Here we are: World of Warcraft. Whether you see it as the most successful Western MMO, or an elaborate Skinner Box designed to trap players with addictive personalities, there’s no denying its superlative craftsmanship compared to other entries in this genre. I suppose it helps when Blizzard’s monthly subscription intake is enough to fuel multiple AAA titles. With the impending release of its latest expansion, Cataclysm, we’ve decided to give it a rundown. WoW is the continuation of the Warcraft storyline. When it launched, the game’s loose plot was based around the world after the events of Warcraft 3. The war had ended and though the Alliance and Horde were not actively fighting each other, tensions were high. You fought a lot of dragons and that was that. With the release of subsequent expansions, WoW’s storyline came more into the forefront: The Burning Crusade focused on defeating Illidan, who you’d remember from The Frozen Throne, and Wrath of the Lich King completed the story cycle of Arthas. Cataclysm is the story of the return of Deathwing, who is certainly more fully realized than he was way back in Warcraft 2. You see, he decides it would be a good idea to blow up the world, and we, the players, have to deal with the repercussions. What a jerk. So here’s what Cataclysm brings to the table: New Playable Races: Goblins Worgen New Features: A new secondary profession, Archaeology The Mastery system Guild Advancement Rated Battlegrounds The ability to use flying mounts in Azeroth New race/class combinations In addition to the bullet points, the entire Classic WoW experience has been turned on its head. Quests were redone, entire zones were rebuilt, new storylines were added, and two of the capital cities (Orgrimmar and Stormwind) have been changed, thanks to our pal Deathwing’s temper tantrum. Co-Opportunities: MMOs are always best experienced with friends, so while a good majority of the non-instanced content is perfectly suited for solo players, I definitely recommend having friends along for the ride. In any case, the cooperative-specific content in WoW comes in three flavors: Group Quests Storyline quests in the world often culminate in some sort of large-scale battle with a powerful opponent, or defending a location against waves of enemies. These quests will be flagged as a Group quest in your log, and they’re designed for 2-5 players. Early on in the game, these will be simple affairs designed for only a couple players, where the point will simply be to kill an enemy more powerful than a solo player can handle, but once you’re further along, they’ll start requiring players to tank/heal/interrupt spellcasting like you might have to in a dungeon or raid. Dungeons The bread and butter of WoW’s co-op are the various five-man dungeons spread throughout the world. Players will need to assemble a well-balanced group to tackle these using the MMO “Holy Trinity” as a starting point: a Tank to keep enemies under control and soak damage (an appropriately specced Warrior/Paladin/Druid/Death Knight), a healer to keep everyone alive and manage debuffs cast on players (Priest/Shaman/Druid/Paladin), and an assortment of DPS (damage per second) classes (all classes have viable damage specs, but the pure DPS classes are Rogue/Mage/Warlock/Hunter) to well, stab enemies, shoot them or blow them up with magic. Most dungeons consist of trash pulls (many groups of more powerful regular enemies who will need to be tanked and crowd controlled to defeat) and bosses (big baddies who have a ton of hit points and nasty abilities which will need to be anticipated and dealt with). Bosses are your best source of delicious, delicious loot, and players will often want to run dungeons to make sure they have the best gear. Once you’ve reached maximum level (relative to each expansion), heroic versions of each dungeon become available. These re-tune all of the content to the abilities and stats of a max-level player, and quite often change the mechanics of boss encounters to be far more challenging. Bosses will have additional abilities, use them more often, and under-geared/unprepared players will have a much more difficult time defeating them. Usefully, WoW includes a “Dungeon Finder”, which allows your group to fill out any remaining roles you might be missing and helpfully teleport you to the chosen dungeon when your group is filled out. You can also elect to do a random dungeon, which offers extra rewards as incentive once you reach level 70. In addition to seven new level 80+ dungeons, Cataclysm adds a heroic mode to two perennial favorites of Classic WoW: Shadowfang Keep and the Deadmines. Raids Here’s where players lose their lives. Raids are the most challenging content in WoW, designed for 10 or 25 players (you select which version of the raid you want to attempt). Raids work exactly like dungeons, except with the difficulty ramped up to extremely high levels. Trash pulls take a lot more coordination, bosses have devastating abilities and multiple phases. The raid content is also intimately tied in to the storyline of the expansion (Deathwing is the main bad guy in Cataclysm, and the raid content will ultimately lead to you fighting him). The difference between 10-man and 25-man raids is comparable to the normal/heroic dungeon split. Bosses have more hitpoints and more abilities in 25-man mode, and the fights are usually longer. A (welcome) change in Cataclysm is that the 10 and 25 modes will drop the same gear. Prior to Cataclysm, 25-man raids dropped loot of a higher quality, which was unavailable to smaller guilds who could only fill a 10-man raid. For the large-scale progression guilds who always want to do 25-man mode, Cataclysm raids will simply drop more loot. But that’s not all... WoW also has a fairly rich PVP community as well, and for players who prefer that sort of content, Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds (a Cataclysm addition) and the Arena offer alternate means of obtaining loot and building your character. With the exception of killing other players as you meet them in the world (if you’re on a PVP server, anyway), all of the above PVP options are team-based, so even these are cooperative. A successful PVP group isn’t simply players on the same side hitting things on the other side, they involve communication, support and crowd control, much the same as the PVE content. Wrapup With a wealth of content, and more coming, WoW offers something for just about anyone. It’s far easier to learn the game’s systems than most MMOs, and has more external player resources than you can shake a stick at. I’ve racked up over a HUNDRED days of playtime since the game’s launch, and I’m still excited for what’s to come. Maybe I’m trapped in that Skinner Box, but honestly, I don’t care.