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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBattle for Undercity removed in Cataclysm
by Matthew Rossi 
Aug 6th 2010 at 1:00PM
If you haven't done the extended series of quests in the Dragonblight that lead up to the Wrathgate cinematic yet, first off, I don't understand why. Get up there and do that. However (and more importantly), if you haven't done that quest line all the way to its satisfying, lore-filled conclusion, The Battle For The Undercity, by the time the pre-Cataclysm patch drops, you might not be able to.
In response to a forum thread started by Cedrickt on the beta forums, Valnorth stated that the Dragonblight quest line ends at the Wrathgate cinematic on the beta. As yet, there's no further information. We don't know if there's any intention to add in entirely new quests, but I expect not; trying to gibe Garrosh as Warchief with the events of Wrathgate (to which much of his policy toward Sylvanas is a direct response) would be very difficult indeed.
Go play it while you can. It's a lot of fun.
In response to a forum thread started by Cedrickt on the beta forums, Valnorth stated that the Dragonblight quest line ends at the Wrathgate cinematic on the beta. As yet, there's no further information. We don't know if there's any intention to add in entirely new quests, but I expect not; trying to gibe Garrosh as Warchief with the events of Wrathgate (to which much of his policy toward Sylvanas is a direct response) would be very difficult indeed.
Go play it while you can. It's a lot of fun.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From goblins and worgen to mastery and guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: News items, Lore, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
K Aug 6th 2010 1:40PM
It was phased, how would the changes to Undercity affect it?
Also, we have multiples of single NPCs across the whole game world, stuck in various points in time, something as petty as "oh Thrall went away" is a pretty lazy excuse.
Jonisjalopy Aug 6th 2010 1:49PM
Because the physical layout of the city is different. They would have to keep both old models for the cities just for this one quest. The files for that version of the city simply don't exist after Cata, and would take up WAY to many resources just for that one event.
Talutha Aug 6th 2010 1:50PM
I am not in the beta so I couldn't tell you how much Undercity has changed but if the actual terrain of the area has changed at all, no amount of phasing can bring back the old Undercity. Phasing is only changing what the players see as far as other players/objects. Everyone is still looking at the same floor layout because that cannot be changed through phasing.
One solution to this is to perhaps just change the AI pathing to the new Undercity but then not only would the story not make sense because you have a pre-cataclysm event happening in a post-cataclysm city but I don't think it is worth the time it will take to completely change around the AI pathing just to get this one quest back into the game.
Another option is to warp the players to the old undercity but this would take even more time then remapping the AI pathing because the devs would have to create an entirely new zone just for the old undercity.
Either way, as epic of a questline as it was, the developers have much more important things to look to and we can just count this as one of the many casualties to some really awesome quest lines =). This one just happens in Northrend rather then the old world.
theRaptor Aug 6th 2010 1:54PM
@Jonisjalopy
They could just keep the old model as an instance just like Old Hilsbrad and the like. I suspect it already is a separate instance from the real UC anyway and not just a phase.
It will really suck if they remove such an awesome quest. Yeah sure Thrall isn't warchief yadda yadda, but Arthas is dead and they aren't removing all the quests related to him.
Jonisjalopy Aug 6th 2010 2:15PM
@theRaptor
The Battle for UC does, in fact, take place in the real UC and Ogr. If you have ever taken the quest and dropped it you would be painfully aware of this :P It use to phase you out until you completed the quest. You couldn't raid Ogr or UC as an Ally because the NPCs and PCs in town were phased out for the quest.
Old Hillsbrad is an actually instance. Sure, they could make an instance server for the Battle, but as I said, the resources involved for just one quest is a bit much.
GDkitty Aug 6th 2010 2:20PM
It is a phased area, not a seperate instanced area..
I know this due to MANY people being bugged from not finishing the questline, then trying to do holiday events in Ogrimar, SW, and UC, and not being able to do anything due to due to them being in the phased version, and all the holiday stuff is in the live.
feniks9174 Aug 6th 2010 3:29PM
I understand why they're getting rid of it. They've already said that some of the lore continuity is going to be a bib wonky and that, while they'd like to get it all straightened out, it would take way too and require too many resources. This, however, would be a giant WTF if left in.
The best we can hope for is a CoT: Battle for the Undercity instance.
jslim419 Aug 6th 2010 3:50PM
"Because the physical layout of the city is different. They would have to keep both old models for the cities just for this one quest. The files for that version of the city simply don't exist after Cata, and would take up WAY to many resources just for that one event."
i disagree. there is no such thing as "taking up WAY to many resources" for an intregal part of the story. the battle for undercity needs to be re-adjusted for the new layout's of the two cities it takes part in, and the npc's involved in it.
i will however say this.. the devs kind of wrote themselves into a corner here. by making garrosh so overtly visible during the low level old world quests so far. how are they going to handle the story between garrosh, and thrall in outland? before garrosh was even in the new horde... how are they going to handle the story in northrend when garrosh is only the warsong offensive leader, and thrall is still the horde leader? they should have held off on the garrosh becoming warchief until a phased event around lvl 81 or 82 where thrall is like "oh crap.. gotta go save the world from a giant whirlpool".. and garrosh is like "kk buddy.. i'll just watch your crap while your gone".
Drakkenfyre Aug 6th 2010 5:26PM
There is no "old model", it's the same zone simply phased. You don't enter an instance, you enter the same Orgrimmar as everyone else, except you are flagged to be invisible, and the quest NPC's and other NPC's are visible to you.
Most likely the remodeling of Orgrimmar did pose problems.
SamLowry Aug 6th 2010 8:58PM
But is it phasing or just an instance? I thought the latter, and if it really is just an instance then they should be able to change it no matter what the new city looks like.
And, yes, if they're pulling it because of continuity, then they should shut down the Outlands as well as Northrend.
Sharvis Aug 6th 2010 1:15PM
I just did that yesterday on my shaman. It was bad timing too because I forgot that it takes forever to do and ended up missing something, whoops.
You know, I don't think I ever did that quest with more than three people around. It would have been more epic if I had been there at the launch of the expansion and the subsequent rush, too bad.
SunGod228 Aug 6th 2010 1:24PM
Yeah, I was one of the people doing it the week wrath came out. There was seriously like 40 or more players in there. It was awesome for so many reasons:
a) as you stated the extra people add to the experience
b) you don't necessarily have to start at the very very very beginning because if you zone in and they are past courtyard you just catch up
c) it goes way faster because of the added player dps
Osmide Aug 6th 2010 1:17PM
I can see how it doesn't fitlore wise. Hopefully maybe they could rework it into a CoT instance.
Quazievil Aug 6th 2010 1:19PM
For the longest time I didn't complete that quest (just the undercity part) to remain "phased". I did this so I could complete, without hassle, the fishing quest in Orgrimmar. If you're Alliance and want to finish that quest easily, I'd do it this way if you're still able. Not sure if the horde get the same benefit for the quest in Ironforge, but who cares, they outnumber us like 5-1 on my server lol
Drakkenfyre Aug 6th 2010 1:25PM
They patched that a long, long time ago.
Draelan Aug 6th 2010 2:26PM
Yeah, you can no longer catch Old Crafty while in phased Orgrimmar. You also cannot zone into Ragefire Chasm anymore from the phase, either.
Drakkenfyre Aug 6th 2010 5:32PM
You can't catch ANYTHING. You can fish, but when you pull it up, the box is empty.
That's to also stop getting the "Fishing Diplomat" Achievement, which just required you to get a simple fish.
Also, the Ragefire Chasm Achievement is much easier for a leveling character. When you are low-level it's one of the instances you can get. Horde can also get Stockades. So you can get it, and get a free port in and out with no problems. But once you hit level 22 or so, you can't get into it anymore.
Phort Aug 6th 2010 1:19PM
I absolutly LOVED the quest chain from Dragonblight all the way to the Battle of Undercity! So full of lore, an awesome cinematic, and a huge epic fight against Putress in the end with pretty much the best buff ingame!
Sooo glad I already did this, it was so amazing :)
(cutaia) Aug 6th 2010 1:19PM
So, so strange. For some reason I was looking at the last page of comments from yesterday's Queue. This was the last comment:
http://www.wow.com/2010/08/05/the-queue-wrath-of-wrath-of-the-lich-king/comments/29727039/#c29727039
After reading that, I clicked the link to the main page and the answer was staring me in the face. It almost creeped me out a little.
leeroberts21 Aug 6th 2010 1:28PM
This is a good change in my opinion. It was a fun quest, but I would say about 1/3 of people accept this quest at some point and end up abandoning it later on. Then when they try to do [For The Alliance!] or try to get into Orgrimmar to run RFC (as an Alliance), they find out they can't until they go back and do that whole annoying questline. I learned my lesson on my first 80 and haven't accepted the quest since, but many aren't so lucky.