Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Wrath you never saw
by Matthew Rossi 
Dec 28th 2009 at 5:00PM
We're all familiar with the strange case of Azjol-Nerub. Originally it was intended to be a complete underground zone that players were to level in, do quests, and so on. Then that was scrapped and we instead got two instances and an NPC who was clearly the remnant of a once far more expansive plot. It's a shame, too, because those two instances are tantalizing hints at how vast and expansive an Azjol-Nerub zone could have been. Frankly, I found (and still find) the Nerubian architecture in those instances far superior to Naxx both in design and its surprising color palette. And when you look around Ahn-Katet and realize how vast the cavern is and how little of it is actually seen in the instance, or run Trial of the Crusader and fall into yet another astonishingly vast and underused space, I don't see how you can not wonder why the Azjol-Nerub zone never manifested itself. Perhaps we'll see World of Warcraft: Underground at some point.
But while in Azjol-Nerub we have a zone that failed to materialize, in Crystalsong Forest we have a fully developed zone with floating, magically altered forests of shattered crystal trees filled with ruins and NPC's and... no real point. There's two flight points, one for each faction, but you could easily miss them because why would you go to them with Dalaran floating right there overhead anyway and no quests to drive you down to them? Why does each faction need its own flight point in the region? Are they fighting over some objective? What is it?
Likewise, Dalaran's presence is intended to somehow oppose the Blue Dragonflight but aside from erecting yet another giant purple bubble (man, they love giant purple bubbles) they don't really seem to be doing anything to all those Blue Dragonflight mobs floating around on flying platforms in the zone. You get sent to Crystalsong by the Argent Crusade a couple of times, first off when they're pushing into Icecrown and then after they've erected their tournament and want you to kill satyrs for scrying crystals or knock out the Black Knight's squire.
This just begs the question: why is the Black Knight's squire in Crystalsong? Why are the satyrs there? There are ancient night elf ghosts haunting the ruins, the Blue Dragonflight, this zone should be positively bustling with player activity and instead it's a ghost town because there's no actual content here, just hints at it. There's a really interesting bit of backstory hinting at a war between the Black and Blue Dragonflights here that made the trees turn to crystal, and the Lich King's attempt to harvest the forest's power, but it doesn't actually appear anywhere in the game that I've seen. Crystalsong is basically just a very elaborate backdrop to fly over to get to Dalaran at this point.
Another thing that's interesting when looking through the data files is how many items that ended up in Naxx and (more recently) the new five man instances were, at least during the design process, intended to drop somewhere else. For instance, here you can see various familiar shield designs but also at the top and bottom you'll notice two designs you've yet to see. One of them, the bottom design, has an art style that clearly matches the Hate-Forged Cleaver which drops in regular Halls of Reflection, and which you can find in the item files as 'axe_1h_draktharon_d_01'.
The axe and shield are hardly unique as being designed and created for an instance that they don't appear in. It's not even unique to this expansion: there are 2h sword models in the files which are named for Auchindoun, for example. What's interesting in all these models that either don't drop at all or which drop in ICC instead of the places which they are named for is what they suggest, namely that once there was the intention to have more varied raiding across Northrend instead of one large Naxxramas raid and two smaller one-encounter raids in Obsidian Sanctum and the Eye of Eternity.
Several sword models, as an example, either appear only on NPC's or in instances completely disconnected from their file names. Here, for example, we see several swords named for the Nexus, but only one of them drops in the Eye of Eternity raid, the rest all drop in Naxxramas (or Forge of Souls in the case of one of the reskins). Again, this isn't terribly unusual: several of the original sword models in the first release of World of Warcraft have names that hint at a faction bias that never came to pass, for example. We can, however, speculate that perhaps there was to originally have been more expansive content at Utgarde Keep, Drak'Tharon/Gundrak and the Nexus than actually came to pass, and that several of the art assets and models originally designed for these zones ended up moving to other instances like Naxxramas 25. (Naxx 10 more or less just re-used original Naxx 40 models.)
Now, at this point I hasten to add I am just speculating. I have no way of knowing and have found no conclusive comments from Blizzard saying "Yeah, we were going to do a bunch more raids but then we didn't and we just focused on Naxx instead" but it is clear that there was a great deal of work put into designing item models for zones that they never appeared in or appeared only on NPC's such as Ulduar. (And yes, I still wish that big Blinkstrike looking 2h had dropped somewhere, but I'm glad to see that axe and 2h sword get into player hands.) It's hard not to get caught up in wondering what Wrath would have looked like with more raids at start... one can imagine an Utgarde Keep with a UP raid on top. The place certainly seems big enough for a raid with King Ymiron having gotten a lot of build up in Howling Fjord only to then sort of fizzle out by being farmed constantly by pre-Naxx guilds looking for a Red Sword of Courage.
Likewise, both Drak'Tharon Keep and Gun'Drak just look overdesigned for the amount of content accessible: there's multiple structures and portals at Gun'Drak. Not only does Drak'Tharon look like you could easily have another instance there, the one we have is kind of confused and unfinished to me. Who exactly is the Prophet Tharon'ja? He looks vaguely like the Avatar of Hakkar from Sunken Temple... is he intended to be the harbinger for the various priests of the animal gods we encounter cannibalizing their own gods in Zul'Drak? Because we already have one of those, and he actually looks identical to Tharon'ja until you drain him for Quetz'lun's spirit. I'm fascinated by the lore hints in all the Zul'Drak instances (heck, the animal gods from Zul'Aman show up! Thankfully they didn't hold a grudge) and so, the idea that there was a possible raid exploring this in more depth and maybe explaining what exactly gave them the idea of eating their gods in the first place would have been fine by me. Maybe we could even find out what that enormous serpent tail in Gundrak is connected to.
I have no idea why, if there was work on UP and Drak'Tharon raids, that work was stopped. Then again, I don't know why Azjol-Nerub didn't pan out as an underground zone or why Crystalsong just sits there like an endless footnote in the Nexus war. I don't even know why we kill Malygos, Aspect of Magic and lord of the Blue Dragonflight, two raid tiers before we fight his undead consort. An argument could be made for Malygos as an immediate and arbitrary threat that needed to be dealt with, of course. It's just always seemed odd to me that we killed Malygos, empowered by Norgannon himself as Aspect, and then we go to the Titan-constructed prison of Ulduar and there's no real connection between the two events. It sometimes feels that in their drive to put Arthas on center stage they took the spotlight away from others too soon, and left a lot of interesting ideas undeveloped.
I've always wished they'd forgotten about Wintergrasp and its weird Titan structures and done AN as the PvP zone. Man, imagine mass battles crawling through the depths, fighting both the other faction and hordes of faceless ones? I'd be so down for that. Alas, as we approach the Fall of the Lich King and the oncoming Cataclysm, the possibility of seeing any of these underdeveloped or undeveloped ideas becomes ever more remote.Several sword models, as an example, either appear only on NPC's or in instances completely disconnected from their file names. Here, for example, we see several swords named for the Nexus, but only one of them drops in the Eye of Eternity raid, the rest all drop in Naxxramas (or Forge of Souls in the case of one of the reskins). Again, this isn't terribly unusual: several of the original sword models in the first release of World of Warcraft have names that hint at a faction bias that never came to pass, for example. We can, however, speculate that perhaps there was to originally have been more expansive content at Utgarde Keep, Drak'Tharon/Gundrak and the Nexus than actually came to pass, and that several of the art assets and models originally designed for these zones ended up moving to other instances like Naxxramas 25. (Naxx 10 more or less just re-used original Naxx 40 models.)
Now, at this point I hasten to add I am just speculating. I have no way of knowing and have found no conclusive comments from Blizzard saying "Yeah, we were going to do a bunch more raids but then we didn't and we just focused on Naxx instead" but it is clear that there was a great deal of work put into designing item models for zones that they never appeared in or appeared only on NPC's such as Ulduar. (And yes, I still wish that big Blinkstrike looking 2h had dropped somewhere, but I'm glad to see that axe and 2h sword get into player hands.) It's hard not to get caught up in wondering what Wrath would have looked like with more raids at start... one can imagine an Utgarde Keep with a UP raid on top. The place certainly seems big enough for a raid with King Ymiron having gotten a lot of build up in Howling Fjord only to then sort of fizzle out by being farmed constantly by pre-Naxx guilds looking for a Red Sword of Courage.
Likewise, both Drak'Tharon Keep and Gun'Drak just look overdesigned for the amount of content accessible: there's multiple structures and portals at Gun'Drak. Not only does Drak'Tharon look like you could easily have another instance there, the one we have is kind of confused and unfinished to me. Who exactly is the Prophet Tharon'ja? He looks vaguely like the Avatar of Hakkar from Sunken Temple... is he intended to be the harbinger for the various priests of the animal gods we encounter cannibalizing their own gods in Zul'Drak? Because we already have one of those, and he actually looks identical to Tharon'ja until you drain him for Quetz'lun's spirit. I'm fascinated by the lore hints in all the Zul'Drak instances (heck, the animal gods from Zul'Aman show up! Thankfully they didn't hold a grudge) and so, the idea that there was a possible raid exploring this in more depth and maybe explaining what exactly gave them the idea of eating their gods in the first place would have been fine by me. Maybe we could even find out what that enormous serpent tail in Gundrak is connected to.
I have no idea why, if there was work on UP and Drak'Tharon raids, that work was stopped. Then again, I don't know why Azjol-Nerub didn't pan out as an underground zone or why Crystalsong just sits there like an endless footnote in the Nexus war. I don't even know why we kill Malygos, Aspect of Magic and lord of the Blue Dragonflight, two raid tiers before we fight his undead consort. An argument could be made for Malygos as an immediate and arbitrary threat that needed to be dealt with, of course. It's just always seemed odd to me that we killed Malygos, empowered by Norgannon himself as Aspect, and then we go to the Titan-constructed prison of Ulduar and there's no real connection between the two events. It sometimes feels that in their drive to put Arthas on center stage they took the spotlight away from others too soon, and left a lot of interesting ideas undeveloped.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Expansions, The Burning Crusade, Lore, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 9)
Jimson Dec 28th 2009 7:39PM
Lilkitty:
First off, did you down all 4 in 10 or 25 man, and what is your gear level? If you are rocking i-lvl 245/258 stuff and cleared 4 bosses in 10 man ICC, congratulations, you did what you're supposed to. As for succesfully pugging the instance.... anyone (including my 2-week old lvl 80 mage) can pick up as much T9 as they want, provided they take the time to farm heroics. So it's not like 10 dudes in quest greens are knocking the place out (unlike Naxx, but it was designed that way).
I'd also like to mention for the record how sick I am of hearing about vanilla WoW raids. Yes, it took 7 (not 4) weeks for a guild to down 4H in 4-man Naxx. It's not because it took 7 weeks to figure out how to do the encounter, it's because you needed a crap-ton of tanks (5-6 iirc), all of whom needed to be geared on the level of the last raid instance in Vanilla WoW.
Tomah Dec 28th 2009 8:50PM
Eight. Eight tanks with a massive gear requirement, eight tanks where nothing else in the instance would conceivably require more than four.
There's a difference between interesting, challenging content and poorly planned, unbalanced content. 4H was the latter, which is why it took so long to down it. C'thun when AQ launched was the latter, which is why it had to be nerfed before anyone could down it.
Riltia Dec 29th 2009 12:11PM
I agree with Tomah, despite having no Vanilla experience.
Twin Emperors are the pinnacle of well designed fights in WoW, IMHO. They require people to pay attention, they require co-ordination, and they do require some skill - Even at 80. From what I've heard of C'thun, it wasn't a well designed encounter (done it at 80), and it suffered for it. People say the days of 40 raids were good, but I disagree. I find 25 mans bad enough for co-ordination and 'balance'.
On topic though: I really like some of those unused models.
PirateEmery Dec 28th 2009 5:36PM
Agreed... I was having this conversation earlier with my guild regarding what a letdown Utgarde was...
There should have at least been a raid based upon every enemy faction in Northrend. The Ice Trolls, the Vrykul, and the Nerubians all deserved a raid.
Here's hoping for 3.4...
catharsis80 Dec 28th 2009 6:21PM
Especially the Nerubians. They are very lore-centric. I mean, it was Anub'arak that first introduced KT to Naxxramas.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/1p11/roadtodamnation.html
Instead, Anub gets downrated to a 5-man while KT gets a raid.
Looby Dec 28th 2009 5:40PM
Dance Studio/ New dances :(
tatsumasa Dec 28th 2009 6:00PM
voted up
all this talk about what was talked about and no mention of what was advertised from the very first trailer and, now that we sit in the last major content patch of the expansion, still has not been delivered? even if it's not a feature you'd want for whatever reason, shouldn't blizzard give us an advertised feature.
if a pizza place advertises a five-topping pizza for a certain price and then when you buy it you find it only has four, wouldn't you be a little upset, even if you didn't much care for the missing one? it was advertised, you paid for it, you expect it to be there.
it makes me wonder if any features advertised for cata will not be included, then just quietly be brushed under the rug...
Raze Dec 28th 2009 6:08PM
@tatsumasa:
It's not about phat loot or class balance so the player base doesn't give a shit. Frankly, they need to take a look at some of the features that are in the game and beef them up. How many new hair cuts are there? Three, maybe? All they did was older races use some of the animé hairstyles they brought in with the Blood Elves. And yet no noise about that. The only thing people complain about is how nerfed this or that is, and that's where all the development time goes.
butterbear Dec 28th 2009 8:26PM
The dance studio WAS A JOKE.
Hyacinthe Dec 28th 2009 9:49PM
@butterbear
The dance battle system was an April Fool's Day joke. However, in multiple trailers for WotLK, references to a dance studio where you would be able to go and learn new dances and make up your own dance moves were made repeatedly. It was an intended feature that has never been released. Google is your friend.
Guildenstern Dec 29th 2009 9:48AM
You kidding? Like they're going to just GIVE us a dance studio like they promised instead of whoring it out for microtransactions.
Can't wait to pay $15 for something I should have got for free, Blizz! Keep porking that chicken.
alpha5099 Dec 28th 2009 5:39PM
All this talk talk about unused models got me thinking about one of my favorite models, which has been used but not enough IMO. The Fist of the Deity (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37631) is an absolutely fantastic design, and yet they used it for a ilvl 200 blue that no one is going to use for very long (if at all, given how easy it is nowadays to get better weapons). I would love to see that model used again, particularly if it got a matching off-hand, because it would be great to get some use out of it.
Michael Sacco Dec 28th 2009 6:01PM
That's because it's a BC weapon. It dropped off of Zul'Jin.
alpha5099 Dec 28th 2009 6:12PM
@Sacco
Huh? It drops off Moorabi. It's modeled on Zul'jin's weapon, but Zul'jin doesn't drop it or anything that looks like it. And if it is meant to be Zul'jin's weapon, then that makes it being a blue even stranger. Surely he's big enough to warrant his signature weapon being epic.
Azbulldog Dec 28th 2009 10:18PM
If I recall correctly the two items below used Zul'jin's weapon model in the beta for WotLK. As I later researched they replaced the models with the Auchindoun fist weapon models.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35573
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35601
It is a shame really, since this model is so out of the ordinary in terms of design, and since it didn't drop off Zul'jin like it probably should have.
Nazgûl Dec 28th 2009 5:42PM
In Cataclysm, they need to sit down and lay out the story of the expansion. Once it is laid out, they need to decide what deserves a raid encounter, what deserves quest chains, and what deserves epic, Wrathgate-like moments. Once it is decided, put it all into action.
With Wrath, what appears to have happened is a huge, massive end-game plan that was fizzled out by content being a bit less than challenging - guilds cleared things so quickly that Blizzard didn't have time to develop most of the story. Naxx, OS and EoE on my server were all cleared a week after Wrath launched. Sad. So Blizzard decides to gate content - which works to an extent. Ulduar, despite being fairly disconnected, is excellent as a dungeon, both lore, design and mechanic-wise. Their hard-mode system worked very well. ToC failed on the lore aspect - "LOL RENFAIRE" - but was at the same time enough to hold raiders over until this patch. We'll see in Icecrown how their story guys wrap up an expansion.
But your points about Gundrak and Utgarde are correct - wasted effort that deserves far more attention.
Joshua Ochs Dec 28th 2009 5:50PM
You had folks get to 80, beat Naxx, and somehow get enough gear to take down both Malygos and Sarth in one week? Pray tell what server you're from, I'd like to see proof of that.
Oh wait, your post is a mass of exaggeration and hyperbole. Nevermind.
Earnshaw Dec 28th 2009 6:02PM
Didn't TwentyFifthNovemeber aka Ensidia do exactly that? I remember this definitly happend within the first week
Ringo Flinthammer Dec 28th 2009 6:23PM
Ulduar is only disconnected if you for some reason skipped doing any quests in Storm Peaks. And even then, if you did Ulduman back in the day (or even just Dun Morogh as a baby dwarf/gnome), it's very connected to everything else.
Lilkitten Dec 28th 2009 6:35PM
Sorry Joshua, that's easily believable. While my guild didn't quite do it in a week, we were the server first on our server for all 3 start raids in Wrath. And I was wearing my T6 gear for the most part in all of them. You didn't need to gear up to do these raids at the start because Blizz didn't ridiculously scale the gear like they did in BC where someone in T2 had it replaced by level 62. And yes, a LOT of guild had people level up in 2 or 3 days and started immediately on Naxx and EoE and OS and had them cleared in a week.