Cataclysm pre-order blues
 

I'm trying to buy the next expansion for WOW but I have a bit of a problem in that I can't buy it from the blizzard pre-order site since it doesn't have a pay-pal option. Are there any online sites you guys trust that can just email the registration key instead of having to wait for a physical copy?

I don't know of any sites, but you could try going to a grocery store or a convinience store and getting a pre-paid credit card.

Also, I've been SORELY tempted to get WoW lately... But I don't own any WoW stuff, and I hear you have to offer up your soul to get past level 40?

I live overseas, so a lot of the more mundane options are closed to me.

It isn't that hard to get to 80 soon to be 85. The only stuff that will be closed to those not willing to sacrifice children are high end raiding and super high end pvp. Other than that it's pretty friendly.

I don't know what kind of restrictions you have but if a prepaid card is out of the question, you may have to befriend someone without those restrictions to get a copy purchased and the key sent to you.
And Cataclysm is making it much easier on new players. Once you hit around 60 it gets tougher but not hard by any means.

Theres a promotion that lets you "recruit a friend" to play world of warcraft, linking the two of your accounts together, and giving you a few benefits that last for the first 3 months you play. One of those benefits is triple experience points when playing together on toons up to level 60. I'd suggest you just have a friend of yours who already plays recruit you and then you two can grind to 60 in like 3 days.

Furthermore, there is currently a promotion that lets you buy WoW, BC, WotLK, and Cataclysm for 20% off the price of buying each of them separately, which I imagine means its still 80 dollars instead of 100, considering how expensive its going to be stacking up all these expansions.

Well, I got into it at the urging of a bunch of RL friends (MMOs are always better played with friends.) and mostly playing on weekends, I'm up to 64, and it's not as bad as it was when I first played.

Guess it really comes down to who you play with.

Azeroth is probably due to shatter next week. Everything in the old world will get changed, and all. So it's a good time to fire up your account again if you've got one.

They've actually made a ton of changes to the game since classic WoW that have made it more user-friendly and less grindy. Exp from levels 40-60 has been significantly reduced, the dungeon finder was added, hearth cooldown reduced, Epic mounts and Flying mounts are obtainable cheaper and at lower levels than they could be previously, and about a thousand other changes to just help speed things up a bit.

Blizzard has officially stated that Azeroth is going to shatter on December 7th.

Nevermind, I'll just go put my foot in my mouth while you guys read this link.

EDIT: I got myself set up on the PTR for 4.0.3a. The new launcher looks amazinghttp://i224.photobucket.com/albums/d...4-31-20-98.jpghttp://i224.photobucket.com/albums/d...4-31-25-41.jpg

I'm on the PTR as well, set myself up with a tauren priest and did a tour of Azeroth. I know spoil the surprise and all, but I just did what I was going to do first day of the patch and I didn't have the patch day bugginess interfering :dance:

Also druids, even troll druids are still underwhelming. I am disappointed.

Not seen the flight form?

This is just a PTR for the upcoming patch, not for Cataclysm, so some features such as Old World Flying, levels 81-85, zones that did not previously exist, and some others are not there. The Worgen starting area exists, and so does its associated city, but there are no NPCs or Mobs there. If you'd like to see the troll flight form, however, you can find it on youtube here.

Does anybody know if when you buy Cataclysm from the Blizzard store if it just pops out an activation key or does it automatically attach it to your account or what?



Edit: Never mind I guess. Won't go into details but I beat the system. In your face Blizzard, I gave you my money despite your best efforts to thwart me.

Warrior tanking got nerfed. Again.

Am not amused.

Im gonna go roll a freakin DK now. Hopefully by the next time they recieve a crippling nerf, warriors tanks can be level 85 and thus playable again.

Vanilla through WotLK for cheap. It was way too easy to justify to myself getting WotLK when it costs a little more than lunch.

What'd they do to warrior tanking? They require you to press more than 2 (vanilla) or 3 (TBC) buttons now or in Cataclysm? (I stopped near the end of TBC, so not sure how things are now, just heard tanking's too easy in Wrath)

Warrior tanking is only for the truly dedicated. You have to press like 5 buttons!

I don't know, I'm pulling 7k single target dps on boss fights in prot, and its not even my main set so I'm sure they're fine.

If you're referring to pvp then I suggest you learn to play the actual warrior pvp spec, which is and has always been arms. Prot was like the paint by numbers pvp spec.

The revamped old world quest chains are a delight.

Silverpine Forest went from "meh" to "HOLY SHIT I AM FIGHTING WEREWOLVES AND HANGING OUT WITH SYLVANAS AND DRUNKEN ORC SAILORS ALL THE TIME FOREVER!"

I've seen it but when I don't like playing the class then the flight form isn't going to be much of a selling point.

My friend was raging over the warrior tank nerf. I play a paladin anyway but I have my own challenges with the return of CC. Hammer of the Righteous now hits everything in a 10 yard range rather than being limited to 3 targets so it looks like I'll be using trusty ol' Crusader Strike.

I started up a shadow cow and after we discovered my wife had a bunch of granted levels saved up that we forgot about, went from 16 to 41 sitting in Ragefire Chasm. I should be hitting Outland by the end of Saturday.
Eastern Plaguelands is very nicely done too. Excellent quest chain that takes you through the entire zone.

This is what I'm most interested in :dance:

From everything I've seen, Blizzard has thrown out amazingly written quests now.

having everybody on a different quest "instance" really opened up a lot of room for much more creative quests, especially since they can greatly and "permanently" affect the game world.

Yeah the phasing is pretty well done. I started a pala-cow and ended up in Azshara for the 13-20 grind and it was a lot of fun. Got to hop in a goblin wood shredder and toss grenades at night elves, I myself can't think of a better way to get to level 14.