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The world of Warcraft isn't the only thing that will get some changes in Cataclysm: There will be new class/race combinations, entirely new systems of advancement - and a ton of new raids, dungeons, and PvP areas.
there was a ton of new information coming down the pipe at the Preview Panel immediately following. But beyond the new races and the complete reshaping of Azeroth, we got to take a look at the rest of the stuff, too.
A Classy Expansion, But Not a Talented One: Ever wonder why Druids could only be Tauren or Night Elves? Or why only Blood Elves and Draenei could be Horde Paladins or Alliance Shamans, respectively? Cataclysm will add a bunch of new Class/Race combinations to the game - Troll Druids, Tauren Paladins, Dwarf Shamans, Human and Undead Hunters, and Gnome Priests (to name a few). Variety is the spice of life, after all. (Or, "Holy Cow!")
On the other hand, there won't be any new levels of Talent trees - there will be five more talent points with the five more levels, and remade and refined talents, but the 51-pointers will still be as deep as the trees go. On the other hand, Blizzard will be adding the "Mastery System" - while they intended for talents to be cool, fun options, they found that players didn't take talents that didn't give direct benefits: "More healing, more criticals, more damage."
So instead, they will be taking some of those out of the talents, and putting them in the talent trees themselves - as the designers phrased it, it sounded like a Mage who put points in Fire - for example - would earn a boost to damage with every point he spent, no matter which talent it was in.
Excavating the Path of the Titans - With only five levels, the problem that the designers faced was, how could players customize their characters in lieu of new talent points? The new Secondary Skill, Archaeology (yes, a Secondary Skill - anyone can have it, like Fishing, Cooking, and First Aid) will enable players to explore the Titan ruins across Azeroth, to research and discover Artifacts that they can bring to different groups in the world to advance down the Path of the Titans. These Paths are not class-specific: A Rogue may choose any of the Paths, and a Priest may choose the same one that he does. No specifics were named, though.
