So beta is upon us.  The NDA has been lifted, and those of us who have been playing are finally able to speak.  Of course, this is a game lore discussion site, so it helps if a number of us have had a chance to check out the content.

Suffice to say, spoilers abound.  I’ll do my best to not blatantly dive into any big reveals, but we’re making no promises.

Throughout Cataclysm’s testing phase, Garrosh has been a character of contention (when is he not?).  Is he an asset to the Horde?  A liability?  We’re used to this argument.  But there’s a new debate that’s come along with Cataclysm.  The question is simple, “Is Garrosh consistent?”  For some players, he now seems erratic.  They’re wrong.  When seen from the correct point of view (Garrosh’s), he’s as consistent as ever.Let’s back up.  Where does this argument come from?

Garrosh, yet again, has evolved with this new expansion.  Namely, he’s now Warchief of the Horde.  Thrall is absent, but his presence still felt.

Every race, except for the Orcs and Tauren, have been thrown out of Orgrimmar proper.  Trolls, Forsaken, Blood Elves?  Untrustworthy.  Goblins?  Slaves.

Spoilers re: Garrosh?  I’ll say this much:  Implications of treachery against Thrall and of course… Cairne.

As players outside Blizzard began experiencing Cataclysm, the first discussions were black and white.  Do we or do we not like what Garrosh is doing?

But then something strange happened, within the game we found Garrosh’s line.  A line even he himself would not cross.  While playing through the Stonetalon Mountains, we met an officer of the Horde whom even Garrosh believed had gone too far, and for the first time we as players realized that Saurfang had actually made a dent in Garrosh’s world view during their time in Northrend.

After this, the Garrosh debate was turned on its head.  What was this?  Garrosh’s line just seemed so out of place.

“Inconsistent” was the word.  Was Garrosh inconsistent?

So here we are.  And as you know, we believe he’s not, and you will too once you understand the underlying truth that is Garrosh.

That truth?

Garrosh is not evil.  He is ruthless.  And his ultimate loyalty is to the concept of the Horde itself instead of any one particular individual.

No matter how outlandish, or inconsistent Garrosh’s actions may seem, they all make sense when one understands that through the eyes of Garrosh everything he does is based on one simple question, “Will this strengthen the Horde?”

We may disagree with Garrosh’s answers, but that is still nonetheless the question he is asking himself with every decision he makes.

According to Garrosh, the Horde would be stronger streamlined down to the Tauren and Orcs.  According to Garrosh, the Horde may even be better without Thrall.  And… according to Garrosh, the moment the Horde steps over the line, it’ll find itself on collision course with becoming the Horde of old, the one that failed and was enslaved.

That is where the line comes from.  It is not random nor inconsistent.  To cross that line would weaken the Horde, therefore Garrosh will not do it.

So…Where will it all lead?  Who knows.  Blizzard is a lot less predictable these days, often throwing story elements in from completely left field.

Could Garrosh still ultimately become a villain?

Certainly.  Consider this… Emotions reverse.

It goes back to the beginnings of storytelling (not to mention human nature).  The more an individual loves something, the more they’ll hate it if they’re opinion is ever reversed.

Garrosh lives for the Horde, and would die for it if he needed to.

Eventually Thrall will return.

The question is, will Garrosh ultimately come to feel betrayed by the Horde?  If so, will his emotions be reversed?  Were that to happen, Garrosh could arguably hate the Horde even more so than King Wrynn.  At that point, you have your Villain.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Garrosh in Cataclysm

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Blood Knights.

When “The Burning Crusade” was released, those two words were enough to send countless Alliance players into rabid frenzy.

Hit squads were formed.

No joke.  For those of you newer to WoW, when “The Burning Crusade” was released, there were literally groups of Alliance players roaming as packs searching for Blood Elf Paladins to gank.

…And there were Horde players cheering them on.

When I posted “The People of Lordaeron” article, I was reminded by one of Loregy’s readers of another pet-peeve misnomer…

And it has to do with the Blood Knights.

To get through this, I’ll need to recap some lore.  But I’ll do it fast.  For those of you who want more:  WoWWiki is that way ——>

Alright, for the newer WoW players:  In “The Burning Crusade” the Blood Elves captured a Naaru named M’uru and forcibly syphoned its powers to create a new faction of Paladins with a much darker tint known as the “Blood Knights”.

Obviously these Blood Knights were seen as remarkably evil.  The Naaru are beings of light, WoW’s equivalent of Angels.  The Blood Elves were effectively torturing one.

The Blood Elves themselves, of course, are High Elves who became addicted to fel energy after the Sunwell was destroyed.

So– this is all old news.  Why does it matter?

Because for most, it seems, this is where their Blood Elf knowledge stops.  But even with this tidbit, there is a seed that should be noticed.

The Naaru are beings of light.

The Blood Elves are fel addicts.

By feeding off of M’uru, the Blood Knights were effectively drug addicts breaking into a health food store every night to gorge on healthy snacks.

The light is the light, whether stolen or not.  Angelic beings are selfless.  And… as it turned out, M’uru allowed himself to be captured so his essence could help purify the Blood Elves.

Alright, cut to the end of Burning Crusade.  (Stick with me, we’re going someplace.)

M’uru is captured again, taken from the Blood Knights.

Lady Liadrin, leader of the Blood Knights, approaches the leader of the Naaru, A’dal, a veritable god.

A’dal forgives her.  Admits that this was the plan all along, and…

*Lady Liadrin pledges the Blood Knights’ allegiance to A’dal’s forces and the restoration of Silvermoon.*

A battle is fought.  M’uru dies, his sacrifice fully playing out.  And in one final piece to bring the story full circle, M’uru’s life force reignites the Sunwell.

NOW….

Cut to present day WoW.  The most recent WotLK patch.

The Battered Hilt quest-line to reclaim Quel’Delar.

Minor spoiler… you end up seeing the restored Sunwell.

And who is there in the background?  Lady Liadrin, preaching salvation and the hard work the Blood Elves now have ahead of them breaking their fel addiction.  And how do the Blood Elf NPC’s react to her speech?

They cheer.

Long time readers will know I tend to point to answers somewhere in the gray area…

But in this case?  No.  At this point, the idea that the Blood Knights (and by extension, all Blood Elves) are evil is completely absurd.

Their power once again stems from the Sunwell.  Their paladins are sanctioned by the Naaru, who also sanction the Draenei.

Sure, you can claim they’re former bad-guys now doing community service–

But consider this… in literature some of the most driven heroes are former villains desperate to prove their redemption.

The Blood Elves and their Blood Knights are not evil.  Anyone who says otherwise is basing their point of view on out-dated lore.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Blood Knights, Evil?

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Varian Wynn has a misconception.  Yeah, so what?  Every player with a Horde symbol on his or shirt would tell you the same thing.  But this misconception is particularly interesting.

What is it about?

It’s about the Undercity.

Say what you want about King Varian Wynn.  This isn’t a judgement of his character… more or less just criticism regarding something he said, and more specifically the sheer amount of players one runs across who didn’t pause to consider what Varian said.

So what was this line?  Let’s set the scene… Go back to when WotLK was new… to the Wrathgate.

As an Alliance player, you storm the Undercity with King Wynn.  Together, you defeat Grand Apothecary Putress.  Then, with Putress dead at your feet, King Wynn yells:

“Look around you, brothers and sisters. Open your eyes! Look at what they have done to our kingdom!”

This line is fine in and of itself.  It works with Wynn’s character.  He’s going to feel that way.  Players, however, should know it makes little sense.

“Look at what they have done to our kingdom!”

…”our kingdom”?

When did Lordaeron belong to the people of Stormwind?  Or to the Alliance as a whole?  It never belonged to the dwarves or the high elves or any of the other human kingdoms.

Lordaeron… belongs to the people of Lordaeron.

And who are these people?

They’re the former Scarlet Crusade/Onslaught.

They’re a portion of the Argent Dawn/Crusade.

They’re a small number of exiles in Stormwind.

And finally… they’re also the Forsaken.

Consider that.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron.  The liberated undead tend to be treated by NPC’s and players alike as if they appeared out of the thin air.

The Forsaken, like the Blood Elves, are a former Alliance faction who have joined the Horde.

The Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron… still living in Lordaeron.

So with respect to King Varian Wynn, whether we like it or not, it’s the people of Lordaeron’s city and they can do with it what they want.  The only parties who have a right to complain either don’t exist anymore (Scarlet Onslaught), don’t care (Argent Crusade), or are a minuscule minority (exiles) compared to the liberated undead.

Consider that the next time you’re in a lore forum or witness an RP’er prattling on about “taking back the Undercity”!  It was already taken back from Arthas by the people who originally lived there.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

The People of Lordaeron

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For those of you who are sensitive to spoilers, you might want to back out now.  For the rest of you… I’ve got a big problem with this book.

So, what’s my problem?

When we play World of Warcraft we take it as a given, an unconscious assumption, that the game will provide us with the core narrative.

What the heck does that mean?  It means we expect the game to provide us with all of the “need to know” lore.

The “Stormrage” novel breaks that.  There is now a kink in the spine of Warcraft’s lore.

We’re lore-dorks.  Face it, to whatever degree, we are. Consider what a huge concept it is for us that WoW will now skip an entire expansion’s worth of material between WotLK and Cataclysm.

The real problem?  Imagine now someone who isn’t a lore-dork trying to wrap their head around that.  When an aspiring lore-dork asks me to explain something to them, it’s often as basic as “What’s Sylvanus Windrunner all about?”  I can only imagine what it’ll be like trying to explain to them that, “No no… the Emerald Dream expansion as we all imagined it has already happened.  No, it didn’t happen in game… Blizzard skipped over it. They only released it as a book.  Malfurion is back and married to Tyrnade, Eranikus is dead, the morrowgrain mystery was answered.  Fandral is in a straitjacket.  Oh, and Teldrassil is no longer corrupted.”

One could counter that players, who don’t care about the lore, aren’t going to mind if there’s a hole in it.

Wonderful.  So what’s the plan here?  To ensure that players who don’t care about lore keep right on not caring?  Aren’t these the players we should be *encouraging* instead of making immersion and lore that much more difficult?

Before “Stormrage”, the biggest hurdle was convincing people to pay attention.  Read the quests and boss dialogue, you’ll learn a lot.  As long as you give the game the attention it deserves, you’ll know WoW’s core storyline.  When Cata is released, this will no longer be the case; you will now also need to read a 400 page book.  Unfortunately, most people aren’t going to do that.  They’ll throw their arms up and decide it’s a lot less “work” to simply ignore WoW’s storyline.

We’re going to lose a lot of would be lore-dorks because of “Stormrage”.  It doesn’t matter how well we can summarize the book for them; all they’ll hear is, “To follow WoW’s core story, you now need to read a big thick book… yech.”

—

So, the book itself… how is it?

It has a lot of great moments and lost opportunities.

Remember the night elf civil war speculation?  It happens… but it only lasts for a couple paragraphs, and it doesn’t involve much more than a conversation.  An entire city of Night-Elves who went against Malfurion’s wishes by seeking to regain their immortality?  Yeah… we’ll just sweep that little inconvenient truth right under the rug.

Malfurion’s return is also underplayed.  Here it is… Azeroth’s darkest hour… the closest it has ever come to being conquered.  And then, right as hope runs out, the mythological messiah returns.  In the story, no one witnesses this.  No one is there falling into despair, only to see Malfurion step out of his barrow den.

A great moment that will very likely be milked later on is when Malfurion briefly becomes aware of every individual living being on Azeroth.  Why will this be milked?  Because it means Malfurion now knows of every hidden hero and danger on the planet.  And yes, that means Malfurion probably now knows where Jarod Shadowsong is.

…

Before I’m done, I need to give a shout out… and this one might interest you.

During the WotLK beta there was a guy on the beta forums, who declared himself as the “Official Lore-Dork of the WotLK Beta”.  In one of this posts, he came up with this crazy idea that Xavius was the Nightmare.  My reaction was to argue with him that this was only possible if Xavius was backed up by an old-god.

Well he nailed it.  Granted, I did too, but stating, “The old gods did it!” is hardly earth-shattering when it comes to WarCraft lore speculation.  I can’t remember the guy’s name (hopefully I’ll find him during the Cata beta), but credit should be given where it’s due.  I also know for fact he went to BlizzCon in ’08 and told Knaak his ideas.

So… there you go.  Blizzard’s creative development department certainly has their work cut out for them, proving they can now work around the kink in WarCraft’s spine.

Will they pull it off?

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Stormrage

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How so?  Picture everything we surmised would happen in the Emerald Dream Expansion.  Forget spoilers, this is the stuff we could easily extrapolate from what we already know:

The expansion begins with the Nightmare gaining power, threatening Azeroth, and ultimately needing to be defeated by Azeroth’s heroes in the final boss fight.  We’d also find out what happened with Malfurion Stormrage, and answer any other druid-themed questions posed so far.  What is the Nightmare?  What’s up with that Morrowgrain quest-line Hamuul and Fandral had us do in Un’Goro?  What happened after we freed Eranikus during the opening of AQ40?  What’s going to happen when Malfurion finally confronts Fandral regarding the questionable things Fandral’s done during Malfurion’s absence?  Speaking of Fandral, what’s up with Teldrassil, the tainted world tree he created despite Malfurion’s warnings?

On the first day you log into Cataclysm, all of these things will have already happened.  All questions answered.  The Nightmare is effectively no more.  (And don’t pretend that’s a spoiler.  The whole point of an end-boss is to be defeated.)

I have to confess, on a personal note, the Stormrage novel really threw me for a loop.  Obviously, we speculated that the Emerald Dream would be the next expansion since, “Why on earth would Blizzard release a novel about Malfurion Stormrage if they were doing anything else?”  We now have our answer.  Blizzard skipped over the Emerald Dream expansion entirely to go straight to Cataclysm.  They then released the book to fill in the large gap created in the lore.

So is this good, bad?  Sure, we can complain we missed out on a great expansion, but more-so… aren’t players going to be confused in Cataclysm when the NPC’s are all referring to this great war that recently happened against the Nightmare involving every citizen of Azeroth? (Yeah, it’s that big.)  Hopefully Blizzard’s creative development department will be able to bridge enough of this in the game, so it doesn’t harm the immersion.

Suffice to say, if you’re into WoW’s lore then you need to read this book.  It’s not a question of “neat flavor” as it is with all of the other books.  If you don’t read this book, you’ll likely be very confused when you jump into Cataclysm.

Is the book any good?  I enjoyed it.  It’s not my favorite, but it’s a good one.  I’ll add this… Brox fans will like it, but I won’t say why.

Was there anything I noticed in it that made me raise my eyebrow?  Yes.  This isn’t direct, and I’m curious if anyone else catches it… but lets just say Malfurion Stormrage likely now knows where Jarrod Shadowsong is.

I have more to say about the book, but it’ll be spoiler heavy, so I’ll allow some time for everyone to read it.

I hope you do.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

The Next Expansion is Emerald Dream

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There’s a dungeon now in Thousand Needles.

Why is this especially interesting?

Because there is really only one thing of interest in Thousand Needles that could survive a major flood, and be dungeon-worthy… the Grimtotem clan.It has been a long standing complaint among players (especially Horde) that there has never been a “Tauren-Themed” dungeon, or even, since Vanilla WoW much Tauren lore.  Cairne?  Who?  He’s almost as forgotten about as Theron over in Silvermoon.  Hamuul, the Horde Archdruid himself, sits forgotten as a level 62 non-elite NPC with only 3500 health.

Fortunately, Cataclysm is already setting out to rectify this.

We already know that Cairne Bloodhoof is to be killed, and his son Baine take his place.

(Allow me this sidenote.  As a screenwriter by day, I’ve been asked numerous times what I would write if I decided to take a stab at WarCraft fan-fiction.  This would be in.  In my head, I envision Cairne dieing in Orgrimmar, and parallel chaos erupting in Thunder Bluff as the Grimtotem finally make their move to take the city.  Magatha seeks out the most important target herself, Baine Bloodhoof, only to find herself facing off against Hamuul, who protects the boy.  God knows if we’ll see anything even close to this, but it’d make a great novella.)

As for Magatha… let’s take a look at her for a moment.

She is one of the most powerful Tauren shaman alive, yet she is found not on Spirit Rise with the other shaman, but on Elder Rise with the druids.  Why Elder Rise?  My guess would be to subtly keep her within a closer proximity to Hamuul so he can keep an eye on her for Cairne.

When Cairne is killed in Cataclysm, this will undoubtedly serve as some type of catalyst for the Grimtotem.  From various quests, we know they are in league with the Royal Apothecary Society.  Figure this:  whatever happens, it will result with the Tauren of the horde shifting to an active offensive against the Grimtotem clan.  This will culminate with the dungeon in Thousand Needles.

The objective:  Rescue Baine?  Kill Magatha?  Heck, kill an undead Magatha raised by her Forsaken allies?  Who knows.

Either way, it should be fun, and long, long overdue.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Cataclysm Dungeon – Grimtotem?

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Granted, most of this is speculation, but hey.  You’ve been warned.

So this model popped up on the PTR’s last week and a debate began raging over whether or not it was Bolvar.

Enough time has passed.  It’s time to weigh in.

Yes.  It’s Bolvar.  In fact it’s so painfully obvious that it’s Bolvar, only someone heavily in denial could claim its not.

The belt and boots match, it’s obviously an altered human.  But that’s all nitpicky.

Here’s the real logic behind why this is definitely Bolvar (and what that means).

In the Yogg-Saron fight you might get a glimpse of the “Immolated Champion”.  He’s a prisoner to the Lich King.  Now… check him out in the model viewer here.  The Java version looks better if your machine can run it.

The “Immolated Champion” is obviously the in-between phase for when Bolvar was alive in Dragonblight and the smoldering being he is now in Icecrown.

Bolvar = Immolated Champion = Smoldering Being.

So what does this all mean?  Personally, we though the Lich King’s “Ultimate Death Knight” was going to be faction specific.  If you were Horde, you’d face Saurfang the Younger.  Alliance would in turn fight Bolvar.  Now though, it seems we will all face Saurfang the Younger.  So what does that mean for Bolvar?

It definitely puts him back into play.  Since he’s not just an all out boss, Blizzard definitely has something in mind for him.

On one hand this could simply mean he has some nifty scripted event before becoming… an all out boss.  It could also mean we save him.

Then gain, it could also mean we don’t.

Remember what Metzen has kept repeating over and over (and over) about Northrend, “We leave a little bit of ourselves up there.”

If anything, this seems to say that Northrend does not end happily.  There won’t be any Ewoks dancing and statues being toppled after Arthas is killed.

So…. what’s the saddest, darkest thing that could happen?

Us having to kill Bolvar?

Bolvar becoming the next Lich King?  Arthas’s death animation, the way he scrambles for his helmet, only seems to bolster the position that there will be a new Lich King. (Search YouTube for “Arthas Death Animation”.  They keep being brought down and reposted.)

We’re still big fans WotLK ending with Varian Wrynn beginning his journey towards becoming the next Lich King.  It’s edgy.  It fits the profile.  It works.

Arthas was forced to kill the people of Stratholme.  That was his key turning point.

Could Varian Wrynn be forced to kill Bolvar?  Could that be his turning point?

Either way, all of these revelations regarding out encounter with Arthas should be examined through one specific lens, “How does this play out towards introducing the next Lich King?”

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Bolvar Fordragon’s Return?

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We’ve asked this question ourselves, and even hinted our thoughts, but we’ve never actually given an answer.

As it currently stands, the “Lich King” is entirely Arthas with the Ner’zhul half either dead or completely dominated by Arthas.

Suffice to say, we believe Ner’zhul still exists and will be freed when the Arthas half of the “Lich King” is killed.

So the heart of the question is, “Who will Ner’zhul pick next?”

The article on WorldofRaids discusses who Ner’zhul could target next.

What surprised us about the WorldofRaids article, was neither of our two picks made their list.

WorldofRaids suggests characters such as Tirion Fordring, Saurfang, or even Muradin Bronzebeard could be next.

None of these, however, just feel… right.  Nor do any of their other suggestions.

Look at Arthas, the original host.  He was ambitious and ruthless to a fault.  But, most importantly, he believed to his core that no matter how his actions may appear to others, they were always what was best for his people (regardless of whether or not his closest allies agree with him).

This infallible, selfless self-confidence is the key element to look for.

So who fits the bill?

That’s easy.

Garrosh, and Varian Wrynn.

This is not meant as criticism either of these great, controversial characters.  Love or hate them, the simple fact is that both Garrosh and Varian Wrynn unquestioningly believe that what they do is what’s best for their people.  In this way, they are both incredibly similar to Arthas.

This is why we believe one of these two will be the next Lich King.

So which one?

Varian Wrynn.  And we have a practical reason for believing this.

Ner’zhul is/was an orc.  If Garrosh were to become the next Lich King, then the “Lich King” would simply be two orcs.  He’d be an entirely Horde villain.

With Varian Wrynn as the next Lich King, then the “Lich King” continues to be a boss straddling both factions, which is much more immersive for *all* players.

So there it is, Varian Wrynn: The Next Lich King.

And at the very least, we know he’ll look good in the armor.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

The Next Lich King

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And what does it do?  Generally speaking, the exact opposite of your climax.  In other words, if your story ends with the hero beating the bad guy, then at the midpoint your hero is going to somehow lose.

So… why is this relevant?

Go back to right before WotLK was released, during the “Zombie Invasion”.

One of the key points during that world event was when we actually got to see Thrall and Garrosh step into the arena and fight it out.  Virtually all of us were shocked when Garrosh won the duel.

That fight was a midpoint.  It was placed there for all of the exact reasons why one inserts a midpoint into a story’s structure.  It casts doubt as to the fight’s actual outcome.  Before that duel, most figured Thrall could swat Garrosh like an insect.  Now, it’s a question.  Could Garrosh really beat Thrall?  Or did he only have the upper hand at that point in the fight when they were interrupted?  Further, this will add depth when the real event actually occurs.

And yes, there will be a “real event”.

What that fight confirmed for us was one thing:

At some point in the near future, Thrall is going to beat the living hell out of Garrosh.

Initially, the question was, “Would this happen in WotLK?”  But there really didn’t seem to be a clear opportunity for it.

Now with Cataclysm on the horizon, it all makes sense.

Thrall is gone, Garrosh left in charge.  We’ve already seen plenty of what Garrosh is going to do with Kalimdor in Thrall’s absence, evicting most races from Orgrimmar-Proper, etc..  Couple that with Garrosh killing Cairne (whether intentional or not) and you can see what is going to happen.

Thrall’s current greatest weakness is when he looks at Garrosh, he sees Grom.  A fanboy could even question whether or not this meant Thrall was pulling his punches during their original duel.  With the events of Cataclysm, Thrall will finally see clearly, and Garrosh will be in trouble.

Yes it’s predictable, but frankly, who cares?  An interrupted rematch is what we want.

So, will Thrall kill Garrosh?

Very doubtful.  In fact… No.  Thrall could not kill “Grom’s son”.

So what of Garrosh?  Probably exile.

Why?  Story reasons abound, but lets turn to game mechanics for a moment.

The answer is simple:

So we can kill him later.

If we want to follow a “sins of the father” theme, then Garrosh is destined to become a fel-orc.  Whether he does or not, though, it is still likely that at some point in WoW’s future he will become a raid boss.

Would Thrall help us then?  Doubt it, Garrosh is still Grom’s son.  But don’t forget, there is one other orc who has already outright threatened to kill Garrosh, Saurfang.

A raid in which we get to help Saurfang kill Garrosh?  Most of the horde fans would absolutely love it, and that alone is the best reason why Blizzard will probably eventually do it.

…

There is a current underlying concern being voiced throughout WoW that we’ll eventually run out of meaningful bosses… that the longer the game lasts, the better the chance we’ll run out of real bosses to fight.

This isn’t true.  In fact, the opposite is the case.

The longer WoW lasts, the more time its creative department has to develop lore.  This lore then turns into back-story as time passes, giving us meaningful depth for villains we’ll face in the future.

In other words, once WoW’s lore gains full momentum, meaningful boss encounters will become self perpetuating due to the “lore becoming back-story” process.  The only real concern we could have had was whether or not Warcraft’s lore possessed a plentiful enough roster of bosses to hold out until WoW achieved full momentum on its own.

This means tomorrow’s raid bosses are very likely in the game today.

Garrosh is a given, and dare I say Varian Wrynn probably is too.

Ner’zhul will also likely turn out to have survived and be looking for a host…

Hm.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Garrosh: Future Raid Boss

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Burning Crusade‘s theme was Outland.  The two new races were strongly tied to it. The premiere event was the opening of the Dark Portal.    The creative seed everything grew from, was Outland (especially the setting).

With Wrath of the Lich King, its theme was  the Scourge.  The premiere event was the Scourge invasion.  Northrend was/is infested with them.  The new class was tied to them.  Once again, a creative seed.

Last week someone complained to me that Cataclysm had an incredibly weak theme.  “What do Worgen have to do with the Maelstrom?”, he asked.  And there I realized the problem.

There is a common misconception floating around WoW right now.  Before BlizzCon, the original debate was “Maelstrom or Emerald Dream?” The answer, from what we understood, turned out to be Maelstrom.

We were wrong.

Cataclysm is not the Maelstrom expansion.

Its easy to be misled due to the inclusion of the Maelstrom zone(s) and the goblin race.  But Cataclysm is not the “Maelstrom Expansion” we were speculating about; it’s something else entirely.  Blizzard pulled a fast one and slipped in something none of us were expecting.

So then… what is Cataclysm?  What is its theme?

That’s easy.

It’s “Vanilla WoW 2.0″.

It’s what Blizzard would have done in 2004 if they knew then what they know now.

With this idea in mind, the theme suddenly blazes to the surface and everything ties together.

Why goblins and  worgen?  Because they probably should have been included since 2004.  The same goes for Hyjal, Grim Batol, heck even Malfurion Stormrage.

As for Ragnaros and Nefarian?  It’s Vanilla WoW 2.0.

So does that mean C’Thun will be back eventually?  I wouldn’t be surprised.  Check out what’s being set up in the WoW comic book.

So what about the lore?  How does it handle Vanilla WoW 2.0? Well, Metzen and crew figured out a lore reason to redo classic Azeroth.  They then named the expansion after it.

This lore also gave them the opportunity to solve a big conundrum:

One of WoW’s greatest villains, Deathwing, simply didn’t fit in well with any speculative, future expansions.  But as a new Uber-Boss for classic Azeroth, he fit like a glove.  To really lock it down, Metzen and crew then intertwined Deathwing into the expansion by having him be the cause for the Cataclysm itself.

So what does Vanilla WoW 2.0 mean for the future? Well, it potentially means the game is still afoot.  At this point, there could still be an actual “Maelstrom” expansion, and we could also still have “Emerald Dream”.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Maelstrom or Emerald Dream? Neither!

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