Project Lore

With Patch 3.3 out, all most of us can think of going forward is the release of Cataclysm, but according to a new interview with the folks over at WorldofWar.de, Tom Chilton has more or less confirmed that we will see just one more round of additions before the expansion hits:

WorldofWar.de: Will there be another patch before Cataclysm or do you even plan to release a new raid boss? Tom Chilton: We do expect that there will be a new patch before the new expansion, although we don’t expect it to be like a typical numbered patch like 3.4 or 3.5. This could include balance changes, it could potentially include new features, depending on once the BattleNet-Features come online, maybe it could implement some of these. There’s even the possibility for a new raid boss, but it’s too early to say for sure.

So if it's not 3.4, then what will it be? 4.0 is likely to be the patch which introduces the re-made version of Azeroth, as well as many of the other universal changes undoubtedly coming with Cataclysm. Therefore, I think we can expect to see something along the lines of a "Patch 3.3.2," for the reasons cited by Chilton above. Assuming Battle.net 2.0 gets up and running before the expansion, then there will most certainly need to be a patch which adds that functionality to World of Warcraft, and we knew there would have to be a world event connecting Wrath with the events that come after its conclusion, we just didn't realize when. As for the possibility of a new raid boss, I'm going to go ahead and assume that it might be the final addition to Vault of Archavon (which would provide the necessary dungeon symmetry, pleasing obsessive-compulsive types). But if I really wanted to go out on a limb, perhaps another portal opening up under Wyrmrest Temple? Blizzard has stated they have no current plans for the space, but as we've witnessed, what they said publicly months ago doesn't serve as a a good indicator of what they might currently be doing behind the scenes. The rest of the interview is worth reading, though it offers little new information other than the reveal above. I do like that Chilton anticipates the game being around for many years to come ("Personally I would be surprised if World of Warcraft wasn’t still around another five years from now," in his own words). With the influential, but far less popular Everquest releasing its sixteenth expansion today, I don't think I'd be surprised to still be playing WoW well into my thirties, either. I'd like to thank WorldofWar.de, a German site, for providing us with a convenient English version of the interview which you can, once again, read in its entirety here. After looking it over, come back here and tell us what you expect (or rather, want) to see in a final, pre-expansion content patch.