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Is Cataclysm the Next World of Warcraft Expansion?
ajs writes "There has been no official announcement yet, but a number of moves by Blizzard Entertainment seem to indicate that the next expansion for World of Warcraft could be titled Cataclysm. Speculation began when Blizzard trademarked Cataclysm recently, and then later when a test server briefly popped up with the word 'Maelstrom' in its name. If true, the name would fall neatly into the WoW lore and expected expansion list. The Cataclysm is another name for the Great Sundering, an event that created a swirling vortex of water and mystical energies (the 'Maelstrom') that has appeared on the world map in-game since release. There are also indications that early design work included some of the islands in this area, which has long fueled anticipation of a Maelstrom-based expansion involving the former Night Elf noble, Azshara, queen of the Naga and the Goblins whose main city is in the south seas."
... and probably the last
Wow - what an exciting end to the first test of the Ashes! Go England!
Getting out of your fucking apartment and in to the real world.
Comb the cheetoes out of your beard and get moving.
You might even find some +12 Real Pussy...
Hopefully for all of the druids who have been (whining|complaining|asking) for The Emerald Dream for so long, Blizzard will add it into this one.
/dr00ds represent!
Incomplete Emerald Dream maps in current data files.
I'm fairly sure that it will need a neat 4-letter-acronym, but aside of that, nobody will care for its name, its story or anything else RPG or WC-story related it might bring along.
What matters is, how much of a level cap increase will it bring (ok, the usual 10 levels, that one is a given), what is the new socket or gizmo you can tack onto your gear (we had sockets and runes already, so this time they'd have to come up with something really new, at least I can't think of anything else that's been done before) and whether they manage to dumb it down any more.
Fanboys, flame away.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
when coupled with the "Cataclysm" name, one of the Lich King's visions in the new book "Arthas, Rise of the Lich King", everything gets a lot clearer and more certain: ...the silver waters of a vast expanse of water... a sea... ...Something was roiling just beneath the ocean's surface. The hitherto-smooth surface began to churn wildly, seething, as if from a storm, although the day was clear. A horrible sound that Arthas only dimly recognized as laughter assaulted his ears, along with the screaming of a world wrenched from its proper place, hauled upward to face the light of day it had not seen in uncounted centuries...
Cataclysm most likely doesn't refer to the Great Sundering, but a new event, Azshara raising Nazjatar to the surface.
This isn't news for nerds. Hell, it's not even NEWS. It's a lame conjecture. I think even WoW nerds would wait for something to actually -happen- before considering it news.
There are also indications that early design work included some of the islands in this area,
It's true that a couple of islands appear on the map near the vortex. I heard a rumor about them once indicating that they were at one point accessible to players. Swimming there wasn't possible due to the fatigue that resulted from the deep water. However, if you had a couple stacks of elixirs of water walking, you wouldn't be affected by the fatigue since you weren't swimming. According to the one player I knew who had claimed to have been there, it took about 45 minutes of wandering around with nothing but waves in sight. Once he got to the island, he looted a chest that contained a full tier set of paladin gear. 20 minutes later his account had received a 72 hour ban, and all his recent loot had been removed from his inventory. His theory was that the island was a place where GMs could perform in-game testing of items and whatnot. Obviously this is all unconfirmed at best. and I still have some serious doubts about the story, but anyway, that's the only thing I've ever heard about the islands.
And just so that this post isn't entirely off topic, here's a link to some of the current speculation on the lore which will be experienced with the expansion. As an added note, it's doubtful that this will be the final expansion of the game. Most are speculating that there will be a 5th chapter in which players will get to enter the emerald dream. Again, this is all just rumors and lies at this point.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
Here is some lore of each isle in the South Seas:
http://wow.incgamers.com/blog/comments/south-seas-lore-the-eye-maelstrom/
That comp8Ise But with Netcraft to decline for
Will interest wane in WoW simply because it seems like just an extension to the treadmill? Are people getting tired of the aesthetic? These are questions from someone who doesn't see the attraction in the first place.
Twinstiq, game news
I might be convinced that the game has a story, but it is presented in such a tedious and boring way that I could never be bothered to pay any attention. All I ever saw was "NPC: blah blah blah kill 20 other NPC's blah blah blah". I can think of many games with poor storylines, and many games with great storylines, but WOW is one of the only games in which I didn't care at all about the storyline.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Bullshit. All you need to do is jump off the zeppelin that goes out of UC at the last second, feather fall and you can walk on the edge of the map. where the zone ends. you can not swim across the ocean. Yes there is a dev island, if you are on a private server you can warp yourself there. but there is no way to get there using the public realms.
Yeah, this will totally get modded as flamebait. Still, I gotta say it.
I hate WoW players.
As if anyone cares about the supposed 'flavour' of this bland game. Millions of people subscribe to a service so they can grind and jump through hoops. What's the point? Go to the forest and kill 100 purple dragons, get a new sword, then go to the desert and kill 100 brown dragons. Then you get new armour and you can go to the mountains ... where you get to kill 100 green dragons. Yay! The dragons just keep reappearing and changing colours; you're not accomplishing anything. No matter how many you kill, nothing changes. I tell ya, if the Nazis in WWII could respawn, nobody would have fought them because beating them would be impossible. I'd be living in Hitler's Canada.
Games have two types of players, winners and losers. WoW is a game that by design you can never win. Only grind forever until you grow tired of it and realize you've thrown away months or perhaps even years of your life. All WoW players are losers.
So, you must be wondering, why I am so bitter. Why do I whine about the hobbies of others? Because I have actually lost friends to this evil time-leech. People who used to be outgoing people who I could share fun new experiences with, who are now recluses who live in their rooms gobbling fast food and anti-depressants, whose only plans for the future are the bloody raid they have scheduled for 8PM. Because, you know, ya gotta kill that new colour of dragon. You try to talk to them about this and they just get offended. Try to invite them to a real life event with actual humans present, and they ignore you.
Believe it or not, there IS hope. I have a buddy who gave up WoW entirely. Now he has a life, a job, and GASP - even a girlfriend. He is actually winning at life and says that he can't believe how much time he was wasting on such a stupid game. He actually gave his computer away, to get a new computer that was pure and never infected with evil Blizzard software. He has never been happier.
So, WoW losers ... grow up. Ditch the game, have a real life, and hang out with real humans. Experience direct sunlight, take a class, learn Tae Kwon Do. Anything. The only regret that you will have is that you didn't delete your lame crack addiction game sooner.
Are questions as headlines overrated? Film at 11.
How the hell did speculation about the -name- of a possible future WoW expansion make the front page? I like games and MMOs, but this is beyond boring.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
[...] I mounted, and as I lept off into the horizon, I casted levitate. I came to a point where the map disappeared, but the water continued to stretch out into the distance.
Some theorize that this is where GM Island is located.
Okay, so we all know that GM Island is in an instance now. But like any instance, there's a non-instance version of it. Like when you set old world instances to "Heroic" and walk behind the portals. GM Island wasn't always an instance, and programmers just don't delete environment from the game. Case in point, Old Ironforge and Ironforge Airport.
Granted, you'd have to walk pretty far, assuming GM Island IS in that direction...
Moving on, it's unreachable alone...attempted it. However, multiple priests together could do this easy. Have 5 or so in a group together so they can heal off of each other with renew and circle of healing. Another tip, wear +healing gear that has no stamina. Fatigue hits for 20% of your max health every 1-3 seconds. Low health means low damage, high healing means you can heal over it. 5 priests means you can have a few of them sit back and relax while the others cast, so not everyone wastes mana.
If you are really interested in doing this, make it 4 priests and a warlock.
"Harmonex wishes to summon you to GM Island." [...] Of course, this is all under the assumption that GM Island even exists on the main map...
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
Bullshit, Jesus do you believe anything someone tells you?
oogly boogly!
Your friend lied to you. Water walking never prevented fatigue.
Maybe it is a lame joke, maybe he's a WoW hater who wishes it was the last, whatever the case it has no basis in reality. Currently, there are over 11 million subscribers to WoW where a subscriber is defined as someone who has paid to play in the last month. That number continues to increase, and accounts for about 60% of all MMO players. Eventually, it's popularity will peak and numbers will start to wane, but not at this point. Right now, it is still extremely popular.
Well, as you can probably guess, Blizzard and more specifically Vivendi (their parent company) aren't stupid and wish to make as much money as possible. That means they'll keep releasing expansions and content for WoW because they want to keep all those subscribers. They aren't going to say "Let's just let the game atrophy and have everyone run off to play something else." They want those dollars, they will keep developing it.
What's more, an MMO doesn't even have to be growing to be worth developing content for. It just has to have enough players such that the money pays the bills to run the game, pay the developers of the new content, and make a profit. Thus you find even old games are still under active development. Everquest released their 15th expansion last October, and they've got a 16th planned for this November. It has been running for a decade, and the sequel has already been out for a couple years. However people still want to play, so Sony is still making content for it.
So no, this isn't the last WoW expansion. They are going to keep working on that game to keep getting subscribers for as long as it is profitable. To do anything else would be to incur the wrath of their shareholders.
That you don't like WoW is fine, but it is a rather stupid thing to say "Does anyone care?" Yes, WoW players care and there are a LOT of WoW players. It is one of the best selling games of all time and is THE best selling MMO of all time by a wide margin. Thus, a lot of people care what is going on with it.
So if WoW isn't your thing then don't play it. However don't act surprised that a large number of techies are interested in it. It is an extremely popular game.
Haven't seen this posted, so here we go... this list was "leaked" or whatever before TBC, AFAIK remember...
- Draenor Set
Azuremyst Isle - 1 to 10
Bloodmyrk Isle - 10 to 20
Eversong Forest - 1 to 10
Quel'thalas - 10 to 20
Hellfire Peninsula - 58 to 62
Zangarmarsh - 60 to 64
Terokkar Forest - 61 to 65
The Deadlands - 63 to 67
Nagrand - 64 to 68
Blade's Edge Mountains - 66 to 70
Netherstorm - 67 to 70
Shadowmoon Valley - 69 to 70
- Northrend Set
Borean Tundra - 67 to 70
Howling Fjord - 67 to 70
Dragonblight - 69 to 72
Grizzly Hills - 70 to 73
Crystalsong Forest - 72 to 75
Zul'drak - 73 to 76
Sholazar Basin - 75 to 79
Storm Peaks - 76 to 80
Icecrown Glacier - 78 to 80
- Maelstrom Set
Gilneas - 77 to 80
Grim Batol - 78 to 81
Kul Tiras - 79 to 82
Kezan - 81 to 86
Tel Abim - 83 to 85
Zandalar - 84 to 87
Plunder Isle - 86 to 88
The Broken Isles - 87 to 90
The Maelstrom - 89 to 90
- Plane Set
Pandaria - 1 to 10
Hiji - 10 to 20
Wolfenhold - 1 to 10
Xorothian Plains - 10 to 20
The Green Lands - 88 to 91
The Dying Paradise - 91 to 94
The Emerald Nightmare - 94 to 97
The Eye of Ysera - 97 to 100
Deephome - 88 to 91
Skywall - 91 to 94
The Abyssal Maw - 94 to 97
The Firelands - 97 to 100
- Legion Set
K'aresh - 96 to 99
Argus Meadowlands - 97 to 100
Mac'Aree - 99 to 100
Maw of Oblivion - 100+
Obviously this is all unconfirmed at best. and I still have some serious doubts about the story,
and
Again, this is all just rumors and lies at this point
And from my subsequent post
Okay, I need to get my facts straight. After doing some reading up on the topic (too late obviously) it is not clear to me that this guy's story was crap.
Now, what part of all that indicated that I "believe anything someone tells [me]?" I apologize if my post came across as if I were preaching doctrine from the mouth of God Himself, but I thought I was pretty clear that this was all speculation.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
You are correct that water walking does not prevent fatigue. However, prior to patch 1.7 (2005-09-22) damage absorption abilities did reduce the damage received from fatigue.
From the patch notes, under the "General" heading we see the entry: "Damage absorption no longer protects against falling, drowning, or fatigue damage." In addition, fatigue damage can *still* be healed thru. From WoWwiki:
Damage done by fatigue can be healed. It is possible for a low level healer to swim through the fatigue whilst healing itself and regenerating sufficient mana to continue infinitely, and reach often unrendered places that are otherwise impossible to reach.
So while I was incorrect in the mechanic, and the story I was told was a lie, it's still fairly likely that some of these places are in fact reachable; at least in theory.
Yes, I was incorrect. Please see the clarification I've since made. I'll accept the blame for having posted something for which I don't have sufficient justification or evidence. Feel free to mod down the original comment and the disinformation it contains.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
I like how the summary goes through the trouble of explaining the backstory of the Maelstrom and islands and what not.
As if everyone here doesn't already know.
A test server named Maelstrom? Now I know they're pulling shit out of their ass, as Maelstrom is an existing RPPvP server that launched in September of 2006.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
"an event that created a swirling vortex of water and mystical energies...", but it's the result of a much more mundane lowering of a toilet flush handle.
NO LOVE FOR PILLAR HUGGERS !
In the mean time, WoW carries on with it's cartoonish graphics and enormous content and I think they've managed to break the gold farmers that killed EQ for me. Bind on account gear at the very high level that you can pass down to yours - and nobody else's - twinks are a rare bit of gaming insight. I am just very glad that Blizzard is too large for Sony to buy, and I will probably continue to play WoW even after seeing it all through two level 80's. I'm still discovering new content.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I'm far off topic here, but I couldn't but help notice your cool sig, I've used that very sound in the beginning of some electronica I made, it is awesome.
I really have no idea what this post just said. You kids and your new fangled technology these days. Tweets and facebooks and night elfs...
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
one of the shittiest creatures in-game, which many people cant fit into a place and come to like. it would be another gnomeragan.
Read radical news here
I certainly hope not, as "The Cataclysm" is the name for the war-ending event in Beyond War, a game that has had that fiction posted since 2001. If so, then their PTO filing violates knowing prior use by an MMO publisher and damages will be high regardless failure to perform a correct due diligence search by the PTO. They should stick with Maelstrom if they want to keep the money.
The islands you speak of were actually located north west(Game Master Island) of Kalimdor and north east(Developer Islands) of Eastern Kingdoms. The Developer Islands were removed early on from the files and did have some interesting game breaking developer only items. The Game Master Island still exists, but was later functionally split off from the rest of the world. It requires map editing to reach it now. However, it never had any thing of interest. An early design for a guild housing building, a white room with a chair in it under the land mass, and a dock.
Now, there are some land masses near the Maelstrom that were and still sort of accessible from the Eastern Kingdoms. They are mostly blank land masses though. In the beginning to reach them it require a priest or warlock to fear another player off the boat in Booty Bay. This would cause the player to glitch and move incredibly fast towards the western edge of the continent map. I will attempt to explain the technical aspects of why that worked now. Each continent is contained in its own map file. The boats and zeppelins are contained within their own independent continent map files that are loaded on top of the real continent. Ever notice how a NPC that is chasing you can not path on to a boat or zeppelin? NPCs can not see these boat continent files in front of them. All they understand is that the player they are chasing is there at a certain location, but can not figure out how to path out of the real continent.
This is where the priest or warlock fearing comes in. When under the effect of fear the PC is temporarily treated as a NPC for the duration of the fear. When the PC gets feared off the boat past its very small continent border, since NPCs can not path from one continent to another, the PC glitches "falling" very fast in one direction.
There are many technical aspects of WoW that make all of these hacks and glitches possible. Personally examining how parts of WoW work it obviously shows that this was definitely Blizzard's first attempt at a MMORPG. There are some aspects that could have been programmed differently.(To note, many of those have been changed or improved over the past expansions.)
Goblin City? Hmmm...does this mean the Horde will finally have their comic-relief counterpart to the Gnomes?
What would the Alliance have as a new race? Pandaren?
Sierra might be a little upset by that.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Great more content that 80% of the players will never see. I still have friends that still haven't seen Molten Core, Naxx, or any other raid instance. The irony is when you release an expansion, none of the established players go tot he old content anymore (as a whole) which means new players coming in never see any of the old content because no one runs them anymore. I recently ran a new player through UBRS (Upper Blackrock Spire) and he never knew there were any other instanced dungeons outside of Outlands (He was a new player and started post-burning crusade.)
When Lich King came out the only Outland instances anyone ran anymore were heroics. New players coming in would never get to actually do those instances because, frankly the established players were at the point that only heroic mode was worth their time.
As plotted: Take the month to month changes in population (rather then total volume) and compare the data. Every MMO with an expansion gets a 3 month spike in uptake but every time the annual trend goes down every expansion.
Expansions are great for $$$ but bad for longevity. It becomes a drug addict's exercise in "Chasing the Dragon". Eventually you have to start churning out expansions quicker and quicker to maintain the high but ultimately you lockout new players and hit "the point of no return" on the decline.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
OT: Climbing mountains while there is a storm is really dangerous.
Maybe you need to get a thrill out of life, but that's no reason to risk your life.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
i heard it was called modern warfare 2.
reminds me of playing Everquest, it was a lot of fun and me and all my buddies with about 12 accounts (2 full groups) would quit between each expansion. By the time they released Planes of Power which had to be the 4th expansion the game was running out of Steam and WoW was beginning to get ready to be released. In essence what killed EQ, which by the way much to my shock still has a population has begun to merge servers. The moral of the story is that EQ began to pump out expansions and people began to tire of it. Then WOW was released. Anyone wanna take bets thats what will end up killing WoW? Someone is gonna come through with a better MMO and that will be the end of WoW.
Just for a point of reference EQ is releasing another expansion for the original Everquest, which puts them at 15, and they even made Everquest 2 which has more expansions than WOW. Must be following the lessons they learned from the first game.
> Cataclysm
As opposed to, oh, I don't know. Some idiots opening a 30-story portal into a demon world where the demons are eternally on the verge of taking the portal and coming through?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Blizzard could turn off every WoW server that they own, and I wouldn't be bothered one iota.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
people still play this miserable life sucking game? "Playing life is just as pointless as playing WoW. They are both treadmills and neither mater when all is said and done. However, life is 10000x more boring then WoW could ever be." Very very sad thing to say. You are wrong my friend, life is great as long as you have friends. Hell, you don't even need pussy if you don't want it or can't get it - maryjane is the most loyal girl you'll ever come across. Smoke that shit every day with my friends while I maintain this decent IT job and my life is quite enjoyable. I do play games and such with my i7 920 + radeon 4870X2 but I specifically stay away from those MMORPG's as they are wayyy toooo addicting!!
Re: TFA. I believe that he's right about Goblins being the next playable race. Reason: Goblins are in the same 'folder' in the WoW data files as the other playable races. With WoW model viewer, you can put armor on them, weapons, and even have them ride mounts. They even have their own dance.
Not trying to be a troll, as I really know almost nothing about the Warcraft franchise or lore, but it seems as if these ideas, that is, the pairing of Cataclysm and Maelstrom, are directly from the Dragonlance AD&D books (Weiss, Hickman, etc.). Is this bit of lore just a blatant ripoff?
I can't believe no one has speculated that Cataclysm may be the new name for battle.net 2.0.