Amazon Deal of the Day: Cataclysm for $20

If you've started a new account recently or have been waiting to purchase Cataclysm, now's your shot to get the newest expansion on Amazon for only $20. Cataclysm is Amazon's Gold Box deal of the day, with a reduced price for only 24 hours. The deal is currently on the U.S. Amazon store, but the boxed copy of Cataclysm can be added or applied to any region's account.

With the recent sales in the EU for WoW and The Burning Crusade, as well as the free copies of WoW that were distributed to game veterans to give away, Blizzard is making a hard push at getting WoW into more peoples' hands and lowering the admittedly high barrier to entry of an MMO that's now 6+ years old. Hopefully, we will see this barrier come down even more over time as Blizzard figures out the answer to one of the more difficult questions in the MMO genre -- how will Blizzard deal with expansions once there are too many to reasonably expect new players to buy them all to get the full game experience?
Tags: amazon, amazon-daily-deal, amazon-gold-box, box, cataclysm, daily, deal, deathwing-on-sale, expansion, gold, gold-box

Filed under: Cataclysm

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Two Bosses Enter: Cataclysm Season 1 finals

In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title.

"Today, in the left corner, stands the guardian of the World's Heart!" Tirion's voice rose to a crescendo to be heard over the explosive cheering of the audience and the music thundering forth from the gnomish sound projectors. "Ozruk!"

Break yourself, break yourself
Break yourselves upon my body
Break yourself, break yourself
Break yourselves upon my body ...

And so it went. A frown grew on Tirion's face, displeased with the so-called hippity-hop, but what the audience wanted, the audience would get. The moment the music faded, the old crusader motioned to the other corner. "In the right corner stands ..." Tirion leaned forward, squinting to make out the form far below. He sighed deeply. "Vanessa, what are you doing here? Where is the Cardboard Assassin? And why are you wearing that chapeau?"

Vanessa shifted her gaze from the rocky behemoth before her, up toward the old man above in the stands. "He's dead."

"What do you mean he's dead?" Tirion demanded. "He was never alive to begin with!"

"Your medical staff is untrained in the care and feeding of paper men, Lord Fordring." Vanessa smiled sweetly. "They tried to quench his thirst and he fell all to pieces."

Ozruk snorted with a start. With all the coherence of an old man waking from an afternoon nap, the stone guardian asked, words slurring, "A protector has fallen?"

Vanessa ignored him. "As our dearly departed assassin's manager ..."

"No, Vanessa." Tirion cut in. "Absolutely not!"

"... I will compete in his place."

"Fine. I don't even care anymore." Tirion groaned and took his seat. "I will allow it."

"Champions," Vanessa mocked, lowering herself into a fighting stance. With a flick of her wrist, a poison vial went soaring through the air toward the ancient of earth. "Begin!"

The rules of the ring The WoW Insider Ring is considered neutral territory, where both combatants are able to access their usual encounter mechanics and abilities. If you can't visualize it inside the squared circle, visualize it someplace else -- but you must take into consideration all of each bosses' abilities and mechanics.Assume that each opponent is intelligent and capable of strategic thinking.All of the competitors' abilities, including crowd control and other effects to which bosses are usually immune, work on their opponents (with apologies to considerations of lore on this point).Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools, and comparative overall damage output.Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter.Don't neglect style, story, and scale. Everything is a factor; seeking balance is your goal as a spectator and judge.In Corner One: Ozruk

Break yourselves upon my body!

Ozruk utterly dominated his opponent in round one with 81% of the popular vote. He knocked out Lord Godfrey with just shy of 70% of the popular vote. He took out the unstoppable Eregos with ... not quite 60% of the vote! Ozruk's reputation as being entirely invincible has been slipping over the weeks, but all you really need is one vote more than the other guy to win, right? Can he pull it off?

Ozruk's arsenal includes ...

If you haven't witnessed Ozruk's gleaming, perfectly chiseled body yourself, perhaps you'd like to learn more about his flawless physique or read other adventurers' first-hand reports. In Corner Two: Vanessa VanCleef

Your tale ends here!

Vanessa VanCleef is a cheater. Plain and simple. She was knocked out in the first round by the Cardboard Assassin, but with her skill at intrigue and conspiracy, she managed to find a way to get into the finals. Will her cheating ways be enough to put her over the top against Ozruk, the fan favorite to win the tournament and an all-around scary dude?

Vanessa VanCleef's toolkit includes:

Want to learn more about Vanessa? Read what other adventurers had to say about her, or learn more of her story! Last Week's Winner: Vanessa and the late Cardboard Assassin

You can't please everybody, but Tirion Fordring, Two Bosses Enter Overseer, certainly tried. He granted Vanessa VanCleef permission to compete alongside the Cardboard Assassin in a tag-team match against Whitemane and Mograine, and there was absolutely no question who won -- Vanessa and the Cardboard Assassin dominated utterly. Of course, it also marked the end of the Cardboard Assassin's career, so it wasn't much of a win for him.

Reader Qing Guang knows Vanessa's fighting style well and outlined Whitemane and Mograine's defeat for all of us.

Whitemane and Mograine stood staring in confusion at the odd pair, glancing back and forth from their synthetic foe to their unexpected one. They hardly noticed when Vanessa began to speak.

"I've been waiting a long time for this, you know. Biding my time, building my forces, studying your twisted minds.
Now, cheaters, let us see how you fare when you are the victim of foul play, rather than the instigator..."

As the two Scarlet champions stood baffled, the young VanCleef slipped around behind them and jabbed each with a syringe. Their consciousness immediately slipped away...

They awakened in a room filled with treasure. Something was definitely wrong here. Sally reached up to secure her hat, only to find a filthy turban in its place. Perplexed, she looked down at herself in horror - a wretched little pygmy! Meanwhile, Renault fought to raise himself off the floor where he lay sprawled, only to discover that he, too, had had a transformation... a scaly one. Heavy footsteps padded somewhere to their left. A voice, disembodied, floated in on the desert winds.

"Augh led the pygmies by maintaining fear and awe. But the other denizens of the Lost City were unmoved, and they did not appreciate his theft of their ancient treasures..."

Two Neferset approached from the outside. They stopped in front of the statues and stepped apart, revealing a third behind them, his decorative helmet marking him clearly as the leader. The ram-horned Neferset stepped into the room and forcibly dragged Whitemane and Mograine outside.

"So," he said, "You are the little bit of camel dung that looted our town as we fought, hmmm? Let us see how well your flunkies respect you when they have us to fear instead."

He called out, and several towers of pygmies waddled into view. Shortly thereafter, swarms of crocolisks surged from the water. He left them to their fate.

Fortunately, the Scarlet champions discovered they still retained their abilities. The pygmies and crocolisks stood no chance against the power of the Light, and Whitemane and Mograine easily disposed of them.

The nightmare shifted.

The duo stood chained, held by a trio of Twilight's Hammer cultists in what appeared to be a large smithy. The two champions seemed to have resumed their normal forms, though the value of that given their present situation was unclear. One of the cultists jangled the chain and pointed at an anvil, indicating the hammer lying upon it. The voice bubbled up from the molten metal in the great pit at the center of the room.

"This is life in Khardros' Anvil: work or suffer. A chain of oppression is maintained through fear, even for those at the top of the ladder..."

Pounding footsteps indicated the arrival of their other defeated opponent. Forgemaster Throngus looked at them with an expression of frustration mixed with terror.

"Why you not work? You gotta work, or you get beat... we all get beat! Throngus no want to get whipped!"

He raised a massive hand to smack them. They readied themselves for another difficult fight... but all slipped away into blackness.

Vanessa VanCleef yanked her daggers out of the two corpses, letting them fall to the ground. She had learned from her mistakes. Never rely solely on one gambit when it will enable a surer plan of victory. Turning, she patted the Cardboard Assassin on its flimsy head and strode out of the arena.

The Crusaders never stood a chance. Who wins?Vanessa VanCleef and the Cardboard AssassinSally Whitemane and Renault Mograine

The battle begins!

Remember, Two Bosses Enter matchups are all about substance and style, not gameplay, mechanics, and numbers. Don't base your strategies on player tactics, which opponent has been easiest or most difficult for you personally, or the difficulty of each opponent relative to instance progression. Vote for the spirit of the battle as set forth above. Set aside differences in opponents' health pools, game level, and actual damage output. Absolutely no game mechanics nitpicking!
Set aside the world order -- let the WoW Insider Ring determine who's the champion! Your votes determine the outcome in WoW Insider's series of fantasy deathmatches, Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves. Tags: cardboard-assassin, mograine, one-boss-leaves, ozruk, two-bosses-enter, vanessa-vancleef, whitemane, whitemane-and-mograine, wow-boss, wow-boss-fights, wow-boss-tournament, wow-bosses, wow-tournament

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Cataclysm prot pally pvp videos

Check out part 15, the rpot pvp videos. Covering arena matchups (enhance shaman + prot pally vs all kinds of comps) and a couple of BG experiences it’s pretty interesting.

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WoW Moviewatch: Are WoW Cataclysm Graphics Good?

Are WoW Cataclysm Graphics Good? is the title of the new tribute video by Wowcrendor. The video showcases some of the beautiful, stunning imagery to be found in the landscapes of Azeroth. Obviously, the answer we're being led to is "Yes, WoW Cataclysm graphics are pretty darn good."

This movie is actually a sequel of Wowcrendor's original Are WoW Graphics Bad? Tribute videos like these aren't uncommon; we saw a lot of nostalgia videos about the time Wrath of the Lich King was going away. Still, Wowcrendor has a pretty good eye, and he puts it to use in these landscape features.
Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Click Here And 1-85 Power Leveling Now !!

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Rage in Cataclysm, part 1

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

We should talk briefly about two nerfs to warrior DPS in the most recent patch 4.2 PTR. They're not earthshaking in and of themselves, but I would be remiss if I didn't address them.

Warriors Recklessness and Deadly Calm can no longer be used at the same time. One cannot be used while the other is active, but using one does not put the other on its full cooldown.Talent Specializations Arms Two-Handed Weapon Specialization weapon damage increase has been lowered to 12%, down from 20%.Fury Dual Wield Specialization weapon damage increase has been lowered to 5%, down from 10%.If I thought warrior DPS was through the roof or overpowered in any way right now, I guess I'd understand these nerfs. It more seems to me like, "Well, we nerfed some other classes ... We might as well nerf them, too -- it's protocol." I'm going to assume it's a change similar to the one we saw when Ulduar went live aimed at keeping warrior scaling from getting out of whack with the higher amounts of hit, crit and mastery that will be available.

How normal does rage actually get?

To a certain degree, rage normalization baffles me, because when we were first told back near the end of Wrath that we were going to see rage normalization, one of the things we were told was that it was intended to prevent the ridiculous scaling warriors saw as gear increased in power. I would argue that's exactly what it did. Rage normalization worked very well for standardizing warrior DPS and did very little to make rage a resource that mattered to tanks.

The reason rage normalization worked for DPS and not for tanking can in large part be traced to the different ways DPS and tanking warriors generate rage. In short, the majority of DPS warrior rage comes from damage the warrior deals. The majority of rage tank rage (be it bear or warrior, as I tank alongside a druid tank in my raid) comes from damage taken.

When rage normalization was discussed for Cataclysm, it was intended to make rage a resource that actually needed managing instead of what it was at that time. For low-level or undergeared warriors, rage was a strangle point that held down their DPS or threat artificially, as they couldn't generate that much due to misses and dodged or parried attacks and when they did connect, they didn't do enough damage to generate much if any rage. Meanwhile, for a DPS warrior whose gear improved, every incremental improvement provided significant rage increase. The more hit, the more ArP, the closer to experience cap they got the more they hit and the harder they hit. The more and harder they hit, the more rage, until in full ICC gear, warriors simply did not have to care about rage at all. A DPS warrior in an ICC raid simply hit buttons the second they came off of cooldown. He or she would be a fool not to.

Rage normalization fixed this by making the amount of rage generated by an attack fixed. This means that no matter how hard you hit, you don't get any more or less rage, turning the exponential rage gen machine into a more linear one. Yes, hit and expertise and haste all still affect your rage generation. The more you hit, the less you're dodged, and the more often you swing all increases how much rage you get, but the double dipping on rage scaling is no longer an issue. In fact, it's the way rage normalization has worked out for DPS that has me shaking my head at the nerf to both DPS specs. Why reduce base damage, and by such large numbers? Rage normalization actually worked for DPS warriors; we don't scale exponentially anymore, but we can top meters with effort and skill.

No, where normalization failed was for tanking.

The rage tank's dilemma

I don't mean to say that warriors cannot tank or are prevented from tanking by their resource system. What I mean to say is that before rage normalization, rage was a feast or famine system that tanks didn't really try and gear to improve, because on bosses, rage would be near infinite and on trash, you'd always be behind a tank who started with a full bar anyway. Warriors were not the best AOE tanks purely because they would never have the full tank to get groups glued to them the way tanks who didn't use rage could. Being able to open with your biggest group threat move and then keep going was an amazing advantage, and since no tank ever has to worry about running out of their main resource while tanking a boss, that ended up as a non-issue. Warrior tanks (this can be extended to say "all rage tanks") were no better off on bosses and slightly worse off on trash.

Now, after rage normalization, the exact same situation applies. If anything, warrior tanks are even less likely to gear for threat/rage generation. Between Vengeance stacking up as the tank takes damage and rage becoming near infinite due to the constant damage intake on a tank, over the course of a fight, the warrior does not have to manage rage as a resource at all. If he did, it would probably be deleterious on most progression content. Simply put, how much does a tank really want to have to think about rage conservation? If you're already tanking Vile Swills on heroic Maloriak, you possibly don't want to have to worry about your resource.

This is the catch-22 of rage as a resource for tanking: It's not really managed and provides no benefit to the tanks using it if they try and do so, but making it so that rage tanks had to manage their rage might just make them worse tanks. It's an unsatisfying all-or-nothing system that probably wouldn't work any better otherwise.

Next week, we'll talk about how each spec gathers and spends rage in more detail and try to think about how the system could be improved for each.
At the center of the fury of battle stand the warriors: protection, arms and fury. Check out more strategies and tips especially for warriors, including Cataclysm 101 for DPS warriors, a guide to new reputation gear for warriors, and a look back at six years of warrior trends.

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Cataclysm Post-Mortem: Hyjal

Alex Ziebart and Mathew McCurley (that's me) decided to give each Cataclysm zone the once-over now that we're many months out from the release of the expansion. In this post-mortem series, we'll examine (in our own opinions and words) what worked and what didn't work in terms of story, quests, and overall feel for the zones and the cool moments that dotted the landscape. Join us for a discussion about Cataclysm's new level 80 to 85 content and what made the cut as the most compelling experiences.

Hyjal is home to the majestic world tree Nordrassil, once under siege by the Burning Legion and Archimonde, an eredar leader and lieutenant of Sargeras. In Warcraft III, we vanquished Archimonde at Nordrassil and subsequently went back and ended his campaign in Hyjal through the Caverns of Time. Now, Ragnaros the Firelord has returned to Azeroth with the help of Deathwing and has invaded the sacred mountain with one goal -- destroy the wardens of Hyjal and burn their tree to the ground.

Hyjal's story

Mathew: I had an odd experience with the story at Hyjal, mostly because at first, I couldn't have given a damn about the druids and the Emerald Dream and all of that. The first time I went through Hyjal, it was a sprint, and I never stopped to smell the roses, since we were racing to 85.

It was only after I did Hyjal a second or third time that I truly dug in and found the wonderful story of the zone. Now, I am 100% involved in the Hyjal story and am really excited to see where it's going. Now, the druids are my best friends, and there is nothing I want to do more than help ancients punch fire elementals in their fiery faces.

Alex: I think that my first time through Hyjal benefited from the fact that I didn't do it on my first Cataclysm character. My first time leveling, I actually went to Vashj'ir, so I felt no real need to rush through Hyjal when I finally got there. The story was solid, but it didn't feel as urgent as maybe it should have. Hyjal was burning -- sure, that's scary. I wasn't exposed to the source of that scariness, though. You see a glimpse of Ragnaros at the very beginning of the zone, but you don't get to witness him gaining any ground.

World of Warcraft needs to learn that sometimes it's okay for the players to actually lose in the story. If I had had a quest to defend part of Hyjal from Ragnaros and Ragnaros had kicked our asses and we lost that territory, that would have driven home that something bad is happening here and we need to find help.

WoW is afraid to let players lose (except for locking us in a stun so we're forced to watch a cutscene), so we won't see anything like that. Wrath of the Lich King suffered from that, too -- the Lich King never won. Not once. By the end of the expansion, the guy was a joke, and we'd made him our whipping boy before we decided to kill him.

Mathew: The story for me felt fairly straightforward, a little disjointed at times, but the basic premise of waking up the ancients to fight Ragnaros and drive him back to the Firelands was a big fireworks display of lore for the new Cataclysm player. I was excited, I guess, to help the ancients, but I also felt like my character personally fell to the wayside in favor of bigger and better heroes.

I agree about letting the players lose sometimes. It's more important to give players a sense of scale as opposed to strength, I think. For Hyjal, you're at the end of the campaign, really. Ragnaros has gained a ridiculously strong toehold in Hyjal, and the druids are trying to do the impossible to win. It would have been an awesome part of the story to lose and lose and eventually get backed into a corner, to see your ancient buddies then turn the tide with your help.

Hyjal's quests

Alex: The questing felt disjointed my first time through the zone because there are very few indicators of where you should be going after you finish the first chain of quests started at Nordrassil. Ysera is supposed to show up and give you a little direction, but it's easy to miss her, and even with her advice, you can find yourself with no quests in your quest log and very little idea where to go. The zone is nonlinear by design, but the quests have a distinct gated flow that clicks after you've been through them once. It was a much better experience my second time through because I knew how things flowed best.

The battle with Ragnaros at the zone's climax felt like a real letdown, though. Fighting alongside Cenarius, Malfurion, and Hamuul should have been epic, but it felt more like I was cleaning up after them like a fledgling squire. "Oh no, these teeny little elementals are tickling me, please make them go away!" I wasn't fighting Ragnaros at all, despite being this awesome hero of Azeroth. I was picking up Malfurion's litter. That wasn't very fun.

Mathew: I was disappointed that each ancient's quest line wasn't a separate module of questing. It was odd that you couldn't progress through certain areas until you had finished certain "gate" points. I felt that was a step backwards in terms of vision. However, there were just enough quests per area for it to feel substantial. The quests were never hard to follow, and I thought it was an excellent introduction to the "new" way of hub questing.

Art direction and visuals

Mathew: Hyjal looked like Hyjal. I don't know if I can say much more than that, but that's not a bad thing. I like the look of Hyjal. It felt like we started at the mountain peak, looking down on the devastation caused by Ragnaros and his minions. The damage looked devastating, and the enemies looked suitably out of place and foreign. Personally, I'm a huge fan of seeing creatures like the lavawalkers and core hounds traipsing around. It really felt like the Molten Core was spilling out into the lush forest. I would call the whole zone very cohesive.

Alex: I think my overall opinion of Hyjal's aesthetics is tainted by being in the Cataclysm beta. I loved being in the beta, but sometimes you think, "I really wish they hadn't changed that." Early on, there was much more devastation to behold. Ragnaros's buddies from Molten Core had torched much more of the zone, and only the area immediately around Nordrassil felt safe. It was dark, oppressive, and you got the feeling you were in for one hell of a fight.

At some point, they prettied the zone up and made it much more green. Rather than having scorched his way across Hyjal, Baron Geddon now stands in a little circle of red in a sea of green. It increased the contrast between the territories held by the good guys and the bad guys, but at the same time, it made it all feel more artificial to me -- it started to strike me as silly. Hyjal became a Team Fortress 2 map.

That said, there are still huge portions of this zone that are just beautiful. Nordrassil itself is incredible. The Inferno (which we ultimately phase out) maintained that oppressive feel of Ragnaros bearing down on us, and this was the first place that level 80 characters would encounter Twilight's Hammer architecture. The art direction was great; I just wish the contrast between the green and the red wasn't so jarring.

Coolness factor

Alex: I'm typically not a night elf fan, but I really enjoyed exploring their history in Hyjal. Awakening and gathering the Ancients just felt good. Goldrinn in particular was a lot of fun. Blizzard did an excellent job getting his ferocity across in his quests. In the two or three times he's doing something on screen, it's just brutal.

It was nice seeing the wardens again. I make it no secret that Maiev Shadowsong is one of my favorite Warcraft characters, period, so if we can't have her, at least we can have the other wardens. I'm eager to see more of then in patch 4.2.

Mathew: For me, the coolest part of the zone was the infiltration of the Twilight's Hammer cult and the quests associated with it. Giving the "valedictorian" speech at the end to send the cultists and the ogres into a riot was probably the most rewarding moment in the whole zone, and the resulting fallout was awesome to witness. You get a ton of lore into how Cho'gall is running things, why he prefers the ogres to humans and other native denizens of Outland/Draenor, and what the dragonflights are doing in the area as well. It was a really comprehensive lore experience, and I thought it was pretty cool that I got to be a part of it.

What worked? What didn't?

Alex: It's hard to lay out what worked for this zone, because it isn't the most revolutionary experience in the game. The things that worked are things we take for granted -- good writing, good scripting, things of that nature. In an overall solid zone, it's easier to point out what didn't work, even though the complete package is still very strong.

I think I've come to realize that phasing on a macro scale simply doesn't have the same punch as phasing on a micro scale. For example, did Aessina's putting out the flames in Hyjal and spawning the Regrowth have any sort of punch? Not really. It was cool, sure, but you don't get much emotional impact from a change on that scale. It's the small, character-level changes that phasing does well, not the massive, zone-changing ones -- especially when it's a starter zone like Hyjal that you'll be leaving soon and will never really experience the changes you caused, rather than an endgame zone that you may see every day (like the Isle of Quel'Danas back in patch 2.4).

I really want to stress how disappointing the showdown with Ragnaros was. I killed that guy back at level 60 -- not Malfurion, not Cenarius, and not Hamuul Runetotem. It was me and my pals. Nothing in Hyjal provided my character with a show of strength to get the point across that I was no longer capable of facing off with the big man, but suddenly nobody in the world trusted me to take him down. I was Cenarius's errand boy, and that did not feel good at all.

Mathew: The zone as a whole worked well because there were only a few bottleneck moments. What didn't work was the one huge bottleneck moment that was there. Phasing also worked well in the zone, but I was sad that we didn't get more lore about Fandral other than just breaking him out of prison. I guess we are just going to have to wait until patch 4.2 to see the rest of his story. I like resolution.

One other thing that worked well were the "solo bosses." Dragons, Baron Geddon, and others had boss mechanics that players had to deal with and avoid, rather than just mobs you had to kill. I thought this approach to working with the mechanics worked well to get players into the right kind of mindset for the expansion -- mechanic-driven and player-dependent.

Standout moments

Mathew: For me, the standout moments of Hyjal included infiltrating the cultists and then the subsequent green dragon attack on their stronghold. Fighting in the Firelands with the child of Tortolla was great, too. He was adorable.

Alex: All of the solo boss encounters that Mat mentioned were probably the best moments of the zone (with Ragnaros as the exception). I think Blizzard would benefit from continuing that trend -- not just elite mobs or mobs with names, but solo encounters that maybe require a little thought as to how best to approach them. Vanilla WoW had some difficult moments like that, but you don't get them very often anymore.

Thisalee Crow was also a very interesting moment in the zone. We're never going to see Blizzard turn World of Warcraft into a BioWare game, but the idea of a quest giving you a moral option in how to resolve a particular situation was something that hasn't been done before. It didn't have the best implementation ever, but it was a neat touch.

Final thoughts

Alex: Hyjal was a solid zone. It wasn't Cataclysm's best, and it wasn't Cataclysm's worst. It was just a well-rounded, easy experience. The zone would have gained a lot from giving you a personal look at how badass Ragnaros is nowadays -- it would have put the whole thing in perspective -- but it was still a good romp without it.

Mathew: I agree with you, Alex. It was a well-designed and capable zone that was a good introduction to the new questing experiences in Cataclysm. The story was a solid look at one of Cataclysm's biggest conflicts, and we got to hear from characters we really haven't seen or heard from since Warcraft III. Hyjal, to me, felt like Warcraft III-2, if that makes any sense. It wasn't my favorite zone, but it did give me a better appreciation for the night elves. I still don't really care about the ancients, though. Personally, I want to see the night elves acting more savage and mountain man-esque. Overall, I enjoyed it, with some reservations that seem to be fixed, story-wise, in patch 4.2.

Next time, Alex and I return with a look at the other zone that started off Cataclysm with a watery bang: the lost, sunken city of Vashj'ir.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
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Does Cataclysm have too much potential content?

I was running around Uldum recently, doing the Ramkahen quests on yet another new 85, when it occurred to me that Uldum itself feels like the story has barely been told. Sure, we run around doing odd jobs for Harrison Jones, then we infiltrate the Halls of Origination and turn off the big doomsday device Algalon was going to use on us. And sure, we eventually crash into the Vortex Pinnacle and Throne of the Four Winds to stop Al'Akir and his minions. But what about the connection between Silithus and Uldum?

We know that Ahn'Qiraj was a lost titan city and that the Tol'vir were assigned to it, that entities like Ossirian were once watchers like Setesh. (Setesh's model is nearly identical to the Anubisath that patrol AQ today.) It just feels like, with C'thun obviously driving Cho'gall around even after his "death," that there's room for a whole raid just dealing with the lost connections between AQ and Uldum. The lost passages of the titan research facility that the Qiraji took over? (We know from Uldaman and Ulduar that titan constructions tend to go on for miles and miles.)

And that's hardly even the top of the list of raid instances we could see. A lot of us hoped for and expected an Abyssal Maw raid of some kind. There's a lot of talk about another Caverns of Time instance or raid with Nozdorumu's return. And I can't be the only one who keeps thinking that Grim Batol has entire layers we haven't seen yet. Heck, there are whole terraces in Deepholm we visit once and never go back to, and that whole zone is massive and cries out for more.

What interests me here is just how much potential Cataclysm has as yet left untouched. Hyjal is getting more attention patch 4.2, fleshing it out with a daily quest hub and a raid, but that still leaves Vashj'ir, Deepholm, Uldum and Twilight Highlands all feeling like there's more to do.

In addition, it feels like the world around those zones has lots of stuff going on that could become instances and raids. With the upheaval in Stonetalon and the discovery of new night elf ruins just over the mountain from Nijel's Point, you could easily imagine the ghosts of the Highborne and the remains of the magical experiments needing to be dealt with. With Desolace undergoing a kind of renewal, what does that mean for the deeper titan vaults underneath what is today Maraudon? Have they been awakened as well? Since Cho'gall held a conference at Dire Maul, does that mean the Maul itself could become an active home for ogres and gronn? Cho'gall's attempt to subjugate his people's hostile overlords could end up with angry gronn lords (long time enemies of the Black Dragonflight) seizing control.

It feels like there's almost too much here to do in one expansion. Does an Azshara raid fit in Cataclysm, or should she be saved for her own? Do we want to hold off on an invasion of Gronn from Outland for a possible future where we turn our gaze back to the greater Warcraft cosmos?

Cataclysm sets the stage for the new status quo, after all. Every time I find myself nerding out over a War of the Ancients raid or a Kezan raid to deal with whatever servants of the Old Gods are under that place, I have to remind myself that it's okay to focus on the content we have. However, Cataclysm seems absolutely packed with stuff that could be brought in. I would love to see more of Kul Tiras, and frankly, the fact that we haven't had a daily quest hub put into the Ruins of Gilneas where Horde and Alliance can do quests and engage in world PVP just amazes me. I mean, we even know who we'd be fighting for and why.

Make it happen, guys.
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