I really don't think people really understand the amount of work it would take to make flying mounts usable in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. The original game world was created with the idea of only seeing it from 1 perspective so the game has a ton of graphics that follow the camera, blank areas, inconsistencies in the terrain and between the zones. In order for flying to work properly they would need to either re-do both continents completely or do a ton of no fly zones. If the leak ends up being true then I will be amazed that Blizzard managed to do that.

More work than doing a new continent though? Because thats what it seems like they're trading off. Also they didn't seem to mind that theres quite a lot of visible dodgy terrain on the new TB-> Org Zeppelin and various flightpaths (that still clip trees and buildings!). It would be easy enough to do it in phases though, or have the new areas all melded together and have the untouched zones (from the map anything west or north of Barrens) as still no fly zones.

I think you are vastly underestimating the size of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. I guess areas being flooded allows them to redo less content even though it seems Eastern Kingdoms would still be quite large. It really is no different than creating a new continent in the end though considering so many of the zones would need be re-done from the ground up so I really doubt it would have anything at all to do with how much work it would take. If it ends up being true I still would of preferred seeing them continue with the early story of Nazjatar being raised from the depths (so that it doesn't involve as much underwater content) and having us go between islands taking advantage of new water mounts along with us going to Kul Tiras, Crestfall, Kezan and etc. which would be far more exciting than a altered old content no matter how much it's altered.

A city rising out of the water could create quite a wave that might flood a continent or two...


Flying mount talk aside, good catch on Silithus becoming a victim of the catastrophe. How will Cho'gall resurrecting C'thun play into the story?

Will the catastrophe stop the resurrection before it happens? What happens if C'thun is resurrected and AQ is destroyed, or partially destroyed? Will C'thun fall into the sea, allowing Queen Azshara get her revenge on him for creating the Naga, or will she again cut a deal with him and we'll see C'thun v2? Perhaps us adventurers will actually team up with him temporarily to put an end to her madness? What if she has grown so powerful that she can enslave him and gain even more power?

This questions about AQ Isle makes me wonder - are they removing all vanilla raids?

Level 60 raids:
Onyxia - going to become level 80 raid.
BWL+MC - According to "leak" info Blackrock Spire is going to erupt?
Naxramass moved to Northrend, level 80 raid.

That leaves AQ and ZG remaining. As it seams, they are removing all raid vanilla content. Having content ready for AQ isle is very possible. Even removing Yoyomba isle due flooding, making Zandalars take over ZG as new location will have sense. Afterall, Zandalar isle is right next to the south of Maelstorm, so if all this come true, we should expect lot of troll refugees go to Zul'Gurub and make new troll capital.

I think most of us agree that barring some major rite of passage and demonstration of maturity in Icecrown Citadel, there is no way Thrall considers Garrosh a competent potential successor. I haven't played WotLK from the Horde side, but is there any reason Thrall even keeps Garrosh around to the extent he does? Is it to train him in the art of leadership (or at least a temperament befitting of a civilized orc)? Regardless, the Garrosh Hellscream we know now is so obviously unsuitable for the Horde that one almost wishes Blizzard would stop beating us over the head with it already.

All the same, I'm surprised at how little discussion there has been here concerning what the leak says about the Goblin starting zone - namely, that they encounter Thrall as a castaway escapee from his Alliance jailers. I read this as a significant clue as to how Horde-Alliance relations are going to play out in the remainder of WotLK. So far, the plot has been setting up a rising factional tension with mediating figures like Tirion Fordring trying their level best to keep everyone sane. By the end of the current expansion, either things between the Alliance and Horde get better, or they get worse. The three-act structure that purports to make WotLK a coherent story suggests better; the MMO-C leak, and Blizzard's stake in keeping the plot interesting long-term, suggest worse.

So how does Thrall end up in Alliance hands? To think conventionally, we would expect him to be all noble and, over Jaina's protestations, accept responsibility for some heinous action on the part of the Horde. It could be the Wrath Gate, or it could be something new in 3.3, something to do with how the assault on Arthas pans out. And then he says, Garrosh, you must lead the people in my place, yada yada yada, while the whole incident is only hardening Garrosh's resolve to exact vengeance.

While Blizzard is likely to be conventional, i.e. likely to do exactly this, it still doesn't make the utter implausibility of Thrall bestowing responsibility on Garrosh the Unready any better. Far more plausible is if Thrall's capture is unexpected, nonconsensual, and leaves no room for him to explicitly name Garrosh as a successor. Garrosh has the force (and the appeal to bloodlust) to seize power, but not retain it. The Horde storyline in the new expansion could then be, in the old Shakespearean sense, about restoring order to a faction torn apart by misrule. For all we know, the Horde quest lines could see the players working against their nominal leader, not for him.

What we have seen in every expansion is a story that starts with the new starting zone content and ends with the new endgame content. TBC starts with the Exodar crash and the establishment of the Blood Knights, and sets up the endeavours of the Draenei and Blood Elves to rejoin their brethren in Outland. WotLK starts with the establishment of the Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade. While the inciting incident of the Cataclysm may well be, well, a Cataclysm, in keeping with tradition the starting zones ought to set up factions/NPCs/players with the means, motive, and opportunity to become a dominant force in the endgame storyline. On the Horde side, Thrall's dislodgment from his proper seat of power seems to fit the bill.

Remember, Thrall can't have gone completely independent from the start, or he has no legitimacy to bring Goblins into the fold.

The gameplay reasons in favour of flooding and recreation are fairly compelling though.

We know Blizzard has a target time for start-to-endgame. Every expansion that raises the level cap moves that time forward, which is undesierable unless the original time turned out to be bad - the point is to string the leveling out as much as possible for revenue, while limiting loss of customers reaching the endgame. Hence the numerous simplifications to leveling and exp reductions. The problem here is that even when toying with those numbers - or in some cases because you toy with those numbers - the first thing a new WoW player is going to see is the oldest areas. They were created using different tech - progressive drop rates, phasing and so on - and a radically different design philosophy. Grind quests, drop quests, quests in which you are more or less required to think for yourself (like Jitters in Duskwood), lot's of travel... Quite frankly, the first 60 levels - which still represents the bulk of the leveling experience - aren't anywhere near as good as the newer leveling experiences.

For fairly obvious reasons, this is bad. But recreating the 1-60 experience would be, to be blunt, costly and more or less a future investment rather than something you could sell to your current subscription base (Even though someone drew parallells to a similar remake in EQ earlier in this thread...?). However, doing so along with an expansion like Cataclysm... It's a win-win scenario. Will it be more work than doing a completely new continent? Absolutely. I don't see how they could reuse enough material to make up for the fact that you're remaking not one, but two contintents(!).

But in addition to the high level zones you sell to your current subscription base, you have an excellent opportunity to invest in new starting zones for future customers. And by alleviating the race restrictions, you've also got a reason for old, jaded customers to revist the now-much-improved leveling experience. Imagine if rolling and leveling a gnome meant a phased adventure through Gnomeragan (which the leak, with a lot of imagination, could indicate) for the first few levels, depicting it's rise and fall. If they do redesign Old Azeroth, they have the opportunity to use new tech and design philosophy to present old lore and enhance gameplay for the newest customers, while at same providing a new content for your existing subscribers. Moving on;


The problem with three factions is one of gameplay, via server populations via server tech. To condense the reasoning somewhat; The maximum capacity of each server is decided by technical reasons. The population level of each faction is independant of the maximum capacity. The more people you have to play with, the larger the odds of finding people for various projects; Whether it's raiding, instance runs, just to chat with or trade with. With a few other design choices made by Blizzard, the net result is that there's no downside to playing on an outnumbering faction. You use the same tech as the underdogs, but you've got all the benefits. Even if they did introduce a third faction, without doing something outlandish like allowing cross-faction raiding you'd simply end up spreading the population to thinly to create viable communities in which what limits your access to content is you, not the people you can't find around you.

A plausible excuse could be after Arthas dies the Alliance surprise the Horde heroes in his throne room with an assault, killing Saurfang and capturing Thrall. That would kind of leave Garosh as default Warchief for a while at least. Then as the boat with Thrall on is sailing home, the hole Maelstrom thing happens which causes the boat to ground in Durotar (or where ever it said the Goblins started).

The Worgen starting zone sounds awesome though. Starting at Day 1 of the Scourge and advancing through the last 5 or so years in the quest lines sounds like a really great way to flesh out the race. Almost like a whole 1-20 zone in the fashion of the DK zone. Goblin sounds nice too but theres only so much you can do rescuing an orc off a boat. I suppose it will be more rebuilding on the shores they washed up on, perhaps the town phasing into existence through the completion of quests.

This is an excellent point even as it pertains to the status quo with two factions. The geographic expanse of WoW has only gotten bigger, while (to my knowledge) maximum server populations have not. The addition of new continents has the effect of concentrating the players deep into expansion content in one place, something that becomes more and more severe as the expansion enters the middle of its life and the level distribution becomes top-heavy. This means that the population of the levelling zones dwindles and disperses. Considering how much landmass in old Azeroth is for all intents and purposes unfinished, it makes sense to restore some equilibrium to the population density.

I also think Azshara redevelopment has always been in the cards for any potential Maelstrom expansion, irrespective of what happens to other existing zones.

I am fairly sure there was a Blue Post for TBC detailing that maximum server populations would also increase, to reflect an increase in landmass in the game (when outland was added).

Sort of a side note here, but a few posts talking about timelines has got me thinking.

Exactly how much in-game time has passed in the events of WotLK (or TBC or Vanilla, even)? From the time that the Alliance/Horde set up their Northrend staging grounds to the formation of the Argent Tournament...seems to me that almost a whole year could have passed. Certainly a year will have gone by once the assault on Icecrown is made. The events of TBC seemed a lot more brief (maybe three or four months, maximum from stepping into Outland and taking down TK and Black Temple). As for Vanilla, lots of time could easily be thought to have passed here. I would say a few years at least.

Any thoughts on this?