While
you will be able to log
into World of Warcraft: Cataclysm when it launches and immediately
start playing without any real difficulty (other than launch day server
lag of course), there are a significant number of changes to the
UI. In fact in many places the UI feels almost completely
new. In other places it is the same old faithful UI that we
have come to both love and loath.
The important thing here,
however, is
what has changed. What should you expect when you load
Cataclysm for the first time? Let’s start off with
the major changes as I see them, then move onto some of the smaller
changes.
Keep in mind that all these changes are in beta currently, meaning
that they are subject to change, revision, or even
removal before Cataclysm
is released.
MAJOR UI
CHANGES IN CATACLYSM
Character
Screen
Your character screen will
change significantly,
as the stats are no longer located under your image. Instead,
they are shown along the side and all at once. This means no
more selecting which group of stats you would like to see since they
are all
there at once with a handy scroll bar to look through them with.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87484"
target="_blank">
alt="Cataclysm Character UI"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87484" width="400">
PvP
Screens
The PvP screens have changed to
support rated battlegrounds and to display more information in a single
place than before. Not being a huge PvP player I will let
images of the screens speak for themselves.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87483"
target="_blank">
alt="Cataclysm PvP UI"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87483" width="630">
Spellbook
and Professions
The Spellbook / Profession book
has also been redone. While the spell section looks similar the
professions area is vastly different. One of the main things you will
notice right away is that Professions are no longer listed on the
general tab along the side, instead they have their own separate tab
along the bottom of the Spellbook.
Next up, you will notice that
all spells are listed in your spellbook as grayed out and display the
level you can learn them at for the first time. Once you are
able to learn a new ability or a new level of that ability it will
become highlighted in the spellbook. This makes it extremely
easy to tell if you need to visit your class trainer.
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style="border: 2px solid ; width: 280px;">
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 300px;">
The
new professions screen shown on the left above gives them their own
area away from the general skills. On the right, the new spellbook will
alert you to when new spells or abilities are available at your class
trainer.
Talent
Trees
The Talent Tree page has
changed
significantly in two major ways. To start off with,
when you have not spent any talent points and are deciding which talent
tree you should put your points into, the game displays a
very helpful
screen. The talent screen clearly shows you which bonuses you
get by selecting that talent tree, which is great for new players.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87480"
target="_blank">
alt="Cataclysm Talent UI"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87480" width="400">
Secondly, once you have
selected your primary talent tree and start spending points in it, you
can still see
the other 2 trees at the same time. This makes
it very easy to examine your entire talent build compared to the old
method of bouncing back and forth between screens.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87479"
target="_blank">
alt="Cataclysm Talent UI 2"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87479" width="400">
MINOR UI
CHANGES
style="margin: 2px; width: 170px; float: right;">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87477">
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87477/preview"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 150px;" border="0">
A
very handy multiple search feature.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87478">
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87478/preview"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 150px;" border="0">
A
nice looking notification that you just leveled.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87486">
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87486/preview"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 150px;" border="0">
You
can now finish a quest and get the rewards while still out questing.
Mini-map
While this is a small change,
it is extremely
helpful. You can now select multiple things to track on your
mini-map all at once. Hurray! This one is far overdue. No more choosing
between searching for herbs or minerals while farming, you can now do
both
at once.
Profession
Filtering
Are
you like me, and can never find that pattern when you go to make an
item? Finally, Blizzard has implemented a way to search through your
patterns and narrow it down significantly. While very basic
and simple, it is far superior to the old method.
Leveling
Now when you level it
pops up on screen with a nice looking icon and shows you that you have
more talent points and that you can learn new abilities. Team this up
with the new spellbook that shows you what you can learn and this is a
very nice little feature. Better yet it shows up a lot clearer that the
old announcement in the chat window, which it still does.
In
Field Quest Completion
Now
when you finish a quest that does not require a direct turn in, it will
pop up as an icon while still out in the field. This is pretty cool as
you do not have to run back to the nearest quest hub to turn these
quests in. In general these are quests that either end quest chains or
are one offs. Better yet, if these quests have rewards, you still get
them even though there is no NPC around.
Trainers
The trainer interface has been
made more visually
appealing. I can’t see many real changes to how it
functions, but it does look better with small images by each item, and
anything you can not learn appearing grayed
out.
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