[Republic]

I personally feel like the game has gotten as "large" as it's roughly going to go because of the fact Blizzard seems willing to "sell out" the old players/game/lore in favor of attracting new. Old players who barely recognize a game they've played for 5 years will leave, wondering where their game went that they loved. New players coming in won't know the difference. Case in point, a snippet of a conversation on LFG in my Aggramar realm earlier tonight...

Player A : "LFM AQ40, 60+ welcome, all classes"

Player B (a level 80 shaman) : "What's AQ40?"

Now, while I realize no one person knows every single aspect of the game, but the fact that a person can level 80 times in today's game without even so much as hearing about a once major instance is well, sad. My point of disgust is not that every player needs to have the same values and goals and should all follow the old world content as closely as some of us who were max level 60's for quite a long time before BC came along, but it's the content, lore, and work that went into the old world that's being missed, ignored, and never experienced. It seems to me that with each passing expansion, they are figuring out new ways of getting players past all this old content ASAP in favor of adding more idiots to the level 80 grind for new vanity pets, or new currency for only marginally better gear (which for paladins, endgame armor never looks good anyway, who wants it?). I mean, why do we need to fast track past all this stuff?

BTW, I still think horde paladins and alliance shamans are abominations. Don't get me wrong, I have liked a few things in each of the existing expansions, but the more crazy crap I read about Cataclysm, the more I begin looking for a new game. Bottom line for me - everything I've read sounds dumb as hell. I'm hoping someone wakes up before we have a "new Coke" situation on our hands.

I'm not opposed to expansions, but let them be actual expansions. Leave the old crap alone and add to it. EXPAND the game. If you cast avenger's shield, you do NOT give milk! Know what I'm saying? What the hell are they thinking?!? I simply don't understand why they are willing to screw up the existing game/lore/whatever in favor of making it all seem new with stupid changes.

I'm telling you, someone important is on crack or on the verge of a breakdown! And yes, I'm not opposed to the idea it may be me as I sure as hell don't understand some of these potential "changes". I find it ironic that some of the people commenting about it thought all of this might be another april fool's type joke. To me, this fact alone speaks volumes about "Cataclysm".