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World of Warcraft Beta Journals: Cataclysm Goblin Starting Zone Preview
Garrett Fuller recently had the chance for a hands on look at the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. In his first hand look, Garrett takes a look at the new Horde allies: The scrappy Goblins. They may be small but they pack the attitude of an Orc.
By Garrett Fuller on July 07, 2010
There are those on the Horde side who are unhappy with the Goblins as our new found allies in Cataclysm. There are others who cannot wait to get back at the Alliance and their annoying little Gnomes running around giggiling. After playing the Goblin opening zone for a while, it looks like the Horde will eventually be happy with these scrappy little merchants who can play any class except Paladin and Druid. The Goblins are fun and offer a new race to the Horde even though they are small; they definitely make up for it with attitude.
So, on the island of Kevan you begin your journey as a goblin. I created a Goblin Mage. You begin by doing some basic quests to clear a mine of giant worms as well as getting some trolls back to work. Nothing is to surprising here as normal WoW quests go, but things pick up as you start to do more quests and eventually get the Goblin Hot Rod. That’s right; The Goblin Hot Rod makes the whole opening zone fun.
The quests continue as you repeatedly go back and forth with the Merchant Prince of the island. He walks around in a mechanical machine checking on things and giving you quests. It seems like there are schemes afoot though as the merchant prince is also holidng various treasures and running the island like a corrupt politician. These are goblins after all; the racial ability "discount" alone should tell you how they do things. Cash is king for the Goblins, but we knew that already, right?
Back to the Goblin Hot Rod, this is by far the highlight of the opening zone. How many people would have wanted a mount when they first started the game back in 2004? I can remember running back and forth from the Valley of Trials to Sen’jin Village to Razor Hill, having the Goblin Hot Rod would have made life much easier. This is by far one of the best ideas the Blizzard has implemented into an opening zone. Mounts in the game have become standard and there is no reason players should have to foot it around anymore, even in the early zones.
The Robot Football quest was fun, but way too short. For a great set up and funny dialogue the quest was over in about two seconds. Then another follow up to kick the field goal between two smoke stacks. When you come upon the field and get asked to jump in the game I think Blizzard could have done a lot more with this quest area. Sure it reminded me of Blood Bowl, but what football style game with Goblins doesn't?
Another quest that was fun was running over looters as you drive around the island. This goes back to Blizzard’s wicked sense of humor and each looter you hit with your car not only bounces off the hood, but the loot bag flies up and lands in the back of your car. Fun stuff even though it was ridiculous, I guess they view Kevan as a place where they don’t have to take WoW too seriously. The island definitely plays more like Rayman’s Raving Rabbids than Warcraft.
Another quest that was fun is checking out the goblin party and having to entertain the party guests. If a party guest is dancing, you can go and dance with them. If they are puking, you get to give them a bucket. One of the party guests is eating, hand him a leg of turkey, while another wants more drinks, so you can hand them a glass of wine. These small UI quests are fun and change up the gameplay a little. Another quest where we get to play a fun minigame is when you break into the Goblin Bank. You have to play a game of memory with several devices you use to open up your vault. These minigame style quests are appearing more and more in WoW and are a nice break from the “Kill 10 Wolf Pups” quests we have come to know.
Overall, Kevan is fun and the Goblin starting area definitely has a sense of humor. I did like the look of the Goblins which I never thought I would. I usually play Orcs by nature and thought the Goblins would look silly. They actually had some fun custom options and making giant ears is always a laugh. The Goblins are a great addition to Warcraft, yet once again it is just a race with no new classes. I still believe that MMOs should launch a new race with a new class to the mix. Say all you want about game balance, as much can be said for game variety as well. I do like the Goblins, but they would have benefited from a new class as well. Next up, I’ll go through the Worgen starting zone.
Well in truth, who wouldn't want a new class every time new races are implemented. :/ But with the whole scope of Cataclysm, it might have just been a bit too much for Blizzard.
i would rather see a new class then 2 new races. we already have 10 races, i think that's plenty for now.
No matter how much we all want new classes, this will definitely make balances even more difficult..
Though I always wanted to have worgens on Horde side, I cant stop thinkin about my undead rogue running through the barrens in a goblin hotrod... 8)
err il try out this expansion and renew my account for a month. il try a worgen but just saying wow is going to be ripped apart from the new games coming out mostly old republic and guild wars. like the guy above me said WoW is trying to apeal to the new user which they have failed over and over. It is not the game play that is stopping new people from playing it is the sheer size of it and you have to be pro as soon as you join your you will have a minimum of fun. There might be some people that help you out but the main reason i quit because of the bordem and the fact that everyone wants the best of everything in a raid or pug. Compitetion is too high i might just go with FF or old republic because they will be new releases and everyone would be on the same lvl of game play as me, plus they are popular titles and will have minimal compitetion cause they are new.
So what class do u want a fucking marine or something? There are only so many classes you can have, or you can pretend to have lots of classes, which are infact just mirror classes like in war. Are u going to say a barbarian?, or a kung fu fighter? or what tell me what classes cna be added to make any difference or differenciate them. You think blizzard dont think about this constantly? they have some of the cleverest people in the video games industry and you dont think they think about classes and adding new ones?
I guess killing 50 bears is for the pros right?
Killing 50 bears when there are only 5 on the map and 10 other people want to do that quest, THAT is the only right way to do quests for pros. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a noob.
Hey, you kow what we could do to make it easier. Just inta-port to the quest giver after each compeltion; no more running, no more mounts.
Hey you know what we could do to make it easier, Just talk to the quest giver and you can insta-complete the quest; no more running, no more mounts, no more insta-ports.
Hey, you know what we could do to make it easier, just to talk to the quest giver and insta-cap; no more running, no more ounts; no more insta-porting, nor more leveling.
Hey you know what we could do to make it easier, just talk to the quest giver and insta-gear cap; no more running, no more mounts, no more insta-ports, no more leveling, no more gear grind.
hey you know what we could do to make it easier, just download the game and insta-blue screen; no more running, no more mounts, no more insta-ports, no more lelveling, no more gear grind, no more game.
New classes are awesome, yes... however each 1 of WOW's classes is really like 3 compared to other games. A feral druid is SOOO different from a restoration druid. Like I said, in other games they'd be seperate classes.
They have enough to do in Cataclysm, a new class isn't needed.
Warcraft3 and its plethora of Hero Classes says hi2u.
Im just glad that darkshore is going to change i always wanted to love that place just never could... but i dont play anymore.. i never really got into WoWs raid... it is lame... always having some stupid gm yelling at me to hit harder... im a f@$#ing arm warrior i cant do more damage... but SWTOR or Tera... or Rifts... look alot better than WoW... I just hate how every game has to have balance classes... whats the point of have different classes if they are so even... I want my big ass Warrior to kick a rogue in the face with one shot... there weak and im strong.. the end. WoW does has it own fell to it.. that every other game took... but there world will always hold a place in my heart. But alast I need a new world that look pretty and evil.. and more realy to pull me in..
I enjoyed this retort, spot on.
it bring snothing new, only the new/altered zones.
You level to lvl 10 and start doing instance boosting and you'll be 80+ in no time, then you're off staying in a sanctuary 99% of you ronline time waiting in the LFD line.
I am more amazed that they can get away with implementing Warhammer-Goblins than anything else, how do they do that? (provided that others do file a lawsuit for having a mini-game during the loading screen).
look how well mcDonalds are doing! All they do is feed the community crap, but as long as the flavouring tastes right, the suckers just keep coming in
WoW is replacing quest? and no more lvl requirments for racial mounts? where is that info confirmed? link please. granted I don't dig for Cata info, but this is new to me.
happyfarts you sound like you have the world figured out.
BTW the McDonald's analogy is terrible and really, really unoriginal and old.
Wow is failingto attract new users? I guess they've failed just over 11 million times then.
NEW users. Not existing users. They've been stagnant for a long time. Though being stagnant with 11 million users isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Looking at this preview, I'm kind of wary now about the new expansion, or at least the goblins. I enjoy a bit of light-heartedness every now and then in the game, but this seems a little out of touch with what the Warcraft history has led me to think about it. Is there any hint of seriousness to the goblin story, or is it a WoW Sports Resort until they get taken into the meat of the expansion itself?
I'm going to keep watching and see what else surfaces. These are just my comments brought up from reading the article.
I was really excited about cata until this realID junk jumped off. I am an avid forum user, but I will not allow my real name to be displayed on there. I will be looking elsewhere for my entertainment.
Pussy troll! :-X
Pretty cool review. I agree that they need to add a new class. A martial class would be cool,one that focuses on hand ot hand weaponns more so than the Rouge/War/shammy do.
lol wut? This is what blizzard has come up with for the horde? Some stupid goofy looking goblins? lmao.... I just can't take myself seriously anymore in that game, god let that wow clone swtor come out so I can go play that one instead.
You expected more with Kotick at the helm now expect everything to be cheap and unhealthy
I was going to try WoW again but had patching issues, with the ID nonsense that they are up to now. I am glad I did.
Bang on!
The first 5 levels of the goblin and worgen area are solo (your own phase) - the write up only covers level 1-4, its level 5+ where things start to get back to normal.
I still don't see enough to make me feel like I need to go buy this expansion. I get the feeling that this is going to be like fast food, a bunch of different choices but mostly the same stuff with different names that you'll get bored with in no time flat.
It would have been more exciting to have a new class. After 5 years most people have played all the classes and even though they are changing the world up I still feel like it's just going from BK to McD's and bakc again.
This guy has posted in 19 parts (190mins) series of the goblin starting area level 1-15 in 720p http://www.youtube.com/user/OMFGNet so if ya bored and wont be rolling goblin take a look at what to expect.
This guy made my day...
How about: Necromancer, Assassin, Archer, Bloodmage, Psionist, Runemaster, Machinist...
Or archetypes? Melee DPS classes, stationary pet classes (beyond shaman), mobility based classes, true support/debuff classes...
Not that I don't see WoWs approach of keeping the classpool small and allowing people to widely specc their characters, or blizz's growing difficulty of balancing classes especially with competetive PvP implemented.
But saying that Blizz already put in as many classes as virtually possible before reaching the 'all the same no fun' point is ridiculous. Any third class and above PvE game like Everquest, Everquest 2 or Vanguard has more and very different and fun classes. Granted, they don't need to balance PvP, but the classes there are nonetheless uniquely fun.
M
EDIT: Oh, and if you had any MMORPG experience beyond lolwow you'd probably know that.
I saw that picture and thought it was warhammer. Way to protect your IP!
A Bard for starters.
Like someone else said, by having the various talent trees it sort of takes the place of having 30 classes. But 30 classes can be quite fun, DAOC has like 44 and there is actually quite a bit of difference for most, even when you compare the 3 archer classes to each other.
But Blizzard has a different focus, they try very hard to keep combat "balanced" and this greatly limits their creativity.
Doesn't mean its not true
I would think that the core mechanics of fantasy games is the limiting factor here. At some point all the "new" classes just end up being a portion of class A, class B and class C mushed together to create new class D. The necro-warrior, the nuker priest, the crowd control priest, the healing nuker, the tank with pets, etc etc.
Bard was the first example that came to my mind about what class is missing in the game. From the point of view of class flavor, the bard stands out as something different. From the point of view from a mechanics standpoint, most of what a bard does is already covered. The essential stereotype aspects of a bard are already covered in several other classes from melee combat to group buffs and resists.
There is only so much that can be done with the basic building blocks other than rearrange them and throw in some gimmicky mechanics to justify a new class. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Having access to a sixth race for a chosen faction isn't a big deal to me and I would rather have a new class, but I'm not sure where else they would go with a new class.
At this point I have really lost all desire to play WoW, the expansion makes me want to play it less if thats possible.
I think it's Kezan not Kevan. Also here's a vid of it on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc_rEs90Oxw
Let me copy and paste you something from the Wrath expansion
"Blizzard is proud to announce the first Hero Class! the Death Knight!"
Plethora eh?
Hero Classes in Warcraft 3. That was an RTS. It had many different heroes you could chose from and raise, up to level ten. You could have three at a time, and they worked muhc like other units in the RTS. Death Knight was, in fact, one of those hero classes. Hero Class in WoW means something slightly different from that in War3, though in many ways a reminder of what the hero classes in War3 could do is the reasoning for naming them hero classes in WoW.
Makes sense now?
Perhaps you should do some research before trying to make fun of someone.
the only traditional fantasy archetype class i dont see somehow represented in WoW is the martial art styled Monk. all these others people keep regurgitating are essentially already available.
I haven't made up my mind about Cataclysm and what it is going to do with WoW. Certainly, it will put a new spin on the game. That may be just what the game needs-something new.
necromancer, beastmaster, lich, ranger, tinker, merchant, a million others. Read the suggestions forum on the WoW site, there's a million of them.
I never did understand why ppl attach the word "Fun" when it comes to a new race, why would it be fun to play yet another new race? wouldn't it actually be really "Fun" if instead of cheating and giving us a cheap race to give everyone some new classes to play with.
I do suspect though that the ideas have dried up and all they can do is pump out reskinned crap and bundle it in an expansion that should have been out a year ago.
To me adding new races is OK but it really does'nt advance the mechanics of a game any further .You could go on adding races ad infanitum . I guess if you already like and play this game this being able to play a goblin will add something new for you . To me the Cataclysm concept seams a little tired in general . I think the shine is starting to wair off .
1 new class since 2004. Doesn't get any more pathetic than that.
Warcraft3, which is not the same game as World of Warcraft, says hi2u.
They still use starting zones in this game?
I laughed so hard at this. I remember when you had to be level 40 to get your first mount. Running across Durotar is nothing compared to running your ass from IF to the highlands.
Running to IF as a low level night elf was a painful experience as well, especially if you had no escort. Also getting to Badlands the first time as Horde was a pain in the ass.