New players will find it easier than ever to jump into Azeroth, but veterans may find the same car under all that polish
Cataclysm adds and replaces more content to World of Warcraft than any prior expansion, streamlining the level 1 - 58 zones by revamping and/or adding over 3,000 quests, increasing the level cap from 80 to 85, adding an additional secondary profession (Archaeology) while expanding on the roles of existing ones. It adds two new playable races: Goblin (Horde) and Worgen (Alliance), new race/class combinations such as Blood Elf Warriors and Dwarf Shaman, and for all intents and purposes more instances, more quests, more cities, more enemies, and more lore. Every class received an overhaul to varying degrees. For the first time ever players are able to fly anywhere in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, and the user interface has been heavily modified. New users will find the interface more intuitive, and veterans will find advanced features such as raid frames and powerauras are built-in.
New players will benefit the most from the changes by far. Tooltips have been revamped, added, and updated everywhere. The starting zones are easier and more intuitive to pick up, the quests more interesting, and the rewards more appropriate. For example, quest rewards that once granted a mail chest piece with strength, for example, now typically yields agility, the preferred statistic of mail-wearers beyond Level 40. There is still an emphasis on the core text commands using slash commands that makes chatting awkward for the newest players, but otherwise everything is polished.
The most notable change upon login - after looking Deathwing in the eye - is the availability of two new races. After its invasion by The Forsaken, the Alliance gain the allegiance of Gilneas, a sub-faction of humans afflicted with a Werewolf-like curse that turns them into "Worgen." The Gilneans are essentially refugees that take shelter with the Night Elves in Darnassus, but are otherwise curiously absent after the first ten levels. By comparison, the Horde gained a faction of Goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel. Bound for slavery, the ship carrying the Goblins is sunk by an Alliance ship in an unfortunate meeting. The Horde rescues the shipwrecked survivors, who integrate themselves throughout low-level Horde areas. Both races have their own unique leveling zones for levels one through ten, whereupon the player is redirected to the respective faction's major home city (in this expansion, either Stormwind or Orgrimmar) for traditional leveling from 11 - 85. Each race has its own unique racial abilities that have a tangible, if minor, impact on gameplay.
The profession changes have been, for better or worse, what one might expect. Leveling professions has been made a bit easier to accommodate for the increased profession skill cap, but all the old recipes of basic swords and armor remain. New recipes follow the same formula for the most part, with the old +20 Agility gem formulas now upgraded to +40 Agility gem formulas. Similar scaling has been made in each profession. New cooking and fishing dailies in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, respectively. Professions are, for the most part, not much more exciting or interesting. The newest profession, Archaeology, is flat-out boring, using a sort of hot-cold minigame to locate dig sites and recover lost artifacts. The artifacts themselves are semi-interesting from a lore perspective and, occasionally, worth some gold at a vendor, but the process of finding them is akin to commuting to and from work.
The PvE (Player versus Environment) aspect of World of Warcraft is the smoothest it has ever been. The story is advanced in every part of Azeroth by questing, with the death of staid characters such as Old Blanchy in Westfall, the explanation of what is going on in the Emerald Dream in Feralas, and territorial "rebalancing" as the Horde gains new ground in a number of regions. The newest zones include the opening of several once unavailable regions, including Mount Hyjal (under siege by none-other than Ragnaros), Vash'jir (steeped in Naga lore), Deepholm (the former residence of Deathwing), Uldum (filled with Titan lore), and finally Twilight Highlands, from which the new expansion antagonists - the Twilight's Hammer Cult - mount their offensive.
Leveling from 80 to 85 takes awhile, but has some extremely interesting quests that give insight into the history of Azeroth, have you fighting a Kraken, saving the earthen plane from collapse, annihilating hundreds of gnomes in a Katamary Damacy-style minigame, among hundreds of other memorable events. Along the way you will accumulate gear and reputation with various factions sufficient to allow your character to enter Heroic dungeons, which drop appropriate gear for entering raids.
The dungeons and raids themselves are emphasizing crowd-control, and rely more heavily upon teamwork and communication than in prior expansions, even on normal difficulty. In some cases this puts more strain on certain group roles than others, and the dungeon finder - at least as of the 4.0.6 patch - can be exceptionally long if you are a damage-dealing class, or instant if you choose a tank or healer role. Depending on your reliance on the dungeon finder, this may be a particularly frustrating aspect of the game, or a non-event.
Due to significant rebalancing in class mechanics and abilities from patches 4.0.1 through the current patch, PvP (Player versus Player) gameplay has varied dramatically depending on what class you have chosen. There is little to say beyond, "You may or may not like what has happened to your class," as you continue to gain PvP gear through honor, which is gained by killing other players in battlegrounds, arenas, and the world (if you are on a PvP server). There is a second level of "points" similar to prior expansions called Conquest points that can be gained through rated combat in the Arena or Battlegrounds. These allow access to the best available PvP gear.
The game looks much as you expect World of Warcraft to look: The art direction is consistent and superb. The newest areas typically use higher polygon counts and more detailed texture mapping, but for the most part the look and feel of the game has been retained. The Naga fit the sunken Greek architecture of Vash'jir well, the elemental plane of Deepholm appears much as you would expect a mine: Filled with jewels and gems of all shapes, colors, and luster. Stormwind and Orgrimmar have both undergone a massive graphical overhaul, with Stormwind receiving an update in scope and texture, and Orgrimmar an update in architecture and design. Both cities now serve as the hubs of the expansion.
Blizzard recorded hundreds of hours of voice talent and music, and it shows as subtle themes add ambiance to the new spaces of Azeroth. Fantastic new NPCs sound their part in their various new places of employ, and the repertoire of many old faces has been expanded.
Even with all these great changes the game may suffer from its own girth: While there is a lot more content and it is more beautiful and streamlined than ever before, it is still more of the same. Players must slog about the lower zones leveling up to get to the "end game," where they will then slog about accumulating gear through a variety of means - be it farming the auction house, farming for materials for their professions, or farming the dungeons. In the end progression involves a lot of chores.
The increased difficulty of dungeons and poor communication tools may also frustrate players. While it may seem simple enough to mark targets and assign jobs, it's not always so simple in practice depending on latencies, player language, and flat-out patience. This may not be the fault of the designer, but it is the result, nonetheless.
One notable oversight is that, in all its changes, the Auction House is notably unchanged. Blizzard had an opportunity to revamp one of the most widely-used tools in the game to allow for better sorting and searching functionality, pricing, and other financial tools, but left it basically the same as it has been for several expansions.
All-in-all Cataclysm offers a ton of new content for both new and old gamers, and should offer a worthwhile gaming experience for every player despite some minor shortcomings.