Class Population for Cataclysm

Hatch has written a great (and quite daring) post, predicting what percentage of the player base will pick each class in Cataclsym, based on the current previews. I suspect that I will fret about it briefly before sticking with my warrior because she’s still fun, dammit. And that’s why no major changes are a good thing.

Of course, there are still potential worgen and goblin alts to pick – and the lure of hybrids who can switch roles is undeniable. But then, some of the new race/class combinations are also appealing: troll druid, tauren paladin, undead hunter, dwarf shaman, night elf mage …

We still haven’t seen the new talent trees, and a lot of the detail will be in the tuning. But what do you think? Have you seen enough to make your decision? Do you agree with Hatch that paladin population will go through the roof, or do his predictions not go far enough? Are hybrids too appealing right now?

These are the Voyages of the Starship Tribblebuster

Star Trek Online is (still) currently due to launch on February 2nd in the US and the 5th here in Europe, less than a month from today. And as is customary, the NDA for press has been dropped before the general punters in the beta test are officially allowed to talk about their experiences.

The open beta is due to start next week, on Jan 12th, where everyone who has preordered will get a chance to see a) if they feel that they’ll get their money’s worth and b) to try to snag some variant of the name USS Enterprise which will be pointless because beta characters get wiped before the headstart, but people will forget this fact.

Cryptic have provided for a wide range of pre-order bonuses, depending on which purveyor of digital entertainment you choose to grace with your custom. These are nicely gauged to draw in the Trekkies (Constitution Class starship, mirror universe costumes, pet tribble, etc) without actually affecting the gameplay in any way. Whatever you think of this type of trick (bribe the punters with cute pets and cosmetic outfits!), it works. Or at least, it works on this punter. Bring on the tribble!

And now I just need someone to tell me how long the ship names are allowed to be so I can decide whether USS Justifiable Homicide is a go or not. Or I could wait until next week, when I will hopefully be able to file some reports from deep space in person.

Still, how are the initial preview reports shaping up?

Gamespy features a three part preview, where Gerald Villoria focusses on explaining what it’s all about (at least in the parts I have read, maybe he brings his conclusions in at the end.)

Wesley Yin-Poole at Videogamer.com likes the game and says that when it is good it is very good, but it feels grindy in the closed beta, and he finds it painfully slow paced. (My comment: Grindiness is something that is easily fixed in a tuning pass if it’s an issue, so that’s not necessarily a roadblock. But I do appreciate that he played the game and gave his genuine impressions – that’s what I like to see in a preview.)

Nick Kolan describes the opening mission in impressive depth (wonder if he played it much longer than that) at ign.com.

Anyone else planning on Star Trekkin’?