Two New Races, Expansion for WOW?

By Kevin Parrish
published

Are two new races coming to Blizzard's World of Warcraft? WoW Insider says yes, and may appear in a possible expansion called World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. According to unspecified sources, the new races will be Worgen (Alliance) and Goblin (Horde). Apparently, the conclusion that Cataclysm will include two new races stems from four new textures of Halloween masks found in the last PTR build: Helm_Mask_Halloween_GoF, Helm_Mask_Halloween_GoM, Helm_Mask_Halloween_WoF, and Helm_Mask_Halloween_WoM. Despite this, goblins in WoW have been a neutral race since the game's release.

In addition, the new expansion may very well change the face of Azeroth itself, updating the four-year-old MMORPG to better compete with Star Wars: The Old Republic launching next year. Rawcast theorizes that a massive water-based event will obliterate a good portion of Azeroth including the Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms (hence the use of Cataclysm). Granted the scenario is just a theory, the site lists several reasons for its conclusion, citing support for water-based adventures and low-level areas becoming irrelevant with each new patch and expansion.

If a new expansion and two new races will indeed be released for World of Warcraft, Blizzard will more than likely announce their existence during BlizzCon 2009 later this month.

Topics
Software
27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • scook9
    wish they supported their OTHER games this much.....
    Reply
  • nirvanabah
    This is relatively old news but I find it hard to believe they'd wipe out much of Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms. Where would new players start? They can't take the DK approach for everything (start at lvl 55), that ruins the game.
    Reply
  • shiftstealth
    I'm sure they'd use phasing just like they did with the hodir quest chain how it only changes the environment for you.
    Reply
  • waikano
    scook9wish they supported their OTHER games this much.....
    Not to get into an argument here, but Blizzard is better than any other company about updates, they just released an update to WarCraft III and that game is over 7 years old. Diablo II got one last year as well and Diablo 3 is in development. I don't play WoW, but think as far as a company goes Blizzard really does care about it's customers and it's long term support for it's games even if you don't agree.
    Reply
  • waikano
    Oh and let's not forget StarCraft which also got an update earlier this year. And they are working on StarCraft II as well.
    Reply
  • paranoidmage
    When news broke of Blizzard's patent for the name Cataclysm, I really hoped it would be the new game they are supposed to make.

    Sadly we just get more boring WoW news.
    Reply
  • paranoidmage
    waikanoNot to get into an argument here, but Blizzard is better than any other company about updates, they just released an update to WarCraft III and that game is over 7 years old. Diablo II got one last year as well and Diablo 3 is in development. I don't play WoW, but think as far as a company goes Blizzard really does care about it's customers and it's long term support for it's games even if you don't agree.
    I especially like the dedication we are seeing to work on the D2 patch 1.13. It got delayed months ago, and they still haven't started work again yet. Oh and that last patch we got, 1.12...it lets you run the game without the CD in your CD drive or mounted in an emulator. Big deal. There were absolutely no game improvements.
    Reply
  • waikano
    ParanoidmageI especially like the dedication we are seeing to work on the D2 patch 1.13. It got delayed months ago, and they still haven't started work again yet. Oh and that last patch we got, 1.12...it lets you run the game without the CD in your CD drive or mounted in an emulator. Big deal. There were absolutely no game improvements.

    Name me one other Developer that is even patching a game that is 8 years old. I am talking about a stand alone PC game not an MMO. I venture to guess there isn't one. I imagine with the announcement of D3, D2 lost some of it's resources and I would rather see D3 sooner than D2 get an update.
    Reply
  • zachary k
    i am interested? yes. enough to go back to wow? no. i will stick to my internet space ships(eve online), thank you.
    Reply
  • scook9
    the wonderful new patch for WC3 killed 95% of the custom maps......THANKS BLIZZARD!

    And they have delayed SC2 and Diablo 3 how many times now?!
    Reply