Playing Cataclysm this past week, I got a feeling I never did before while playing World of Warcraft: I felt for the first time that my character actually mattered.
Cataclysm, released by Blizzard on Dec. 7, is the latest and largest expansion to the popular massively multiplayer online game. Blizzard has completely revamped a great part of the world of Azeroth (population: 11 million), tweaking the gameplay along with the visual design.
But the most significant change is the lengths Blizzard has gone to in order to make your little character feel important in that big world. While Warcraft has always had a deep back story, your own character's part in it was often relegated to grinding animal parts in return for sweet gear. Cataclysm attempts to integrate each of its millions of players into the world's central story, building a world full of heroes.
Some parts of World of Warcraft feel like a single-player role-playing game that 11 million people happen to all be playing online together.
Deepholm, a new zone that high-level characters can access, is a good example. In it you are tasked with finding the shattered remnants of the world pillar, a magical stone that keeps Deepholm from crashing into Azeroth. The pieces are being held by the leaders of three different races in Deepholm, so you have to get on their good side.
They aren't very trusting of you at first, but quickly change their mind after a few short quests. It isn't too long before you're on the front lines of battle, fighting alongside stone giants and dwarves. Emerge victorious, and your comrades hail you as a hero.
The same happens in the underwater city of Vashj'ir. After your boat is shipwrecked, you turn out to be the lone hero who saves the lives of your crewmates. By the end of the zone, you've saved their bacon so many times that they start to make comments like “How many times have you saved my life today?”
2008's Wrath of the Lich King expansion started down this path, but only near the very end. Cataclysm does a much better job of consistently making you feel like you're a part of the story.
Cataclysm adds another personal touch by bringing in-game cinematic scenes to WoW for the first time.
Admittedly, these scenes don't have all the modern trimmings you'd expect from a game made in 2010, like dynamic camera angles – the camera often sits in one static, boring position in front of the action. But the scenes do make the story more personal as well as add a sense of adventure that wasn't there before.
The boss monsters feel less like hit-point sponges and a little more like action-game enemies. There are often moments where you have no choice but to back off and physically dodge their attacks. Dungeons also have more interesting elements, like Zelda-style tunneling worms that bring you back to the entrance if you run into them.
Perhaps nothing is so compellingly story-driven, though, as the starting areas for the game's two new playable races – Worgens (Warcraft's version of werewolves) and Goblins. In these starting zones, newbies get their feet wet before emerging into the wider world.
As a Worgen, you are immediately thrust into the middle of a conflict between the humans of Gilneas and the feral werewolves – which you are later transformed into after being bitten.
The Goblin's starting area is as humorous as the Worgens' is dramatic. For their first handful of levels, Goblin characters play the role of a wealthy businessman living in an environment parodying high-class society. One of the first quests, titled “Riding With My Homies,” has you riding in a fancy convertible beating up folks who owe you money.
Other highlights include entertaining the hundreds of guests who show up at your birthday party and scoring a winning goal for the local soccer team.
In previous expansions, I would often just quest in the various zones until my level was high enough to progress to the next. In Cataclysm, the zones are so story-driven that I feel motivated to see them to their conclusions.
Now if you will excuse me, I have a dragon to kill and a world to save.
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