Editing World of Warcraft (section)

===Cataclysm (Otherwise Known as TRYING TO BE "World of Warcraft 2")===
[[File:El Presidente.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The world is partially destroyed, 1/5 of the city is sent into the ocean while on fire, the front gates are fucked halfway to hell, all of the forces of evil are trying to end the world in different ways, the entire world is at war with itself again, but the Alliance managed to build a bridge and put up a statue of the king.]]
Cataclysm is the third expansion of WoW and centered around the <del>revival of a brood of EEEEEEVVVIL dragons known as the Black Dragonflight</del> the return of the black dragons' big daddy: Deathwing; a business SO FUCKING serious that said returning [[Exterminatus|tore the Classic continents apart]]... Or at least that was the excuse to revamp the "Old World" and try to make questing easier, and update the plot so you aren't reliving everything from Classic WoW every time you roll a new character.

The main plot of this expansion was that the Twilight Cult, who appeared in every expansion as some crazy cultist fucks worshiping the Old Gods, have finished healing another very important villain from Azeroth's past (for all the information about him, and his defeat, refer to an external novel; seriously, Warcraft by this point had made a habit of making the gameplay more in-game, while driving the setup for in-game plot into novels and comics). Deathwing then fucked up magnets in the Elemental Plane of Earth pissing off the main earth elemental Therazane, brought back Ragnaros from the Elemental Plane of Fire to fuck the world for lulz, and involved the Naga in their bid to take over the Elemental Plane of Water from Neptulon, the poppa water elemental. Also the Elemental Plane of Air guy Al'akir was there for some reason. He never really got much plot.

Players then drag their ass all over the world again, from the bottom of the sea to ancient Egypt populated by cat-taurs (not even joking), many of whom turned evil because they want to be robots (again, not making this up). You visit Mount Hyjal (meaning Blizzard finally remembered the Night Elves, as Hyjal's their turf and Ragarnos popped up there with plans to turn the World Tree into kindling to burn Azeroth), which is awesome, then visit the Twilight Highlands, which is even MORE awesome since it brought the Wildhammer Dwarfs (crazy CRAZY shirtless gryphon riders) and Dragonmaw Clan (crazy CRAZY grey-skinned dragon riding Orcs) into the game. 

You fight a shit ton of elemental monsters, Twilight Cultists, Lovecraftian beasts, and dragons leading up to Deathwing himself. Also, a detour (which is fine for once since it <del>involves Trolls, and Warcraft Trolls are awesome</del> ties into an ongoing plot for once).

Thrall gives up Warchief-hood, but becomes an even bigger Mary Sue in the process by becoming the savior of the world. He decides to put that fuckhead son of Grom, Garrosh, in charge for reasons (apparently it's because the horde is mostly full of jackass racist Orcs, and Garrosh was the only non-old Orc he trusted). Garrosh proceeds to turn the end of the world into one giant war against the Alliance where he begins somewhat noble and wanting more land for Orcs (though said land belongs to the Night Elves), and quickly goes into baby-eating insane when he imposes martial law, going from "get more land for orcs" to "kill all Night Elves".

The game also brought two new races into the game. Worgen, werewolves that are humans half the time and speak in a Cockney accent, and Goblins (long demanded by fans), who push that even further and have essentially a toxic wastedump of a racial home covered in neon signs, rockets, cars and giant robots everywhere. Surprisingly, this isn't lore rape so much as it is a complete sidetrip into comedy (it was still considered one of the best parts of the expansion by fans however, with MANY angry that the Worgen and Goblin plots, like the Draenei and Blood Elves before them, simply stop in favor of more Human/Orc bullshit). 

In the end, you kill Deathwing and severely cripple another Old God who never shows whatever passes for its face (if it has one). The Dragon Aspects relinquish their demigod powers to mortals, with Thrall becoming the new Aspect of Earth, pretty standard "the magic goes away so now mortals have to fend for themselves" trope. He also gets married and becomes a father. Yay, that was sure important. 

Now all that said, Deathwing does manage to be the threat the Lich King should have been. His appearances have the NPCs of note trying all failing to kill him throughout the story and prior to the patch that introduced the raid where you kill him, he would randomly show up in the sky and autokill everything in an entire region of the world in flames.

Thanks to all of the revamping (removing one-sided hills and broken textures in areas players weren't meant to go) you could finally fly in the "old world", something players had wanted since Burning Crusade. 

It made the game more challenging (until <del>the dreaded patch 4.2.0, which took the game's difficulty straight to hell, hell being piss-easy and brainless grind tailored for mouthbreathers. Remember gearscore? THAT'S the kind of retardedness I am talking about...and I don't want to even mention patch 4.3.0...</del> patch 4.2.0 which broke down the barriers keeping players who spend all day on the game from reaching the level of players who do not by streamlining class mechanics and implementing the ability to simply queue for dungeons rather than actually have to find a group for them). Excellent expansion for the MOST casual of players, whose mindset is simple enough to withstand mindless grinding in the same <s>six</s> TWO instances day after day for months, doing the same daily quests over and over, watching those same bots in the auction house cut out your auctions over and over without Blizzard ever responding to your reports, and playing those two new battlegrounds to the point of madness...

Unfortunately, as great as some of the newer features were, Blizzard ran into a BIG snag; by spending the time of the devs working only on the revamped Old World, they only ended up with a small amount of endgame content which reused assets as much as possible along with a big update-less gap where players simply continued the same course of action (same few dungeons and dailies) for months. Many players disliked the new plots, and wanted to replay the content they knew and loved. Furthermore, playing a new character and feeling like a new part of the world was great until level 58 where they suddenly went back in time to Outland, and back in time to Northrend at level 68. Many fans considered Cataclysm as the worst expansion as a result not of actual mistakes, but of dropping the ball on content so badly. Later, Warlords of Draenor would show everyone what a REAL fuck-up looked like, and make everyone realize that Cataclysm was actually not that bad.