After shipping players off to a new continent and even an entirely different planet over the last couple of years, Blizzard has gone full steam ahead with the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion, which brings the world's most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game back to its roots. And then it takes those roots, grinds them up, and serves players an entirely fresh experience in the world of Azeroth. Join GameSpy columnist and WoW-head Leif Johnson as he travels through this whole new world (of Warcraft), exploring new zones, beating new dungeons, and enjoying what may turn out to be the happy medium to unite diehards and casual gamers alike.
Blizzard Be Trollin'
World of Warcraft has long been known for its trolls, and not just those who prowl the community forums. I can't say I've really ever had a strong affection for the blue-skinned brutes myself (although I find myself mimicking their faux-Jamaican platitudes as often as the next guy), but their tendency to pop up in the most unlikely places throughout Azeroth proves that they occupy a special place in the hearts of the folks over at Blizzard. Little wonder, then, that they're the subject of Cataclysm's upcoming major content patch, which features the trollish raid instances of Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman redesigned as five-man heroic dungeons. Having slogged my way through both during their glory days in the original World of Warcraft and the Burning Crusade expansion, I couldn't wait to hop onto the public test server to see how they fared in this brave new world.
I can't say I wasn't skeptical. The Cataclysm expansion looks more and more like a World of Warcraft "greatest hits" compilation as the months go by, with reworked favorites from yesteryear unabashedly appearing as "new" content. First was the world itself, successfully redesigned to seem as fresh, as it if were only recently released -- and then came the retooling of the wildly popular Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep instances into level 85 heroic encounters. Ragnaros, the first major WoW raid boss, makes a memorable appearance in a quest around level 81, and other former bosses like the dragons Nefarian and Onyxia wormed their way into the game's current endgame raid content. Considering the recent strong showing by Rift and the looming threats of Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic, I occasionally wonder if such releases mean that Blizzard's development team is simply getting lazy.
But, thankfully, I couldn't help myself from getting swept up in the excitement once I entered the reworked version of Zul'Gurub. The original version first appeared in late 2005 as WoW's first 20-man raid dungeon, and I spent countless hours inside, amassing reputation points to gain access to at least one alchemy recipe that a handful of players still find useful. It was always one of the game's better instances, and the thoughtful boss encounters and lush jungle setting burned such fond memories into players that it resulted in a fairly massive outcry when Blizzard announced Zul'Gurub's "removal" from Cataclysm. But this new version feels refreshingly different. In one corridor, you need to run through a poison gas cloud while carrying a timed shield to protect against its effects; in another, you have to dodge rolling boulders Indiana Jones-style, while running up to the hulking troll who throws them. Almost every move requires caution, and every boss fight requires cooperation. Only the map remains the same.
Put simply, these are less five-man heroic dungeons than raid instances for the little man. Unlike the rare-quality armor and weapons that drop in Cataclysm's current five-man dungeons, Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman's drops consist of epic-quality items that more casual players could never acquire without dedicating themselves to a raiding guild. Having only my guild leader from the live servers for assistance, I joined up with three comparatively undergeared random players so I could see how the average Joe would experience the encounters in Zul'Gurub; I'm pleased to say that it was both easier and harder than I expected.
The first boss caused a glowing maze of deadly poison to snake across the room while tossing bolts of the same at random players, and the resulting damage was such that one of the groups I was in abandoned the fight altogether. Another -- well-known for a raptor mount that used to drop from it in the old version -- could only be beaten by protecting a limited number of spirits that would resurrect us after we inevitably fell beneath the boss's blade. But the other bosses were easier. One, for instance, periodically chased a specific player for a short amount of time, but quickly turned its attention back to the tank a few seconds later. All in all, my inexperienced and often inept group spent around three hours in Zul'Gurub without ever reaching the final boss. Even so, we progressed much further than I thought we would, considering our laughable composition, which is good news for more organized casual players who claim that Cataclysm keeps them from endgame content.
Zul'Aman, unfortunately, leaves a much weaker impression. Even though the difficulty level is about the same as Zul'Gurub, it's all too clear that little has changed from the version that first appeared toward the end of The Burning Crusade expansion. Indeed, my group for this instance was arguably weaker than the one I joined for Zul'Gurub (our tank insisted on playing in partial chain mail armor at one point), but we managed to complete it largely by implementing the strategies for the original 10-man raid instance. Nothing felt new; I occasionally felt like I was rerunning an outdated raid instance merely for the sake of achievement points. In one horrific moment, I found myself yawning. This might be fine for players who never had the pleasure of completing Zul'Aman three years ago, but it feels a little too familiar for the millions of players who've been through this before.
I won't deny it: I love both of the new instances. Zul'Gurub provides surprises around every corner, and Zul'Aman is as entertaining as it ever was. Even so, I can't help but feel that World of Warcraft is rapidly losing its all-important element of fantastical discovery with each new release of recycled content, regardless of how extensively redesigned that content may be. It's quite possible that Blizzard honestly believes that they have nothing to fear from Rift, Guild Wars 2, or any of the other titles being tossed about in the MMO community today, but this is nevertheless a poor time to reiterate how awesome they were when so many gruff competitors are all-too-willing to leave Blizzard's trolls under the bridge. You've done a good job here, Blizzard, but it's time for something new.
Leif Johnson is a trained medieval historian, ex-cowboy (really), and recovering academic who left his graduate studies at the University of Chicago to get a real job—and now he writes about video games for a living. A devotee of World of Warcraft since launch day in 2004, Leif is also a former longtime member of the early world-class raiding guild Risen. Visit his blog at JeremiahLeifJohnson.com.