zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

Okay, at this point I think it’s fair to say that we’re being bombarded with Cataclysm information. You’ll notice that I haven’t been writing about it. It’s by choice. I tend to ignore previews because of the fact that they’re temporary. I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is going to make it in the final product and I don’t want to spend the time and energy involved in keeping up with every little update. I also don’t want to deal with the eventual disappointment if something I’m looking forward to gets cut in the end. Just take a look at what they’re removing now and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, this is something I do for all games, not just WoW. I’ve been there before, folks. I’ve felt the anticipation, the excitement—then the game comes out and all you have a shell of what it was in the previews. So no, I don’t want to go through that. I’m going to get Cataclysm when it comes out whether it’s good or not. We probably all will.

I’ll tell you where it came from instead. I blame Arcanum. I’m a Fallout fanboy. Fallout 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games and I used to spend hours talking about them back in college with another friend of mine. Arcanum was created by the same guys so I saw every preview I could, bought every magazine that featured it. This was before Gametrailers, folks, so online preview videos were virtually unheard of. If you wanted information about a game, your best bet was to buy a magazine that covered it.

Then the game finally came out and it all went downhill. The real-time combat was too fast and awkward. The turn-based combat looked downright silly albeit more rewarding. The whole magic versus technology bit that they were trying to pull off came out half-assed. It was just a train wreck compared to Fallout. I hated it when it was released. I eventually played it after a few months when all my expectations were dead and it was only then that I appreciated it. I’ve been very wary of previews since.

So, going back to Cataclysm, if I find something interesting then I’ll write about it. For now, please don’t count on me covering previews and anything related to them.

And now, for the nitpicking.

Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue’s current target, helping to ensure combo points aren’t wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

This is a nice, welcome change. We won’t be wasting time building up combo points on fights that have a lot of target-switching, which then mean that we can do finishers more often. Too bad there’s no mention of transferring Deadly Poison stacks though. It wouldn’t make sense but it would be convenient.

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I’m taking a break from the usual WoW posts to take a look at Prototype. It’s like a cross between Devil May Cry and Grand Theft Auto, if both of them took place in a war-torn police state.

Expect the mayhem to come in June for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Namco Bandai is rumored to be covering femme fatale Isabella Valentine’s assets. Check out the comparison screenshot.

The Japanese version of the game will be getting the picture on the left while the U.S. version will get the relatively conservative attire on the right. It’s only a rumor for now, but I’m still saying it isn’t fair.

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