Cataclysm is Here

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm launched at midnight last night. It’s probably fruitless to blog about today, in that despite busy servers, the devout will likely be playing it fullscreen for the next 36 hours or so, but it’s worth mentioning. So: If you haven’t already seen it, check out the above “world’s first World of Warcraft Lib Dub: We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel.”

Also check out Sean Malstrom’s thoughts on the subject: He praises the new expansion for keeping the focus on Azeroth, but striking a good balance between sticking with what works and “creative destruction.”

The right thing is to keep the focus on Azeroth. It seems as if now that Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King are over with, WoW is shedding off its Warcraft 3 shell and directing its content to its own direction. Surprisingly, this is refreshing.

The rule is that if something works, you do not mess with it. But creative destruction says that you must constantly destroy what works to make it better. Using the Cataclysm to revamp many parts of original WoW had many people saying, “Now Blizzard is destroying that last good thing about WoW.” But these changes have been for the better. The land is more interesting. The quests are better done. And more important, it shows a change within the world as if the ‘great war’ between the Horde and Alliance is evolving.

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WoW players are enthusiastically thanking Deathwing for destroying the world. Azeroth is now a better place.