Wod.....Woooood.... nope sorry never heard of it, you must be thinking of that alternate universe where an expansion called wod came out and slaughtered the subscriber count then fluttered off with a low key "haHAA"
When they revamped the Old World, they didn't revamp the Azuremyst Isles and Quel'thalas. As a blood elf lore fan, I was kinda salty about it for a long time because a lot of changes had happened with the blood elves and draenei after the Burning Crusade and their starting zones were in need of an overhaul. I've been talking about it in the forums, but most people thought it would either be a waste of development time or they were worried a revamp would ruin those zones like what happened to the Thousand Needles. Legion would have been the perfect time to it, but the closest thing we got was the Light's Heart quest in the Exodar. Now I doubt it will ever happen, unless the N'zoth expansion involves another Cataclysm.
you all probably dont care but does any of you know a tool to log back into an Instagram account? I stupidly lost the account password. I would love any help you can offer me
@Conor Christopher Thanks so much for your reply. I found the site on google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
The concept for the Path of the Titans seems to have evolved into the system introduced with Artifact Weapons, Artifact Research and how that system progresses as you continue on in Legion end-game, even after hitting the level cap.
Bellular, thank you for continuing with what Hayven did, showed us cut content etc. we need this kind of videos since Hayven passed away. Let the Hayven legacy continue.
I have a theory about Cataclysm's original design: The original leveling process design would have us end up in Deepholm, not Twilight Highlands. Numerous hints at this speculation's accuracy lie in the following: 1. Quest rewards' artwork are all themed to the zone in which they were given. The weapon rewards for the Crucible of Carnage quest-chain that was brought back in Cata (based on BC's Circle of Blood and Wrath's Amphitheatre of Anguish) are all themed around Deepholm's aesthetic; rocks, Earthen, crystals, and the hint of Twilight Cult twisted metal. Likewise, the art for the rewards from quests in Deepholm all seem to come from Twilight Highlands; loads of twisted metal, deep purples and blacks, and seemingly fanged or menacing profiles portrayed on armor. 2. The cinematic introduction to the zone make use of mere transport vessels, not the Alliance and Horde's best: The airships. In Deepholm, however, are taken into the Maelstrom and suffer calamity when reaching Deepholm. Whether the animatic for Deepholm wasn't as compelling as the one for Twilight Highlands or the devs had a better chain up for Twilight Highlands than Deepholm, we may never know. What might have been the deciding factor, however, is how repetitive it might have felt to players from Wrath: Go through the zones, then experience the floating fortresses in the last leveling area all over again. 3. If Firelands was to be released at launch, with the Abyssal Maw bringing up the vanguard as a content patch, we very well might have been on-track to going into Deepholm to stop the force closest to Deathwing (he *was* the Aspect of Earth) and playing the part of the mortals tricked into killing the only forces on Azeroth that once kept the Old Gods at bay: The Elementals. Which would then have us step up to the plate to fight off N'Zoth and his cronies as the expansion's climax. With the development of the Firelands taking a lot longer than they had planned and fitting more as a post-Skywall raid than the Abyssal Maw, the decision to alter the expansion's flow might have been made shortly after the expansion reveal. If my speculation above is accurate, it would seem like the original intent of the expansion was to broaden its appeal to players: Make an expansion about addressing the elements (a common theme in fantasy), then hook players into caring about the game world itself; with constant reminder that the world as it is now is not as it was throughout the leveling experience, wonder and mystery set in and encourage the player to keep on playing, to explore it all. Perhaps Blizzard wanted to take a step back and focus more on the longevity of their brand than filling the content quota for an expansion, and so had to make some sacrifices when it came to delivering to players what they expected. Anywho, thought this was a fun thing to share. Love the videos, @BellularGaming.
Yeah, that's why I felt so sad watching this! He was my favorite CZcamsr and I did a presentation at the end of the school year in his honor. I miss his videos.
I really hope Gilneas gets some love in the future, it's such a nice zone just to stay empty. Hell, maybe bring back the BG idea since Greymane and Sylvanas are having some serious bants.
I recently leveled a character through all the expansions for Loremaster, doing every quest in every zone as well as running every dungeon and raid along the way. Cataclysm is definitely the weakest link - the expansion has barely any real identity. The 80-85 zones are scattered all over the world, and you spend a lot of time teleporting from place to place, giving the whole experience a jarring and segmented feel. Personally, the only parts of Cataclysm that really grabbed my attention were the Elemental Planes. Vortex Pinnacle and Throne of the Four Winds had amazing atmosphere and aesthetics, and Firelands was my favorite raid of the expansion. Vashj'ir and Deepholm were my favorite zones because of how new and different they were - the other three zones were simply more of the Azeroth we already knew, and felt kind of bolted-on in an uninspired way. Throne of the Tides was our only peek into the Abyssal Maw and had some potential, but I find the layout of the dungeon extremely uninspired - a couple hallways ending in boss rooms and an elevator going up to another hallway ending in a boss room. Always felt like Stockades But Underwater to me. I've always felt as though Cataclysm would have been better as an expansion that added the Elemental Planes as a new 'continent' - have the Firelands, Abyssal Maw, Deepholm, and Skywall as full-fledged zones with the fifth zone being in the center of it all as a nexus for a four-way war between the elements. It would have resulted in a more focused expansion with more opportunities for a cohesive overarching story. But that's none of my business. (insert kermit the frog sipping his lipton tea here)
I never understood the whole "scattered all over the world" argument. Did people even play Vanilla? You had to jump all over. When they went the other way because of the vocal minority, they created MoP's main flaw which was how similar all the zones were.
AkiRa22084 But in Vanilla you traveled from zone to zone instead of constantly teleporting around, which destroyed any sense of cohesion the zones might have had.
as someone who did all the expacs in one run, could you compare them for me? i'm curious what your opinions on each are. obviously its not the true feel of each expac as each one has brought changes, but still.
Cata's issue is that most of the new contents were the revamped 1-60 zones. Its something a lot of people complained about, but its necessary. The old zones sucked, and each expansion reduced the exp you need to go 1-60, but there's the issue of quests sending you all over the world, a quest in Booty Bay would have you run randomly to Hillsbarad to mine a quest item in a random cave, etc....
Blizzard were trying to get people travelling over Azeroth again, rather than a new zone like the other expansions, but it didn't work too well. I quite liked it though. Especially randomly dying from Deathwing..... except when I was next to some npcs that blamed me for their deaths (even though I was dead too) and took away a lot of rep...... and Magni dying...... but he's ok now so it's fine. ^^
Cata was Blizz taking a risk Unfortunately so many people complained that I feel it sorta broke them so they started doing these By the numbers 1 raid at a time cookie cutter expansion plans
Releasing new raids more often is way better than releasing lots of raids at once. It makes the game feel fresh and like there's always new content to do, which is way better than getting exhausted having to farm 3 raids in a week.
i think its safe to say that if we face the old gods in the next expansion, as many ppl are speculating, we might use the Path of the Titans to assist us against the new Black Empire
I started at Cataclysm, needless to say this video makes me wanna go back in time and play Cata ( and MoP because of the little part you talked about it, yes i said i missed MoP, it was actually the expension i had the most fun to play )
I mean i was really younger ( i started at cata so i was maybe like 11 ) i had time to play after school a lot lmao, leveling in MoP was sooo fun the zones were beautifull, im thinking to join a private server for Cata or MoP, cause i stopped playing a bit before the Nighthold release, Legion is extremely fun ( way more then WoD lol.. ) but i just don't have the time, there's a shitload of thing to do and i have a job so i can't play as much as before so i can't follow up
Perhaps a unpopulair opinion, but I thought Cataclysm was actually very good. The conclusion of the expansion felt weak and rushed, I agree on that, but the raids and the dungeons were straight on point. The difficulty was amazing, the additon of the Troll dungeons were fantastic and the raids never bored me at any point, especially Firelands (which I still love to this day). The only problem that was present was the lack of end-game. I thought the dungeons, raids, Tol Barad and the very enjoyable PvP made up for that quiet a bit. But overall the feeling of leveling a new character or continuing a high level one felt satisfying and refreshing. Loved the changes (and some less) and enjoyed the game a lot overall, especially PvP.
Could you start putting links in the descriptions to things you reference in the video? For instance, in this video - the dungeons&raids blizzcon talk you referred to and (especially) the Cataclysm developer retrospectives.
Cataclysm should pretty much have been the best expansion and ended up being ripped into small pieces that don't really make sense together... Really sad about this. I'd imagine in the last raid, Deathwing impaling himself and N'Zoth showing up which we would have to deal with. Would have been an excellent plot twist, Nozdormu reminding us of the dungeon reality.
This explains why I liked Cata so much more than most people: they did all their work for levelling and questing, and then cut all the end-game content. I started playing during Wrath, and was still leveling alts all throughout Cata, so I only saw all the work they did and not everything they didn't.
Love, love, love these cut content retrospectives. You always seem to come into the game with an extra tidbit or piece of conjecture that ties things together, love the analysis. It did seem a bit quiet to me, too, though. Not sure why. But I'm sinceriously looking forward to your next offerings, can't wait! Thank you!
The problem is, no matter what Blizzard puts into the game, people will get bored and complain a few months later that it's the "worst ever". They would need to have major content patches every other month with almost a complete expansion worth of new stuff for the A.D.D generation to stay content.
Can you imagine how great Cataclysm would have been if they didn't rework the old leveling zones and just focused on actual expansion content? Also, Halls of Origination was originally meant to be a raid. They have been reducing raids to 5-man's since WoTLK when they feel they don't have enough 5-man's in an expansion. Examples of this are Utgarde Pinnacle, Halls of Origination, Mogu'shan Palace and Shadowmoon Burial Grounds. Not sure about Legion.
Dang... the scope of Cata would have been massive. It's always really sad seeing all these things get cut. And you know your idea for what the raid tiers would have looked like makes a lot more sense. Not sure where Abyssal Maw would have fit into it though. Maybe Maw/WotA then DS and then some N'zoth stuff? Possibly part of the reason DS lastest so long as well. Usually seems like some important raid tier getting cut is what causes the content drought at the end.
Hey mate, the sound level of your latest videos are a bit low I believe. I'm having a hard time hearing unless I completely turn the voice on all the way. No idea why though
Dont know if you noticed but Deathwings Human form was not cut from the live game.. It made it to the quest in blasted lands with the human, orc and gnome bragging about how they beat Deathwing in questionable scenarios...
Cata wasn't what Wrath was in terms of enjoyment for me, but I really enjoyed what it was trying to do. I agree that the story wasn't fully there. Now if it had had major character deaths like I'm seeing in Legion...that may have really made me invested.
They really need to turn glyphs into a more visual thing. Like choosing the colour of your fire as a mage for example or turning all your warrior spell effects into thunder or fire.
the problem with Cata was they touched zones that should have been left alone. Winterspring had a few quests added and the music re-done. Nobody complained about how it was. Then they removed a lot of content from some hubs. A lot of it was just meh. The humorous quests, though, was a nice touch.
two things that you missed that I remember very very clearly, Queen Azshara was suppose to be the supporting villain with Deathwing, she was even announced and shown on the cataclysm site, and was later removed when her entire half of the game was cut (IE Abyssal Maw raid) I do not believe it was cut due to not feeling right, it was cut because they took out the main villain and was saving her for later, They even showed her briefly in Darkshore and then never seen again, I think they left this quest in by mistake, because later in Legion, they make it seem like you have never seen her before, There was also a brand new zone that was just south of Stormwind which was called Deathwing's Scar, it is where is bursted out of Deepholm and caused the cataclysm, you can see it in the cinematic, the zone was filled with floating stones where and a mix of all the elements, as deepholm was starting to merge back with Azeroth, this also acted as the entrence to Deepholm, this entire zone was cut because they didn't want Horde to have a hub too close to Stormwind.
Cataclysm is still the most ambitious expansion. How about a video series on "The 'Worlds of Warcraft' that Never Was" series or playlist that focuses on scrapped content and how it would have changed the game had it been implemented?
If this was added i would enjoyed more when i began wow back at cataclysm. What i wish they did was to show that Deathwing was not always a bad guy in the game. LIke let us hear stories about how he was as an earth wader and how he was important to the flight. Also i would really happy to see a design by blizzard a true model of him before corrupted.
there is one time we see deathwing in human form, during the quest were the drunken guys talk about him and you punch him inthe face, that is the only place sadly since the other quest (one you mention in the video) was removed
@@loganreed9340 that human model is a generic one that is used as deathwing is not corrupted yet, we only get to see his actual model made for him in the one punch in the face quest.
9:12 Well that actually wasn’t what the intent was. They came out before the expansion and said “this boss isn’t going to be hiding in some castle, you’re going to see him in the world” because of when he burns a zone. They wanted Deathwing to be more in your face. They just fucked it up.
The idea to change the level zone quest was cool, but now it needs to change again ... Because when I read "omg Deathwings have just attack !" I'm like, meh ...
Wait wait wait, the End time dungeon isn't what would happen if Deathwing won, well kinda, but Old Gods didn't force Deathwing to impale himself, it was Murozond that killed him, Murozond himself says that this outcome is a blessing and that we as players are blind to see how great that outcome was. It's more what if deathwing succedeed and Murozond and infinite dragonflight would take over the world.
I don't understand where the dislikes are coming from... Almost all of your videos has an unusual amount of dislikes for these types of videos, and I find it surprising. Keep up the good work, I'm always eager to watch your next upload!
If Blizz would have made a sort of "invasion point" for Deathwing I think it would have fixed his lack of presence during the expansions. Imagine Deathwing flying around at different points of the map and his minions attacking on the ground. It would have been great witht the revamped map.
I wish they didn't revamp old zones so they could've focused on the abyssal maw/nzoth story/battle for gilneas ideas. IMO those sound like way cooler ways to define an expansion and would've probably made you look back at cata in a better light... I remember seeing that giant shell thing in vashjir and (from an art perspective) thinking WTF? It is so high detail and high resolution, it is giant, the artists obviously spent a LOT of time on this, but there's no relevant content in there... WHAT??? and finding out about the scrapped raid makes it make more sense. I also think backlash from changing old zones is why blizz have tried to not go back and change existing content, and instead stick to adding new content (which is what they do best). MORE RAMBLING:I mean, I remember watching the trailer when it came out... cool effects of water destroying thousands needles and barrens being shaken apart is awesome to watch. Blizz cinematics are ALWAYS a treat no matter what theyre showING- but some ideas are better for storytelling than gameplay..... I used to go back to those zones quite regularly for alts and only played the cata content once because it just wasn't the same going through a flooded thousand needles ... I know their intentions were good but I guess they know where they went. I think the revamp happened too early for a games lifespan. They thought ppl would get bored going through old content after 7ish years JUST as they added the dungeon finder!! No developer likes to feel their time wasted if ppl are sitting in a major city queing for dungeons on their alts, instead of levelling manually. Really bad timing on that too!! I remember when they added it, it was the most efficient decision and such a godsend. Instead of waiting 1hr+ on my lvl 62 dk to get a group for BF, I got it in 10 mins. Obviously we know where that went too... it's amazing how they were experimenting with all this new stuff which hurt the game in a way :s I think they tried to make it work in mop, lost it a lil in wod, and are starting to finally pick up the peices only now in legion.
MichieMouse1 they needed to revamp the old zones simply because the quest lines primarily were really not up to a standard of a 2010 game. The leveling through some of the zones was not optimized not allowing to reach a certain level before moving on to the next etc. new players coming in want to be able to quest at the 2010 game, not 2004 (actually old zones were designed for the most part around 2002..). Apart from all that I don't get what you mean with thousand needles. I've leveled through the original version 2 times, through cats versions 4 times now. The revamp is amazing. The storyline super concise and engaging. The quest are not dull and repetitive. If you haven't yet honestly give it a try, you'll be surprised
Glyph going away really peeved me. It was a way to give a sword combat rogue some personality even if it was a cookie cutter specc. If the Path of Titans was going to expand on it, it was a major miss as far as development went. Basic, advanced and master level glyph's based on what you find from archaeology would have been a great mechanic to pull high levels back down into the lower level zones.
I do wish rather then make the new zones scattered across the old world, the Elemental Plane was the new continent. with Deepholm, Skywall, Firelands, Abysmal Maw and Frostland levelling zones. Since this would leave a large amount of missing zones use Hyjal in a patch. The region that was expanded into the Twilight Highlands could have been included in the wetlands. Uldum could have been heavily reduced region size wise and server as end game zone.
To cut path of the titans out was a stupid mistake. Path of the titan was intended to counter the dumbing down of the skilltree. But I've to admit, it got much, much worse since then. No Glyphs, worthless professions, no skilltree, less skills and almost no character progression. I really liked optimizing my character and getting a little bit stronger. I liked having some almost useless skills and filling a niche in a dungeon or raid. I also liked not going out of mana after years of raiding and stacking INT or MP5. It felt like an achievement. I would love to see the same kind of complexity of BC or at least WotLK back in the game. World of Warcraft got better as a game after every expansion but talking out character progression and class specialisation was a huge mistake.
The reasoning for cutting Abyss Maw being the reuse of assets seems really odd when compared to the actual release of Dragon Soul which was dominated by reused assets.
Of course, the real reason why they cut the Abyss Maw was the fact that general public hated Vashj'ir. Blizzard took a safe bet and decided to scrap what was already done.
I was done with WoW half way through Cata. So much cut stuff and weird direction taking. The leveling and dungeons were better than the end-game, which is rare in WoW. Also, for whatever reason, people were predicting the Deathwing encounter left and right. I don't know if it was leaked or what, but I knew we were gonna fight on his body, which for whatever reason made me not care about the fight.
Love the video man, but the text was just too fast, had to stop the video to read it. And the transition from one point to another was also fast and maybe a lil bit louder so it kinda gave me some jump scares. But besides that thank you again for a informative and high quality video as always. Have a nice day.
i personally loved cata. still do. THERE is pros and cons for every expansion and i hate when one part gets neglected and not others but ...i cant do anything about it
If blizzard makes another remake of the old world it should be done in more smaller patches spread out over time. Not sure how that would be implemented ,but something with the bronze dragons could work.
I'm so happy that you made the connection between the Path of the Titans and the current Artifacts we have in Legion. Watching this video and looking back in retrospect, I'm really glad that Blizzard never really scrapped the idea, they only modified it to what we have today. I think it's really cool to see where they go with all the brainstorming that initially happens and where we leave off with it.
Cata 4.1 patch - The die WoW started Declining. Why? It gave us 2 5 mans ZA / ZG instead of firelands which was delayed. That showed a new approach. Also I freaking did however love firelands...HC ragnaros was 10/10
Hey Bellular, I was wondering if you had any ideas of creating some video guides for classes/spec at the top level. Like maybe you could find some really good players of each spec in game and and make a 1 stop shop for players looking to improve their own gameplay.
it sucks that a lot of people hated cata due to the immense changes they made, the quality of gameplay was so much better in cata/mop than the rest of the expansions...even legion
I hoped you would talk more about specific zones and the way they were changed mid production. Also Silithus story is a thing, quite big thing taking we could possibly still get aqir n cthun stuff in old god expansion.
Isn't Deathwing's human form already in the game? I vividly recall punching him in the face while questing in the Blasted Lands. After taking a look, it looks like he shows up in 'The Day that Deathwing Came'. Point #5 seems a tad pointless.
Hey Bellular! Loving these vids keeping me in the loop on retail wow. I noticed you did content cut from vanilla, wrath, and CATA. Is there a TBC vid in the makes?
All I can think of when watching this is how Cataclysm could have been so special had they paced themselves better and known their limitations. What a waste. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been WOD.
These would have been awesome! I wish that the titan path was a thing as Blizzard could create a long content chain for us and have us maybe even going back to old zones of Azeroth to discover more and utilise the world itself! This could fit in nicely too with a whole rework and update of Azeroth for the expansion instead of creating new zones/maps for us to play in.
they should do an expansion every 3-4 years (or same time like the elder scroll titles), 2 years is actually very less time to play, specially if they patch out stuff after an expansion
Damn... this sounds a lot like the stuff we have in legion now. I'm kind of surprised how long they must have been working on artifact system of sorts.
Prepare to have an hour long video for the Cut content of Wod
That isn't enough, 2 hours at least. :D
wod content?
What content? haha
what is is wod?
vanilla,tbc,wotlk,cata,MOP and legion.
David Boggs "patch" 6.1.....SELFIES AND TWITTER!
Wod.....Woooood....
nope sorry never heard of it, you must be thinking of that alternate universe where an expansion called wod came out and slaughtered the subscriber count then fluttered off with a low key "haHAA"
When they revamped the Old World, they didn't revamp the Azuremyst Isles and Quel'thalas. As a blood elf lore fan, I was kinda salty about it for a long time because a lot of changes had happened with the blood elves and draenei after the Burning Crusade and their starting zones were in need of an overhaul. I've been talking about it in the forums, but most people thought it would either be a waste of development time or they were worried a revamp would ruin those zones like what happened to the Thousand Needles. Legion would have been the perfect time to it, but the closest thing we got was the Light's Heart quest in the Exodar. Now I doubt it will ever happen, unless the N'zoth expansion involves another Cataclysm.
you all probably dont care but does any of you know a tool to log back into an Instagram account?
I stupidly lost the account password. I would love any help you can offer me
@Orion Malik instablaster :)
@Conor Christopher Thanks so much for your reply. I found the site on google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now.
Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
@Conor Christopher it did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. I'm so happy!
Thank you so much you saved my ass !
@Orion Malik you are welcome xD
Just think Cata content has been around longer than the stuff it replaced
The concept for the Path of the Titans seems to have evolved into the system introduced with Artifact Weapons, Artifact Research and how that system progresses as you continue on in Legion end-game, even after hitting the level cap.
Bellular, thank you for continuing with what Hayven did, showed us cut content etc. we need this kind of videos since Hayven passed away. Let the Hayven legacy continue.
I dont know about what was lost from Uldum but im glad they had what they did... it was my favorite zone to quest through
I have a theory about Cataclysm's original design:
The original leveling process design would have us end up in Deepholm, not Twilight Highlands.
Numerous hints at this speculation's accuracy lie in the following:
1. Quest rewards' artwork are all themed to the zone in which they were given. The weapon rewards for the Crucible of Carnage quest-chain that was brought back in Cata (based on BC's Circle of Blood and Wrath's Amphitheatre of Anguish) are all themed around Deepholm's aesthetic; rocks, Earthen, crystals, and the hint of Twilight Cult twisted metal. Likewise, the art for the rewards from quests in Deepholm all seem to come from Twilight Highlands; loads of twisted metal, deep purples and blacks, and seemingly fanged or menacing profiles portrayed on armor.
2. The cinematic introduction to the zone make use of mere transport vessels, not the Alliance and Horde's best: The airships. In Deepholm, however, are taken into the Maelstrom and suffer calamity when reaching Deepholm. Whether the animatic for Deepholm wasn't as compelling as the one for Twilight Highlands or the devs had a better chain up for Twilight Highlands than Deepholm, we may never know. What might have been the deciding factor, however, is how repetitive it might have felt to players from Wrath: Go through the zones, then experience the floating fortresses in the last leveling area all over again.
3. If Firelands was to be released at launch, with the Abyssal Maw bringing up the vanguard as a content patch, we very well might have been on-track to going into Deepholm to stop the force closest to Deathwing (he *was* the Aspect of Earth) and playing the part of the mortals tricked into killing the only forces on Azeroth that once kept the Old Gods at bay: The Elementals. Which would then have us step up to the plate to fight off N'Zoth and his cronies as the expansion's climax. With the development of the Firelands taking a lot longer than they had planned and fitting more as a post-Skywall raid than the Abyssal Maw, the decision to alter the expansion's flow might have been made shortly after the expansion reveal.
If my speculation above is accurate, it would seem like the original intent of the expansion was to broaden its appeal to players: Make an expansion about addressing the elements (a common theme in fantasy), then hook players into caring about the game world itself; with constant reminder that the world as it is now is not as it was throughout the leveling experience, wonder and mystery set in and encourage the player to keep on playing, to explore it all. Perhaps Blizzard wanted to take a step back and focus more on the longevity of their brand than filling the content quota for an expansion, and so had to make some sacrifices when it came to delivering to players what they expected.
Anywho, thought this was a fun thing to share. Love the videos, @BellularGaming.
These videos makes me think about Hayven... 😢
Tbh his death is probs why he's making these.
It doesn't feel the same :-(
Yeah, that's why I felt so sad watching this! He was my favorite CZcamsr and I did a presentation at the end of the school year in his honor. I miss his videos.
You are awesome, man! I would do the same, but I don't have the opportunity.
I really hope Gilneas gets some love in the future, it's such a nice zone just to stay empty. Hell, maybe bring back the BG idea since Greymane and Sylvanas are having some serious bants.
I recently leveled a character through all the expansions for Loremaster, doing every quest in every zone as well as running every dungeon and raid along the way. Cataclysm is definitely the weakest link - the expansion has barely any real identity. The 80-85 zones are scattered all over the world, and you spend a lot of time teleporting from place to place, giving the whole experience a jarring and segmented feel.
Personally, the only parts of Cataclysm that really grabbed my attention were the Elemental Planes. Vortex Pinnacle and Throne of the Four Winds had amazing atmosphere and aesthetics, and Firelands was my favorite raid of the expansion. Vashj'ir and Deepholm were my favorite zones because of how new and different they were - the other three zones were simply more of the Azeroth we already knew, and felt kind of bolted-on in an uninspired way. Throne of the Tides was our only peek into the Abyssal Maw and had some potential, but I find the layout of the dungeon extremely uninspired - a couple hallways ending in boss rooms and an elevator going up to another hallway ending in a boss room. Always felt like Stockades But Underwater to me.
I've always felt as though Cataclysm would have been better as an expansion that added the Elemental Planes as a new 'continent' - have the Firelands, Abyssal Maw, Deepholm, and Skywall as full-fledged zones with the fifth zone being in the center of it all as a nexus for a four-way war between the elements. It would have resulted in a more focused expansion with more opportunities for a cohesive overarching story. But that's none of my business. (insert kermit the frog sipping his lipton tea here)
I never understood the whole "scattered all over the world" argument. Did people even play Vanilla? You had to jump all over.
When they went the other way because of the vocal minority, they created MoP's main flaw which was how similar all the zones were.
AkiRa22084 But in Vanilla you traveled from zone to zone instead of constantly teleporting around, which destroyed any sense of cohesion the zones might have had.
as someone who did all the expacs in one run, could you compare them for me? i'm curious what your opinions on each are. obviously its not the true feel of each expac as each one has brought changes, but still.
Cata's issue is that most of the new contents were the revamped 1-60 zones. Its something a lot of people complained about, but its necessary. The old zones sucked, and each expansion reduced the exp you need to go 1-60, but there's the issue of quests sending you all over the world, a quest in Booty Bay would have you run randomly to Hillsbarad to mine a quest item in a random cave, etc....
Blizzard were trying to get people travelling over Azeroth again, rather than a new zone like the other expansions, but it didn't work too well. I quite liked it though. Especially randomly dying from Deathwing..... except when I was next to some npcs that blamed me for their deaths (even though I was dead too) and took away a lot of rep...... and Magni dying...... but he's ok now so it's fine. ^^
Cata was Blizz taking a risk Unfortunately so many people complained that I feel it sorta broke them so they started doing these By the numbers 1 raid at a time cookie cutter expansion plans
Releasing new raids more often is way better than releasing lots of raids at once. It makes the game feel fresh and like there's always new content to do, which is way better than getting exhausted having to farm 3 raids in a week.
True but it is sorta lame having everything so planned and routine in cata they tried to shake things up
i think its safe to say that if we face the old gods in the next expansion, as many ppl are speculating, we might use the Path of the Titans to assist us against the new Black Empire
and i hope we get to fight N'Zoth as well
I just need N'zoth soon. Can't wait to plant a weapon in his brains.
World of warcraft wrath of the old gods path 8.1 patch of the titans :p
Close! 2 years later no path of the Titans but we are going to have new essences, a new cloak, etc as we finally fight the old gods.
@@matsen1153 hey! you got your wish :)
I started at Cataclysm, needless to say this video makes me wanna go back in time and play Cata ( and MoP because of the little part you talked about it, yes i said i missed MoP, it was actually the expension i had the most fun to play )
Same here, i aslo started at cata and also loved mop!
i started in vanilla, skipped BC but played every other expansion and from what i have played MoP was the most fun i have had.
I wanna go back to Burning Crusade,but i don't want to kill Illidan,he's a good guy..
I mean i was really younger ( i started at cata so i was maybe like 11 ) i had time to play after school a lot lmao, leveling in MoP was sooo fun the zones were beautifull, im thinking to join a private server for Cata or MoP, cause i stopped playing a bit before the Nighthold release, Legion is extremely fun ( way more then WoD lol.. ) but i just don't have the time, there's a shitload of thing to do and i have a job so i can't play as much as before so i can't follow up
Deathwing's human form is in the live game, its in the Badlands, you do a quest where your a dwarf and you are made to "punch him in the face"
Perhaps a unpopulair opinion, but I thought Cataclysm was actually very good. The conclusion of the expansion felt weak and rushed, I agree on that, but the raids and the dungeons were straight on point. The difficulty was amazing, the additon of the Troll dungeons were fantastic and the raids never bored me at any point, especially Firelands (which I still love to this day). The only problem that was present was the lack of end-game. I thought the dungeons, raids, Tol Barad and the very enjoyable PvP made up for that quiet a bit. But overall the feeling of leveling a new character or continuing a high level one felt satisfying and refreshing. Loved the changes (and some less) and enjoyed the game a lot overall, especially PvP.
I quit the game halfway through cata in disgust and most of my irl friends i played with did the same, it was a trainwreck of an expansion
out of every expansion theme cata was my favorite. The zones were really good as well (aesthetic wise) it really is a shame it didn't work out.
Could you start putting links in the descriptions to things you reference in the video? For instance, in this video - the dungeons&raids blizzcon talk you referred to and (especially) the Cataclysm developer retrospectives.
better than your girlfriend :*
Deathwing's human form did make it into the game as part of the earlier leveling in Badlands in the quest "The Day that Deathwing Came"
Cata was great... Just imagine what they could've done with a larger team
wow cant believe you dissed the Uldum questline, was probs one the most fun in the game, a long with a beautiful zone
To me cataclysm was the best expansion and my fondest memories are from then. Because we got what we paid for.
Cataclysm should pretty much have been the best expansion and ended up being ripped into small pieces that don't really make sense together... Really sad about this. I'd imagine in the last raid, Deathwing impaling himself and N'Zoth showing up which we would have to deal with. Would have been an excellent plot twist, Nozdormu reminding us of the dungeon reality.
I recall reading somewhere that most of the Thrall stuff was going to be Horde only, with Malfurion being his Alliance counterpart.
Loved the questing in Cata (excluding Vash) felt so much much more streamlined than previous expansions.
This explains why I liked Cata so much more than most people: they did all their work for levelling and questing, and then cut all the end-game content. I started playing during Wrath, and was still leveling alts all throughout Cata, so I only saw all the work they did and not everything they didn't.
Love, love, love these cut content retrospectives. You always seem to come into the game with an extra tidbit or piece of conjecture that ties things together, love the analysis.
It did seem a bit quiet to me, too, though. Not sure why. But I'm sinceriously looking forward to your next offerings, can't wait! Thank you!
Thank you so much for sort of picking up the mantle of where Hayven left for us. As always I really enjoyed these kinds of content!
I recall the Path of the Titans being planned for WotLK, since it tied in with Glyphs which were a product of Inscription
Your quality in content has gone way up since the last time I watched you, I really like the camera in the bottom left and the editing. Great job!
The problem is, no matter what Blizzard puts into the game, people will get bored and complain a few months later that it's the "worst ever". They would need to have major content patches every other month with almost a complete expansion worth of new stuff for the A.D.D generation to stay content.
Can you imagine how great Cataclysm would have been if they didn't rework the old leveling zones and just focused on actual expansion content?
Also, Halls of Origination was originally meant to be a raid. They have been reducing raids to 5-man's since WoTLK when they feel they don't have enough 5-man's in an expansion. Examples of this are Utgarde Pinnacle, Halls of Origination, Mogu'shan Palace and Shadowmoon Burial Grounds. Not sure about Legion.
Dang... the scope of Cata would have been massive. It's always really sad seeing all these things get cut. And you know your idea for what the raid tiers would have looked like makes a lot more sense. Not sure where Abyssal Maw would have fit into it though. Maybe Maw/WotA then DS and then some N'zoth stuff? Possibly part of the reason DS lastest so long as well. Usually seems like some important raid tier getting cut is what causes the content drought at the end.
I hope Deathwings Human form, comes to Hero of the Storm :D
dusek1990 omg yassss. maybe Alex too
ultimate being the dragon form?
his ultimate is getting shot by a green jesus
Y all wouldn't want him to be in Dragon form at all times and have an ultimate be cataclysmic?
Borga will it walk?
Hey mate, the sound level of your latest videos are a bit low I believe. I'm having a hard time hearing unless I completely turn the voice on all the way. No idea why though
Can Yildiz me too
Its been like this for a long long while , either he is very soft spoken or his mic and sound records are just soft
I'm not having this issue, however, he IS a bit quieter than usual but nothing too bad
My windows volume is at 40, video volume at like 1/3, i can hear him just fine. Either you guys are deaf or have shitty hardware.
No AY lmao all other you tubers are fine and when i got from Bells vids to others have to turn them down
Dont know if you noticed but Deathwings Human form was not cut from the live game.. It made it to the quest in blasted lands with the human, orc and gnome bragging about how they beat Deathwing in questionable scenarios...
Cata wasn't what Wrath was in terms of enjoyment for me, but I really enjoyed what it was trying to do. I agree that the story wasn't fully there. Now if it had had major character deaths like I'm seeing in Legion...that may have really made me invested.
They really need to turn glyphs into a more visual thing. Like choosing the colour of your fire as a mage for example or turning all your warrior spell effects into thunder or fire.
just the word archaeology brings back nightmares of farming Zinrokh
the problem with Cata was they touched zones that should have been left alone. Winterspring had a few quests added and the music re-done. Nobody complained about how it was. Then they removed a lot of content from some hubs. A lot of it was just meh. The humorous quests, though, was a nice touch.
two things that you missed that I remember very very clearly, Queen Azshara was suppose to be the supporting villain with Deathwing, she was even announced and shown on the cataclysm site, and was later removed when her entire half of the game was cut (IE Abyssal Maw raid) I do not believe it was cut due to not feeling right, it was cut because they took out the main villain and was saving her for later, They even showed her briefly in Darkshore and then never seen again, I think they left this quest in by mistake, because later in Legion, they make it seem like you have never seen her before, There was also a brand new zone that was just south of Stormwind which was called Deathwing's Scar, it is where is bursted out of Deepholm and caused the cataclysm, you can see it in the cinematic, the zone was filled with floating stones where and a mix of all the elements, as deepholm was starting to merge back with Azeroth, this also acted as the entrence to Deepholm, this entire zone was cut because they didn't want Horde to have a hub too close to Stormwind.
Cataclysm is still the most ambitious expansion. How about a video series on "The 'Worlds of Warcraft' that Never Was" series or playlist that focuses on scrapped content and how it would have changed the game had it been implemented?
If this was added i would enjoyed more when i began wow back at cataclysm. What i wish they did was to show that Deathwing was not always a bad guy in the game. LIke let us hear stories about how he was as an earth wader and how he was important to the flight. Also i would really happy to see a design by blizzard a true model of him before corrupted.
there is one time we see deathwing in human form, during the quest were the drunken guys talk about him and you punch him inthe face, that is the only place sadly since the other quest (one you mention in the video) was removed
You can see Deathwing's human form in the Ulduar during the visions phase of Yogg-Saron
@@loganreed9340 that human model is a generic one that is used as deathwing is not corrupted yet, we only get to see his actual model made for him in the one punch in the face quest.
I don't know if you can choose it or if CZcams does it randomly, but putting an ad less than 2 minutes into the video? Come ooooonnnnnnnnn
i enjoyed uldum and its questline. infact it was my favorite in cataclysm
9:12 Well that actually wasn’t what the intent was. They came out before the expansion and said “this boss isn’t going to be hiding in some castle, you’re going to see him in the world” because of when he burns a zone.
They wanted Deathwing to be more in your face. They just fucked it up.
I would love an entire patch in BfA revolving around the dragons. The Black dragonflight and wrathion, but also the Bronze and Infinite dragonflights
The idea to change the level zone quest was cool, but now it needs to change again ... Because when I read "omg Deathwings have just attack !" I'm like, meh ...
Wait wait wait, the End time dungeon isn't what would happen if Deathwing won, well kinda, but Old Gods didn't force Deathwing to impale himself, it was Murozond that killed him, Murozond himself says that this outcome is a blessing and that we as players are blind to see how great that outcome was. It's more what if deathwing succedeed and Murozond and infinite dragonflight would take over the world.
aside from the ending story, I found the actual content and game play of cataclysm fun
The Harrison Jones questline was one of my favourites, but I could have done with less cutscenes in Uldum
I don't understand where the dislikes are coming from... Almost all of your videos has an unusual amount of dislikes for these types of videos, and I find it surprising. Keep up the good work, I'm always eager to watch your next upload!
Some people believe that he's trying to capitalize off HayvensGames death by making similar videos to his
Even though they scrapped so much, uldum is still my #1 zone of all time
+
so i wonder what was the cut content in mop
xavierdtd lmfao
Actually you get to see the humanized version of deathwing in the badlands based on the perspective of 3 different people on what happened
If Blizz would have made a sort of "invasion point" for Deathwing I think it would have fixed his lack of presence during the expansions. Imagine Deathwing flying around at different points of the map and his minions attacking on the ground. It would have been great witht the revamped map.
He did that
@@Gribbics but it wasn't a world event. I never got to see him torch a zone.
14:17 bellular predicting the future
Yes. Butt blizz fucked this one up
I wish they didn't revamp old zones so they could've focused on the abyssal maw/nzoth story/battle for gilneas ideas. IMO those sound like way cooler ways to define an expansion and would've probably made you look back at cata in a better light... I remember seeing that giant shell thing in vashjir and (from an art perspective) thinking WTF? It is so high detail and high resolution, it is giant, the artists obviously spent a LOT of time on this, but there's no relevant content in there... WHAT??? and finding out about the scrapped raid makes it make more sense. I also think backlash from changing old zones is why blizz have tried to not go back and change existing content, and instead stick to adding new content (which is what they do best).
MORE RAMBLING:I mean, I remember watching the trailer when it came out... cool effects of water destroying thousands needles and barrens being shaken apart is awesome to watch. Blizz cinematics are ALWAYS a treat no matter what theyre showING- but some ideas are better for storytelling than gameplay..... I used to go back to those zones quite regularly for alts and only played the cata content once because it just wasn't the same going through a flooded thousand needles ... I know their intentions were good but I guess they know where they went. I think the revamp happened too early for a games lifespan. They thought ppl would get bored going through old content after 7ish years JUST as they added the dungeon finder!! No developer likes to feel their time wasted if ppl are sitting in a major city queing for dungeons on their alts, instead of levelling manually. Really bad timing on that too!! I remember when they added it, it was the most efficient decision and such a godsend. Instead of waiting 1hr+ on my lvl 62 dk to get a group for BF, I got it in 10 mins. Obviously we know where that went too... it's amazing how they were experimenting with all this new stuff which hurt the game in a way :s I think they tried to make it work in mop, lost it a lil in wod, and are starting to finally pick up the peices only now in legion.
MichieMouse1 they needed to revamp the old zones simply because the quest lines primarily were really not up to a standard of a 2010 game. The leveling through some of the zones was not optimized not allowing to reach a certain level before moving on to the next etc.
new players coming in want to be able to quest at the 2010 game, not 2004 (actually old zones were designed for the most part around 2002..).
Apart from all that I don't get what you mean with thousand needles. I've leveled through the original version 2 times, through cats versions 4 times now. The revamp is amazing. The storyline super concise and engaging. The quest are not dull and repetitive.
If you haven't yet honestly give it a try, you'll be surprised
Glyph going away really peeved me. It was a way to give a sword combat rogue some personality even if it was a cookie cutter specc. If the Path of Titans was going to expand on it, it was a major miss as far as development went. Basic, advanced and master level glyph's based on what you find from archaeology would have been a great mechanic to pull high levels back down into the lower level zones.
I do wish rather then make the new zones scattered across the old world, the Elemental Plane was the new continent. with Deepholm, Skywall, Firelands, Abysmal Maw and Frostland levelling zones. Since this would leave a large amount of missing zones use Hyjal in a patch. The region that was expanded into the Twilight Highlands could have been included in the wetlands. Uldum could have been heavily reduced region size wise and server as end game zone.
12:07 I love that jump cut.
Benedictus: Give me the dragon soul! >:O
Thrall: No!
Benedictus: * ded *
I'm still trying to work out how Neptulon got away from the giant squid thing after he got carried off in the dungeon...
Strongest of the Elemental Lords. Got bored waiting on his "assistants" to come help and reminded the Naga of that fact.
To cut path of the titans out was a stupid mistake. Path of the titan was intended to counter the dumbing down of the skilltree.
But I've to admit, it got much, much worse since then. No Glyphs, worthless professions, no skilltree, less skills and almost no character progression. I really liked optimizing my character and getting a little bit stronger. I liked having some almost useless skills and filling a niche in a dungeon or raid. I also liked not going out of mana after years of raiding and stacking INT or MP5. It felt like an achievement.
I would love to see the same kind of complexity of BC or at least WotLK back in the game. World of Warcraft got better as a game after every expansion but talking out character progression and class specialisation was a huge mistake.
I really liked the quests with Harrison Jones personally :)
The reasoning for cutting Abyss Maw being the reuse of assets seems really odd when compared to the actual release of Dragon Soul which was dominated by reused assets.
Of course, the real reason why they cut the Abyss Maw was the fact that general public hated Vashj'ir. Blizzard took a safe bet and decided to scrap what was already done.
cata was the only expac that i was really into it, not sure but it was one of my favorites
14:19 Man... if only we could have known back then how badly they were going to butcher N'Zoth's time in the spotlight.
So basically, when Blizzard can't pull off a zone seriously, they just make it a crappy joke?
I was done with WoW half way through Cata. So much cut stuff and weird direction taking. The leveling and dungeons were better than the end-game, which is rare in WoW. Also, for whatever reason, people were predicting the Deathwing encounter left and right. I don't know if it was leaked or what, but I knew we were gonna fight on his body, which for whatever reason made me not care about the fight.
Love the video man, but the text was just too fast, had to stop the video to read it. And the transition from one point to another was also fast and maybe a lil bit louder so it kinda gave me some jump scares. But besides that thank you again for a informative and high quality video as always. Have a nice day.
i personally loved cata. still do. THERE is pros and cons for every expansion and i hate when one part gets neglected and not others but ...i cant do anything about it
You forgot the pitch black dungeon that was right on their website.
If blizzard makes another remake of the old world it should be done in more smaller patches spread out over time. Not sure how that would be implemented ,but something with the bronze dragons could work.
audio was a little bit quiet on this one, but nice video and good content
I'm so happy that you made the connection between the Path of the Titans and the current Artifacts we have in Legion. Watching this video and looking back in retrospect, I'm really glad that Blizzard never really scrapped the idea, they only modified it to what we have today. I think it's really cool to see where they go with all the brainstorming that initially happens and where we leave off with it.
I want to quest and explore azeorth again with all the new tech.. all that work they did in cata was basically alt content..
Even though I don't play anymore I love these videos
When you look at it now, Path of Titans seems quite similar to Covenants and Conduits ^^
i love these videos, so sick of the 10 things you..... videos. This has a very professional tone to it. good job.
Cata 4.1 patch - The die WoW started Declining. Why? It gave us 2 5 mans ZA / ZG instead of firelands which was delayed. That showed a new approach. Also I freaking did however love firelands...HC ragnaros was 10/10
Another good video, im pleased to see your vids keeps the same level of quality :) Keep it up
hey bellular! will you ever be doing a video on how to level an alt from 1 to 110 he fastest? it'll be fun to exploit the exp boost systems
I actually really liked the Harrison Jones quests.
Cata will unfortunately always hold a bitter part in my heart for WoW as it put talent trees up on the block to eventually get cut ;(
Really wish you'd have mentioned how the Abyssal Maw content was repurposed for the Firelands daily zone (Flamebreach?)
I liked Cata. The dungeons gave wrathbabbies a wake up call. Even today people complain about timewalking Cata dungeons.
Hey Bellular, I was wondering if you had any ideas of creating some video guides for classes/spec at the top level. Like maybe you could find some really good players of each spec in game and and make a 1 stop shop for players looking to improve their own gameplay.
u can already find these even without bellular
what we all wanted, more of caty, i don't think bliz really gave us a chanve to apreciate it.... Quality video as always belluar :)
it sucks that a lot of people hated cata due to the immense changes they made, the quality of gameplay was so much better in cata/mop than the rest of the expansions...even legion
I know their was voice file for our silvermoon archmage was gonna be horde counter part of benductus
I hoped you would talk more about specific zones and the way they were changed mid production. Also Silithus story is a thing, quite big thing taking we could possibly still get aqir n cthun stuff in old god expansion.
Isn't Deathwing's human form already in the game? I vividly recall punching him in the face while questing in the Blasted Lands. After taking a look, it looks like he shows up in 'The Day that Deathwing Came'. Point #5 seems a tad pointless.
Hey Bellular! Loving these vids keeping me in the loop on retail wow. I noticed you did content cut from vanilla, wrath, and CATA. Is there a TBC vid in the makes?
All I can think of when watching this is how Cataclysm could have been so special had they paced themselves better and known their limitations. What a waste. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been WOD.
GARRISONS WERE GREAT THOUGH.
These would have been awesome! I wish that the titan path was a thing as Blizzard could create a long content chain for us and have us maybe even going back to old zones of Azeroth to discover more and utilise the world itself!
This could fit in nicely too with a whole rework and update of Azeroth for the expansion instead of creating new zones/maps for us to play in.
Things Blizz had to cut from Cataclysm - Making the game fun.
At least Cata gave us the very excellent Worgen and Goblin start quest chains.
You DO get to punch Deathwing in the face in a quest though.
they should do an expansion every 3-4 years (or same time like the elder scroll titles), 2 years is actually very less time to play, specially if they patch out stuff after an expansion
Damn... this sounds a lot like the stuff we have in legion now. I'm kind of surprised how long they must have been working on artifact system of sorts.
11:03 that cut