Winners and losers of Cataclysm
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 2nd 2012 at 5:00PM
Personally, I really think the worgen took it on the chin this expansion. Not only is the female model lacking (in my opinion) compared to the original preview (that semi-permanent snarly and atrophied muzzle needs to be redesigned badly), but worgen players got to see their cool storyline concluded Horde-side while they were traipsing around in the night elf starting zones. Even today, most of Gilneas is a ghost zone. I love the worgen, and I really hope we get to see them get more involved in Mists.
As for winners, I'd definitely put Velen up there as a stealth winner. While the draenei still haven't been as active as I'd like, the quest in the Swamp of Sorrows where Velen appears is a huge lore goldmine for the future. Not only does Velen spell out the true nature of the conflict at hand, he sets the stage for a war so vast and terrible it makes all previous struggles on Azeroth pale to insignificance. He also flat out corrects the idea that the Light hates the broken, showing that it's the draenei themselves who have a touch of bigotry in their souls to conquer.
I could go on all day, but it's more interesting to see what you think. Winners and losers of this expansion? What are your choices?
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Homeschool Mar 2nd 2012 5:24PM
The Goblins lost quite a bit too. Their home (and their new town) to Azshara, and now they're ruled over by the guy who robbed them blind but is mysteriously absent, while their new home is... the slums of Orgrimmar?
There sure were a lot of unfinished storylines introduced, now I think about it: the Grimtotem, Neptulon, the rising Old God, the Goblins and Worgen, the Zandalari... It was probably meant to be "to be continued..." but comes off more like a mid-season cancellation.
kier18neo Mar 2nd 2012 5:43PM
The goblins have a de-facto capital in Azshara that is more put together than the trolls' capital by a longshot. The goblins landed on their feet with a full purse, as always.
Philster043 Mar 2nd 2012 7:32PM
I still want to see Undermine, though.
extomar Mar 8th 2012 2:58PM
Hmm, they seem to have a bunch more land, a bunch more power, and much more higher profile in "the world" than before. That doesn't mean everything is "peachy keen" but to suggest they are suffering or lost out is kind of weird. For the average (player) Globin things appear to have never been better.
eel5pe Mar 2nd 2012 5:28PM
Winners: ten man raiders. Equal loot completes the legitimizing of ten-man raiding, though the 10 vs 25 debate will continue on forever.
Losers: low population servers. I have NO general data to back me up, but I would bet that the decline in WoW's population has hit low pop servers the worst. Factor in paid character transfers and my server pop (Hakkar, 2nd lowest among US realms) has decreased by more than 70% since the release of Cata. At the start of Cata we had 5-25 man, 13 10-man guilds who killed at least one raid in BWD/BoT/TotFW, to now ZERO 25-man guilds and 6 10-man guilds who have killed a DS raid boss.
Jack Mynock Mar 2nd 2012 6:00PM
Losers: 10 man raiders... 4-5 months to get a single legendary, overtuned heroics (at least in the first couple of tiers), the Nefarion fight in general...
Spellotape Mar 3rd 2012 3:03AM
@ Jack.
The first couple of tiers? There have only been three this expansion and the first tier was the one with the most significant difficulty.
facepalmer2 Mar 2nd 2012 5:32PM
As for the Female worgen voice, when you all of a sudden think of Marge Simpson's Sisters hearing it, you've got a problem.
smdrpepper Mar 2nd 2012 11:35PM
I would say gamers lost out on this. It was a dull expansion, lacking the epic quality of Burning Crusade and Lich King. I barely even play and am about to kill my subscription because of it. Well that and the expense..
It had all this potential and it just fell flat. I liked the idea of going into the various elemental planes, but it didnt really go anywhere.
Darias.Perenolde Mar 3rd 2012 4:14PM
I'd have to agree with you here. Our guild is celebrating out seventh anniversary next week, and I've been an officer for almost six years of it. In that time, the "near-end-of-expansion blahs" usually hit only about six months or so before the end. This time, we've had people dropping like flies since last October/November.
Heist.michael Mar 2nd 2012 5:41PM
Nice job Breccia. I'm glad ive been able to play the game with you for the last 4 years!
djsuursoo Mar 2nd 2012 6:08PM
pick ten non-raiding guilds that formed after patch 4.1.
there's your ten losers.
the inertia of the guild leveling system has made it so that nobody wants to be in anything other than a level 25 mega-guild.
ravyncat Mar 2nd 2012 5:49PM
Hmm...interesting topic. I am not going to list ten though because that is just too much.
To my mind, the biggest losers would be:
1. The Worgen--for pretty much the reasons you stated. They are a cool race that had their story disappear after the starting zone. Their culture does not fit with the Night Elf culture at all...and yet they get shunted off to Darnassus. I love their tree, but why do they live in trees? I see them as a race with some druids, not a race of mostly druids.
2. Tyrande Whisperwind. Yay, she finally got married! But ever since her hubby came back she has been in the background while he does everything. She does get a moment of cool in the Well of Eternity, but that is 10,000 years in the past. Her future in End Time is very sad as well. I want to see her be badass herself and not be relegated to being Malfurion's wife.
3. The Dragon Aspects. I can't imagine a world without the powerful Dragons helping things along. They gave up their powers to save the world, but I hope that doesn't mean they will disappear from the story from now on. I love the dragons.
The biggest winners:
1. Thrall. I have to say it because the expansion was all about his personal story. He also got married and saved the world by being the World Shaman.
2. Sylvanas. She might be hardcore on the crazy train, but she is accomplishing a lot. Her lands and army have grown significantly. I think Azeroth will be in a bad place if she ever decides to take over the world--which might be her plan. She certainly has a good chance of succeeding unless the Horde and Alliance unite against her.
3. Harrison Jones. Dude got almost an entire zone designed around him. Hate Uldum or not, you have to acknowledge that as some sort of an accomplishment.
anonymous Mar 2nd 2012 7:36PM
I'm really hoping they do something with Tyrande like they did with Sylvanas as far as including her very prominently in questlines. Maybe we could play out her short story in Darkshore. Something.
Malfurion is a tool and could just as well be removed from the game (along with EVERY male night elf), or sent back into his precious dreamland. Night elf society (to me) is all about the Sentinels, even more so than druids. Tyrande was the very reason I rolled my first night elf, and every night elf after that. It's borderline tragic what they've let her character devolve into.
StClair Mar 4th 2012 1:00AM
@anonymous:
"Hush, Tyrande, the men are talking."
:p
malaika Mar 2nd 2012 5:53PM
Winners (players)
Raiders. Lockouts by boss (instead of raid), normal and heroic difficulties. Raid Finder for casuals and alts.
Winners (npcs)
Garrosh.
Losers (npcs)
Medan. Deliberately omitted from the game. Maybe will appear in a different form. Instead of being the child of Garona and Medivh, he might be retconned to be, uh, (No!) the child of Thrall and Aggra!
Knob Mar 2nd 2012 6:03PM
Winners in no particular order:
1. Reforging. While it may not serve as the "balance dial" as was intended by Blizzard, it did open up a whole new avenue for gear optimization.
2. 1-60 questing experience. Note the "1-60", not "1-58 and let's head to Outland". Zones like Blasted Lands were awesome.
3. The Horde. Win every conflict in the revamped world for the loss of a single settlement that wasn't even of any military value? Anyone would take that.
4. Vashj'ir. An entire underwater zone had never been done in any game before. Vahsj'ir was incredibly beautiful, its art was amazing, and it was huge, so huge that its map had to be broken into 3 parts. And let's not forget that it had the Whale Shark. It's a shame that the players just went over the Hyjal from 4.2 onwards so that they'd open up the Molten Front dailies.
Losers in no particular order:
1. Uldum. Way too many cutscenes taking you away from your character, and the Harrison Jones questline was pure crap. The Tol'vir angle should have been explored more instead.
2. T11 raiding. You'd think Blizzard would have an idea of what an introductory raid tier ought to be like. For an expansion specifically designed to bring new players into the game with the revamped questing from 1-60 AND bring in new players into raiding with the homogenization of 10m vs 25m player raiding, it just killed the players' desire to raid with the difficulty of the fights. The fact that this was even more apparent in 10m raiding was just the icing on the cake.
3. Incomplete lore threads: Magatha, Neptulon, Koltira. What happened?
4. The Alliance. Lose every conflict, get an absolutely gutted Twilight Highlands intro, get plain horses as the mirror to the goblins' trike.
Tiek Mar 3rd 2012 1:13PM
The goblin trike is pretty crappy too. No real jump animation or anything. I got some store mounts so I don't have to use those on my leveling goblins.
Elmo Mar 2nd 2012 6:08PM
Losers:
Worgen and Goblins, for 3 reasons:
1- they had absolutely nothing to do with the overal story of Cata which is strange for new races
2- Worgen had half their story played by the Undead
3- the Goblin leader is just gone.
Uldum: a zone with a lot of potential epicness and a continuation of the Ulduar story but ended up as a giant Indiana Jones Reference
the Old world: new quests are all cool and dandy but now its stuck with cataclysm related damage and quests. To be fair I don't think the twilight cult is a interesting opponent and I also think the lowbie zones should introduce the race that's most prevalent there which was done better in the Vanilla version.
to be more clear, old world update was needed and done good BUT I don't like the cataclysm related subject of many of the quests.
I also don't like Auberdine is now forever infested by elementals and things like that.
The old world Part 2
Besides all the resources that went into the old world it serves no purpose for max level characters, a max level character has no reason to leave the capital cities.
portals lead to the Cata zones, there is nothing to do in the old world and now max level players speed over them at 310% speed and the old zones dont get to show their beauty, besides this World pvp was struck another blow and the old world lost a lot of its charm now it feels much much smaller because we fly over it instead of climbing mountains and crossing bridges, the cata zones also lacked a unifying theme
The Alliance, they lose and are unable to strike back or properly defend themselves in almost all occasions
Arathi Highlands: why was this zone left unchanged?
25 man raiders: a lot of these guilds died and personally I think 25 man still is the most fun way to raid. I feel bosses are supposed to be killed by a large group of people.
Professions: Reduced to a way to get +80 of a stat, Gathering professions are a nono of any serious raider, and they are near impossible to skill up while levelling. the levelling speed is far too high to gather enough materials without help from a main character.
the raids that were not to be: We were supposed to get at least 2 raids per tier but Abyssal Maw and War of the Ancients were scrapped because of lack of time/developers most likely.
I'm sorry this has become such a negative list but I kind of felt like complaining about the things I didn't like.
all in all Cataclysm did a lot of things right. the old world revamp was needed (its much more fun to level again) and done well. some stories were expanded upon very nicely (sylvanas, WPL). Trolls/Gnomes finally got their own starting zone. the Alliance/Horde war was spiced up again.
venslor Mar 2nd 2012 6:47PM
I've said this before, and I HOPE that I'm right, but there were only three zones left mostly untouched by cata revamps. Silithus, Dustwallow Marsh and Arathi Basin. We KNOW that Theramore is likely to be destroyed. The developers likely did not want to put that much effort into creating a new story if it wasnt' going to exist an expansion later. Further, there is the little problem of the Forsaken just doing whatever they want in the Northern Eastern Kingdoms. The Dwarves don't seem ready to push back, and the Forsaken have just begun expanding into the zone. Now, if Blizzard is telling us the truth, and we are going to go headfirst into a war between the factions, Arathi is as likely a place to fight as any, probably more likely by virtue of pushing back against the Forsaken.
Keeping this in mind, one of the last few Human Kingdoms is in Arathi, Stromgarde. It's a hot mess right now, full of ogres and the Syndicate, not to mention the Prince of Stromgarde is now Forsaken. However, Danath Trollbane is just hanging out in the keep at Honor Hold, doing nothing, but a bum. It is my hope that Blizzard is going to restore Stromgarde, and allow the Alliance a fighting shot in Arathi.
Just my take I know, but I can be hopeful.