Cataclysm retrospective: dungeons

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It was really hard to get people used to using crowd control in dungeons again when Cataclysm came out.  Eventually most people got the idea.  Then I would occasionally take my tank in a dungeon and find everything cc’d, and we would have to fight over whose cc would get broken first because we had to kill something.

Cataclysm retrospective: questing

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If you quested as Horde in Cataclysm, you beat the crap out of the Alliance.

If you quested as Alliance in Cataclysm, you got the crap beaten out of you by the Horde, and went to a wedding.

Cataclysm retrospective: design

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Here begins the AFR Cataclysm retrospective! Check in every day between now and the Mists of Pandaria launch for more short comics.

It took most of the expansion for me to realize that Archaeology is everything that was wrong with vanilla WoW concentrated and turned into a profession.  I’ve enjoyed it a bit more since then, since at least now I know why it’s so awful.

AFR #200 – You are cordially invited

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I know some people were unhappy with having the Alliance questline in Twilight Highlands culminate in a wedding, and I can see their point.  The Alliance spent pretty much all of Cataclysm getting kicked in the teeth by the Horde.  It isn’t until you get to the Highlands and meet the local dwarves that you really feel like there’s an Alliance force with a chance of giving the Horde what for, but then how do the Wildhammer respond to blatant Horde aggression?  Do they rally an army and storm Dragonmaw Port?  Do they get together for an orc-killing jamboree?  No, they write a silly song and have a wedding.  All they do to the Horde is steal some cloth.

So, I get why some people are unhappy with the wedding story, but I saw it differently.  As I have mentioned before, I have often felt as though the Alliance is treated as just providing background for the story of the Horde.  It’s very clear what the Horde would do if the Alliance weren’t there, but it’s never been clear what the Alliance would do if the Horde weren’t around.  With the Wildhammer dwarves, I began to feel that here was a piece of the Alliance that really has a story of its own.  Their response to the Horde was not to obligingly step into the line of fire, like most of the rest of the Alliance forces, but simply to grunt: “Bugger off, we’ve got our own business to deal with.”  It gives me hope for the future that maybe Blizzard will give the Alliance a real purpose other than being a speed bump on the Horde’s road to glory and conquest.

That was the expansion that was

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That’s right, from September 19 to September 25, I’ll be posting a new short comic every day!  It’s the AFR Cataclysm Retrospective, to look back at where we’ve been for the past two years as we get ready for Pandaria.  Join me for a week of memories and merriment, one last chance to make bad jokes about a shattered world before it’s goodbye Cata, hello panda!