Project Lore

The Next Expansion is an ever growing series of articles that focuses on WoW’s upcoming third expansion.  The column covers news, speculation and even gameplay mechanics that PL’s writers would like to see implemented.

Late last Friday MMO-Champion ran a story on the next expansion that detailed enough information to keep many brains busy over the weekend.  Boubouille insists that none of the information posted is speculation, but pure fact.  I was as giddy as a school girl (or my girlfriend) around Robert Pattinson (swoon) as I read the news, until I took the time to think things through.  It just sounds too good to be true. You can consider the races, Worgen and Goblins, confirmed as well as the third expansion's title, Cataclysm.  Those tidbits have been repeated by "sources" for weeks now.  I'm skeptical about a few other things, as are many others out there.  My main concern is that the larger playerbase is getting too excited before the details are official.  Simply put, I fear hype backlash. Boubouille is one of the great Internet sleuths, so it is hard to doubt his skills.  Nevertheless here's what I have trouble digesting:

• Level 85 Cap:  There's really no justification to not do 10 additional levels like we are used to.  If the developers want leveling to take longer then Blizzard can simply make the XP pools far larger.  We've also no reason to believe that WoW has to end at level 100.  No matter what this isn't a big concern; just the first point that caught my eye.
• Class Combinations: This is certainly plausible.  Orc Mage, Tauren Priest, Blood Elf Warrior, all highly likely, lore-fitting modifications to our current race/class structure.  It's the Troll Druid that I can't see being a reality.  On the one hand, It'd be a perfect way to get more Horde playing the most underplayed race in the game.  However, two druids for the Horde and only one for the Alliance (Night Elf) just doesn't seem like a move Blizzard would make.
• Flying In Azeroth:  There's a reason that Blizzard never allowed flying in Azeroth, the game's basic design.  If you look really closely at the old landscapes you can see that Blizzard employed a lot of tricks to get objects, foliage specifically, to look 3D without it actually being 3D (allows the client to have a crappier computer).  These Doom-esque tactics would need to be completely redone across all of Azeroth to enable flying.  Even using the superb tools created by Blizzard, it would be a daunting, and boring, task.
• Unfinished Original Content:  Areas like Mount Hyjal only compound the flying issue.  The zone was never made accessible because Blizzard never finished the content.  It was there however.  If we are allowed to fly in Azeroth then Blizzard has to spend more time completing, or at least overhauling, the formerly neglected areas of Azeroth.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see all of this come true.  The fact of the matter is it would be a massive undertaking.  The scope of the expansion, as detailed by Boub, would effectively be like starting the game from scratch, as far as content is concerned.  Blizzard is good, but I don't know if the company can pull all of this off in approximately two years development time. If Cataclysm comes to pass as described it will set a new precedent for MMO expansion. It's hard not to get excited, especially with awesome mechanics like flooding, town sacking (kinda), revamped old world content and the return of Deathwing.  Love me some horizontal content. Just remember that BlizzCon, and official confirmation, is only days away.  Take a deep breath, do a reality check, and wait...for ~120 hours.

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BlizzCon! Rumors incoming! With BlizzCon less than two weeks away there is no surprise that we are starting to see leaks and rumors. MMO-Champion had reported on the races first with their data mining showing new Halloween masks that featured Goblin and Worgen races (of both sexes) and then pixiestixy brought us news today that WoW.com confirmed this information with sources close to the company, and specifically that Goblin will be Horde and Worgen will be Alliance. To be quite honest, this news is a little underwhelming. This doesn't specifically add content outside of the starting zones and is quite a bit of work (all items have to be remodeled/skinned for these new races) for something that really doesn't ADD to the gameplay (argue all you want but it's merely a cosmetic upgrade). With the races apparently set in stone (we will know for sure at BlizzCon) I find that to be disappointing. The announcement of Blood Elves and Draenei had a much stronger impact because of the classes that you could use with those races, which were previously exclusive to the Horde (Shaman) and Alliance (Paladin). Blizzard really should make these races start out neutral (can't interact with any Alliance/Horde player characters) and either the actions you take through your questing will decide your faction at, say level 20, or you just flat out get to choose. With faction transfers incoming, this would seem to be a logical extension of that model and where Blizzard wants to make the game as accessible and varied as possible. This alongside the lore implications that both these races are (generally) faction nuetral. Based on past experience though I am inclined to believe that the new races are in the next expansion. We knew about Burning Crusade days before BlizzCon 2005 and BlizzCon 2007's announcement of Wrath of the Lich King was known a few days before as well. Funny though was that when I picked up my press badge that year they gave me a program guide with all the details about WotLK (which hadn't been officially announced) so that kind of killed the suspense of the opening ceremony but it was nice to see that the rumors were true. With BlizzCon so close I expect to see a lot more "rumors" pop up, at this point be skeptical of nearly everything from this point on and we will all know August 21st (and we hope to see you there!)! Let us know what you'd like to see related to the new races, do you think picking your faction in game (rather than associated race) would be a good idea? What kind of ideas do you have if they continue down this path of alternating race/class additions every other expansion?

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It may come as no surprise since we've been speculating on this for quite some time, but it seems that folks over at WoW.com have confirmed from "multiple sources close to the situation" that the next expansion will be World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and will include the Worgen and Goblin as playable races.

While Goblins have up until now remained neutral, with currency their only faction of choice, WoW.com reports that the Goblin will be playable for the Horde in the new expansion (Go Green!). We've already received a ton of feedback from our previous speculative posts on what the implications will be for having this wide-spread race specific to only one faction. What will happen to the neutral cities, such as Ratchet, where they are a mainstay? I suppose we'll find out with time - perhaps some of the Goblin NPCs will remain neutral, or maybe we'll see a major upheaval of some of those villages. It could make for some great new lore - not to mention the Great Sundering, which also should make for a fun expansion topic.

So that leaves the Worgen, who up until now have played a much smaller role than that of the Goblin. They apparently will be joining up with the Alliance. We've already seen a glimpse of what the female may look like through Halloween masks revealed a while back. Now it just makes me wonder if all the additional masks revealed later (murloc, Naga, plus already available playable races) may have just been added to throw us off the trail? Maybe they're just included because they inevitably will play a large role in an expansion about the Cataclysm. Or, perhaps we'll see a couple more playable races still (One can hope, right?).

All this is still very preliminary and I'll feel a lot better about the information once we've gotten some kind of official comment from Blizzard. But that likely won't come until BlizzCon - and hopefully we'll learn much, much more at that point. New playable races alone don't equal a full expansion, so I'm sure there will be plenty more to report on in the coming weeks. Until then, I'll be crossing my fingers that I will soon be able to play green!

What does everyone make of these leaks and the possible lore behind them? Would you play a Worgen or Goblin? How do you think Blizz will handle all the complications related to turning Goblins for the Horde?

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Run Ma, It's A Hurricane! The Next Expansion is an ever growing series of articles that focuses on WoW's upcoming third expansion.  The column covers news, speculation and even gameplay mechanics that PL's writers would like to see implemented. The little quip about Southshore vs. Tarren Mill in yesterday's post was no accident.  We've discussed the topic at length in the past and it continues to instill a sense of nostalgia whenever it is brought up.  Unless you were trying to level during those days it was pure fun.  Even most of the lowbies didn't mind, as they got to be a part of the battle (even if it was a small part) and a glimpse of the future.  Occasionally the skirmishes became so large, and the resurrection timers so long, that one of the towns (often Tarren Mill due to level differences of the hubs) would be decimated.  Crushed, destroyed, void of anything but the corpses of the fallen and the invaders who laid them to rest. I've been waiting for a Blizzard sanctioned event since.  No, I don't count Wintergrasp.  What I want is the mix of PvP and PvE that the battles gone bye brought us.  If one side dominated the other than it had an adverse affect on one's ability to continue questing in the area.  Sure, the NPCs respawned quickly, but when the town was completely sacked they'd fall to another blade in a moment's notice.  Not to mention that it was damn near impossible to be questing between the two towns without being ganked. By binding a PvP/PvE area to the Honor system (sacking a town would give bonus honor to everyone involved) the system could be arbitrarily policed.  Upon the battle's completion the town would take time to recuperate.  With nothing to kill, and no honor to be gained the opposing faction would be forced to travel to some other land, giving the losers an opportunity to finish and turn in quests.  Or they could always prepare a counter-attack. Unfortunately some people would deem this as too hardcore, since your leveling could come to a crawl.  So I'll present another scenario along the same lines that wouldn't be PvP oriented, but pure PvE.  One that is a perfect application of Tabula Rasa's invading forces mechanic mixed into the speculated world event for WoW Cataclysm. With the Naga invading local shorelines the citizens of the areas beg for help, anybody's help.  Upon accepting your dispatch you are sent to various shores to clean up the invading forces, driving them back by the dozens.  Despite our best efforts the sea beasts overrun the shorelines, pushing further and further in.  As time progresses the bustling ports of Menethil Harbor, Southshore, Booty Bay and more are taken by the Naga.  With our shipping and supply lines in peril the capital cities have no choice but to attack the Naga's home.  It isn't until we breach their final defenses that the Naga swarm retreats back into the ocean to defend their Queen. Think of it as a reverse Isle of Quel'Danas event.  Instead of us opening up content by reclaiming the island, the invasion's progress (which would be an unstoppable force) would reveal new objectives.  We'd start off with simple quests to collect information and slaughter the early cannon fodder.  Then we would work our way up to Naga Officers (outdoor bosses), staging grounds (5-man dungeons somewhere on the shores) and naval combat (ship to ship battles against the Naga).  The aquatic tyranny would not end until we have breached the Maelstrom and located the Naga hideout.  The bosses and invading force would then return, leaving the land mostly intact. What do you think?  Would you rather the mix scenario or straight up PvE?  Any other ideas out there for a return of TM vs SS style combat?  At least these scenarios would finally make the Local Defense channel actually mean something.

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Blizzard has already set the bar for the next expansion. Based on Wrath and The Burning Crusade, players expect to have to level 90. Players expect either new races or a new hero class starting at a high level. Something that not many people talk about but would probably miss is a new tradeskill. Jewelcrafting was very fitting for Burning Crusade; the theme fit in well with the Naaru and the Draeni. Additionally, it added a whole new level of character customization and armor itemization. Inscription worked alright with Wrath; it used herbs as the raw materials, giving Alchemy a run for its money, and also offered some character customization. In a new expansion, should we expect a tradeskill? What kind of role would it fill? One of the first things to note is that a gathering profession would be hard to implement. It would require creating nodes all across all of the zones in order to scale with character level. Unless it started at a high level when you learn it, it seems unlikely that Blizzard would simply implement a new gathering profession without a crafting profession. Supposing they did make a new crafting profession, they have three options for raw materials: ore, leather, or herbs. There are currently three professions which use ore, two that use herbs, and one that uses leather. Enchanting is unique in that it uses equipment as a resource in a sense. The fact that three professions use the products of mining may be indicative of why mining is considered to be the most lucrative gathering profession by a wide number of players. The obvious design choice would be to choose the resource that is used least by professions to create an overall even consumption of resources. But what profession besides leatherworking could work with leather? If we look at the Jewelcrafting and Inscription examples, each of them came with a complementary ability to convert raw materials into processed goods for crafting. But what could you do to leather to turn it into something that doesn't fall into the realm of leatherworking? And what would it create? If not leather, how could we use herbs? A new crafting profession probably would not create armor as its main selling points. For each of the armor classes, there is a profession that creates armor for them. Inscription was reaching with the glyph idea, but its come to be accepted. Weapons are largely in the realm of Blacksmiths, and trinkets are (somewhat) in the realm of Jewelcrafting. Is it even possible with the rate that Blizzard will be coming out with expansions that they can continue to create professions for each one? It seems that for future crafting professions, it is necessary for them to couple new professions with a new feature. With player housing being one of the most requested features, I wonder how this could be implemented. Perhaps Tauren tents could fall in the realm of player housing. It could fall under a "Tanning" profession. Its kind of hard to differentiate what would fall between these, how this would work for the Alliance, and how to create a profession around just this. I think the solution is to give each profession the gathering ability that complements it. With more and more crafting professions and less and less gathering professions, the ratio of total players with crafting professions to players who gather more than they craft is decreasing. Having every player be able to gather materials for their craft would simplify it a lot for new players, as well as make it easier to scale professions together. Leveling through the first 350 levels of each profession could be done either by gathering or crafting, making it much easier. Additionally, theoretical new hero classes or players who drop professions for new ones could skill up easier. The profession bonuses, like Lifeblood and Toughness, have been a little inferior and less customizable than their crafting counterparts, and rolling some things together might make it easier to balance. Continuously adding professions and having characters only be able to choose two does add diversity, but it also may result in a lot of content or mechanics not being consumed or experienced by a large player base. This sort of fits in with my idea of the convergence of crafting and gathering professions that I've expressed in the past. Engineers can now gather from gas clouds, Tailors "gather" more cloth, miners smelt, etc. Most professions can give you money by interacting with the world or by interacting with players and crafting. Later, I'll talk about some speculation behind Woodworking. Do you expect a new profession in the patch, and what would it be, especially if its Maelstrom based?

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Could These Be The Faces Of The Future? Ever since MMO-Champion.com dug up those stupid masks the corner of the Internet that is home to WoW has been a storm of investigation.  Shortly after discovering the pair of Worgen and Goblins masks another four pairs, Naga, Ogre, Murloc, Vrykul were found.  The discovery dosed the fire surrounding Horde Goblins and Alliance Worgen, while at the same time fueling the idea of a third faction being introduced to World of Warcraft. In my opinion two factions suck.  Few games have implemented just a pair of competitors successfully.  This is in large part due to the grass is always greener effect.  If you are beaten badly by the opposing team, then the developer likes them more, they are overpowered or there are population problems.  Some of the complaints are certainly real, but one way developers, including Blizzard itself, has skirted the issue is by having more than two factions (see Starcraft's three factions and Warcraft III's four).  As such, I would love to see a third faction, but I don't expect it to play out as many would have us believe. Most of what I have seen points to the neutral faction being one in name only.  That somewhere down the line you would chose who to fight for, Alliance (obviously) or Horde (fail).  It sounds absolutely awesome, and I would love to see it happen, but I doubt it.  To implement this Blizzard would have to drastically change the stance on factions, again.  Specifically, the company would have to allow players to have characters of different factions on the same server (already allowed on non-PvP servers).  Otherwise my Goblin (duh) could never be truly neutral if Solidexplosion was forced to select Alliance down the road because of Solidsamm's and Solidsagart's affiliations. But that doesn't mean I don't see a neutral faction happening.  In fact I wrote the unique classes hoping this could come to fruition.  Blizzard could easily implement a third faction (based on the masks no less), one that stays out of the Alliance-Horde affairs.  One that watches from the sidelines offering refugee for any that may require it.  One that I will label as the "Swiss" faction.  These non-aggressors will act as diplomats between the warring sides, while still contributing to the often combined goals of said sides, such as killing the Lich King.  In the long run there'd be more work needed to create a separate entity, but the new content should be far more appreciated than tacking on a choice down the road. Certainly if a neutral faction was to happen, the cash flush Goblins would be the race in charge, with the battle hardened Worgen, brutal Ogres, and the swarm happy Murlocs lending a helping hand.  The multi-talented Vrykul are new to Warcraft, so their addition as a playable class would annoy this purist.  After how many times I creeped them, or grinded them for reputation, I believe the fifth slot should go to the furry Furbolgs. And yes, I know I ignored the Naga masks.  While there could be some sort of Forsaken-type branch or tribe, I write off their addition to the line-up of Hallow's End fun to the fact that they are the incoming bad guys. Again, I'd love it if Blizzard makes me eat this post with a side of 'in your face,' but I just don't see Blizzard revamping the PvP servers to allow them to go cross faction.  It'd be a bit of work, just for a choice down the line.  But they have done crazier things.  Speaking of the choice, let's hope it'll be a cool, lengthy quest line to prove your allegiance. What would some of the racial benefits be?  Goblins get extra gold from kills, Murloc has higher level fishing, and Ogres get, umm, kaleidoscope vision?  What is more likely, the labor intensive relative to reward faction choosing, or an entirely new faction?  What about blending the two, letting you chose a side, or remaining in the new faction?  That'd be interesting.

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That's A Lot Of Classes! To date, our series of speculative creativity has relied upon some inkling of a rumor as the basis of most of the pieces.  I am going to pull a hard 180 and go completely off the cuff with this one.  No backroom discussion, drunken rant or friend of a friend who knows a guy that dated some girl who roomed with Chris Metzen sparked my neurons.  As such, the class details below are entirely fake! Currently we only know one thing about World of Warcraft's third expansion, that it exists.  Beyond that it's all been conjecture, speculation and well wishes, and yet none of these have touched upon any major gameplay feature.  Masks aside (and I consider that rumor a huge leap of faith) we lack the faintest idea of what could be announced as part of the official declaration of expansion the third. What you thought Sams would walk to the podium, whisper "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm" and walk away?  Fólkvangr no.  There will be a ridiculous amount of information given that faithful day, whenever it may be.  What I am trying to figure out is what the big gun is going to be?  Another new class?  A pair of new races?  An incredible amount of dungeons and raids spread across all levels?  A working Wintergrasp? I found the idea of new classes to be the most interesting despite the fact that Wrath just brought us one.  That and guessing classes is a shot in the dark. Alliance:

• Mountain King (Dwarf only) - The mighty Mountain King will be a tank of a different nature.  These steadfast warriors will be capable of absorbing obtuse amounts of damage no matter their specialty.  Their stocky stature enables them to create earth shattering Thunder Claps to frighten, disorient and slow foes in the immediate vicinity, and a well-timed Storm Bolt stops almost anything in its tracks.  Unfortunately the bulk is a defensive mechanism, causing overall DPS to be lower than other melee classes.
• Warden - Popularized by Maiev Shadowsong, the Warden makes a return to reclaim Fan of Knives from rogues hunt those who have done injustices to Night Elves, and the rest of the Alliance.  The nimble class' focus will be close-ranged AoE combat.  Single target DPS suffers when compared to the class' ability to handle two or more mobs via close range AoE attacks and spells.  Shadowstrike, a non-channeled, multi target Mind Flay can be used to lay waste to fugitives.

Horde:

• Dark Ranger (Undead only) - At the basic level Dark Rangers are to be compared to their bow-loving buddies, the Hunters, but DRs have a completely new set of spells and abilities.  The most notable difference would be the lack of a pet.  Instead of fuzzy companions these former Scourge officers have the ability to resurrect fallen corpses to fight for them.  However, these beings act more as fodder than DPS.  The devastation instead comes from the DR's Silencing abilities, Life Drain and an overall more powerful, yet slower, standard shot that is charged with dark energy.
• Dread Lord - The Nathrezim have played a large role in the Warcraft universe, but haven't received much press in WoW (at least as far as the Alliance can tell).  It's unlikely that they could be added as a class without the addition of the race itself, but the Dread Lord makes for an interesting class.  These dastardly beings are quick attacking, weaponless fighters that use a mix of instant or fast spells (one second or less) and strong claw-based attacks to drop foes.  A revamp of the Sleep spell that allows units to be damaged would be their stun and the Vampiric Aura adds fantastic group appeal.

Neutral (more on this tomorrow):

• Goblin Tinker - Another class that can only be applicable as part of a new race, the Goblin Tinker specializes in machine-based battle.  The short race makes up for its strength inadequacies by placing themselves in crazy battle mechs.  The new class will feature mindless, summonable minions which detonate on aggressive mobs if they are not killed quickly.  Attacks include a targetable rocket AoE stun, a slow swinging wrecking ball for white damage (also another weaponless class) and a personal buff along the lines of Inner Fire, but with damage attributes too, call Mechanical Mayhem.
• Goblin Alchemist - In an effort to once keep a solid number of healers being played at all times comes the Goblin Alchemist.  Instead of mechanical ingenuity, this diminutive class relies on its ability to create chemical and biological agents for offense and defense.  Alchemists specialize in short to mid-range AoE combat, with nearly all of their spells, healing or damaging, being targetable AoE abilities (think bombs).  Instead of mana, the class is reliant upon how fast the brews can be concocted, causing the cooldowns to be the only limiting factor.
• Demon Hunter - The DH would have made a more logical addition in The Burning Crusade, but one could argue that the amount of demons in the world then caused an vast increase in these heroes, on both sides of the fence.  With the threat largely neutralized the dedicated hunters have begun looking for other work.  Following the outcast class' lore, the melee (fist, swords and dagger) machines would subsidize their strikes with powers from the dark taint they hunger to banish from Azeroth, such as Immolation.  Spectral Sight allows Scourge and Demon tracking.  A fantastic chance for Blizzard to show our characters changing over the course of time (leveling) thanks to the demonic energies corrupting one's body.

Any Warcraft III fan can see that I picked the most applicable and unique heroes from the past lore and spiced them up with some World of Warcraft twists and mechanics.  What are the odds that one of these bad girls gets selected, assuming a new class is announced?  Who's the most likely candidate? Which toon would you want to play?  Personally I think the Goblin Alchemist sounds pretty freaking cool, but Storm Bolting never gets old.

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Community Spotlight On LoreCrafter.com's Catalysm Ideas I, like many of you, absolutely love Warcraft's lore.  We've been talking about it much lately, ranging from various quests and zones all the way to the predicted reveal of the upcoming expansion.  To be completely honest, the lore is what I spend most of my time on.  I read about the universe all over the place, from manga and books to various websites and blogs.  I spend hours a week raiding, leveling and farming.  Yet, I'd wager that I dedicate almost an equal amount of time pouring over the many resources available.  And we need so many due to the immense size and scope of the universe that Metzen and his underlings have created for us to play in. I simply can't get enough of the lore.  Lunches, "smoke breaks", waiting for things to install.  I steal every moment I can to absorb the seemingly endless amounts of information, stories, conjecture and background to Warcraft.  It's this very reason that I have between 15-20 sites on my RSS feeder dedicated to this single purpose.  And one of them really caught my eye, and teased my brain, recently, LoreCrafted.com. Let's be clear, the latest series of posts by Tharion Greyseer are complete and utter speculation on the aforementioned upcoming expansion.  Over the course of a couple of weeks Tharion crafted a recap of what could be coming from World of Warcraft v4.0 and beyond.  The author even took the time to include Blizzard-esque role playing introductions for each patch, crafted a possible world event focused on rising seas and the incoming Naga swarms from the Maelstrom and addressed other popular expansion theories. I don't dare recap the entirety of the posts for fear of "spoiling" those who want to remain clean, and to force you to check out the excellent posts.  The information contained within is indeed pure speculation, and unlikely to be spot on, but it makes Cataclysm sound pretty interesting.  Not to mention complex if the intertwining lore aspects come to fruition.  Upon completion of the series I did enter into a surprising state of depression.  Reading the synopsis made me realize how formulaic the expansions can easily become. Who else dedicates unsafe amounts of time to reading Warcraft's past?  Have any of the non-Warcraft III players gone back and read about The Frozen Throne and the current lore?  May I recommend just playing it?  Enjoy the community spotlight? Interesting tidbit.  According to WoWWiki the bonus campaign in TFT, featuring Rexxar, was created to showcase the Orcs, because they weren't a large enough part of the story proper.  I guess that answers the 'what is the Horde doing' question I posed earlier.

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BlizzCon is slowly creeping up on us, and this year most people expect the company's big announcement to be World of Warcraft-based.  With StarCraft 2 locked in for this year, and Diablo III looking like 2010, early 2011 is rip (if not late) for the third expansion to Azeroth.  As it stands now, people are expecting The Maelstrom (not storm) or The Emerald Dream to be the focus of the next expansion (water mounts anyone?), but World of Warcraft needs more than epic lore to pull people in and retain the current amount of users.  Like any good internet subscriber, I need to get my ideas out there before the announcements are made so I have something to point to and go "told you so!" We, the citizens of Project Lore, touched upon the idea of guild progression earlier this week.  The short quip in the post almost lead to a complete derailment of the topic.  Nearly as many commentators spoke out for guild progression as guild cohesiveness , the actual discussion.  Obviously the topic is an important one to many of us here, so here's to hoping that Blizzard is listening.  Outside of player desire, there's also another reason Blizzard needs to step up, every other game is doing it.  There is the whole jumping off a bridge philosophy to worry about, but I say the leap needs to be made.  Desperately. Plan and simple, there is absolutely no reason to stay in a guild these days.  None.  Not one single reason keeps me from guild hopping daily.  Okay, perhaps SolidSamm 'The Guild Hopper' wouldn't be a great title, but I could still get things done.  I could leap from guild to guild and still raid, still participate in Arenas, still do my dailies, you name it.  I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be able to do these things without a guild.  Not by any means.  What I am suggesting is that your guild, and one's standing in the guild, should rise the more you contribute to it, and the rest of Azeroth. How cool would it if your guild leveled up along side you through various means?  Guild age, member count, average member length, these are just some easy ways to measure a guild's progress.  Then we have more complex, and fun things to participate in.  Complete 100,000 quests as a guild and receive a new Feat of Strength, all guild runs of Ulduar and Naxxramas award another.  A new title, "Home of Mick" if your guild contains the #1 Arena team.  "Die Hard" for guild domination (no deaths) in all of the Battlegrounds.  The creativity could be taken as far as Blizzard would allow it.  However, without player/guild housing, the developers would be somewhat restricted to what types of rewards they could offer.  We'd be limited to things like extra guild bank slots (no longer would the GM have to pay up), news titles and achievements, super tabard construction, guild recognition, guild summoning (for those Warlock-less nights), discounts at vendors...Should I keep going? One cool thing I would like to see is auto-progression in the guild.  Instead of, or perhaps in conjunction with, the current guild ranking system we'd have a ranking system based upon atoon's contributions to their guild.  No longer would a player's popularity allow him to raise the ranks of a guild, instead a toon's standing in the guild would be promoted by way of merit.  As cool as it is I doubt this idea would fly due to the loss of control by the GM and officers. A complete, and detailed, overhaul to the Guild system in WoW would be a huge boon to the community, and a great selling point on the back of The Maelstrom's/Emerald Dream's box.  Who in their right mind wouldn't want to be a part of a guild that did their best to stay together, tried their utmost to deal with the internal issues, was full of selfless and giving members, was a group of friends and not random acquaintances.  In a word, comradery.  After all, aren't MMOGs supposed to be all about the social experience? Those are just the seeds to get the greater readership brainstorming.  What other progression mechanics would you have in mind?  How about other types of rewards?  Are you fine with the guild hopping ways of today, or do you desperately want a change like I, and many others, do?

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A series of trademark requests that Blizzard Entertainment recently filed may indicate the possible name and lore of the next World of Warcraft expansion. Wednesday, Tumblr blogger Supererogatory revealed that Blizzard is seeking trademarks that would include computer games, paper-based products and online games with the name "Cataclysm." For all we know, that could be the name of Blizzard's super-secret project under development, a new MMO or something else completely unrelated to WoW. But given the name's relationship to the Maelstrom, some people (including myself) speculate that this could be the name for the next WoW expansion. There's been a great deal of speculation for a long while now that the next expansion will relate to the swirling vortex of power that lies between Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, the Maelstrom. To refresh your memory, the Maelstrom was created in a huge world event at the end of the War of the Ancients, thousands of years ago. Often referred to as the Cataclysm or the Great Sundering, it all started with the destruction of the Well of Eternity. The giant explosion that this caused ripped Azeroth asunder, destroying most of the land mass (previously there was one giant continent, Kalimdor) and reshaping what little remained. In place of the Well of Eternity now lies the Maelstrom, a constant, thunderous reminder of the peaceful times that now are lost to the world. It also is implied that the giant storm is slowly drawing in the surrounding land masses. It could even eventually swallow all that remains of Azeroth. What more could you ask for in a conflict? Another noteworthy, though perhaps coincidental factor: WoW.com pointed out that the WoWcataclysm domain expired on June 26, the same day that the trademark requests were filed. Interesting. There also have been a lot of guesses that the next expansion could be related to the Emerald Dream, the realm of Dragon Aspect Ysera. That speculation was flamed by several blue posts that hinted at the area as a possibilty for future development, but I haven't seen any new, official mentions of that for at least a couple of years. Let's see if we can glean a little bit more information for what the Trademark would encompass by reading the details of the applications, which were filed June 26. According to the documents posted on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's website, the three requests are classified to cover:

• Computer game software and related instruction manuals and guides sold together as a unit; downloadable computer game software; interactive multimedia computer game program; mousepads
• Comic books, computer game strategy guides, trading cards, coloring books, adhesive stickers, rub-on transfers, notebooks, stationery-type portfolios, posters, greeting cards, calendars, instructional leaflets in the field of computer games, computer game instruction manuals, catalogs in the field of computer games, advertisement boards of paper or cardboard, photographs, art prints
• Entertainment services, namely, providing on-line computer games; providing computer games that may be accessed via a global computer network; and providing on-line information in the field of computer gaming entertainment

It certainly sounds like an MMO to me. So what does everyone else think? Would you be all for some maelstrom-based content for the next expansion? Do you think that's what all this information points to? What else do you think the trademarks could be for?

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