The Gaming Lizard

Welcome to this week's double feature from the world of Warcraft: Cataclysm. First up I shall introduce the worgen starting area of Gilneas city, a place walled up from the outside world until a certain black dragon farted and blew the entire wall down.

Lerion is the name of a druid character I came up with years ago and thus fitting that I use him to experience the zone itself.

When you started your very first worgen, you will be thrown into the midst of the Worgen vs. Gilneans conflict immediately. First thing you'll notice is that you're human. Of course you are! since the storyline started with you helping Prince Liam Greymane warding off Aurgal's worgens and slowly progresses until you became one of the beasts.

The skills trainer's window is much more crisper now, featuring only new skills that you can buy. No longer you have to deal with running back to your trainer to level up a particular skill since Blizzard make all skills scale with your level. And yes, Gilneas features the very first concept of human druids.


After getting bitten, a cutscene will play (thou it is not implemented yet) and you'll wake up to find yourself drugged, angry and chained up.



The worgen druid's cat form is extremely sexy and definitely has a wolfish charm to it.

The animation of changing between human and worgen form is very cool and only happens if you physically click on the racial TWO FORMS. In combat, the transformation is much smoother and smaller scale such that you'll not be annoyed by a raid of 10 worgens charging into battle while exploding with bright orange lights.

The water engine has been upgraded as well and I much say it looks pretty although underwater, my visibility is lacking. More improvements definitely can be made in this aspect.

The Battle for Gilneas, ending in a tragedy, is the climax of the Worgen starter experience. It follows the style similar to Battle for Undercity and ends with a fight against the Banshee Queen herself.



Apart from a few glitches found, the last few quests for the worgen area are not implemented yet. Overall, the zone's really well done although the mood is visibly more depressing than that of the Goblins. Here's looking forward to a more smoother glitch free questing in future beta patches. Watch out for the next Betaman introducing the new Deathknight Rune System.