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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWestern Plaguelands not so plagued anymore in Cataclysm
by Michael Sacco 
Feb 26th 2010 at 9:10PM
Twitter developer chatQ. With the Lich King defeated, in Cataclysm, will the Plaguelands be green and beautiful again?
A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It's hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone?
A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It's hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone?
Just awesome. This is the kind of change I was hoping for in Cataclysm, to be honest -- not just earthquakes and floods, but actual passage of time and logical storyline progression post-defeat of Lordaeron's traitor prince. Wonder what this means for Scholomance or Andorhal!
But, also, what does it mean for the name? I guess Eastern Plaguelands will likely become just The Plaguelands, but what will WPL become? East Lordaeron? New Lordaeron? Or, given the zone's proximity to the zone that's basically Azeroth's armpit, they could just go with the one that makes the most sense: Pennsylvania.
Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 6)
Candina@WH Feb 26th 2010 9:39PM
Come now, if the armpit of the world is to your east, then you must life in Either Maryland or Virginia....
Candina@WH Feb 26th 2010 9:41PM
/facepalm... you must life? ... engrish hab veen berry berry gud to me....
you must live...
RogueJedi86 Feb 26th 2010 9:44PM
The real question is why is WPL changing and not EPL? The Lich King's absence should affect the Scourge in both, not just WPL. It can't be the presence of Stratholme, since the Scourge there would be dying off too.
And maybe with the timeline getting bumped forward, Scholomance will be empty and maybe become a less scourge-y evil school? Maybe the all of WPL except for Caer Darrow will go green. Caer Darrow's necromantic influence could keep it intact.
And what name would the new WPL have? It's in-between Lordaeron and Quel'thalas, so it could go either way.
techguy808 Feb 26th 2010 10:05PM
Well... if you think about it, someone playing the game from scratch technically didn't get to the point where the Lich King was defeated. You still would have to do the Lich King related quests in Icecrown, most of which would not make sense story wise if he was already dead.
EPL is a 50s level zone... so I would assume they would want to keep a little scourge there for story purposes. Not to mention the DK area and opening storyline, which happens over there.
They could phase it after the Icecrown content, but there wouldn't be much to do there unless they opened up an upper level quest hub in the zone.
My theory would be that they're giving WPL an overhaul due to the similarity of those two zones, looks wise.
Tietra Feb 26th 2010 10:56PM
It's been noted that even though the WPL is the original source of the plague, it is the least affected compared to the EPL according to Wowwiki. There is also a quest given by a dying Tauren druid at one of the farms in the WPL which illustrates that the land to some extent is trying to resist the plague.
Suzaku Feb 26th 2010 11:43PM
The Eastern Plaguelands are still bogged down by the Scourge because it was their main stronghold in the Eastern Kingdoms and because it was generally occupied by far more foul creatures. The Western Plaguelands, on the other hand, are also much closer to hostile (Forsaken) territory.
Oh, and WPL and EPL were both part of the Kingdom of Lordaeron before they were conquered by the Scourge. They were both generally referred to as just "Lordaeron", or sometimes "Eastern Lordaeron".
No concrete names have ever been given to the areas in or around WPL or EPL, though I've heard of the western farmlands of WPL being referred to as part of Tirisfal Glades, and the regions north of Darrowmere being called Darrowmere Forest.
That said, I would say it's unlikely that the region zone would be renamed to Darrowmere Forest, due to the abundance of zones with "forest" in their name that are already in the game.
TobiasX Feb 27th 2010 6:38AM
EPL will still have the lore-rich DK starting zone in it, so, for the moment, most of it needs to stay plague-y.
ehrenz Feb 27th 2010 11:15AM
Only idiots who've never been to NJ think it's like the WPL. Part's of it... maybe. But condemning a whole state to the likes of the WPL? Cheep joke. Must be an Alliance player, right?
Brainded Mar 1st 2010 1:12PM
Clearly those people must be idiots. I mean ANYONE can see that NJ is to the East, therefore it should be compared to EPL!
xxxsnowflamexxx Feb 26th 2010 9:49PM
I live in Pittsburgh, And I laughed out loud when i read your comment, even thought I didn't get it at first. We're not so dirty anymore!
Thelanor Feb 26th 2010 10:01PM
I admit it, I laughed at the NJ part
WoWie Zowie Feb 26th 2010 10:04PM
and the new death knights that rolled after the lich king's defeat? who will give them starting quests? how did they come to be in the first place? maybe they'll be starting in a caverns of time instance? maybe at the end of the quests you zone out and chromie is standing there telling you "ok 4 years have passed since that happened"? /shrug
begedinnikola Feb 27th 2010 1:46PM
Each and every DK that is created starts his story waaay before WoTLK when Arthas was still in the eastern plaguelands. I really don't see a problem here.
Calebe Feb 27th 2010 10:47AM
Death Knights might go back to there roots as they were originally created by orc warlocks..... so maybe something on this line and a new look for cata dks?
Roddythew Feb 26th 2010 10:11PM
I thought Arthas was dead but not the Lich King, Bolvar having taken his place in the body of LK. I thought that was the whole point of Bolvar taking over, so that the Lich King would be under control. So how can WPL come back to life if the new Lich King is around?
Al Feb 26th 2010 10:38PM
He probably put them into hibernation while he's frozen.
Kaz Feb 27th 2010 12:25AM
Bolvar took the role as Lich King to hold back the scourge from going nuts and destroying everything. He doesn't want them to conquer the world for him (yet...).
MightyBurebista Feb 26th 2010 11:11PM
Vilification of American states aside, this new installment of the Plaguelands theories has got me thinking of something: grindable Scarlet Crusade reputation.
Consider this: what with most of its corrupted leaders (Mograine, Isilien, Dathrohan, Westwind) done away with, and with the brunt of Argent Dawn forces concentrated in Northrend to keep a watchful eye on the remainder if the Scourge ('cause remember, the Lich King isn't TRULY dead until YOU kill him), and now considering how the Alliance is going to be trying to reclaim the parts of Lordaeron that are slowly being cleansed of the Plague, the Scarlet Crusade would be able to go back to serving its original and rightful purpose: assisting Humanity in reclaiming their lands from the walking dead. The only reason why they were so distrustful of non-Human races of the Alliance was due to the paranoia instilled in them by the disguised Dreadlords, who wanted an all-Human strike force for the purpose of hiding their true identities as much as possible. Now those Dreadlords are either dead or hiding somewhere in the north and plotting their revenge that they'll unfurl God knows when. Thus, the Crusade forces still active in places such as Hearthglen and Tyr's Hand could undertake a Reformation of sorts, becoming friends of the Alliance in good and due form; remember how the original Scarlet Crusade used to welcome Elves and Dwarves, now that they're no longer subjected to the Dreadlords' mindgames, the Scarlets could be convinced of the wisdom of collaborating with the other Alliance races against the vile Forsaken, backed by the untrustworthy Horde. The Argent Dawn can keep mediating between the goat and the lettuce by sending both Alliance and Horde against Scourge-infested spots like Stratholme; meanwhile, the Scarlet Crusade becomes a faction affiliated with the Alliance whose main mission is to press forward into Tirisfal Glades and reclaim the beloved city.
After the less-than-stellar role the Scarlet Onslaught had in WotLK, you'd think Blizzard seems hell-bent on eliminating the Scarlets from lore, however this new Plaguelands scenario breathes new life into the patient thought dead. And despite how Blizzard kept trying to push their moralistic mantra of "You MUST hate them, they're zealots, so they're eeeeeevil" down everyone's throats, them zealots DO have fans, the same way the Forsaken, Naga, Defias Brotherhood and even Twilight's Hammer have fans. So just because the Scarlets have a checkered track record, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be foolish for the Alliance to refuse to mediate with an obvious potential ally in the Plaguelands. And plus, it's an excuse to attempt to resurrect Brigitte Abbendis from the dead for the seventeenth time, seeing as most of the female characters in the game can hardly hope to hold a candle to her sheer awesomeness, not to mention hotness. But I'm going off on a tangent here so I'll shut up. =)
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Feb 27th 2010 7:59AM
Rez Birgitte again?
New Hearthglen was only a setback much?
Jay Feb 26th 2010 11:34PM
"It's hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King"
There is still a Lich King though