Cataclysm Thread (New Expansion)

[Dezzimal]

MMO Champion did a nice profile of everything known about Cataclysm so far, including a few new things gleaned from the newest PTR.

World of Warcraft - Cataclysm

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the next expansion for World of Warcraft. Dark and forgotten threats that have long stayed out of sight have finally arrived on our shores, unleashing a cataclysmic event upon Azeroth and now preparing more nefarius plans to take it back.


New Classes
The expansion doesn't have any new class. Instead, Blizzard will offer more race and classes combinations to players, some of them have been datamined on the 3.2.2 Test Realms.

Human Hunter
Orc Mage
Night Elf Mage
Dwarf Mage
Blood Elf Warrior
Dwarf Shaman
Undead Hunter
Tauren Paladin
Tauren Priest
Gnome Priest
Troll Druid

Level Cap
The level cap in the next expansion will be slightly lower than expected this time around; 85.

This suggests Blizzard wants more room for expansions before hitting the level 100 cap. With less leveling to do (along with the revamped leveling listed below likely to increase the speed and ease of leveling), leveling a new race remains appealing for new and existing players alike.


New Races
The events of the cataclysm has caused two new races to seek new allies. The Goblins for the Horde and the Worgen for the Alliance.

Goblins
The Goblins have found themselves washed upon an island off the coast of The Barrens, their islands devastated by the cataclysm. As they strive to recover, they come across an Orc captured on an Alliance ship and rescue him. The Orc turns out to be none other than Thrall himself, and in return offers the Goblins a place within the Horde. These events are carried out in a quest line, allowing players to experience first-hand the reasons behind the Goblins' shift from neutrality.

It is unclear if the old Goblin locations such as Kezan and Undermine will be included in Cataclysm with the revelation of the Goblins' displacement.

Worgen
The cataclysm has cracked open the Greymane Wall, finally revealing what has happened to the kingdom of Gilneas and its citizens. The Worgen have ventured forth from Gilneas and sought help from the Alliance, deciding to join them to combat the new threats of Cataclysm.

Gilneas will make extensive use of the phasing system (much like the Death Knight starting area), to show what happened while the kingdom was cut off from the rest of the world and lead up to present day.

Last but not least, Worgens will have two forms and will be able to morph between a human form and a worgen one. Players should be able to pick both appearances when they create their character.

New Content
Cataclysm will be the first expansion not to introduce a new continent, instead making use of previously unreleased zones and revamping existing ones.

Classic Azeroth Revamp
A cataclysmic event caused by Deathwing and Azshara will change the face of Azeroth as we know it. Most of the new content for Cataclysm will take the form of a revamped Azeroth, taking advantage of newer additions to WoW such as phasing and daily quests. Most of the quests and mobs in the classic zones will also be redesigned to make leveling less painful. Some zones will change drastically to fit this, e.g.,

The Barrens will be split into two separate zones of two different level bands.
Azshara will become a low level (~10-20) zone.

Flying in Azeroth
Part of the redesign of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor is the introduction of flying to the two continents, allowing access to many new areas and quicker travelling across the large continents.

Unreleased Zones & Dungeons
With the addition of flying mounts to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and the redesign of many zones, most of the previously unreachable or incomplete zones will now be made available to players. This is where most of the new content from 80 to 85 will take place. Some of these are,

Hyjal (present)
Gilneas - The Worgen starting Zone.
Uldum (Most likely as a dungeon)

Classic Dungeon Revamp
Redesigning Onyxia's Lair in Patch 3.2.2 was just the first step. As most of the leveling will take place in revamped areas of Azeroth, so too will the dungeons, allowing players to use them to level from 80 to 85.

As far as I know, Ragnaros will also be back in this expansion.

Deathwing
Deathwing the Destroyer / Neltharion the Earth-Warder will play a major role in Cataclysm. Having been driven mad by Old God whisperings and turning against his own kind only to be fail in his attempts, Deathwing has sunk into the shadows. While the Horde and the Alliance were busy fighting back the Burning Legion only to then be beset with the Scourge, he has been lurking and moving things into place. After Lady Sinestra's failed attempts to create a Twilight Dragonflight, he again retreated to Grim Batol and succeeded where she failed. With his results seen in the Obsidian Sanctum, he has finally created the supreme Dragonflight he sought and plans to unleash it upon the world. But what of the Old Gods' sway over him?

Azshara
Queen Azshara will also play a major part in Cataclysm. Unknown to many mortal races, long forgotten by others, and believe to be dead by her own kind, she has not been dormant in depths of the Maelstrom. Having those around her transformed by the Old Gods into Naga after her failure in the War of the Ancients, she has become far more powerful and a greater threat than she once was. Not content with just Nazjatar and the depths of the sea, Azshara seeks to reclaim power and reign once again. With the true plan behind Lady Vashj's support of Illidan remaining a mystery we do not know what hand Azshara has yet played. The big question remains, is she now serving her "saviors", the Old Gods?

The Cataclysm
I'm still not sure who is the true end boss of Cataclysm is, but the cataclysm appears to have been caused by attempts to incantation to summon extremely powerful beings using an ancient incantation by Deathwing and Azshara. They're both very powerful, but the cataclysm itself suggests something more powerful is behind it, perhaps their shared past of Old God influence?

Call it speculation, most if not all of it will be true.

[Insanecyclone]

World of Warcraft - Cataclysm

Azeroth is changed completely. Some zones are completely destroyed, some are shattered, some are flooded (Thousand Needles), some are ripped in half. Coastlines the world over are changed. Durotar is wrecked, along with Orgrimmar, which is torn in two. A new orc city is rebuilt over the course of the expansion. Gnomes retake Gnomeregan in an instance.

WHAT

[Dezzimal]

cat⋅a⋅clysm  [kat-uh-kliz-uhm] Show IPA
Use cataclysm in a Sentence
–noun
1. any violent upheaval, esp. one of a social or political nature.
2. Physical Geography. a sudden and violent physical action producing changes in the earth's surface.
3. an extensive flood; deluge.

Seems fitting doesn't it? I had heard something about them completely wrecking an azerothan continent or somesuch a few weeks ago, which did sound a little exaggerated.

[Groovebox]

Sounds awesome. I'll resub if this is true. However, how the heck are they gonna handle people who don't buy the expansion?

[Tymon]

So, they're going to butcher the lore and completely destroy vanilla WoW.

Sounds pretty terrible honestly, could be very good but it'll take a very good execution to do this right.

[SilverBreeze]

I'm glad I'm quitting after WotLK

[Ezek]

So, they're going to butcher the lore and completely destroy vanilla WoW.

Sounds pretty terrible honestly, could be very good but it'll take a very good execution to do this right.

They'll probably use phasing, I honestly can't see them permanently removing vanilla Azeroth. Also, this sounds pretty interesting (not proven yet but it does make sense):

Azeroth is changed completely. Some zones are completely destroyed, some are shattered, some are flooded (Thousand Needles), some are ripped in half. Coastlines the world over are changed. Durotar is wrecked, along with Orgrimmar, which is torn in two. A new orc city is rebuilt over the course of the expansion. Gnomes retake Gnomeregan in an instance.

Malfurion comes back and helps activate the new Guardian of Tirisfal - Thrall. Thrall hands over leadership of Horde to Garrosh Hellscream while Thrall serves as a coordinator for both Horde and Alliance forces and players to combat the Naga and Black Dragonflight. Garrosh declares open war on the Alliance, and you can expect more Wintergrasp like areas on the old map. Due to some political manipulations, Cairne Bloodhoof gets painted as a betrayer and is murdered by Garrosh. Cairne's son takes over as Tauren chief.

For Worgen, the Cataclysm brings the Greymane wall down, revealing their secret -- that the worgen curse has ravaged the kingdom. They've managed to find a cure that keeps their human mind permanently but also keeps them in their worgen form. Seeing that they can no longer survive alone, the worgen residents of Gilneas rejoin the Alliance.

As for Goblins, Deathwing calls on the goblins as slaves like he has in the past. Their leader decides to go with Deathwing and enslaves his people because there's no crossing Deathwing and surviving. Fortunately, a large group manages to escape and join the Horde, knowing that they can't go it alone. See the pattern here?

The level cap is 85. New landmasses include islands that are raised as a result of the cataclysm, underwater zones, and the newly-redone old-world zones. Flying mounts will be useable in Azeroth. Many old-world dungeons are changed completely.

Half the point of Cataclysm is to remake the old quest lines, eliminate redundancy and give an overall narrative to all players, whether level 1 or 80. At any particular vanilla area, you can expect to see reconstruction/relief efforts, or all out war between Horde and Alliance NPC's. Wailing Caverns is going to be completely redone into a lush green tropical area, as a result of the druids working their magic to prevent it from falling into lava.

Leveling from 80-85 will be a MUCH bigger deal. Initially in 2008, they considered not raising the level cap at all, as making those quests takes a lot of manpower away from raiding content. But they are trying to make the story so grand and sweeping that ding'ing will actually MEAN something and not just be something you do. An idea that was kicked around was making the tier gear go along with levels.

Expect a couple of underwater cities to be on the backs of giant sea turtles and whales.

Make no mistake, the Old God content is not done. Since Netharion and Azshara both have ties to Old Gods, it is now clear that the SERIES wide antagonists of WoW are the Old Gods.

As I said, the part about Cairne makes a lot of sense because in the latest PTR Patch, all the quests given by Cairne's son have been removed from the game and a new NPC has been created to take his place. Cairne's son is missing from the current version of the game. (You can find more information about this in Ahmo Thunderhorn - replacement for Baine Bloodhoof?)

[Guitarman]

total fake. Swing from boubille's nuts all you want, next to none of this will come true.

[Furion]

WoTG!? Will Blizz fail like SE?

[Pikarya]

shens

[Dareus]

I don't believe it at all lol. It would be interesting to see them revamp the entire game, but the story behind it is totally bogus lol.
Thrall was captured by the alliance and held in a ship, yet some goblins were able to free him? And if he is no longer leading the horde and is instead in some neutral type of thing, why would he tell the goblins to screw over the alliance and join them in the bitter war against them?

And why is the Graymane Kingdom ravaged if they figured out how to stay in worgen form with no ill effects? I'm sure I could list about 100 more things, but Blizzard lost their love for the lore a long time ago and only worries about money these days.

[Lexa]

I refuse to believe this is true, simply because if they let horde have another druid race, but not alliance, I will implode and cry.

DRAENEI DRUID!

[Loziel]

Worgen Druid i bet

WOTG MKII is coming!

[Dezzimal]

So, they're going to butcher the lore and completely destroy vanilla WoW.

Sounds pretty terrible honestly, could be very good but it'll take a very good execution to do this right.

You say butcher the lore, I say advance the story.

[ringthree]

I say Blizzard is just cribbing notes from SE now...

This is the exact reason you don't let fan boys design a game.

[Furion]

I'll be waiting for my WoW /bell when new expansion come out.

[Moosey]

Sounds like a pretty damn good idea to me. No one is really using the vanilla areas anyway, so why not revamp them to get people to go back?

And yeah, it did remind me a LOT of WotG lol..

I think it'll be pretty cool though, and i'm liking the explanation of how the fuck worgen join the alliance(since the majority of them are pure evil.) Shapeshifting humans sounds pretty neat too.

[Dezzimal]

Its quite obvious that there is going to be a solid world event happening around the release of this expansion. Old content is old, new content is new. They're not just re-using the zones they're actually wrecking them and significantly changing the landscape and content therein.

[Dareus]

Didn't the cataclysm happen like 1000 years ago anyway? And I know it has to be bullshit cause the Night elves swore never to use arcane magic again after witnessing its devastating effects. lolblizzardlore.

[Lee]

Cairne murdered by Garrosh? I seriously doubt this.