WORLD OF WARCRAFT CATACLYSM

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the third expansion pack for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, following the last expansion Wrath of the Lich King. It was officially announced at BlizzCon on August 21, 2009, although details were discovered earlier.^[2] The expansion was officially released on the 7th of December 2010.
Shortly after the announcement of the release date, on October 5, Blizzard implemented the overhaul of the game's playing systems (Patch '4.0.1').
Before Cataclysm was announced as the official title of the expansion, it was known internally as World of Warcraft: Worldbreaker.

Announcement and development

In February 2010, in an Activision Blizzard investor call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed that Cataclysm would be released in that same calendar year.^[3]
On May 3, 2010, it was officially confirmed that the Family & Friends Alpha phase of the testing process for Cataclysm had begun,^[4] fueling further speculation that the open alpha would commence within the coming months. Despite the non-disclosure agreement (NDA), much of the beginnings of the game were leaked onto various sources after the client was distributed across the internet within a few days of the alpha testing phase commencing. On May 11, 2010, it emerged that Blizzard had requested that at least one of these sites remove any alpha content^[5] until the NDA was lifted.
On June 30, 2010, Cataclysm entered closed beta testing, sending invitations to gamers who had signed up through their Battle.net account. Reporting their first quarter financial earnings in a webcast, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick all but confirmed that latest World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, would be out on store shelves by the end of the year.
In August 2010, Blizzard announced the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Collector's Edition. Cataclysm was already said to be on track for release in the latter part of 2010 prior to this report;^[6] in addition, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime went on record saying, "Although an exact release date has not yet been announced, we are on track to launch the expansion by the end of the year. As with all Blizzard games though, we won't release until it's ready."^[7]
On September 7 (8 in Europe), the first pre-Cataclysm quest chains were released to live servers, and a few days later, Patch 4.0.1 was released to public test realms, indicating that a release date might be in the not too distant future.^[8][9]
On September 30, news site MMO-Champion estimated that the game had a target release date of December 7, 2010 based on data-mining which revealed the start of the next arena season.^[10] GameSpot reported that Amazon.com customers who had pre-ordered the Collector's Edition of the game were sent notifications that they now estimate the arrival date will be between January 4 to January 18, 2011.^[11] Shortly after other websites such as Kotaku were emailed copies of the notifications sent to Amazon customers and posted it on their website marking the release date as January 5, 2011^[12] Amazon.com for the past two expansions overestimated the game's release date in order to give their sales a safety buffer.

Plot and setting

The central plot of the expansion is the return of the evil dragon aspect Deathwing the Destroyer (originally Neltharion the Earth Warder). Last seen in Warcraft II, Deathwing has spent that time healing himself, and plotting his fiery return from the elemental plane of Deepholm. His return tears through the dimensional barrier within Azeroth, causing a sweeping cataclysm that reshapes much of the world's surface. In the midst of the world-wide disaster comes renewed conflict between the Alliance and the Horde, which is now under the rule of Garrosh Hellscream.
In the wake of the cataclysm, many changes have happened, both externally and internally. With the wake of the cataclysm, the Horde's (former) leader, the orc shaman, Thrall, has stepped down from his duty as Warchief of the Horde, to better help the world of Azeroth as a whole, and has relinquished the duty to the former overlord of the Warsong Offensive, the Mag'har orc warrior, Garrosh Hellscream, which itself has brought some of its own problems, within the Horde and without.
In the face of Garrosh's aggression, the human king, and leader of the Alliance, King Varian Wrynn, has backed himself with his own strengths, storming the Southern Barrens after the cataclysm had struck. Seizing an opportunity, he took over a village of Tauren, and made a base of operations in the northernmost foothills to cut off contact with the Southern Barrens' neighboring province, the Stonetalon Mountains.
There are several new areas the players will investigate and also join in different actions by either quests or endscenes. Some of them lie in Mount Hyjal and others in Vashj'ir.
Both Alliance and Horde will be able to start with two new races. The Worgen (Alliance) and the Goblins (Horde) will have a myriad of classes to choose from.

[edit] Environmental redesign

One of the primary features of Cataclysm is the redesign of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor areas introduced with the launch of World of Warcraft in 2004; while the previous game design didn't allow for the use of flying mounts in 'old-world' areas, those areas have been completely redesigned with flight in mind for Cataclysm.
Major changes are being brought to these zones. Each faction will have a smoother leveling process, as many of the old quests are scrapped and replaced with new ones that will incorporate updated gameplay and mechanics that have been changed or redesigned since the game's release.
Along with the redesign of each zone, each race will have its own respective starting area, where players will do a series of quests in a chain that will bring them up to level 5-6, before sending them out of the small area, and into the rest of the world.
Each zone will also have its own storyline, through a series of quests, intended to keep the player interested in doing the quests and exploring each zone. Each of the zones that are faction specific, however, will cater only to those of the faction that controls that zone. Neutral, or 'contested' zones, will feature a PvP (Player-Versus-Player) based quest line, making the player compete against the opposing faction (Horde against Alliance, and vice versa) to achieve the desired goal of their faction. This fe

• Level cap raised from 80 to 85
• Profession skill cap raised from 450 to 525
• Players will be able to use flying mounts in old-world Azeroth zones (flying mounts were previously restricted to Northrend and Outland because of design limitations)^[14]
• Redesigned and updated zones within Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms
• New towns and around 3500 new quests
• Redesigned low and mid-level quests to accompany updated zones
• Seven new dungeons: Blackrock Caverns, Throne of the Tides, the Stonecore, the Vortex Pinnacle, the Lost City of the Tol'vir, Halls of Origination, and Grim Batol, all available in regular and heroic modes at level 85
• Three new raids: The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent and Throne of the Four Winds, plus the Tol Barad prison Baradin Hold raid dungeon after PvP zone completion (more raids planned to be released with later patches)
• Most 15-60 Dungeons have been revamped, with some (e g. Shadowfang Keep, Stormwind Stockades, and The Deadmines) seeing full overhauls, others receiving minor changes, and some being split into parts (eg. Stratholme), losing areas (e g. Sunken Temple) or having a level difficulty change (eg. Scholomace). Also, Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep have also been added as level 85 heroic instances.
• New battlegrounds and a new world-PvP zone, Tol-Barad (similar to the Wintergrasp world-PvP zone introduced in Wrath of the Lich King)
• A new secondary skill: Archaeology
• An overhaul of the Glyph system with three types of Glyphs: Prime, Major, and Minor. In addition, Glyphs are taught as a spell and can now be switched around without the purchase of additional glyphs. However, you will need a new material called "Dust of Disappearance" to replace existing Glyphs with new ones.
• A rated battleground system, along with associated new rewards^[15]
• Newly accessible zones including Uldum, Deepholm, Vashj'ir, Twilight Highlands and Mount Hyjal (previously only featured as a time travel destination within the Caverns of Time)
• Two new playable races, Goblins and Worgen
• Addition of new race/class combinations (Human Hunter, Orc Mage, Night Elf Mage, Blood Elf Warrior, Dwarf Shaman, Dwarf Mage, Undead Hunter, Tauren Paladin, Tauren Priest, Gnome Priest, Troll Druid, Troll Warlock)
• Introduction of Mastery, a new stat which will enhance certain abilities (both active and passive) depending on the player's class and talent specialization
• Changes to class mechanics, including discontinuing the use of ammunition and stand-alone warlock soul shards, consolidation of totems and buffs, the addition of holy power for paladins, an eclipse mechanic for Druids, Rage normalization, changes to the rune system, the change from mana to focus for hunters, and racial bonuses
• Warlocks and Hunters now attain a combat pet at level 1 without needing to do a quest.
• Revamp of the stat system, removing such stats as mana per 5 seconds (MP5), armor penetration and defence rating and integrating them in other ways such as talents or the new mastery stat.
• Major changes to the cities of Stormwind and Orgrimmar, with minor adjustments to others
• New starting areas for Trolls and Gnomes at levels 1-5
• Player talent trees have been reworked to a 31 point tree and players will have a total of 41 talent points at level 85. Consequently, the talent trees are being "trimmed", and will look (superficially) much like the talent trees players had available on WoW's launch. Blizzard says this will give players more options, as the talents they are trimming felt mandatory previously. Instead of the old method of one talent point per level (after level 10) players get one point at level 10, then a point every odd level afterward. Furthermore, at level 10 a player must choose a talent specialization (spec) and only spend points in that "tree" until they have reached 31 points. Once 31 points have been spent, he or she is able to use the rest of his or her attained points in any of the 3 trees. When the player chooses a specialization at 10, they will gain one major active skill that sets that spec apart from the others, and 2-3 passive skills that support that particular tree. This was done in order to make players feel as though they are actually specialized in a specific talent tree as soon as they are able to choose one, rather than at higher levels where enough points have been placed into the tree of their choosing to make that feel like their specialization.
• Experimental support for DirectX 11 through the command line.
• New raid and PvP currency systems.

In addition, Cataclysm is planned to utilize the revamped community platform Battle.net which is being integrated with other Blizzard games such as StarCraft II and Diablo III.^[16]
Many of these changes have already been put into place as of Patch 4.0.1, which added all the new systems (new talents, glyph system, spell changes, resource changes, pets at level 1, removal of stats from items and from the game, mastery, and others). In addition, the changes to old zones were made in patch 4.0.3a, which was released to live servers on November 23, 2010ature makes heavy usage of phasing, which was first seen in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Acestea fiind spuse..fani ai acestui iubit MMORPG, de mare anvergura,va urez bafta la level!World of Warcraft este cel mai popular jok de MMORPG, a fost lansat de catre cei de la Blizzard.