This past week, the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Classic beta went live, and I was able to jump right into checking everything out. Sadly, worgen and goblins are not available for testing during this phase. There’s also no character copy or a way to make higher-level characters to explore the new zones. Instead, the focus seems to be on the leveling experience and ensuring the new class/race combinations are working correctly. If anyone doesn’t remember what class and race combinations were added with Cataclysm, Wowhead has a consolidated listing. Even though the beta has already started, it isn’t too late to sign up if you’d like to lend a hand with testing and reporting bugs before launch.
Why test the leveling experience?
One of the most significant changes that arrived with Cataclysm the first time was overhauling the core world and leveling experience. Deathwing’s rise fractured and destroyed a sizable portion of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, completely changing nearly every zone within the two continents. For example, Tanaris was a vast desert bordering the ocean; however, with Cataclysm’s arrival, a large portion of it was flooded. Similarly, Thousand Needles, which is just north of Tanaris, was wholly flooded. Such drastic changes to the landscape and people required a complete overhaul of every zone and the questlines they contained.
The first character I created on the Cata Classic beta was a night elf warrior; because of all the early leveling experiences, I know the night elf zones the best. In hindsight, it was also an interesting choice because Teldrassil wasn’t affected by the Shattering, though there was a lot of new dialogue that talks about the various recent events and how the other areas have changed. Seeing the various NPC dialogues that teased events in other parts of Azeroth was nice.
For example, there’s a questline where the player has to visit the various moonwells and collect water from them. At each one, an image of a night elf appears and explains some of the night elves' recent history. The previous version of this questlne ends with Alexstraza and Nozdormu refusing to bless the tree, and the player delivers the water to Fandral Staghelm. However, this questline has been updated to include the tidbits that Malfurion has returned, Staghelm has disappeared, and Ysera and Alexstraza have blessed Teldrassil. All of those tidbits are things that I had forgotten were related to Cataclysm.
In addition to updating quests to reflect the changing world, many have also been updated to streamline things. In Teldrassil, this shows up in quest givers and turn-ins being moved to require less running around. For example, the quests relating to curing the night elf, who the spiders poisoned, was moved to the lake in the starter area, and the quest giver, who was at the top of the tree, is now on the bottom floor. When I did the quests in the cave, there was a new NPC who helped, and when I finished, they teleported me back to the town. The entire flow of quests steadily takes the player to Darnassus organically instead of making you randomly run back and forth between there and the other quest hubs.
Overall, this new flow is delightful, and I felt more of my time was productive running around instead of just wandering. I also was able to explore the entire map by following the quests. There were also NPCs I could talk to get a nightsaber to ride out to the quest areas further from the hubs. The one hiccup I ran into was that many of the quests were grouped, so I always picked up quests located near each other. The downside of this is when I neglected to do one quest, I had to run back out and do that quest before the next group of quests would show up. This is mostly a good change, but it can cause frustration if you aren’t focusing on making sure you clear areas before heading back to turn in quests.
Why Cata?
Honestly, I was surprised when Blizzard announced Cataclysm Classic. It’s the one expansion where most people I have talked to say that the old World of Warcraft stopped being what it was. It’s still the expansion where most of the people I know who have quit WoW left; not even Shadowlands surpassed that. It’s no wonder some players felt that way. Cataclysm changed the most about WoW in one swoop compared to any other expansion before it. As such, it made sense to me that Blizzard might just keep Wrath Classic as the last expansion for Classic and maybe start up a new server where players can go through the progression all over again.
However, doing Cataclysm Classic also makes sense, and the overhaul of the old world will likely be less traumatic than it was the first time for one reason - everything that was there before will still exist on Classic servers. So many great questlines were lost with the world restructuring in Cataclysm that it upended the experience of leveling in WoW. As I mentioned previously, many zones were drastically changed and were barely recognizable from what was there before. However, players can still play on Classic servers if they want to experience the old zones, quests, and leveling experience.
Of course, players who would just like to stay in the Wrath era won’t be able to do that. If there were a point in WoW’s history that it would make sense to pause and have available in addition to Classic, Wrath would be my pick. It wrapped up a storyline players had worked towards for years and always felt like a significant capstone. I haven’t seen anything about them making a Wrath branch that stays as they did with Classic, but if they plan to march through all the expansions, Wrath Classic is an ideal point to preserve. In fact, if they are planning to go with all the expansion, I’d argue there should be a branch for Classic, Wrath Classic, and Legion Classic. That’s getting ahead of ourselves, though.
What’s next in Cata beta?
I’m not sure how long the testing of the low-level experience and new class/race combinations will last. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, though it’s a surreal experience because it’s rare for me to see another player out in the world at all. I am in a guild currently, so I know others are playing, but I‘ve only seen one other player actually out in the world very briefly. I’m sure that will change before too long.
If I had to guess, I’d assume the worgen and goblin leveling experiences are next. I'm not sure if/when we’ll get character copy, though as long as there are no wipes, I may make it to the expansion level before the areas are ready to test. Regardless, I’ll poke around in it for as long as I can before it launches.
