Cataclysm in six hours!

Just under six hours ’til Cataclysm launches here in the U.S. and I’m starting to get antsy!  I’ve resisted exploring the new world so it’s going to be completely new for me.  I find myself staring at this zone flow map to plan which areas I’ll be tackling first on my Goblin Mage.  I’m planning to do Kezan/Lost Isles -> Azshara -> Stonetalon Mountains … then I can’t decide between Desolace and STV.  Apparently both are really good.  The really cool part about this is that I have enough content to play through it three times and repeat very little.  There aren’t many games that can claim that these days that are still worth playing.

Happy Fun Guyz (Emerald Dream, US) welcomes anyone needing a home.  We raid old and new content, group for dungeons and leveling, PvP, and just hang out.  If you’re seriously looking for a guild then you’re going to find yourself a community that you not only get to play WoW with but many other games as well.  Check out our charter, introduce yourself on the forums if that’s your thing, and join us in-game tomorrow!   It was our goal back in April to establish ourselves solely for the purpose of playing Cataclysm and having a guild of friends and a place to call home.  Mission accomplished.

Don’t forget that you can buy Cataclysm on Bnet and upgrade immediately.  If you’ve kept your client up to date then you shouldn’t have more than a small 100-200mb patch to be set and ready to go.

While on the subject of guilds, I want to point out something that you’ve probably already seen:  WoW’s Guild Perks/Rewards.  The new system for guild leveling is now the best guild system in any MMO.  It’s like WAR’s system in that you level up by doing ‘stuff’ and you buy the perks.  Some ranks and perks come with rewards that can be purchased like heirloom gear (helms, capes) or a mount that you ride while holding your guild banner.  Lots of really cool goodies worth checking out on the WoW guild perks area such as increased mount speed, banners, exp bonuses, and economical benefits.

Great times ahead!  It’s not often that we get excited about a game or expansion without having to worry about it being a let down.  I’ll be posting my thoughts on various things from new quest chains in the new world to the level 80-85 content.

  • Hate to be negative nancy, and as much as WoW has improved on EQ, I watched part 2 of the cataclysm quick look on Giantbomb.com, and lasted about 5 minutes before I was bored out of my skull. I really think the EQ version of PvE and combat is dead, or should be in the collective mindset by now.

  • I won’t argue against the merits of EQ. If EQ were to relaunch today, I would play it. It was phenomenal. We’re in different times now, though, and WoW is currently the best game available.

  • It has a mind bending amount of polish.

    As for Cataclysm, Grizzwald the Goblin Priest will make his foray into the world.

  • Wish I could play with you guys, but I still have a lot of friends and family that play, and since I don’t live near them anymore this is the best way for me to keep in touch.

    I’m also going to roll a Goblin since I’ve been wanting to be able to play as one since vanilla days. This time around I might give a Priest a go, but haven’t made the final decision yet.

    I’m excited to play again for once. Now if only my disconnect issues would go away completely I’d be one happy camper.

  • @Dismantled: Your family is welcome to join us, if that’s the issue. I suspect you may have a guild created for your family to play in though, in which case we understand. 🙂 You’re always welcome if you change your mind.

    @Thallian: Wish I could take credit, but that’s an image made available by the new WoW website they set up for each guild. It’s our tabard though, which I think looks snazzy.

  • If things don’t work out on my old server then I’ll definitely hop on over to emerald dream.

  • I couldn’t help but cringe when you mentioned Desolace… then I remembered that Blizzard changed Desolace, too.

    Also, while I’m at it – @Bartlebe – is the name of your soon to be goblin character a reference to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation?

  • Friend of mine is standing in line at Walmart as we speak to get his collectors edition. He picked a Walmart in a bad part of town because “not as many people in those neighborhoods play MMOs.” Ha! I agree …but people in those neighborhoods do play Rob The Nerd Waiting Outside in the Dark.

    I resubbed as well when Lich King went on sale but I doubt I’ll get into Cataclysm before SWTOR comes out. Wish I had enough playtime to level up with you guys but I’ll just have to level with him really really slowly and enjoy all the changes.

  • From my Beta experiences, that zone level flow map seems to be slightly inaccurate, as it seems to be missing a couple of arrows.

    My recommendation is that you go from Stonetalon to Southern Barrens, and then skip over to the Plaguelands instead of going to Dustwallow Marsh.

    [The three zones which received the least revamping are Arathi Highlands, Dustwallow Marsh and Silithus, and you should probably avoid them for the time being.]

  • I’ve never seen so many gold sellers, guild spammers, and children up past their bedtimes all in Orgrimmar at the same time… 1h 22m til launch.

  • Cata launched in Europe 9 hours ago and the servers went down immediately – hope you have a smoother launch in the US! And to all the people calling in sick today – good luck and have fun! =)

  • I’ve been playing WoW since launch and I love the changes to the way guilds work, but it remains to be seen whether WoW guilds reach the level of community that EQ and EQ2 guilds enjoy. I would really like that.

  • There are already level 85s running around. My god.

    I hope you guys feel you got your money’s worth because that is horrible. I swear to god, Blizzard just gets lazier and lazier with each expansion.

  • There are those who race to the end in every game. They can’t hurt my fun at all. I’m having an absolute blast in the goblin areas. Best questing I have ever done.

  • I just wish you guys weren’t on a pvp server. I don’t have a ton of time to play anymore and after leveling on a pvp server at launch, I’ll never go back.

    But I totally get the appeal for some.

  • Blizzard traded off a big chunk of 80-85 content for the old world revamp. Money very well spent, imo. Other than a mediocre start in Mulgore the climb so far has been great and I can do it again without repeating any content.

  • Keen, looks like your title for this post has more than one meaning. Was six hours until it came out and it only took people six hours to finish it!

    Yes, you really can do cataclysm in six hours!!!

    🙂