I’m enjoying the heck out of Cataclysm, but the replay value of leveling is kinda low. Not as low as raiding, but kinda low. So I’m parceling out the leveling zones between alts and my main, trying as best I can to keep focused on the thing that really does still excite me about this game – PvP.

As for raiding? I might give it a go in 4.2 – there should be enough content then (between Firelands and the 4.1 raids) to keep me interested for a while.

Blizzard have their money (and then some) from WSG, AB & AV. Sure a little tweaking here and there… but how many people & how many hours have they consumed, while not constantly demanding developer time.

but yes.. yes.. I agree… I’d love to do way more with Gnomeaggedon than the current “raid” limitation… instead 85 No. 3 is here, in a matter of weeks, already geared out and if not for the fact I rolled him to PvP, would already be neglected at best, deleted at worst.

We were slow, we were broke but man that game was FUN! I remember my “grinding for epic mount” like it was yesterday, spending hours and hours in Felwood, killing elementals to loot some rare mats to put on the AH, finding my first epic world drop, the Staff of Jordan. Or exterminating the entire population of black dragonkins in the Burning Steppes for days to craft my Black Dragonscale leather set for my hunter (who had some epics by then, but I had to get my hands on that set!). Kiting Teremus the Devourer to Stormwind back when it was doable and the dragon was a BOSS… not some rare weak thing…. Everything might look bothersome at first for those of you that started playing WoW more recently, but I miss those hard to do/get things that made WoW special back then. Everything is WAY too fast as it is now in Cata and it kinda kills the fun.

I don’t know about you but I would like to see a “WoW Classic”, accessible only to those of us who’ve been playing since Vanilla, based on the Vanilla game. Classic quests, classic raids, classic classes, races and talents as well as classic PVP and it’s endless grind to the “Grand Marshall” title. Get back where skill was more important than gear. I would gladly spend time on that game rather than this way-too-fast-race-for-max-lvl game WoW as become.

For me, WoW has always been two different games : the Leveling Part and the End-game part. As it stands now, the Leveling part seems like an obstacle to the end-game part rather than a preparation to it. It shouldn’t be that way… As I love to say to the young ones out there that started playing in WotLK who say that leveling takes way too long, what’s important is not where you go, it’s how you get there; end-game is fun, but the road to max level as to be even more exciting. But right now, I’m not convinced the Leveling part is quite that fun anymore…

Tons of alts and I’m really loving replaying the areas I knew so well. I like how they changed the places and the stories and how the pace of the game now pretty much matches the content (although I have a lot of grey quests as well…). It’s different from how it was, and I liked it back then, but I also enjoy seeing how they redid it all. A great job I think.

What I do miss on my main, is the great story lines. Back in Vanilla, you could plan long chains of adventures. The T0.5 upgrades, the Linken quest chain was looooong, you had the Darrowshire quest chains etc. Lots of things to keep you busy at max level while not raiding. I miss that in Cataclysm (and LK as well btw). I hardly spend time on my main outside of raiding, which is a shame. I like to play my main (my Druid ofc) for good reason, so I’d love to spend more time with him. But alas, there is not much max level content…

Back to the alts I guess :)
(and when those are done, I might even start some new chars from the other faction, see the game from a new perspective yet again :) And without the gold and heirlooms. So much to see still, but not on my druid…)

Where Cataclysm really and truly broke for me, non-community wise, was the talent trees.

I know, I know, they’re only ‘new’ to me because I went back after a 2-3 year break for Cataclysm.

But the ‘new’ talent trees killed any desire I had to explore. I am a tinkering nugget by nature. I loved making ridiculous specs that turned out to be surprisingly (sometimes even ridiculously) good at what they did.

The new talent trees took that toy away from me. And it was my favouritest toy. And with the new talent trees, a baby adventurous druid growing up can no longer have your WOOOHOOOOO experience with Nature’s Swiftness.

Just one more big loss amongst other big losses.

I’m glad what I’m currently playing, while a WoW-Clone, doesn’t follow WoW’s new talent trees, because it means that if I logic out something, it may look silly on paper to someone who hasn’t seen the logic, but in actual play – it’s pure joy.