I haven’t actually had the game for a full week yet, since my Amazon game day pre-order didn’t arrive until 5 p.m. last Tuesday. But today is, nonetheless, the week marker since Cataclysm became available for us to play. How are you liking it so far? I’m having a great time overall, tho some things are driving me crazy. So let’s start with that…
Things That Drive Me Crazy About Cataclysm
- Broken quests that impede your ability to progress through the zone thanks to the funneled nature of the questing. Vash’jir, I am looking at you. I keep seeing people happily earning achievements in that zone while I remain in eternal wait for an NPC who never spawns, thus unable to complete half the quests in the zone. I also had this happen in Mount Hyjal, but it was after I got the quest achievement for the zone so I was less bitter about it. The good news is the bugged quests are known issues and they are working on them. The bad news is I know of several such quests in BC that stayed that way for most of the expansion.
- Portals that don’t spawn making it hard to get back to the new areas. Mount Hyjal portal, I’m calling you out on this one. It has not spawned for the character who got the achievement for doing all the quests there. Or for the SO’s toon who did half of them. At least it is a short flight for the hordies. Alliance toons can go talk to the Cenarion Emissary in the keep to port to moonglade again then fly from there. But it is still a PITA.
- Stupidly low drop rate for cloth. I quested for about 2 hours on my tailor, in Mount Hyjal, yesterday and she picked up 6 pieces of cloth. I shouldn’t have to farm the AH for working on my tailoring, but that has been my primary source of it. Disappointing.
- Having to shift in and out of Boomkin form constantly to be able to do things like mount up. Please fix this bug. It’s incredibly annoying and lame to have to do this every time I want to pop on to a mount. Please put it back to where we automatically shift out of form when we click on the mount. Pretty please.
Things That I am Loving About Cataclysm
- The amazing scenery. Plenty to screenshot everywhere I go. Lots of funny quest-related things I’ve screenshotted that will turn up here on future posts.
- The move towards more immersive, focused storytelling. Although when you hit a bugged quest it can be annoying, overall the immersion for the new way of questing through the Cataclysm areas has been great. Instead of walking into town and having 12 quests all over the map, you get a quest or two, all together, that you can work on. And so many more cut scenes! It’s a nice freshener for the game.
- Fishing in Uldum. I absolutely love the Uldum scenery. And it feels like everywhere I fly there, I see a sparkly little fishing pool that needs my attention. Having these marshy areas be surrounded by crocs is a nice touch.
- Pets pets everywhere! I have new vanity pets coming out of my ears, and without too much mindless farming (other than Mr. Grubs.)
So far, I have the druid to 84, and questing in Uldum. The shadow priest is 82, and questing in Vash’jir, having just finished up Mount Hyjal, other than her bugged quest. I’ve spent a good portion of my auction house earnings working on my professions, but only have cooking and skinning maxed out thus far. Overall, it feels like good progress for a busy week that saw me have at most 3 hours of playtime a day. I hope by this time next week to have both these ladies to 85 and working on heroics.
What have you been up to this week?
Oh, the linear questing really does get a bit annoying at times, doesn’t it? I was online within an hour of the game launching, which of course meant loads of people doing the same quest. At the one in Mount Hyjal where you have to kill big ogres and pick up the packs dropped on the ground by the carriers it was absolutely impossible to get them.
I wanted to skip ahead to the next quest hub, but of course that’s not possible. It’s really quite frustrating.
Oh, and the cloth thing is driving me nuts too! My main is a tailor and after having leveled her to 85 she still only has enough cloth to make maybe 7 pieces of gear. If even that. Which is (if I’m lucky!) 7 skill points.
Mount Hyjal was one of the worst zones for cloth. I’m guessing it’s because it drops off humanoids and almost everything in there is either a beast, elemental or demon.
But like you, I love the scenery, and the stories are really interesting.
I just wish I had more time to play cause at the moment I just do my dailies on my main with no spare time to level any alts 🙁
I hear you on the tailoring – my shadowpriest main is a tailor/enchanter, and after hitting 85, I went back to finish every single quest (beyond getting the achievements) in every single zone for cloth and quest rewards to DE. No kidding, I just got the “Cataclysm Loremaster” achievement last night, though I’m still working on completing the rest of the quests in Twilight Highlands. But after all that questing (and plenty of instances), and after my rogue friend (he has skinning/LW) has sent me every boe green and blue he has accumulated or crafted and every single piece of cloth he has come across … I am still, STILL not maxed out on either profession. VERY annoying, considering that every other profession can grind mats with a gathering skill to max out their crafting professions – my rogue friend already has max LW/skinning and has enough skins to buy SIX LW patterns in TH. I’m just over 500 enchanting and about 510 tailoring, on the other hand. Super annoying!
And a tip on leveling your priest – the Mind Spike x 3, Mind Blast, Shadow Word Death combination is killer. Feels like being an arcane mage, but it gets things done MUCH faster than dotting things up and Mind Flay – I didn’t figure this out until I was 85, though, sadly.
I defiantly feel the pain in tailoring as well. I hit 85 on my Shadow Priest Saturday night and started/maxed out my Enchanting the next day. Though I had to purchase some mats from the AH for this it is not nearly as much as it will take to finish off my tailoring.
I think I will run my Boomkin and Rogue through a few zones to supplement my inventory first but I agree the drop rates are abysmal and need to be adjusted. Great site BTW and keep up the good work!
I wish I had more time too! I’m skipping out on the dailies on most of my toons which is unlike me — but they would totally take up most of my nightly playtime across the two servers.
I’m glad I built up a small nest egg prior to the expansion — so far I have spent a ton of it on tailoring leveling. Oy!
Once we made it to Twilight Highlands I was receiving more not needed quest rewards to DE. Will definitely make sure I do all the Uldum and TH quests just for the DEables.
Thanks! It’s great to have new folks stopping by.