• Path of the Titans removed. It was too similar to the glyph system – as I predicted last year!
• Instead, a new tier of Medium Glyphs: “Major glyphs are still critical, but minor and medium glyphs have more flexibility.” “Medium glyphs will be to provide ‘fun’ alterations to abilities.” 3 glyphs of each type at level 85.
• Glyphs may be permanently learned, and then swapped from a list, not consumed on use. Scribes may produce a “kind of eraser” to allow glyphs to be swapped. Not yet confirmed.
• Inscription more focused on non-glyphs (cards, trinkets, offhand).
• Archaeology becomes more lore and storyline focused. Not a “must have” profession.
• 2 types of Archaeological discovery: Common Artifacts (lore-based collection game) and Rare Items (usable items – mostly “cosmetic”).

• “With the large number of class changes coming with Cataclysm, many existing glyphs will see new functionality.
• Minor glyphs are woefully uneven from one class to the next right now, so they’re a focus for us to clean them up and try to ensure that everyone has minor glyphs they’re excited about.
• New Darkmoon Cards will be added, with hopes they’ll all be as awesome as the Greatness card.
• We’ll be adding more major glyphs as well, but in the hopes of making them as balanced as possible, we’ll likely wait until after the expansion ships to add any for the new abilities in Cataclysm.
• New and more desirable off-hand and relic recipes will be added.”

“Lots of new fish and other fun items to catch! Fish are still used to make premium food. New fishing dailies.”

Nothing about any changes to the method of catching fish, but “many of the professions are still deep in development”. Oh, and no aquarium ;-) .

Importance of Glyphs

Why can scribes not make anything very unique? Blizzard responded (Jon LeCraft, I assume):

“We don’t ever really want to make a glyph very difficult to get, because they’re so core to gameplay. People think they can’t play if they can’t get a glyph.”

If you cannot find a Jewelcrafter that can cut a particular rare gem, you can find a more common cut. If you can’t buy that Titansteel Destroyer at auction, there are alternative weapons. You loose some “stats”. You loose some advantage over your enemies. But that is not crippling.

In contrast, if you cannot get a specific glyph, there are no similar alternatives. This can be crippling. For example, a special mage (warlock) without Glyph of Shadowflame cannot use Shadowflame to slow approaching enemies. In some PvP situations, that glyph has become fundamental to survival. There is not an alternative, common “Lesser Glyph of Shadowflame”, that gives a 60% speed reduction. The choice is either 0% or the full 70%.

The Path of the Titans, and the new Ancient Glyph, may be similarly “core to gameplay”: Everyone will want to try and gain those new benefits.

Demand for Glyphs

Inscription’s glyphs are rarely changed: Dual-specs mean that noticeable fresh demand for new glyphs tends to only occur when there have been major class changes. This is frustrating for Scribes, many of whom found the Inscription profession very rewarding at the outset, but now find far fewer people are asking for their services.

I expect the same pattern with the Path of the Titans: At the start, many people will want to improve or change their paths. But once they have completed that, they will not continually make further changes. At least, not until the next major patch changes the benefits of different paths, or adds new paths.

Evolution of Professions

The Path of the Titans is far more personal than most professions: It’s all about you. It’s a way to change you. The benefits are personal.

Over the last few years, personal professional benefits have become far more important.

How many people trained Jewelcrafting because prismatic Jewelcrafter-only gems gave more options than other profession personal benefits? And then dropped it when patch 3.2 removed the prismatic status from Jewelcrafter-only gems? Or, in the Burning Crusade, trained Leatherworking simply to maintain drum-rotations during raid boss fights?

Years ago, when Ragnaros was still feared, the main personal benefit of a profession was the ability to craft enough Fire Resist gear to get your guild through the fight.

New crafters probably don’t realise how much professions have already changed.

Archaeology

Archaeology evolves from Inscription. Archaeology’s features might have been part of the Inscription profession. But they are not. Instead Archaeology is a new secondary profession:

• The Path of the Titans is too important to everyone.
• Improvements are too much of a “once only” purchase to keep a primary profession busy.
• Even more than other professions, Archaeology’s benefits are personal.

“Big changes to fishing that I cannot talk about yet… We’re going to make it more fun!”

Perhaps based on Animal Crossing – you’d be able to see different types of fish, and cast so that the bobber lands near the fish you want (thanks Mike).

With the Cataclysm, maximum personal fishing skill will rise to 525, with a new “Illustrious” rank. And water appears to move more.

You will be able to explore ruins around Azeroth and recover “notes” or artefacts that have been exposed by the cataclysm. Gather several similar notes in your journal (pictured below), and then decipher these in a “minigame” or quest (undecided). This will gives different rewards – vanity pets, instant travel to dungeon, titles, recipes for other professions.

Artifacts can be given to a cult, to gain a glyph that fits your Ancient Glyph slot. These glyphs are not part of Inscription. They are part of the Path of the Titans, a new customisation/progression system. Gaining all these ancient glyphs is “gated, not grindy”.

Below is a mock-up of the archaeology journal:

(Source: Blizzard/DirectTV.)