Project Lore

The Abyssal Maw

Proverb is a rare yet delicious column discussing the lore of Warcraft. It is spoiler heavy for all Warcraft games, novels, and other media. Comment on this post or send a tweet to @Heartbourne and let us know what you would like to see in future columns! Worldofwarcraft.com updated their official Cataclysm page with more information about the Abyssal Maw a few weeks ago:

Azeroth's native elementals wreaked havoc across the world while they were under the influence of the Old Gods.

To keep Azeroth safe from these threats, the titans imprisoned the Old Gods underground and banished the savage elementals to the titan-constructed Elemental Plane, a secure dominion where the elementals could dwell without harming Azeroth. Four domains were created within this primordial realm to serve as ideal environments for each type of elemental. For ages since, the elementals of air, water, earth, and fire have engaged in endless strife with each other, waging titanic battles in the confines of their realm. One of the Elemental Plane's domains, a vast ocean known as the Abyssal Maw, is home to the water elementals. Legend says that Neptulon the Tidehunter, the powerful being who rules over the aquatic realm, possesses a potent weapon that allows its owner to control the very seas of Azeroth. Thus far, the artifact has remained secure inside the water elementals' domain... but that will soon change. Within Deepholm, the domain of the earth elementals, the malefic Dragon Aspect Deathwing is on the verge of executing a catastrophic act: to burst forth from the Elemental Plane into Azeroth. Doing so will ravage the surface of the world and breach the barrier that separates Azeroth from the elementals' realm. Whether Neptulon and his subjects have entered into an alliance with Deathwing remains unknown. Regardless, if Deathwing's actions create an opening into the Abyssal Maw, nefarious and honorable factions alike will seek out the fabled weapon carried by Neptulon. Whoever secures the artifact will have control over the world's seas, a power that perhaps no one, not even members of the Horde or the Alliance, should possess. Here is what we know so far about the Abyssal Maw and Neptulon. Neptulon is the elemental lord of water. He has dominion over all water in Azeroth. The Great Sea, Bloodvenom River, the wishing well in Dalaran, and Thrall's personal shower included. This can be bad, seeing as the elemental lords like to spend their free time chatting with Old Gods about how to return the titan-ordered world of Azeroth back into chaos. However, his banishment into the elemental plane severely limits his influence over the mortal world, though he is able to exert some influence. The elemental lords now enjoy attempting to exterminate each other, but for now the elements remain somewhat in balance. The Abyssal Maw, where Neptulon now resides after being banished from Azeroth by the Titans, is the oceanic region of the Elemental Plane. The Elemental Plane is a small, spherical "planet" located somewhere in the Twisting Nether. In that sense, it is not so different than Draenor. However, the elements battle for supremacy, making the realm very chaotic, much as Azeroth was before the Titans arrived. Neptulon takes great pleasure in tearing at the rocky beaches of Deepholm, the earthen realm of the Elemental Plane where Therazane rules and Deathwing currently resides.

The appropriately named Firelands

Deepholm is the only land region in the Elemental Plane, a singular continent surrounded by the Abyssal Maw. Below the Abyssal Maw and Deepholm lies the Firelands, where Ragnaros reigns. Ragnaros and the fire elementals constantly try to break through into Deepholm, but their volcanoes are constantly sealed by the earth elementals. Neptulon enjoys invading the realm of Ragnaros as well. The last region of the elemental plane is somewhat separated from the others, as it is high above the other three realms. It is the realm Skywall, where Al'Akir watches over the rest of the Elemental Planes. He is said to be the weakest of the four elemental lords, and he takes great pleasure in tormenting Ragnaros and the fire elementals as well as Therazane's realm, which borders the Abyssal Maw with some rocky beaches. In part 2, we'll look at what Ragnaros and Neptulon have been up to in WoW and what their plans are for Cataclysm, as well as this fabled weapon that Neptulon might have.. Stay tuned!

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BlizzCon 2009 is certainly gone, but it is by no means forgotten.  The latest, and greatest, convention to celebrate Blizzard's universes has given World of Warcraft players plenty of fodder for questions and concerns.  Not to mention increasing the general hunger we reserve for all things Azeroth (or things in another dimension that happen to impact Azeroth).  Even though the third expansion is a ways away, Blizzard has begun trickling out additional information and screenshots for Deathwing's return via the official Cataclysm website. The Abyssal Maw, the elemental plane of water, was chosen as the first zone to be detailed.  In sticking with tradition, the new page details the background of the zone as told through small snippets of lore.  We learn, or are reminded, that the elemental planes are creations of the Titans to protect their creations from the elemental minions of the Old Gods (ie Ragnaros) and the natural destructive forces of the elements.  However, Deathwing's escape into Azeroth rips open a hole between the planes of existence, allowing noble and nefarious factions to enter the formerly closed areas. Blizzard manages to tease a new Legendary item during the description of Abyssal Maw.  By way of describing the likely end boss of the zone, Neptulon the Tidehunter, Blizzard states that he "possesses a potent weapon that allows its owner to control the very seas of Azeroth."  And it appears that players will be able to get their hands on the powerful weapon, "the artifact has remained secure inside the water elementals' domain... but that will soon change." It's nice to see Blizzard following up BlizzCon with new information in such a timely manner.  Hopefully the company can keep the flow of information coming, instead of peaks and valleys.  In case you are wondering, the Cataclysm site is not bare outside of Abyssal Maw.  It also contains the introduction to the Worgen with Gilneas and the Lost Isles for the Goblins.

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And I thought the possible announcement of in-game prizes was an exciting enough reason to start following Warcraft on Twitter! Not but a few minutes ago was a new, tantalizing hook posted to the game's page, and it says the following:

The mysteries of the Abyssal Maw are starting to take shape… #WoW

What we currently know of the Abyssal Maw. Just when you thought it was over, they reel you back in! But what could this really mean? For the uninitiated, the Abyssal Maw is the Plane of the Water Elementals, which we recently learned we'd be visiting in the next expansion. As yet, we only know of one portal to the alternate dimension, a swirling whirlpool in the center of the new zone, Vashj'ir. We also know that it will contain at least two leveling dungeons for 80-85 level players. So, does that mean we might be learning more about this unexplored area in the very near future? The Abyssal Maw was highlighted heavily in various panels at Blizzcon, perhaps indicating that it is one of the pieces of fresh, high-level content that's the furthest along in development. And that means it may also be the first that we get an extensive preview of. It hasn't even been a month since the expansion's reveal, and yet the time seems ripe for Blizzard to start peeling back the veil on Cataclysm little by little. Very little else can be gleaned from this brief tease, and there's no way that we can confirm at the moment if anything is true. After all, there's always the possibility that this might pertain to the comic series or the TCG,  but we'll keep our eyes glued to Twitter for any further information, which we will no doubt bring to the rest of you! Speculation is always fun, though. Readers, what do you think this strange message might mean?

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As Amatera detailed for us live during BlizzCon, and Heartbourne has expanded upon a bit, too, it looks like we'll be getting a ton of new dungeon and raiding content in the third expansion. Continuing along the same topic, I recorded a bit of the panel at the convention so you all can hear exactly what developers had to say about the new content. And best of all, right here is where you can see a ton of artwork on the new content and several quick sneak peek videos that Blizzard unveiled live Saturday. Cut into three YouTube-sized video portions. Take a look: The video pretty much speaks for itself if you want to watch all the way through the three parts. But here are some of my thoughts on what we saw at this panel:

• Abyssal Maw - Beautiful updated water graphics, lots of pretty underwater colors for this dungeon on the sea floor. I wish the teaser would have shown a bit more! Dueling Naga should be fun. And, it's "something we've never done before."
• Halls of Origination - Looking forward to another 5-player dungeon, and one built by the Titans at that. I'm digging the Egyptian-like concept art and glowing blue-green ceilings. And what about that "secret weapon...?" Sounds interesting.
• Blackrock Caverns - It "reinvents" the fan favorite of Blackrock Spire, which I'm sure a lot of players will really dig. The graphics look promising, with lots of glowing reds and flowing lava.
• IceCrown Citadel and Dungeons - Sounds huge and epic, and I was happy to hear in the Q and A session after the panel that Blizzard is planning to do something special when Arthas goes down... they didn't elaborate, but hinted that we'll see some cinematics. Also, the whole rocket ship scenario with Alliance and Horde battling it out sounds like a lot of fun, and something we haven't seen a lot of in the past. And, of course, I'm looking forward to seeing what Sindragosa brings and how Blizz wraps up all the loose story ends.
• The Firelands - Fighting Ragnaros at his "full strength" (So, what, he'll be the size of a skyscraper?)? Could be intense. Beautiful concept art and the keep has some neat architecture.
• Onyxia - That new Onyxia-inspired mount looks amazing, and the whelpling almost (but not quite) as cute as a baby murloc :). I like the updated loot tables that are based on the original drops. Nostalgic. Watch out for the "little bit" more Deep Breath randomization.

And last but not least, the cross-server LFG sounds like it will be incredibly handy for PUGing. Plus, I'm really looking forward to the prospect of playing with some of my friends on other realms! And we don't even have to wait for Cataclysm; it's hopefully set to come out in patch 3.3. So what does everyone think of all this new content? Sounds like we'll have a lot to keep us busy. This is the last of my video posts covering BlizzCon - I hope you've enjoyed them! There's still a ton of information to comb through, so look for more in the coming weeks.

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12:50: Hello, and welcome to Project Lore's live coverage of the World of Warcraft Dungeons and Raids Panel. I, Amatera, will be hosting today. Currently, we are 10 minutes out from the start of the show. I wonder if they'll concentrate on Cataclysm or if we'll also get some details on what's going on with Icecrown Citadel. 12:57: Let's recall what we know so far. Raids include: Grim Batol, The Firelands (with Ragnaros!), and an unnamed one in Skywall, the realm of the Air Elementals. There are level-up dungeons in Uldum (City of Tol'Vir, Halls of Originations), two instance in the Abyssal Maw (in Vashj'ir), and at least one accompanying both Grim Batol and Skywall. Let's not forget about Blackrock Caverns, or the heroic versions of Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines! 1:00: The panel is now starting. Seems like it will largely be a Q&A session. 1:00: They're going to talk about how they actuall create raids first. Then there will be previews. 1:01: Every dungeon starts with any idea and a story is created around it. They also consider whether or not it would be fun. Then they create the dungeon in 2d to lay out the dungeon map. "Where are people going to go? Where are bosses going to be? What is the flow?" Grim Batol 2D Concept 1:03: They show the 2d version of the Grim Batol dungeon (presumably the 5-man). Also, Icecrown Citadel! There will be at least four floors according to this map. They will cover ICC in this panel. 1:05: Now they're showing the Halls of Origination in Uldum. It will not be a linear dungeon, you will have choices as to how you want to proceed. It will be a huge dungeon, with 7 bosses (emblems ahoy!). 1:05: After the 2d phase, they "block it out" in 3d. This is when they consider scale and whether or not they can fit creatures, bosses, and all of the other neat things that can go in a dungeon within the space. 1:06: After that, it goes to the artists to begin on a template. They're showing a "block out" of the Uldum Dungeon, as well as Icecrown. There is very little detail in the environment at this point. 1:07: Then they move on to Dungeon Interaction, things like doors and elevators, destructible objects, widgets to interact with during boss encounters, etc. They have to work closely with the art team to make everything look cool. 1:08: The art team helps with developing concepts and set pieces. The blacksmith room in Utgarde Keep is the result of this process, for instance. Concept art for ICC, Abyssal Maw are shown. Abyssal Maw 2D Concept 1:09: There will be an elevator in Abyssal Maw that will fill with water and push players up to the next level. 1:11: Encounter design, like most things, starts with brainstorming. "Can we do vehicles on vehicles?" It turns out they could, so they knew they had to do Voltron, which resulted in the awesome Mimiron encounter. 1:13: They try to figure out how they can provide you with a variety of experiences in the same zone, and what makes encounters cool. They use an internal tool called "Wowedit" to handle creature placement, spell creation, etc. They are using Drak'Tharon Keep as an example. 1:14: They're showing how Wowedit can be used to set creature paths. There's a series of dialog boxes used to tune to the new Onyxia encounter. "Looks like the Deep Breath is set to random!" they joke. Hardy-har-har. 1:15: Once all that is done, they playtest internally. The encounter team playtests a lot before anybody else even sees it. Then they send it off to Quality Assurance, and finally the PTR. They assure the audience that they DO listen to all of the feedback from the PTR, even if they can't reply to it. Now to Cataclysm content! 1:17: They want FOUR full raids for launch, including one called Blackwing Descent. Abyssal Maw is first. Blackwing Descent 2D Concept 1:18: There will be a vortex in the center of Vashjir which will actually pull players down into the Abyssal Maw. There, they will find two 5-man dungeons. There will be windows in the dungeon through which you can look out into the ocean. Creatures will swim by, there will be new water effects. 1:20: Abyssal Maw is non-linear. You go to the right or left side. This is a 78-82 dungeon, it will be one of the ones you visit first in the expansion. They show some art of one of the boss rooms. "Imagine where water elementals would live, that's with this looks like." Lots of windows make the dungeon feel open. Next will be a video of Abyssal Maw. 1:21: It was just a teaser. Go watch The Little Mermaid, and you'll have a good idea of the decor. Now Halls of Origination. It is the first of two 5-player dungeons in Uldum. You're inside an ancient temple. WoW's take on Egyptian style (so it's not exact, but inspired by). Also non-linear (I sense a pattern here). Halls of Origination 2D Concept 1:23: "Brann's got to be there, right? What will he find this time?" It looks huge, like Ulduar mixed with the great pyramids. Green, runed energy cables run along the roof. The super weapon is around here somewhere. Now another short teaser. 1:25: On to Blackrock Caverns, old zone, new instance! Blackrock Spire is inspiration, but it is not a copy of it. The story is that this is a second base for Deathwing. There's a giant, underground hole created by Deathwing that links Grim Batol to Blackrock Mountain. Completely new art, loot, and creatures. 1:26: They're showing a 2d layout. This one is actually linear, expected since it's more story-based. They want it to look like things are going on forever in the background, bridges, tall structures, lava floes. Video preview incoming. 1:27: Now we get to look at raids! And maybe a few surprises... first Icecrown Citadel. 10-25 player raid, they joke about the 31 bosses again. There will be TWELVE bosses, this is confirmed. 1:30: You'll get to fight Sindragosa and the Lich King, of course. The dungeon will have waypoints like Ulduar. The Frozen Throne itself sits on a spire that you'll be able to see even from the entrance to the raid. On the second floor, you will get on your faction's AIRSHIP and race the other faction to the top. This encounter will have you bombarding the other faction's ship, defeating their invaders, and then taking rocket packs over to their ship to kill their bombardiers. Icecrown Citadel 2D Raid Concept 1:32: There will be THREE 5-man dungeons associated with this raid, a la the Coliseum. ICC video prview. Looks great. Surprisingly not ALL icy blue. There are green, glowing tubes and a red room with rib-shaped sconces. Sindragosa is shown idling in a room (looks like Sapphiron). There will be 8 bosses throughout the 5-man dungeons, and you will have to do the dungeons in order the first time around for story reasons (some faction heroes will show up, like Jaina). 1:34: Now Cataclysm raids. They show a shot of Nefarian's room Vanilla WoW. But there's a new portal now! Which leads to Blackwing's Descent. Since you can fly to this room now, it's easy to get to. Neferian, and perhaps a few other old "friends," will appear in this dungeon, but like Blackrock Caverns, art, loot, etc. will be new. The Firelands 2D Concept 1:36: The Firelands, you take the fight to Ragnaros. It is an outside 10/25-man raid instance, and you will get to fight Rag at his full power. A huge globe of magma and some erupting volcanos are shown in concept art. Onto the Onyxia 5th anniversary raid. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until November, even if it's on the PTR now (guess some of us were wrong about that!). 1:38: There are a few new mechanics to the fight, but it will still "feel" like the old Onyxia fight. Maybe a couple of new skills. "You'll need more DoTs, for sure!" New and updated loot. Tier 2 helms and what not. We've already covered most of this with the dungeon's pre-BlizzCon announcement. 1:39: The Brood of Onyxia mount will be very rare. It's an epic flying mount, of course. They're showing shots of the stats on old loot, and what they look like now. The stats are, as expected, greatly increased. They also have slots. Some of the old loot is splintered into different drops to support new or changes specs since the original encounter was released. A couple weapon drops from Molten Core are also added to the loot table. 1:41: They're showing the Onyxia Whelpling pet. Anyone who logs into the game during the 2-3 week anniversary event will find this in their mailbox. The Whelpling looks cute, she tries to use Deep Breath every once in awhile but fails. Onyxia Whelpling 1:42: A big surprise! Cross-server LFG! Basically the way Battlegrounds work right now, except you will be able to PuG with people on other servers within your Battlegroup. They may do it for raids in the future, but for now it's just 5-man instance. You can flag yourself as a Leader in the new LFG system, and if you do this, you will actually get a reward for completing the dungeon. This will encourage experienced players to help newbies through these dungeons. This feature is tentatively set for 3.3.0. 1:45: The presentation is over with, now Q&A. First question, of course, the "Additional Servers Cannot Be Launched" issue. They are working on it, it's being deployed right now on the rest of them (not right now, but they are doing it server by server... all should be perfect in a month or two). Also, the new LFG system might be able to pull other party members right into the dungeon, without having to summon. 1:46: Will we see any other remade raids? The answer is that Onyxia is a special case, probably won't happen very often. 1:47: Are they going to bring reputation back into raids? There are plans for it, but no real details. It is something they want to do. Next Q: Everything feels like an AoE fest, or are we going to see some chances for single-target DPS to shine in non-boss encounters? 1:48: They do try to add variety in boss fights, but they may still be changing some of the trash. Next Q: Are there any plans to bring back C'Thun or Ahn'Qiraj? A: No current plans for this. They reinforce that although old baddies are brought back, they are entirely new fights. 1:51: Q: Are the nerfs and tune-downs what they wanted Hard modes to be? (I don't totally understand this question.) A: They don't make content to be un-beaten. They're always looking at feedback, they play the game themselves, too. 1:52: Q: Will attunement quest lines come back? The answer is: maybe. It just comes down to what feels right at the time (I imagine this means whether or not the story is important enough to accessing related content). They want everybody to be able to see anything. 1:53: Q: Will we get an Arthas death cinematic? A: Definitely. 100%. He will have a fitting end. Sindragosa in Icecrown Citadel 1:54: Q: How extensive is internal testing? Did anyone internally beat Yogg + 0? How will Coliseum Hard modes compare? A: It's hard for the dev team to do 25-man raids, but they do 10-man. QA usually handles 25-man raids, and they were NOT able to complete Yogg + 0. This is why harder stuff is sometimes rolled out on the PTR to see if high-level raiding guilds can complete the content. 1:56: They're going to try not to be as hard as Yogg + 0, but future content will still be tough. Q: Are there any plans to extend to Nazjatar and see Azshara. A: There may be some related story content, but apparently, Azshara will NOT be a part of this expansion! 1:57: Q: Will we go back to Wyrmrest Temple (for raids like Obsidian Sanctum)? A: Possibly. We'll see. Next Q: Something about bringing back other old raids again (seems to be a repeated question)? They give the same response as before. The Q&A is over, and with it, the Dungeons and Raids panel. Thanks for sticking around with our live feed! Stay tuned to Project Lore for more updates throughout the day!

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