Blizzcon, the expac, and lore
I originally wasn’t going to order the live stream of Blizzcon (mostly because I’ll be at work during one of the Con days) but I’m starting to feel like I’ll be missing out on some big things. I’ll probably get it and just listen to it at my desk with the window minimized. Sure, I could wait for the YouTube clips, but… impatience demands satiation…
It’s pretty exciting, all these changes that will be passed down from ye on high in just a few days. Details about class changes, philosophy shifts on certain stats, and of course a big reveal of the next expansion pack.
I’m not sure what to expect from Blizzcon. I can’t imagine Pallies are in line for the same tectonic shift we received at the beginning of Wrath. Blizz will probably move to finally kill off spellpower plate once and for all, and announce a major redo of the Holy tree around that. But, that’s Holy, what about us? Maybe a change to the Blessings system, folding Sanc into something. As TBC was wrapping up it was obvious there were structural weakness to Prot Pallies that needed to be fixed. This time around, not so much.
Something I caught in one of GC’s comments on the forums was when he said in regards to defense, “we have a solution to the ‘defense cap’ [sic] at Blizzcon. :)”. Who knows what that means. I can’t even begin to imagine.
Moreover, everyone’s seen the write-up on mmo-champ about Cataclysm by now. I believe in Boubouille and I’m sure in the end it’s going to turn out he was right about everything: Worgen and Goblins, the new sundering, Tauren Paladins, the works. And then all those WoW forum cretins whose only form of expression is bile will have to eat crow. No, scratch that, they’ll never admit fault. They’ll just move on and find something else to extend their diseased claws into.
There is a certain degree of ignorance fueling this hate that’s directed at the Cataclysm rumors. For example, people are insisting with every fiber of their being there is no lore justification for the alleged new class combos, which seems like bunk to me. There are already Troll Druids in game (see just about every troll raid boss). The foundation for Light-following Tauren was laid out in 3.2 with that dialogue in TB. The next patch will have a similar quest reintroducing Arcane-aligned Night Elves (i.e., the Highborne). The Wildhammer Clan of Dwarves already has shamans.
All these new combinations make sense on some level. Nothing is really, truly “lorelol” in the same way that the sudden introduction of the Naaru and space-faring, retconned Draenei were.
One thing I’d like to see is mirrored Wrathgate-esque, massive quest chains where either Gnomes or Trolls reclaim their ancestral homes. For the former it’s Gnomeregan, the latter the Isles where Thrall first found them. That would be epic.
WoW is getting stale, and definitely needs some new life added to it. Hopefully Cataclysm will be the expac to do it.
Armory Feed
I think one of the major changes to the class/race is the allowance of faction changing. With only one druid class per side, one paladin horde and one shaman Alliance – you could see things getting unbalanced pretty quick.
Plus – who doesn’t want to be a cow tank? I’m sure Jazz Hands are cool and all – but mmmm – I loves me some beef.
I don’t want to believe what Boubouille is right, because that would mean that our honorable warchief Thrall will be replaced with that brainless moron Garrosh.
The rest of the changes are very welcome, though.
I can really see all these new changes happening, and I as one of the few am really looking forward to a (hopefully) revamp of the old world.
Some of the race/class combos do need a wee bit more explaining. Like…the night elf mages that made me boggle. But if they explain it well, I’m cool. It looks like they’re laying the foundation for some of ‘em, so with luck, it’ll all end up pretty nifty.
Perhaps the Wildhammer dwarves wandered over to Ironforge and said, “Look, guys, why limit your resources? Here is how2shaman…”
I’m kind of looking forward to the old world getting hacked to bits, though!
hehe, the “new” (they will be NEW when blizz says it’s official), class/race combos are not THAT weird at all, people just like to QQ for everything, I mean, without going LORELOL any race in azeroth has the potential to become a Paladin, why? because the Holy Light does not discriminate, specially not now that we know that there are beings made entirely of Light (Naaru), so It all comes down to a “personal choice” for the character in question. Thats just form a lore standpoint, because from a gameplay view the thing goes more into a discusion of how many classes are “Common” for a specific race.