Project Lore

And when I say "Project Lore," I really mean "myself." I don't want to speak for the rest of my fellow bloggers, but I made a great number of predictions in my series of Cataclysm Countdown articles, leading up to the events this weekend. While I still maintain that most of them were logical considering what we knew at the time, Blizzard threw a major curveball that negated many of my initial preconceptions.

Lore

Malfurion Stormrage, Lord of the Druids

A lot of people predicted that Queen Azshara would be the big baddie, the number one villain, of Cataclysm. But she was rarely referenced in any of the panels, and was all but missing from the expansion's reveal. At first, I believed that she might be brought into the story as Cataclysm rolls along. Maybe you'd defeat Deathwing after the first patch or something, and then Azshara would rise from the depths, ready to challenge players in the wake of the Black Dragon Aspect's demise.

But through all of the live feed interviews and panel Q&As, it's been brought to light that they have no plans at all for Azshara or the Maelstrom to be included in this expansion. The best we can hope for, it seems, are a few related story elements revealed in the Vashj'ir zone.

Other lore elements, such as Thrall becoming the next Guardian of Tirisfal or Cairne Bloodhoof being framed for betrayal, were completely side-stepped. I'm not sure anybody even bothered to ask during the Q&A sessions. However, a few revealed plot details do cooberate these ideas. Malfurion, who is supposed to be key in turning Thrall into the next Guardian, has indeed returned from the Emerald Dream to defend the World Tree from Ragnaros, and it was also mentioned that Garrosh is the one behind the changes to Orgrimmar (Dark Iron reinforcements) and the creation of a new Horde base near Darkshore. They stopped short of calling him the new Warchief , but clearly, he is privy to some power and influence that he didn't have before.

Azeroth Remade

Oh yes, the old Azeroth is gone, but not quite in the way we expected it to be. Once again, the supposed inclusion of Azshara implied something happening with the Maelstrom, and a water-related apocalypse. We've yet to see how Deathwing's explosion into the world has affected every zone (my guess is that Blizzard has shown those that are farther along like The Barrens and Darkshore), but we do know that lava, fire, and large gutters literally burned into the earth feature far more prominently than any sort of flooding. And in places where water has affected the environment (Desolace), it seems more like a positive change.

Likewise, if the world map used to display the new zones is any indication, we will not be seeing any large, sweeping changes to the coastline. In some places, there may be light flooding, or new estuaries formed as the ocean fills in ancient rivers, but we have not seen anything on the scale of Swamp of Sorrows being completely washed away or Durotar being destroyed.

Then again, there is still plenty of time for things to change, and as development progresses, we may still see several classic zones undergo similarly drastic transformations.

New Zones

I sincerely thought that we'd see a lot of the South Seas and the Maelstrom open up with the expansion, but with Azshara being nixed, that no longer seems to be the case. The two zones which represent the area, The Lost Isles and Vashj'ir, are both completely new, previously unrevealed in the lore. It is reported that Kezan will make a brief appearance (I'm guessing in the 1-5 level Goblin content, before they are forced to flee), but that's about it.

Instead, we received a rather large surprise. To supplement the opening of previously closed mainland zones like Uldum and the area near Grim Batol (now the Twlight Highlands), we're also getting access to the Elemental Planes. These were long supposed to comprise an expansion all their own, and while it's slightly disappointing that we'll only be able to see small parts of them (aside from Deepholm, which we'll get to see all of), they are an exciting and interesting addition.

My biggest disappointment? Probably the distinct lack of anything related to Trolls! I suppose there's always a chance that Zandalar could show up in a content patch somewhere down the road.

Kul Tiras was missing, too. Mention of the Alliance nation was nowhere to be seen, but the prison in the new PvP/daily zone Tol Barad was reportedly built by then. That's something, I guess.

Raids

The first article in my Cataclysm Countdown series dealt with potential raid content. I proposed six different raid zones: Nazjatar, The Rift, Zandalar, Grim Batol, CoT: War of the Ancients, and Blackrock Mountain. Without the Maelstrom, those first two are completely out. Zandalar, as I've already said, I lament the exclusion of. And the War of the Ancients is no longer as integral to the expansion's story as it would've been (though Deathwing still played his part).

That leaves Grim Batol and Blackrock Mountain (specifically, Blackwing Descent). I suppose one-third of my predictions isn't too bad in the grand scheme of thing, and I nailed two of the four raids. Right? Right?

Blackwing Descent 2D Concept

I'm also glad that we got to hear some details about Icecrown Citadel, something I was afraid might get completely overshadowed by the expansion announcement.

PvP

Now I was way, way off here. I anticipated all sorts of new PvP options to be implemented with the expansion, but it seems that Blizzard is largely content to stick to their roots. We get a new Wintergrasp-style area (Tol Barad, complete with Vault of Archavon-style raid instance) and the promise of three new Battlegrounds. The first of which will be the Battle for Gilneas, a fight for control of the capital city's various districts.

Though I cited Hillsbrad as the primary area of contention, it's nice to know that I wasn't completely off when I said that the Forsaken would be causing havoc in the area.

The only other revelations we saw at the convention were the promise of new arena maps and ranked Battlegrounds. I suppose this is something we'll be hearing a lot more about down the road.

The Right of Wrong

My final article laid out several rumors to be wary of going into BlizzCon, and I think I scored on every one of those. The oft-cited list of expansion zone sets was completely disproved. Just like my own predictions, it's easy to assume what zones might be included when you think you know what the next expansion is about. Both "The List" and I considered the whole of the South Seas fair game, but that was when we all thought Cataclysm was simply code for the Maelstrom.

Then there was Cataclysm's release date. As expected, no specific date was given, but it was made clear that StarCraft 2 was their first priority for 2010. Nonetheless, while Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime tried his best to side-step saying anything definitive, he couldn't deny that they were, indeed, targeting two releases for next year.

Finally, we got confirmation on the status of the old Azeroth. It's gone. For good. Finito. You'll never be able to go back and, no, the new version of the world won't simply be phased over it. There is one, single Azeroth. But phasing will still be used extensively. Perhaps even more exciting is that Blizz has figured out how to phase terrain, something previously said to be a limitation. This means that phasing can make the play experience even more dynamic.

I questioned the Globes of Ulduar and came away with a win. The artwork included in both the Ulduar raid instance and Halls of Lightning displayed a freshly sundered Azeroth, in several stages. Many of the zones have changed, but we have seen no evidence of any of them completely disappearing or being underwater.



There was an awful lot of denial going around before the reveal. A lot of people read the spoilers and said that most of it couldn't be done. That Azeroth wouldn't change so drastically. That the new race/combinations were impossible because they didn't jive with the lore.

Well, most of it ended up being true, proving that the developers are the true masters of their lore. But that doesn't make them appreciate their watchdog fans any less. Chris Metzen stated, in one of the live feed interviews, that there is so much lore to consider, that during heavy and rapid development, it is quite possible for them to miss inconsistencies, and that the fans do a lot to keep them in check.

So that's it for BlizzCon 2009. We (I) got a few things right, and a lot of things wrong. I'm willing to admit it! In the end, I'm glad we couldn't predict everything, as that would've taken the punch out of many of the surprises they had in store. But I still hope that we end up seeing all the things I touched on somewhere down the line. For now, it seems like Blizzard has their hands full implementing all of the content they revealed over the past few days! As usual, keep your eyes on Project Lore.

After all, the more you know, the more questions you have. And the more questions you have, the more they consume your mind. We are in for another good year of speculation!