Cataclysm Post Mortem

Cataclysm is the only expansion that I’ve played from start to finish, it’s the expansion where I came into my own as a player. It’s an expansion that gets a lot of bad press, and it’s true that it had it’s bad points but it had a lot of good points too. I’ve looked back on Cata raids, and I’ve written my bucket list, this is looking at the whole of the expansion. What worked and what didn’t, from my point of view of course.

When I started Cataclysm I had one level 80 (my mage), a level 65 paladin, a level 30 something warrior and a level 15 (or thereabouts) rogue. I had maxed out tailoring and I think I just managed enchanting as well. I had the other professions in varying states of disarray. My rogue was a leatherworker back then, my warrior was a skinner and my paladin a miner. Those characters don’t have those professions any longer, I’ve shuffled them about.

Now with just under eight weeks left in Cata I have 8 level 85’s, by the time Mists drops I’ll have 11 or 12. All my professions are maxed out with alchemy, tailoring and enchanting being maxed twice over. I’m getting the mats stocked up to level enchanting for the third time when I roll a monk, that disenchanting ability is very useful. I’ve moved guilds three times, the last move meaning I’ve also moved realms, I call Bronze Dragonflight home now as opposed to Argent Dawn. A lot has changed over the course of one expansion.

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May we live in interesting times

A few days ago I posted my new cata bucket list. I posted it a day after I’d written it and the day after that I’d done what I could of it. The rng items and the argent tournament obviously take time and are a daily errand so not those. That left me wondering ‘what now?’ which is precisely what I was thinking when I wrote that list. Now one of my flaws is that I’m a tad impulsive and I’m not terribly patient. Run before you walk syndrome if you want to call it something.

The two months between now and Mists, and my need for a goal, led to me pushing ahead with a plan that I wasn’t supposed to enact till Mists.

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New Cataclysm Bucket List

About six weeks ago I posted my cata bucket list. I also included my general warcraft bucket list under the ‘one day but not today’ heading. As those were very general and all encompassing goals which will take a long time, if ever, to complete. However, I’ve finished my cata bucket list which has made me wonder “what now?”. With no indication of when Mists is likely to be released I’m facing, at the minimum, a couple of months until then. So it’s time for a new bucket list, or an expanded one anyway.

Hopefully in two months time I won’t be having to post another bucket list, as Mists will soon be on the horizon.

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Looking back at cata raids

I seem to be pulling my inspiration from WoWInsider lately. They had a post that looked back at what were, in the writers opinion the best raidĀ encountersĀ in Cataclysm. As Cataclysm was the first expansion I saw from beginning to end, and properly began raiding in, it’s the first one that I can look back at from a raiding perspective. There are two ways to look at it, from an encounter perspective or from a sentimental perspective. Encounters that are awesome in their own right, might not necessarily have the personal memories, that make an encounter truly special.

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Cataclysm Bucket List

I’ve mentioned off hand in a few posts that there’s things that I want to accomplish before Mists hits. However, the germination of this list began not long after I started playing warcraft. I’m not sure whether cata had even been announced (this was February 2010). I plotted in my head a lot of this list and when I told my friend he laughed at me, told me to concentrate on getting one character up to max level first.

Those early days of the game was heady with the possibilities. It was exciting as there was so much new, unexplored areas. My friend had been playing since classic so he knew so much more than me, he had experienced so much more, had completed so much more and was capable of so much more. I wanted to catch up, I wanted to be able to play at something resembling his level as I wanted to play with my friend without him resenting it, I wanted to pull my weight. In essence I wanted the impossible, I wanted those years that I’d not known the game existed. This list was the substitute.

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The current endgame

Recently at WoWInsider there was a post talking about the new endgame in Mists which got me thinking. What do I log into game to do? Sure there’s raiding which is where most roads lead to at the endgame but there has to be more than that. Mists is introducing a whole host of new activities and new ways of looking at some old ones. What is there right now?

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