World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Previews

In addition to overviews of Cataclysm’s Grim Batol zone and three new raid instances on Ten Ton Hammer, there’s a full-on preview of the expansion pack at Strategy Informer. From the final article:

On the way I noticed a number of improvements Blizzard have made, even since the earlier beta version, with the Goblin’s island now more alive with detail and oddities like animated billboards over the highway, and our car pumping out tunes as we zoom around town. More substantial than that are tweaks to the gameplay, for instance one of the first ever quests are to zap miners that aren’t working and previously this would need you to use an object placed in your inventory. The team seems to have abandoned this traditional method and simply lets you do the special interaction when needed when you’re close enough just by right clicking them the cursor changes.

Frankly I hope this will be universally applied as it gets annoying having to juggle loot you want to auction or do other stuff with later, and deal with fresh items being crammed in your backpack because you need to go shrink something before you kill it making it just a part of the normal way to attack something (right click) is much friendlier. Naturally things don’t go according to plan for your chances are being crowned the Trade Prince/Princess as a slightly over kicked football of all things bring about a set events that require a hasty retreat from the Goblin island paradise. Blizzard want some more fun yet though and so we even get to go do a bank heist, although technically it’s not stealing as it is your money.

Before long we’re shipwrecked and enter the second act if you will of the Goblin origins story, and it’s here we start to form a relationship with the Horde. It doesn’t lose the humorous edge though as we get to witness perhaps one of the greatest inventions ever: the town-in-a-box. Yes this little gizmo has all the contents of a mini-town to literally spring up and keep the Goblins industrious. Of course it’s also here that quests and the challenges start to ramp up in difficulty and align themselves to the more traditional or usual type of quests we found through World of Warcraft, unless you count the rocket boots slaughter or attaching mini-jetpacks to poultry. In fact this island has a very distinct Stranglethorn Vale vibe about it what with its jungles, raptors and annoying little tribes people.