I'm guessing if 4.3 is Deathwing, then it will be a while before that patch drop.

We've known all along that Deathwing was working for an Old God. Maybe that's the last patch last boss.

Also, my German is terrible. Did he say we're actually killing DW, or just that we'd 'see' him? Big difference.

so there is room for an old God in 4.4...maybe

Like Kil'Jaeden...the tier that nobody expacted

Yeah, also thought it's a little early, seeing as we only had 2 raid tiers so far. However only Wrath had 4 tiers - Naxx, Ulduar, ToC, ICC, T7-T10 - and one of those sucked (ToC). BC only had 3 tiers, T4-T6, and Vanilla also only had T1-T3.

So T11-T13 seems to be in line actually, even though yeah, it also seems kinda fast to me.

I hope patch 4.3 will take its time though. With the summer hole we've only recently gotten barely enough people to run 25mans again, before that only 10mans and there we switched around a lot cause we usually had 15, 17, 19 people signed up, so overall we didn't achieve all that much yet unfortunately.
I'd be fine with at least 2 more months of T12 raiding, wouldn't mind 3.

Especially seeing as the next expansion hasn't even been announced yet officially and thus is probably at least half a year, more likely more than a year away, 4.2 and 4.3 still have to fill a lot of time. Unless they want the Deathwing raid to last more than, what, 8 months?, like ICC did - too long imo.

@ Nina, as far as i could read it would be an ''epic'' raid, one we have never seen, with Deathwing in it. Im dutch, and although German looks some like dutch, im not very good at it.

I don't think there'll be a 4.4; Blizzard have said that they felt the Sunwell after Black Temple cheapened Illidan, and I'm sure they don't intend to do the same to Deathwing.

It does seem really early, but at the same time it seems like people are mostly Done with Cataclysm, and it has been nearly a year already. Blizzard probably want to cut their losses and get an expansion focused around end-game content out as quickly as they can. It does sound like Mists of Pandaria is the new expansion and Azshara is the new end boss, considering the water/Azshara content we knew was coming is apparently not part of Cataclysm.

In the Gamona interview at Gamescom, they say that Abyssal Maw was scraped because setting and story were not convincing. They also say that the three 5-man dungeons are completely new, no recycled content, and one them will be a CoT at a known location.

I would think that killing DW without killing the Old God BEHIND DW would be..... lacking. From a lore stand point, it only makes sense that you would kill the Old God to ensure that "insert dragon name here" doesn't go mad in the next "insert number here" years.

It's very early first 4.2 is a VERY short raid we're getting like 2.5 tiers instead of 3.5 like icc. I love blizzard but this is disheartening. I mean they could very well have a 4.4 or do something to fix it but as it stands now, I feel screwed and I am going to have to consider the next xpac or move on. That combined with blizz's new drm on diablo 3 and as much as it pains me to say, there might be significantly less blizzard products in my future. And that is very depressing to me.

Deathwing is being told what to do by an Old God? Where in game can we learn this? As far as I know there isn't so our characters know nothing about an old god. As far as we know there's just an insane dragon flying around destroying everything. Kill the dragon and all's good... right? Also, the old god could be thrown in Sinestra style. You kill Deathwing and something happens so that another area is opened. As you travel down the corridor you hear whispers as your screen fogs up as if you're drunk. The screen completely fades out for two minutes while a sound file plays with various npcs yelling about your failure. Illidan yelling You were NOT Prepared!, Thrall yelling You have failed us all!, and Kael'thas yelling that it was only a setback... among others. Everything comes clear and you're at the door of a room where you can see an old god inside. All achievements for this boss would be feats of strength so no one would know about it until heroic deathwing is dead.

Here is another thing to think about: If the next expac has no new classes or races, there will be a lot less to mess around with. They could probably get it out sooner rather than later. Maybe by June 2012.

@Nina However the raid goes down, Deathwing has a nasty track record of surviving when everybody else thought he was dead. I have a feeling that if we "kill" him in the raid, he'll show up later at some point.

@Arrohon *spoiler alert -skip to TL:DR*

"Deathwing is being told what to do by an Old God? Where in game can we learn this?"

You need to read the books, namely "The War of the Ancients" trilogy to understand the back story to Neltharion and his fall from grace as Earth Warder, Aspect of Earth -later known as Deathwing, Aspect of Death. This fall, or madness, began with (known to the reader only) as "voices" in Neltharion's mind, later revealed as The Old Gods -whom instructed Neltharian to fashion the Demon Soul. That is ancient history, 10 millenia since WOW and is a central story arc for The War of the Ancients and how Azeroth is shaped today. It is also the Old Gods who supposedly 'woke' Deathwing from his elemental plane, Deepholm. So yes, the game may or may not provide all of the answers but then the books supplement the missing gaps. The WowWiki page provides a recap but I highly recommend reading the The War of the Ancients trilogy of books.

TL:DR -Deathwing is manipulated by the Old Gods.

Tin-foil hat scheduling:
The next expansion will happen in the summer, discouraging extreme casuals from getting it until players more willing to wipe for a challenge have learned the content. After this, we'll get one expansion a year, with patches varying from one dungeon or arena map to multiple raids and BGs every two months, for the most part providing some catch-up in between top tier content.

Seconding Pwnzoar's comment - I think it unlikely that we will kill(?) Deathwing until the last of the Cataclysm content updates. I think it more likely that we bring him down and strike a grievous blow, but that he then retreats to his Old God ally, and that the final encounter is some sort of Deathwing+Old God composite fight. (Perhaps even fighting a Deathwing+Old God composite, merger-style?) Who knows, perhaps in the end, Deathwing isn't even killed, just stripped of his power and freed from the influence of the Old God.

Don't write the Earth Warder off just yet.