MMO Weekly 25/08/09

25 Aug 2009 at 11:24:20 by Jeff Hollis

Hello there, fellow avatar pilots, and welcome to this week's lupine edition of MMO Weekly.  In this week's edition, we'll discuss what everyone else seems to be discussing.  Of course, I'm referring to the details that were revealed this last week at BlizzCon about the upcoming WoW expansion, Cataclysm.

Let's cut right to the chase.  Amid all the hullabaloo about Deathwing, revisiting/redesigning old zones,  the “Path of the Titans” progression system, and what the new 85 level cap might mean for the game, there was one bit of news that had people nearly breathless.  It seemed, by my admittedly unscientific and subjective perspective, to outweigh most of the other Cataclysm news.  I'm referring to the announcement of a new Alliance race, the worgen.

I have to say, this caught me a bit off guard.  However, it was right there in front of me, and it was undeniable.  Most of the people I talked to at BlizzCon about the expansion mentioned the worgen right off.  It didn't matter if it was during a formal interview, or during an informal conversation.  The worgen just kept coming up, again and again.  Sure, there was a bit of excitement about the new race for the horde – the goblins – but the worgen really stole the show.  

I can only surmise why.  First of all, the worgen have an intrinsic coolness.  They're large wolf-people, and their look is, by universal agreement, excellent.  (Personally, I may be the one person who thinks they look a wee bit like cats, but that's just me).  Big claws for hands, big paws for feet, and a huge canine (or, if you're me, feline) head.  The color schemes give them a variety of cool variations, as do some of the individual features.  Ok, some of the hairstyles look dumb (like someone made a wig from some anime character, then slapped in onto a lycanthrope's head), and a few of the customisable options need a bit of work, but that's just quibbling.  The worgen look great.

Speaking of lycanthropy, I learned, after BlizzCon had come to a close, that the worgen actually have an intrinsic shape-shifting ability.  Sure, I ran around as a worgen for a nice while, testing out this and that, playing around with the various classes, etc.  Further, Blizzard discussed it during one of its panels.  Yet somehow, true to my unique genius, I completely missed one of the coolest things about the worgen, their ability to shape shift.

By all accounts, their shape-shifting ability is a real attention grabber.  A worgen can choose to appear as a human, but upon entering combat he/she reverts to their “true” lupine form.  I'm sure this will be useful in some quests down the line, but even if it's just a quirk with no real value, it's certainly fun.  The worgen also get a great racial, in that they can sprint like a wolf for six seconds.  It's called Darkflight, and it gives worgen a 70% speed boost.  It seems like an extremely useful tool for pulling mobs, escaping bad situations, and for PvP.  As it stands it's on a three minute cool-down timer.  Of course, that's subject to change.

The worgen get a few other intriguing race advantages.  There is an overall 1% damage increase modifier, which min-maxers and the super hardcore will no doubt love.  There's also a 15% duration reduction to curses and diseases cast on worgen characters, again giving them an advantage in some encounters.  They also get a 15% bonus to skinning because, as everyone knows, wolves are excellent at, um, neatly removing the hides from animals (and taxidermy in general.)

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