PAX 2009: First look at World of Warcraft Cataclysm

At Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2009, Blizzard was offering hands-on experience of their newest World of Warcraft Expansion, Cataclysm. The demos were strictly limited to the intros to the two new playable races: the Worgen (werewolves who fight on the Alliance side) and Goblins (gadgeteers who battle for the Horde). Here’s a quick run down on the intro for the warrior classes in both races.

The Worgen intro starts in the territory of Gilneas and it doesn’t start well: your character, in wolf-man form, is held in stocks, waiting to find out if he can be cured of lycanthropy or executed. But here’s the thing about the Worgen’s lycanthropy: the player controls it as a special ability on their toolbar. You can switch whenever you like, and it’s completely cosmetic. Unlike class-based shape-shifting, you get no bonuses or penalties as either human or wolf, and you can use all of your weapons, spells, and abilities in either form.

The building and characters of the town—the whole design, really—evoke the Salem Witch Hunts more than the epic High Fantasy of the rest of the human lands. Once your character is “cured” (temporarily) and turned back into a human, you start your quests, which begin almost immediately with an assault by the undead Forsaken on the town, in the scorched earth just to the south. The tone of this race is clearly one of despair and repression of both the beast within, and the monsters just outside the door.

The polar opposite of this is the starting point for the Goblins, which begins in the sunny, tropical Lost Islands. Your character has just saved the lives of the crew of an airship crash, and after a quick resuscitation, you’re swimming around the ocean freeing others from their escape pods and fighting off sharks. It’s all far more lighthearted in tone that the grim Worgen, especially when you consider that one of the weapons at your disposal is a belt that fires rockets. I’ll say that again: a goblin swims around killing sharks with a rocket-belt.

Speaking with one of the demo personnel, he described changes for Azeroth in general: landscapes will be altered to reflect the ongoing effects of the war, but perhaps more importantly, Cataclysm is restructuring the way some quests are laid out, especially at the lower levels, looking to reduce the amount of travel needed between continents. Asked about a release date, he put on a well-worn smile and replied, “when it’s ready.”

Read [Gamertell] Site [World of Warcraft: Cataclysm] Site [PAX 2009]