Let us bribe a vendor to reveal a new recipe or two.”
If you are playing WoW for crafting you need to switch games.

“Hey there's an idea. Instead of the standard options on the vendors, add a bribe button. If the bribe works, we get something hot. If it doesn't, the vendor takes the cash and "see ya, sucker."”
There are bribe buttons on them, its called gaining faction with them to buy the better items.

“I could go on and on. Inscribers need more glyph recipes. Each continent on the map should have glyphs specific to the region. Since Warcraft kind of gave up on the whole Alder/Scryer thing maybe faction specific isn't good, but it might be cool to see Horde based/Alliance based glyphs up for sale in Booty Bay.”
The balance nazi’s would scream to high heaven if both sides didn’t have access to the same items.

“I don't think I'm asking for a lot in Cataclysm, just better usage of already existing environments and more innovation when it comes to quests and gear. Make it reasonable for everyone and you will not only pull in a whole new legion of players but you'll maintain the loyalty of the crowd you have.”
And phasing all of the Vanilla WoW lands is not a better usage of already existing environments?

I think if you enjoy wow as it is now you ll enjoy the cataclysm . if you dont it wont offer any incentive to return because i doubt it will tackle the core issues that made you give up in the first place.

<Out raged, rabid Raider mode:ON>

MORE WELFARE EPICS?!?!(starts foaming at the mouth)

You should KNOW by now what their predictable response is...  In a game based on gear(phat l00t to the l33t d00ds) especially one like WoW, the "upper crust" sees their phatest of phat l00t as what separates them from the rabble. ^^ If you think about it, that digital symbolism IS what separates those with a life, from those lacking one.  I've really no problem with it, its a matter of how much time/talent/focus one is willing to throw at the gear hamster wheel(shrug).  But it does get tiring after awhile. Which is why I'm on vacation from WoW at the moment.

Some of your other ideas are good, but quite content(thus time/resource) intensive.  I question how willing Blizzard is to go in that direction. I suspect some of  it would require a different software suite(content wise), as well as much better training for the live team dev's and GM's involved with it.  But just so long as they can keep churn down, and the majority of the player base running on their various pre packaged hamster wheels, they have no real incentive to invest the resources for that approach.

The point of the "faction grind" epics was to allow exactly what you asked for:  Non-raiders to earn superior gear through time spent.

Now, however, it's almost pointless.  With instances like Vault of Archavon and Trial of the Champion, you can participate in 25-man raids for as little as half an hour, and get top-end gear for doing it.

The game has become accessible for anyone, far more than it was in its original form and still way ahead of The Burning Crusade.  Picking up a "lucky" epic once in a while from dailies when you can buy them for faction by spending as few as six days doing no more than an hours worth of dailies is just overkill.  It takes so little effort at this point to be fully epic-geared, I can't even imagine how you would make it any easier (and, to be honest, to make having epics any more pointless).

At level 60, when I entered Molten Core for the first time, I had two epics:  A neckpiece from Darkmoon Faire, and a pair of crafted dragonscale boots (the pattern for which was a rare drop in BRD).  And I could be competitive on a dps scale.  The epics I acquired felt epic.  Now, I have epics on every alt for a minimum of effort.  The process of acquiring them feels not a bit epic, and there's not one that I've acquired that felt as good as winning my epic shoulders in Molten Core.

I honestly don't mind that epics are available through the faction grinds.  But please make it require some effort.  Make them feel earned and actually epic.

Originally posted by Keogh

Originally posted by Fortenc

I'd love it if PvP had an option to sign up on your own server specifically or for battlegrounds or in the multi-server BGs.  Would take quite a while longer for a BG to pop but you'd be fighting against people you know and detest like in the good old days.

In general PvP needs to be better.. the only way to be in the best gear is to raid or be in the top few percentile of arena teams.  Need moar to do that actually rewards.

 

WoW Battleground PvP'ers have been treated as the red haird stepchild forever. Those of us that don't afk deserve gear every bit as good as a "raider", "arena" player. We pay the same fees and put in just as many hour and fight oponents that actually "think".

 

The difference is you can still get gear in PVP even if you don't win. You can make plans till you're blue in the face but Yogg+0 is still harder than facing a 3s team in full relentless. Or any amount of AV. Just because people can think in BGs... doesn't mean they're intelligent.

WoW Is and always has been a PVE oriented game. And I do not think it would be fun if epics were any easier to get. Also just for reference it took me 3 weeks to build a PVP set on my warrior. It took me 2 months to build a PVE set. PVP gear is far more guaranteed than PVE gear as you get it after a certain amount of grinding, you don't have to roll against anyone, and it doesn't have a low percentage to drop.

I'm sorry but literal solo play, i.e. BGs and solo questing should not offer top of the barrel epic rewards. What is epic about farming a questline solo? This game is all about cooperation at endgame.

Problems with WoW that will not be solved:

Faction grinding is a throwback to the bad old days of Everquest.  Couldn't they come up with something more relevant than an over 10 year old MMO time wasting tactic that sucked even back then?

BG's are the same fights almost every time with the same people afk-botting the entrance for every run through.  Why not add spice to the BGs by having them change somewhat every time?  Switch sides.  Have parts of the map unavailable or additional parts of the map available each time.  Have an earthquake kill everyone in a highly contested area.  Make it somewhat unique and different every time you enter.

Whatever developer thought daily quests would be a good idea should be drawn and quartered and have their virtual head put on a pike in every town square in every MMO.  Doing the same quests over and over and over without change is not useful, fun content.

i never did understand why blizz completely did away with earning weapons through the honor system. It just got cut off at lvl 60.

 As a former WoW player that quit from boredom before the first raid patch after WoLK I am sorry this still does not want to bring me back.   I had to laugh at the statement enough quests to last a year or two lol I finished all WoLK quests in less then a month and got from 70-80 10 days after launch of WoLK (and I was taking it slow as I was doing all quests for loremaster which I got).  For me 1-2 months after WoLK came out I had done almost all raids I got to the point as raiding became a job the fun was gone.  I hope they squeeze more out of the game but only thing that would bring me back would be maybe WoW 2 if they decide to make it.

On the Epics issue, Epics are no longer Epic, they are too easy to get, in vanillia WoW if I got an epic from MC or BWL that truely was epic, took me over 4 months of BWL action to get about 4 peices of my set, it was rare to see a toon in full epics.  I miss those days.  But saying that back then I was in Uni so had a lot of free time and could raid, maybe if I could not rid I'd have a different opinion.

I hope with cata Blizzard address this epics issue, with the revamp of the stats system and the 5 additional levels I hope Blizzard bring epic back.  The gear gap between gear sets is too big blizzard need to pull that back, each teir set should be no more than 5-10% more powerful right now its probably closer to 30%.

Either way Cata will be super fun, I have never rerolled, had my mighty hunter for over 4 years, but a goblin or worgen hunter has my name on it and 1-60 will be like playing a new game, just have to slog through TBC content when I get there.

And also I hope cata address the AOE spam and brings back skilled CC pulls and management in dungeons and raids.

Originally posted by battleaxe

Problems with WoW that will not be solved:

Faction grinding is a throwback to the bad old days of Everquest.  Couldn't they come up with something more relevant than an over 10 year old MMO time wasting tactic that sucked even back then?

BG's are the same fights almost every time with the same people afk-botting the entrance for every run through.  Why not add spice to the BGs by having them change somewhat every time?  Switch sides.  Have parts of the map unavailable or additional parts of the map available each time.  Have an earthquake kill everyone in a highly contested area.  Make it somewhat unique and different every time you enter.

Whatever developer thought daily quests would be a good idea should be drawn and quartered and have their virtual head put on a pike in every town square in every MMO.  Doing the same quests over and over and over without change is not useful, fun content.

Totally agree with this. I quit WoW after getting exalted with Wymest and SoH factions. Just couldnt stomach it anymore. And to think the devs of  WoW say if something is not fun they will not put it in.

I know its a way for soloers or casual to be able to get epics, but this.

Hopefully they have better ideas in Cata...