The other day, we posted that Blizzard had trademarked the name "Cataclysm," and right after that, the community exploded with speculation: is it the name of WoW's next expansion, Blizzard's next-gen MMO, or some other project? Nothing is guaranteed yet (is it ever with Blizzard?), but the Internets have pretty much landed on the new expansion as the answer. "Cataclysm" actually means "a momentous and violent event marked by overwhelming upheaval and demolition," but it also has a pretty specific relation to water, and that's got lots of people thinking that it's the name of the Maelstrom expansion. In fact, The Sundering, or the world event in Azeroth's history where the Well of Eternity was destroyed and the Maelstrom (that swirly thing in the middle of the map) was created, was referred to as "the Cataclysm." So there you go -- pretty solid evidence, even though, as I said, nothing is guaranteed until we hear it from Blizz.

Stropp's got an interesting piece of speculation that says though "Cataclysm" is still probably the next expansion, the event the word refers to has yet to happen. He claims that if Blizzard really wants to speed up the 1-50 leveling process, they should just destroy Old Azeroth as we know it, and just have all the new characters start at level 50. That would be pretty nuts, but then again, Blizzard's never shown a real affinity for the old content, and by the next expansion, we'll be heading up to level 90 or even 100.

Finally, there's this: when the news first broke last week, we noticed that the wowcataclysm.com domain had just lapsed when the trademark was registered. But apparently, as a few of our commenters have noticed, the Australian person who originally owned it has re-acquired it for another year. So if "Cataclysm" really is the next expansion, Blizzard will have to lay claim to the domain (either by buying it or trying to enforce their trademark), or (more likely) put the domain somewhere else.

Tags: azeroth, blizz, blizzard, blizzcon, cataclysm, expansion, lore, maelstrom, next-gen-mmo, speculation, sundering, well-of-eternity, wow-cataclysm, wow-expansion, wow-lore, wowcataclysm

Filed under: Night Elves, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Expansions