[WoRBot]

Note: This article contains some speculation; feel free to take it with a grain of salt.

Today while logging in to do a few dailies, I noticed the Test Server tab active on realm selection. What did I find on this tab? Surely it would be the PTR realms. Nope; what I found was a server named "Maelstrom 3 Test." Cikn also noticed it and has a thread going (had; thread deleted) on the official WoW forums. Normally this wouldn't be alarming, except that Wrath of the Lich King is winding down, with patch 3.2 "building up to the battle with the Lich King" in 3.3. We also have BlizzCon coming up in less than two months, and from this, it looks like we'll see the third expansion for the game for the first time there. Maybe we'll even be able to play some of it, similar to Wrath of the Lich King at BlizzCon 2007.

So yeah, as you can see from the screenshot, the third expansion looks to be Maelstrom-related. These rumors have been flying for a while now, even going as far as some saying goblins would be a playable race, but this looks like the closest to "confirmation" we'll get until August. What also leads me to believe this is in fact the next expansion are some comments Chris Metzen made during BlizzCast 7, stating "Sargeras is still out there." Of course, it could be the test version of the US-Maelstrom RPPVP realm, or something else entirely, but... nah. I'd prefer to think nagas have stolen Blizzard's internets and put this public in a scheme to spoil surprises. Azshara's gotta be up to something, after all.

While 3.2 has the stage for now, I think it would be a healthy discussion to look forward since we only have a few more patches in the Wrath of the Lich King content cycle. With that said, even if Maelstrom isn't the target for the next expansion, what would you want in it? It's certainly coming, because "there's a lot of life left in Azeroth's story," so we may as well pool some thoughts on the future. Do you want a new class? New playable races? Maybe some new professions? How about housing, guild halls, etc.? What areas would you like to see Blizzard focus on for an expansion? Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas.

[marlance]

Looks like a nice expansion, but I was hopeing for emerald dream to be the next one, dont think I will play wow long enough to experiance two more and I wont want to miss the sweet emerald

I must admit I don't know much about the malestorm but blizzard allways have plenty of lore to go around so I don't doubt I will be a great one!

[stewart]

If my memory serves, was there not a list of expansions and zones leaked before TBC even came out, that has been reasonably accurate until now.

I think it described expansion 3 as Maelstrom with a new hero class, and expansion 4 as Emerald Dream with a new race for each faction.
Gilneas, Grim batol, tel'abim spring to mind as zone names but i don't remember whether it was for 3 or 4

[Kody]

stewart said:

If my memory serves, was there not a list of expansions and zones leaked before TBC even came out, that has been reasonably accurate until now.

I think it described expansion 3 as Maelstrom with a new hero class, and expansion 4 as Emerald Dream with a new race for each faction.
Gilneas, Grim batol, tel'abim spring to mind as zone names but i don't remember whether it was for 3 or 4

I do recall the list. I'm not sure it mentioned hero classes, but yeah I remember that list. It has been surprisingly accurate so far, so who knows.

It wouldn't be the first time a company's design plans for a game were leaked somehow.

[stewart]

I do remember the lack of any starting zones, which would, like WotLK, imply some sort of hero class?

[Mikeyolol]

I believe the following is the document that you are referring to. It was leaked before Burning Crusade was released.

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+
The Burning Citadel - 100+++

[stewart]

That's exactly the one, as i remembered there's no starting zones for the Maelstrom set, but there are for the Plane set, so logically i would assume some form of high-level hero class for this expansion, and some new playable races for the Emerald Dream

[Kanzentai]

Didn't Blizzard once say something about not wanting to make the Pandaren a playable race to avoid backlash from the chinese playerbase (or something similar)?

[Kody]

Kanzentai said:

Didn't Blizzard once say something about not wanting to make the Pandaren a playable race to avoid backlash from the chinese playerbase (or something similar)?

Blizzard never stated that specifically that I can recall. This was mostly assumed by players as to why the Draenei were chosen for TBC. Many thought that the reason Blizzard held back the announcement of the Alliance race was that they originally planned for Pandaren, but decided it was a bad idea due to potential issues in China.

[Azelia]

If you look at the plane set more carefully you can see that Blizzard really want's to add Pandarens to the game. I wonder how long it'll take people to realise that there's an easter egg in the name "Hiji" with Mount Fiji. ^-^ Yeah I also remember hearing about China having issues with Pandarens, it could be intresting to see how strange it would be if a Undead and a Pandaren stood next to each other. But then again, I thought Tauren's looked very strange.

[Leviathonlx]

That list first appeared a month after WotLK was announced last year with no source of it being anywhere before then no matter how much some people swear they saw it before then. Just that list can't be that old since we know for a fact that Azjol-Nerub was originally a leveling zone and Crystalsong was part of Storm Peaks until the Beta of WotLK.

Course I do believe the next expansion is the Maelstrom but I am basing that on what they said back in 05 at Blizzcon (that they were dedicated to making expansions of Northrend and the Maelstrom). I also think they changed the original Borean Tundra storyline so that we could get a break from the Naga before we got a expansion revolving around them.

[anjldust]

That list is fakefakefake. It never appeared until at least a month after Wrath was announced (and all the playable zones were known from Blizz-released info/Tabletop RPG lore). Some people found it on a German site in a post dated 7.10, a month before Blizzcon '07 (which was in August of that year)... not realizing that a German website would use Euro style dates, meaning it was posted on October 7, not July 10. (Edit - If you want evidence that this site uses euro dates, check the latest posts and realize there's no 13th-31st months.)

http://www.wowszene....ic.php?175413.0

It's good speculation, taking info from the tabletop RPG, which Blizzard has borrowed heavily from in the past, but it's not a real leak. By this time, we already knew that Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord were the twin start zones, and the names of the other zones had been revealed in Lands of Mystery (tabletop RPG book) over a year and a half beforehand. Take that info, work your way north up the continent toward Icecrown, and boom, instant "zone list".

I've seen dozens, probably hundreds of people swearing they got it from a friend of a friend who found it on the forums during the beta test of vanilla WoW... because that's the story given by the guy on Allakhazam who made it up.

http://wow.allakhaza...012268058738816

This is the earliest reference to the list ANYWHERE. No one has ever provided conclusive proof that the list existed before this post. No screenshots, no archived threads, nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Some dude who apparently felt the need to keep it to himself for 2-3 years posts it on some forum and people just believe him?

Notice the date: September 2007. One month AFTER Blizzcon '07.

Fake list is fake. Don't believe everything you read.

If anyone can find any info on this list existing before September '07, then I'd encourage people to believe it. Until that time, all evidence points to Reinjin making it up for attention.


----

EDIT - the thread on the WoW forums has been deleted. People were arguing that they "remember" seeing the list during the BC alpha or that it was posted during the vanilla WoW public beta, without proof, naturally. My response, before the thread was deleted that is, was going to be this:

No one can prove it existed before Sept 2007. Without evidence, you should not believe it. People claim they heard Neil Armstrong say "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky" during the moon landing, but it's not true. Thousands of people claim to have heard it, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. People claim they saw the episode of The Dating Game where someone described their favorite place to "do the deed" was "in the butt", but no one's ever found actual video footage of the event happening.

Without evidence, your claims are spurious. Sorry. Get mad, get angry that people are calling you a liar. Maybe you're not malicious, but you're wrong. Even logical evidence proves otherwise. Why would Wrath need twin start zones, if not for the issues that a single start zone in BC caused? Blizzard didn't plan ahead for that. The Allakhazam list claims it's the original source, not an edited list. The poster says he's had it for 2-3 years. It shows twin start zones. He is a secondary source. Blizzard says they needed twin start zones for technical/playability reasons. They are a primary source.

The list does not include Azjol Nerub as a playable zone, which was Blizzard's intention until late in the design process, citing technical and time limitations. Why does this list not include it? Because it's based on the info released at Blizzcon '07 maybe? Because it didn't exist before September 2007 and a guy named Reinjin trolled you all and possibly even convinced you so hard that you've fabricated memories to continue your beliefs? Maybe so.

[Fajerbadtuch]

the blizzard forum thread on it was deleted.


IMO, i wanna see some guild halls. and if housing came id shit my pants lol

[Zuelu]

I just went to wowiki to look up Wolfenhold and Xorothian Plains. Only the "list" appeared on articles by players listed as "the Future of WoW". What race would this be because either I'm braindead or I never heard of it, and I have a feeling I just can't remember at this point. IF this list is legit, then a case can be made the next expansion may not be Maelstrom, but in fact emerald dream.

Here's my case: Kody got a tour of blizz HQ a while back (at Blizzcon 08 if I remember correctly) and said he couldn't get into an area at Blizz HQ and it was said they were working on the next expansion in there. If they are going to be announcing a new expansion at Blizzcon, either Maelstrom has been underdev right under our noses and they tricked us to think it was emerald, or Emerald is already finished and they are now CURRENTLY working on Maelstrom. Then there is also a game design (the source escapes me at the moment but I'm leaning toward Blizzcast) that said they wanted to do 2 new races, hero class, 2 new races and back and forth until they exhausted the lore (Which if they do, they are putting way too much lore per expansion, IMO). So the list LEVELS might be wrong but the areas might be correct.

I know. There's a giant hole. Maybe that realm is an Alpha realm or a closed Beta Realm for Maelstrom. So be it, my theory goes through the window if that is the case. For all we know, they could be working on Legion right now in like WAY pre-alpha stages. But since Kody got the info that they were 2-3 patch cycles and 1 expansion ahead, I think Emerald is next, and Maelstrom is going to Alpha testing. But that's just my opinion.

[Kody]

Fajerbadtuch said:

the blizzard forum thread on it was deleted.


IMO, i wanna see some guild halls. and if housing came id shit my pants lol

Hmm, interesting x2.

And yeah, guild halls and maybe even housing could be very cool if done right.

[Chetuhan]

Anjldust is correct, the list is a fake. It's funny reading the original post on Allakhazam, though--the story that author posted along with it is a textbook hoax setup.

[Kody]

Yeah I have my doubts in any unofficial lists like that and always have. The points raised in this thread alone are a good enough argument to place it in the fake category.

[Treehunger]

I remember posting that the 3rd Expansion would be
World of Warcraft:Fury of the Malestrom a long time ago but everyone told me it dident fit with the story that emerald dream had to be next lol
All tho this is still all speculation malestrom seems perfect to me

We can do CoT: The the day the Well of Eternity was destroyed
or enter the place where gul'dans skull once lade

[zakayron]

hero class for maelstrom? tinker find teh threads here

Quote

first thread:: http://forums.worldo...2813455&sid=1#8

second thread:: http://forums.worldo...&sid=1&pageNo=1

third thread:: http://forums.worldo...38307&pageNo=1&


fourth thread:: http://forums.worldo...&sid=1&pageNo=1

in these threads fragglepop explains the abilities of the tinker class including three talent trees she created AND talks about a starting zone for tinkers as being 1 island (yes with alliance and horde) that would be a sanctuary and tinkers would learn about their abilites and about their lore etc. etc. said island would be near the maeltstorm (this all from memory i last read it like 2 months ago so it might of been updated)

[anjldust]

Also, while I agree that Maelstrom is a likely candidate for the next expansion, and that a new expansion could be announced at Blizzcon '09, I don't think that this is Blizzard tipping their hand, and here's why:

This test server is apparently RP-PVP, just like the US server called Maelstrom. I think it's just as likely that this is Blizzard testing hardware for upgrades to Maelstrom, which desperately needs it.

In addition, Blizzard deletes speculation threads on upcoming content all the time, even if the evidence is total garbage. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions just yet.