The Story So Far ... (Part 1), Fortune 50% Unlock, New Realms

[Boubouille]

Your Fortune Awaits: 50% Unlock

The curious continue to flock to the Darkmoon Faire, hoping to catch a glimpse of their fate from the wise and (some say) frighteningly insightful Sayge. The combined efforts of the Horde and Alliance have brought them to the halfway point of the 'Your Fortune Awaits' campaign, unlocking a truly rare treasure. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this sneak peek of the Collector’s Edition DVD video, “The Making of Cataclysm.”

We look forward to sharing even more treasures with you!

The Story So Far...

Shattered Hopes

The Lich King's reign of terror was over. As if to affirm that a bright future would soon dawn on Azeroth, other joyful events occurred across the world. Archdruid Malfurion Stormrage was at last freed from his imprisonment by the shadowy Emerald Nightmare through the efforts of his love, High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind, and her allies. Elsewhere, after years in exile, the highly intelligent gnomes and the fearless Darkspear trolls made gains toward reclaiming their respective homes in Gnomeregan and on the Echo Isles.

Yet just as hope was beginning to surge among Azeroth's races, tragedy struck. The world's elemental spirits grew increasingly erratic, setting off a series of deadly natural disasters. Agents of the nefarious Twilight's Hammer cult surfaced throughout Horde and Alliance cities, spreading word of the impending apocalypse. The world's leaders scrambled to find a solution to Azeroth's growing instability.

In the dwarven bastion of Ironforge, King Magni Bronzebeard undertook a mystic ritual to commune with the earth. The ceremony, however, had an unexpected effect: Magni was transformed into diamond and became fused to the depths of the mountain city itself. In the wake of his petrification, the Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron clans agreed to rule over Ironforge via the Council of Three Hammers, but the city's future remained uncertain.

Meanwhile, Thrall journeyed to his ancestors' lands in Nagrand, hoping to glean insight from Outland's elemental spirits as well as other respected shaman. In his absence, Thrall appointed Garrosh Hellscream, son of the legendary orc Grom, as acting Horde warchief. Garrosh's brash demeanor inflamed relations between the Horde and the Alliance. A gruesome slaughter of druids in Ashenvale, which the Twilight's Hammer had perpetrated to look like an act of the Horde, escalated tensions further and sowed mistrust among Garrosh's own comrades.

In particular, Garrosh infuriated Cairne Bloodhoof, the wise tauren high chieftain. Believing that the new warchief would lead the Horde to ruin, Cairne challenged Garrosh to a duel of honor. Although the mighty tauren fought valiantly, no amount of strength could have led him to victory. The matriarch of the Grimtotem tauren tribe, Magatha, had poisoned Garrosh's blade, unbeknownst to either of the duel's combatants. Cairne became immobilized after he received a flesh wound during the battle, allowing the new warchief to land a killing blow.

Following the duel, Magatha's agents seized the tauren capital of Thunder Bluff for the Grimtotem. The usurpers also intended to murder Cairne's son, Baine, but the young tauren eluded his assassins and staged a counterattack. Ultimately, Baine and his forces reclaimed Thunder Bluff, expelling Magatha and her traitorous followers from tauren lands forever.

Unaware of these critical events, Thrall received an ominous warning in Nagrand from the Fury of Earth: the fear and turmoil of Azeroth's elementals echoed the condition of Outland just before that world—then known as Draenor—had been ripped apart. Yet Thrall had little time to act on this unsettling revelation....

In a sudden upheaval eclipsing the world's recent elemental unrest, Azeroth shattered. Violent quakes tore through the earth. Mountains of fire and magma burst from the ground. Colossal tidal waves obliterated coastlines and caused widespread flooding.

The Cataclysm had begun.

To be continued in part two of "The Story So Far...".

New Realms for Cataclysm (Europe)

We have no plans to open new realms while there exists realms that need greater population. Despite this, as I said, it is a possibility but again, we want more than anything to ensure our existing realms are healthily populated (and people on those realms do too -- it's made clear to us time and time again.)

We do not open new realms because people ask for them, irrespective of how many may ask. We open them when our existing realms cannot take on any more players and when we anticipate an influx of new players. Though we realise a fair group of new players and returning older players may come back to our realms in Cataclysm, they will find their homes on existing realms before we even consider the idea of any new EU English realms.

That's pretty much end of story, and though I'm sorry if this upsets people to hear, we are more concerned about those who play on realms that need a greater population, than those who just want a new realm. We've been telling people on low populated realms that we are wanting to help them out and we want to follow through with that, however we are able to.

If you want a new realm experience, roll on a realm like Magtheridon that's been converted to PVE -- the majority of the population on that realm are low level characters leveling up to endgame. Honestly, it really does feel like a new realm -- there's only a small amount of 80s there at the moment, the rest are leveling up and forming new guilds and behaving seemingly exactly as though the realm was new. By all means, go roll on there and check it out.

If you're wanting a PVP realm instead, roll on the New Player realm -- those realms also have a lot of space to take on lots of new players, and though they don't have that "new realm feel" that converted realms like Magtheridon have, they are as close as you can get to it on the PVP side.

[Selxxa]

Not much news today.

[Macsword]

The video was nice!

[bbr]

Heh, this reminds me of the noob comic's "lore bomb".

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=392

[F-Minus]

A lot of story had happened during that few hour maintenance

[Deleted]

Not really surprising they arent adding any new realms, theoretically we really dont need them.

However I think that if they arranged a "forced free transfer" from some low pop and low progress realm and "re-opened" it for Cata as brand new PvP realm (something like this happened before WotLK but with PvE realms), its population would be giant. People have been asking for a new PvP realm since like forever in EU.

[Gravlax]

The obvious problem with asking for a new PVP realm is that PVP realms are just not very popular as is obvious when you look at the server pops.

They really should have rolled several of the RP servers together, some of them have terribly small populations...especially the RP PVP servers.

Then they could have opened a few new servers at basically no cost.

[Panjandrum]

Part of the way they phrase it - "player demand" - leads some to think that means "player qq".

[Cairm]

Like someone previously said, nothing much new in this news post, but it was still an enjoyable reading.

[Deleted]

It's amazing how much happens between WoTLK and Cata. Tyrande rescuing Malfurion, Thrall's journeys, Garrosh managing to piss off the entire Horde, Anduin gowing up, the Dark Irons joining the Ironforge Dwarves...I'm almost wondering if Blizzard are secretly planning a "Warcraft IV" RTS game set in the intervening time.

[InstantPoM]

It's amazing how much happens between WoTLK and Cata. Tyrande rescuing Malfurion, Thrall's journeys, Garrosh managing to piss off the entire Horde, Anduin gowing up, the Dark Irons joining the Ironforge Dwarves...I'm almost wondering if Blizzard are secretly planning a "Warcraft IV" RTS game set in the intervening time.

This is an interesting theory, it wouldn't surprise at all if they did.

[Seejay]

Really nice video, I enjoyed it a lot. I can also see their point about not creating new realms, there just doesn't seem any need to.

[Hexme]

It's amazing how much happens between WoTLK and Cata. Tyrande rescuing Malfurion, Thrall's journeys, Garrosh managing to piss off the entire Horde, Anduin gowing up, the Dark Irons joining the Ironforge Dwarves...I'm almost wondering if Blizzard are secretly planning a "Warcraft IV" RTS game set in the intervening time.

We will be waiting for WC4 a lot longer than we did for SC2.

[fettpett]

It's amazing how much happens between WoTLK and Cata. Tyrande rescuing Malfurion, Thrall's journeys, Garrosh managing to piss off the entire Horde, Anduin gowing up, the Dark Irons joining the Ironforge Dwarves...I'm almost wondering if Blizzard are secretly planning a "Warcraft IV" RTS game set in the intervening time.

um...no, They had "Stormrage" and "The Shattering" written to tell those stories. They did show Thrall going to Nagrand between the elemental invasion and 4.0.3a thats when Hellscream took over as Warchief. As much as it grates on people to read Knaak Malfurian coming back is there, however Christie Golden's work is well done and the story moves quit quickly and is well done.

[eb88]

It's amazing how much happens between WoTLK and Cata. Tyrande rescuing Malfurion, Thrall's journeys, Garrosh managing to piss off the entire Horde, Anduin gowing up, the Dark Irons joining the Ironforge Dwarves...I'm almost wondering if Blizzard are secretly planning a "Warcraft IV" RTS game set in the intervening time.

They already stadet in an old interview that they are going to make WC4... I cant find it but they confirmed it!

[Deleted]

awesome video

[Taiki420]

They already stadet in an old interview that they are going to make WC4... I cant find it but they confirmed it!

I'm pretty sure the last statement was that the WC4 team is the same team as the SC2 team, and that they were going to ensure SC2 is taken care of and updated for quite some time (the two other race versions, etc) before they would consider their 'next project' which COULD be WC4 if they wanted to do it then, they could always make something else.

I have yet to hear of a confirmation though.

[Lazertrooper]

has magtheridon really fallen that much? and to think it was once the highest ranked server horde side.

[rboa]

I am lost. Why are they referring to Darkmoon Faire when it will not be back for another week?

[Deleted]

"If you're wanting a PvP realm" ... nice grammar blizz-bro.