So the Shattering finally hit the servers on the 23rd of November. A little too early for my tastes, but that's just due to my lack of poor time managing skills when it came to making sure I had everything finished before Cataclysm came out.
With this patch, of mighty 4.0.3a, the continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms were torn asunder. Where once was wasteland, now there is life. Where once was desert, now there is water. Where once was Booty Bay, now there.. Is still Booty Bay. How did it survive a freakin' tidal wave? Moving on..
Patch 4.0.3a took all of the Cataclysm information that had been released with 4.0.1 and 4.0.3 and activated the landscape changes that will be the standard for all newcomers to WoW when it comes to Azeroth. Still some things are going to be packaged into Cataclysm's release, we only received a small portion of the goodies to come with this expansion.
All of the effects for Cataclysm itself have been added in.. Login screen change, the Cataclysm intro cinematic, the new loading screens for Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outlands, and Northrend, and the new music.
Aside from the new races of Worgen and Goblins, all new class combinations are currently available to all players. Human Hunters, Tauren Paladins, Dwarf Shaman, the works. All ready and waiting to be used. Race changes are also available for all of these new classes as well, and will continue to be so even with the release of Cataclysm. So, yes, you're (possibly) favorite class will be able to be race/faction changed into a Worgen/Goblin on the 7th of December.
One of the biggest uproars with the patch hitting two weeks before the release of the game was the removal of the capital city portals from Shattrath and Dalaran, the quest hubs for Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions respectively. Those portals were the lifeline for players to return to Azeroth as needed and now they are gone. Two weeks before they actually needed to be. Magi are going to be making a killing for awhile with their portal spells, probably for quite some time. The portals were replaced with class trainers, so people leveling through Outlands and Northrend will be able to train at their quest-hub central for the expansion content they are working on.
Gnomes and Trolls, with their pre-Cataclysm events, have been removed from their prior starting locations into their own little phased zones for beginning their long journey down the road of becoming a hero. With the pre-Cataclysm event of Operation: Gnomeregan; the gnomes now start in New Tinkertown, which is located right outside of the tunnel leading down into Gnomeregan proper. From what I've seen, the quests here are phased to be gnome only, because my fresh dwarf warrior and my level 80 human warrior were not able to communicate with any of the NPCs in a questing manner. For the Horde, the event of Zalazane's Fall moves trolls out of the Valley of Trials and over to the Echo Isles. I'm going to just go ahead and make the assumption that non-trolls will not be able to quest here just as non-gnomes can't quest in New Tinkertown. I haven't explored this opportunity on my Horde just yet.
Hunters get more pets to tame, bumping their pet-types from 32 to 37 with Cataclysm's release. I really don't have anything to say on this subject because my hunter is too low level to give a damn about new pets just yet. Though, I will say this.. With the release of these awesome new pets, I ventured over to www.wow-petopia.com and went through the pet possibilities that will be available to my huntard when she finally gets the ability to have 5 pets at once, and gets the Beast Mastery talent to tame Exotic pets.
Two more things to go with the patch changes before I stop talking..
With the coming of the Cataclysm, Blizzard took the "championing" tool that they used in Wrath of the Lich King for gaining rep with certain factions and gave this unique utility to the player-race factions. Stormwind, Darnassus, Ironforge, Gnomeregan, Exodar, Gilneas, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Darkspear, Undercity, Silvermoon City, and Bilgewater Cartel all have corresponding tabards with the ability to "champion." All dungeons now reward rep toward the currently worn tabard, sans the Outlands dungeons because of the unique way they were structured toward giving rep toward the faction involved in their questlines. I honestly find this new feature to be one of the best things that Blizzard has come up with in the way of reputation gains and wish that they would continue to use this method for further reputations. It would be neat to see them restructure the old factions from vanilla in the same way as well. I'd love a Hydraxian Waterlords tabard, even though I'm already exalted with them.
And my final note for this hellacious long blog post.. Experience necessary to level from 71 to 80 has been reduced. Casuals, get busy and hit 80 before Cataclysm is released. You're running out of time, but you have the means. Maybe this means I should level one of my alts too..
Again, Cataclysm comes out next week. I, hopefully, should be able to release another blog post over it within the first week of its release. And then I'll have another coming out soon after that since it's going to be Winter's Veil. I'll probably wait until Winter's Veil is over to post over it, since my usual holiday procedure is to post how much of it I actually got done. I honestly don't see many people trying to participate in this holiday as much as the others, since it's going to be opening up during the very beginning of Cataclysm's launch.
