I think it became clear - Cataclysm is NOT retail!

WoW Classic Mists of Pandaria Classic Discussion
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Well… a whole day has passed, I successfully leveled through the Worgen experience and I’m currently doing the Goblin experience. After these hours of playing, I’m convinced that Cataclysm isn’t retail. It’s very, very far from modern retail.

The first thing that surprised me is that quests follow the classic philosophy of First comes, first served, instead of the retail one - whoever hits the mob gets the credit. A lot of players stole my stuff during leveling. There’s competition for things - just like in Classic.

The other thing that surprised me is that I found the quests hard. On retail, I could level to 60 and even to max level without dying even once. The quests on Cata are grindy, and I died a couple of times.

I am frankly surprised by this! But I don’t think I’ll call Cataclysm retail anymore.

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People who say/said Cata is basically retail don’t play the game and just hateful people with nothing better to do.

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I also think there’s more to this - 14 years have passed since original Cataclysm and there’s difference between what people remember it was compared to what it really was.

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I would go as far to say as it’s “Pretail”

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the reason classic lovers hate cata, because it took first giant step towards retail casual gaming, but no it is still not retail, cata \ mop is somewhat in the middle of classic and retail, “not too casual” ___ “not too difficult and slow where every step is meaningful”.

Cata basically turned into expansion where you fly everywhere, where you just dungeon spam instead of leveling in the world etc
But you still can explore and die, you still dont oneshot mobs while leveling with 10 NPC helping you, you still die and run from graveyard that is not 2 steps away.

But I understand why its not classic to people, it really is not, but it is far from retail either

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That’s an interesting way to put it :slight_smile:

I’d have to say - I’m pleasantly surprised. I did suppose I may enjoy Cataclysm, but the prepatch confirms this. Looks like I’ll have fun in the game.

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Cata has its problems, but you need to remember that people started cata with a ton of burnout from the endless ICC grind in wrath.

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There were a lot of factors that influenced the perception of Cataclysm. First, as you say, the post-ICC burnout. Second, the huge expectations of the revamped zones and many people didn’t like them (especially Alliance-side). Third, this is when the orc fatigue began - even Alliance players were forced to stick around Thrall.

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Obviously a game that released in 2010 is not the same as one being actively developed in 2024. But Cata IS a massive departure from prior versions, due to many overhauls and changes within the game, many of which formed the basis of the current game.

Cata is a messy halfway point between.

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There is an echo chamber when it comes to the loudest minority.

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I wouldn’t call retail casual. The endgame is disgustingly sweaty compared to any classic expansion so far.

Honestly cata is way less casual than wotlk too with it’s raid and dungeon difficulty.

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I don’t care what Cataclysm is.

I will still be playing it.

And MOP too. Heck, even WOD since I didn’t played them back in the days.

But at the end of the day, what I really want, is Legion. I hope and I am pretty sure, that there is where the “Classic” will end, because afterwards, we have 3 the worst expansions ever … in a row : BfA, Shadowlands and …CuteLittleDragons.

So yea. Bring every expansion until Legion and keep Legion servers ala Classic and we gucci, because frankly, Legion is by far, the best expansion ever, along with Wotlk. I loved Wotlk but … I think Legion has a step or two, in front of Wotlk.

So yea, everything else beside BfA, Shadowlands and Dragons, is …Classic ( more or less ).

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It seems most people only hate it because someone else told them to hate it.

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Dungeon spam has been a thing since vanilla… Blizzard even had to nerf the way you could mob grind in dungeons. If anything, Cata made the questing in open world faster and a decent option compared to dungeon spamming, which IS the fastest way to level in vanilla,tbc and wrath.

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or you know? maybe it was just bad

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From my experience, people don’t like it because of the revamp. It took everything they knew from the old world and changed it. For me, this was great because I prefer to have a bit of hand holding and I felt I could actually complete zones before moving on.

It’s classic in that it is the (mostly) original version of the expansion with how the gameplay was and being able to experience everything as current content. Perhaps it needs a different name but what’s in a name?

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I’ll try’d it, it’s trash. Not going to renew my sub, guess time to go back to private servers.

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so in which expansion they ruined game? mop or later?

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what a life to look forward too, hard core fanboy until you die

I hope nursing homes have good internet for all the OAP gamers in a few years, spending their pensions playing wow lol

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I’m going to be straight with you. Dragonflight is better than Cataclysm, not in the theme or the storytelling, but the game is just better designed with better features, much better catering to casuals and hardcores, the class design is much better, talent trees are much better. Cata was the original “this expansion ruined the game”.

And Legion, for all the good stuff, the artifacts and the story, it’s the most grindy and RNG expansion of them all. Titanforging, RNG legendaries with a 4 cap, endless AP farming individual to each spec, M+ invalidating raiding and M+ farming being king for titanforging + AP gains.

Legion had massive problems, unless they overhaul many aspects of it I wouldn’t wanna play it again, who has that much time? Legion AP farming killed my guild, people had jobs and wanted to raid-log like pre Legion, which made them worthless for raiding due to lack of AP farming.

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