WoW Classic: Cataclysm Classic’s Launch and Impact
In only five days, WoW Classic will make its most significant move to date. The release of WoW Cataclysm Classic will mark a new era for the re-release of the game and its previous incarnations, just as it did in 2010 when it abandoned the “original trilogy” of WoW expansions in favor of more modern horizons. In a recent group interview with the WoW Cataclysm Classic developers about their intentions for the forthcoming expansion and how their “some modifications” mindset is helping to streamline the ease of the game’s new edition,.
Almost every WoW player who experienced Cataclysm in the early 2010s agreed that it was the most contentious and divisive expansion in the game’s history to that date. The fabled “breaking of the world” event, which completely altered the beloved zones and questing experiences players had fallen in love with since Vanilla WoW, left players in shambles at the start of the expansion. Then, the nearly year-long final patch of Cataclysm left almost everyone who stayed until the end feeling completely exhausted.
Unfortunately, that final patch, which was our Dragon Soul patch and lasted just over ten months, had a negative impact on a lot of players’ perceptions of Cataclysm. WoW assistant production director Clayton Stone said as much.
While the last 10 months of Cataclysm were somewhat uninteresting and monotonous the first time around, the first 10 months are actually worth reflecting on.
“As players have reflected on Cataclysm and their time spent over the course of those months, we sometimes feel like things like Firelands and that [Bastion of Twilight/Blackwing Descent] raid tier—memories of those start to fade when people remember, ‘oh my gosh, I spent 10-plus months on the Spine of Deathwing,'” Stone said.
The Issue of Convenience and Nostalgia
The most difficult line for the WoW Classic developers to walk throughout the Cataclysm re-release timeline will undoubtedly be making the game more convenient and accessible to those who had obvious issues with it when it was current content in 2010–12, while also tapping into the nostalgia elements for those who actually enjoyed their time with Cataclysm.
All of the expansion’s memorable content was crammed into several relatively brief periods that lasted seasonally throughout 2011, and the time spent in all of those “meaty” patches of early Cataclysm was overshadowed by one long (and for many, lower-quality) patch at the end of the expansion.
This time, Blizzard intends to address this by increasing the frequency with which catalyst fixes will be provided for the Classic edition. It will take just over eight months from Cataclysm Classic’s debut to its final patch.
That is not to say that the Cataclysm Classic patch cycle will be milked—there is no need, given that a large swath of WoW players have already experienced this stuff and do not need to wax poetic for months on end in a mid-expansion raid tier—but the release dates of each patch will be more equidistant and relevant to each other’s time frame.
Improvements in Quality of Life and Experience
Cataclysm Classic will also include other quality-of-life improvements that will undoubtedly make the experience much more convenient to play than it was in 2010. These improvements will include a more timely patch schedule that will be complete by January 2025.
Mechanics such as having to find dungeon entrances in order to queue for them, as well as the requirement to complete Normal raids before entering Heroic ones, have been abolished. Features such as the Collections tab in the UI and the Transmog system have been added ahead of schedule to make life in Cataclysm more convenient. When interacting with WoW’s customization options, you no longer have to rack your brain and remember where you stored your mounts, pets, or transmog clothes.
“These minor quality-of-life modifications are some of the improvements that we have made that the current player could say, ‘oh, well surely that was in the original,’ but no, actually,” Stone explained. “Back then, it was a little more limiting than it is now, and we have loosened it up to make it more accessible than ever—whether it is new players or those returning to Cataclysm.”
Cataclysm Classic, including all of its changes, will be available on May 20.