WoW Cataclysm

Leveling Changes
For the first time you will not gain ten new levels in an add-on. Instead, you only get five new levels. However, those five levels will take as long as the ten levels of the previous expansions. To prevent the leveling process in the Old World to take up too much time, a big number of quests were revisited, so that you can complete them faster and in a more efficient way.

Another first in a World of Warcraft add-on: Blizzard has reworked large portions of the user interface. The old Spell Book is now easier to navigate, because old spell ranks simply do not exist anymore and thus cannot clutter your Spell Book. The character interface, navigation of your pets and mounts and many other elements were redone and are now much more intuitive. To sum it up: You spend less time with the interface and more time with the actual game.

Connect with Friends
Your friends list has received an update as well. By using Blizzard’s RealID you can now see if your friends are online whether they are actually playing World of Warcraft or not. It is enough to be logged into one of Blizzard’s other games such as StarCraft 2 or Diablo to be able to chat with them and see what they are up to.

Pinnacle of evolution
All this combined is responsible for what seems to be the best add-on Blizzard has released for World of Warcraft thus far. Especially if you took a long break from World of Warcraft, you will find it more than just thrilling to experience what Blizzard has done to bring the New Old World back in shape.

Less AoE, more control
As an avid player of Wrath of the Lich King you will have noticed that players did not have to worry about which target to attack first, which target to crowd control and so on. Instead, all classes more or less spammed their area of effect spells to pulverize entire groups of enemies in seconds. For some players this might have been fun; challenging gameplay, however, looks different.

Therefore Blizzard brought back the old crowd control gameplay of previous expansions.