The latest
Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above, featuring another look at Gilneas. They seem to be on a Gilneas kick recently, but I really can't complain. It's easily one of the coolest
Cataclysm environments we've seen yet. So delightfully moody.
Update: This is actually
another shot of the Blasted Lands. Gilneas and the Blasted Lands look oddly similar these days, don't they?
If you've missed any of the previous
Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a hi-res version of today's screenshot, check out the gallery below.
Tags: cat-beta, cata-beta, cataclysm-beta, cataclysm-game, cataclysm-guide, cataclysm-news, expansion, expansion-three, next-xpac, third-expansion, world-of-warcraft-beta, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-beta, wow-4.0, wow-4.0.2, wow-beta, wow-cataclysm, wow-cataclysm-beta, wow-expansion, wow-expansion-beta, wow-guide, wow-third-expansion
Filed under: Cataclysm
May 18th 2010 at 8:21PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ROB13 May 18th 2010 8:29PM
Organ music better play whenever you enter one of these houses.
Aedilhild May 18th 2010 9:32PM
Organ music played by Count Dracula.
thegatherer May 19th 2010 10:48AM
I second this motion.
Galaden May 18th 2010 8:30PM
For some wierd reason, these Gilneas pics, especially the first one of blasted lands (The one which had everyone freaking out.), really remind me of my days playing Runescape XD. I dunno why! Runescape didn't even have a sky! I think it's the mix of the dead trees, the fences and the lamps, dunno why though XD
RogueJedi86 May 18th 2010 8:30PM
Looks like the new Blasted Lands to me. You can tell by the background tree that is in like 5 of the Cataclysm Screenshots of the Day.
Alex Ziebart May 18th 2010 8:32PM
You might be right, but the two areas seem to share a LOT of aesthetics from what we've seen. People haven't been able to tell the two apart in any of the daily screenshots so far.
We'll see if Blizzard comments on this one or not tonight. : )
TheChao May 18th 2010 8:42PM
yeah, i believe this is a small Gilnean port on the coast of the Tainted Forest in Blasted Lands
Sumanai May 18th 2010 9:13PM
He is right. It was confirmed by the warcraft twitter account.
TheChao May 18th 2010 8:42PM
They need to show some more screens of their water and new sun shaft graphics
Thorzon May 18th 2010 8:43PM
Doesn't Blizz have any more zone finished already? They've shown a total of 20 Screenshots and they're all of the same 9 or 10 zones...
Ringo Flinthammer May 18th 2010 9:12PM
That's the way F&F alphas go. (I was in the first three.) Contrary to what people who weren't in the alphas like to say, they're NOT feature-complete when they start, and they typically just rolled out a few zones at a time, still with the fresh-from-the-team smell all over them.
If history is any guide (and it isn't always), the fact that we're seeing the same zones over and over again suggest those are the only ones currently available in F&F alpha at the moment.
RogueJedi86 May 18th 2010 10:25PM
As I recall, the early WotLK alpha status matched what we saw in the WotLK Announcement trailer. The WotLK Announcement Trailer only showed part of the Howling Fjord, briefly flyovers of specific spots of Borean Tundra, and one specific spot in Dragonblight(the area just northwest of Mo'aki), matching up with the only areas that were actually somewhat finished at that time. Images of other zones just showed blank white untextured models, mainly in the Titan architecture in Storm Peaks.
So it's likely that Blasted Lands' swampy area is the most complete of anything in the Cataclysm Alpha, alongside the Abyssal Maw 5-man. Still annoying to see so few zones repeated so much in the pictures, but at least there's a reason for it.
Paul May 19th 2010 2:06AM
You are correct, RogueJedi.
During the Alpha stage of WotLK, Crystalsong, Icecrown and the Stormpeaks were wholly uincomplete. I think Azjol Nerub was also still planned to be a zone during Alpha, or that was the stage when they realised that they didn't have the time to use it as a zone.
However, terrain-wise, Alpha is much more complete at this stage than the previous two expansions. The difference comes from the amount of environmental art that is to be added. Buildings, trees, wagons, dragon eggs etc. etc. And since those elements sometimes have to wait for the Events team to get the quests done, some areas are going to look empty for a while, and therefore not worth having a SSotD for yet.
Pyrokiller117 May 18th 2010 9:09PM
Thats actually the blasted lands, they just tweeted it.
Shippleton May 18th 2010 9:12PM
First; it's not Gilneas, it's The Blasted Lands, said so on Twitter, they did.
Second; Is anyone else getting really sick of The Blasted Lands? It was impressive and awesome the first time and pretty cool the second time when they confirmed there's still demons, but it's getting really old.
Paul May 19th 2010 2:01AM
I've come to accept that it is the most completed area on the Eastern Kingdoms (as stated on the patch notes *somewhere*, Kalimdor is more ready than EK). I've also come to accept that there are a whole lot of days before Cata is released.
If they tried to cover every zone now, guess what feature you wont give a damn about in 3 months time? Yeah, we have the occasional day where we're underwhelmed, or outrightly disappointed by what they've shown, but since we know there is more to see, we keep coming back for more.
If they had shown 3 images for every zone by now and it became apparent that we weren't going to see anything new, we would stop bothering, which makes the feature a waste of time, regardless of how little it takes.
Rohanzig May 18th 2010 9:14PM
Are we allowed to talk about the context this picture was taking from or are we limited to just talking about this picture only? Before MMO-Champion took down there massive Cata pictures, I saw a zone in Blasted Land that was similar to Gilneas.
pancakes May 19th 2010 5:14AM
The idea is to be as non-descript as possible. For example:
A certain website may or may not have leaked details that may or may not be relating to a certain video game. Myself or possibly someone else quite possibly has seen this information, but there is an equally probable chance that I/she/he did not see it. This information or lack thereof might not have definitively revealed that the Tainted Scar in Blasted Lands will resemble Gilneas, unless it did.
Or so I heard.
Fletcher May 18th 2010 10:08PM
Aargh! I can't wait to roll a worgen once Cataclysm is released. Even if I got into the beta I think I'd hold off on rolling a worgen so I could experience it fresh and new when the finished product is all nicely polished.
Has Blizzard announced what accents the worgen voice animations are going to have? I'm hoping for German.
Alchemistmerlin May 18th 2010 11:30PM
Spaniard.
With the heavy lisp.