Blizzard shatters the World of Warcraft

Six years ago Blizzard opened the doors to Azeroth, allowing gamers to step into the World of Warcraft. Last night a lot of that original game content ceased to exist as Blizzard prepares for the launch of the third WoW expansion, Cataclysm, in two weeks time.

In an event dubbed The Shattering, Warcraft 2 bad guy and ultra-evil dragon Deathwing has broken free from his prison beneath Azeroth and gone on a rampage, destroying and forever altering the map. Previous expansions have added new areas to Azeroth, but Cataclysm is being seen as an opportunity for Blizzard to fix the content that shipped with the game six years ago.

The main driver for rebuilding large chunks of the game world has been flying mounts. These weren’t part of the plan when World of Warcraft first shipped, and wouldn’t work due to the fact that cities in particular used graphical tricks to create the illusion of size, which worked when on the ground but broke compoletely when viewed from above. This necessitated rebuilding the cities of Stormwind and Orgrimmar, as well as other areas where such tricks were used.

Not only are flying mounts being added to Azeroth, but Blizzard has gone back and redesigned most of the game’s quests. While expansions in the past have focused on endgame content, much of Cataclysm comes with these new leveling experiences. We took a look at this in the beta, and it provides not only a much improved experience for newcomers, but also fresh storylines and questing for veterans leveling a new character.

This revamped questing experience will be available to players as soon as the servers come back online today. Players will also be able to take advantage of new race/class combinations like Troll Druids and Dwarf Shaman (paid race changes to these new combos will also be available from today).

Don’t see this as Blizzard giving away Cataclysm for free though. You’ll still need to hit a shop from 7pm on December 7th, or grab a digital copy of the expansion from battle.net in order to access most new content. This includes the new Goblin and Worgen races, endgame content and zones, Archeology profession and the ability to fly in Azeroth.

This is very much the beginning of Cataclysm though. The old world that provided so much enjoyment is gone, including the once beloved Zul Gurub raid zone. In its place is a world ripe for rediscovery, with ample content to make the wait for Cataclysm bearable.