For months, and almost daily in the past weeks I have been camping the US Patents and Trademarks Office website and the Legendary Pictures website. Around 3am, no updates had appeared. Early today Thursday at 6am EST, I searched through the Blizzard Entertainment copyrights page at US Patent and Trademark Office Website. It is official. The second expansion pack of World of Warcraft is titled:
The title confirms the next expansion is based on the Northrend Continent. Fans who have neglected in purchasing the World of Warcraft RPG books from White Wolf Publishing (Arthaus) should seriously get a copy of the World of Warcraft RPG: Lands of Mystery released early on Q1 2006. The book contains never before seen lore and map of Northrend. The continent of Northrend is neatly divided in ten regions:
- Coldarra
- Crystalsong Forest
- Grizzly Hills
- Howling Fjord
- Icecrown Glacier
- Sholazar Basin
- The Borean Tundra
- The Dragonblight
- The Stormpeaks
- Zul’Drak
A year ago, we added a summary page describing each region within Northrend and the Northrend map taken straight from the Lands of Mystery RPG Book. The question to ponder now is whether this new expansion pack will throw in the South Seas as well. The Burning Crusade contained Outland, Quel’Thalas (Ghostlands and Eversong Woods), and Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles (the Draenei starting location).
Northrend seems to be quietly bigger than Outland, but then again, the South Seas only have five isles: Isle of Kezan, Zandalar Isle, Broken Isles, Plunder Isle and Tel Abim, besides Nazjatar (home of the Naga) deep below the Maelstrom. It is quiet possible some of those areas could make it in the expansion, and release others as major content patches throughout the year.
The importance of the South Seas in the Northrend equation is that early whiteboard map designs showed Isle of Kezan (Undermine) as major transportation hub with zeppelin and boats going out to Ratchet, Booty Bay, Kul’Tiras and Valgarde (Howling Fjord’s city in Northrend). This is no secret to fans who purchased the World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition and watched the Behind the Scenes DVD with developer interviews and slideshows of concept art, where the early map designs showed Isle of Kezan and its transportation routes. Ex-Community Manager, Katricia, said at the offical forums on December 6, 2003 the following:
Katricia: “I’m not sure which islands you are referring to so I’ll skip commenting on those at this time.
The team does plan on including content for the Maelstrom and are exploring the best ways to do this.”
~Kat
We will have to wait until tomorrow when BlizzCon Convention kicks in revealing all about this expansion pack. Make sure to check out our BlizzCon Coverage section hourly for any updates from the net. A staff member of Blizzplanet is also going to the BlizzCon event to bring us the latest news.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office says the following:
| Word Mark WRATH OF THE LICH KING
Entertainment services, namely, providing online computer games; providing computer games that may be accessed via a global computer network; and providing online information in the field of computer gaming entertainment. Comic books, strategy guides, trading cards, coloring books, adhesive stickers, rub-on transfers, notebooks, stationery-type portfolios, posters, greeting cards, calendars, instructional leaflets, manuals, advertisement boards of paper or cardboard, catalogues, photographs, art prints. Computer game software and related instruction manuals and guides sold together as a unit; downloadable software for use in connection with computer games; interactive multimedia computer game program; mousepads Mark Drawing Code: (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK Serial Number Filing Date July 28, 2007 Owner (APPLICANT) Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Live/Dead Indicator: LIVE |
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