Continuity, "New Azeroth", and the fate of Outland/Northrend

Сообщение от xaratherus

This post is from a sort of in-game, role-playing perspective. If that's not your cup of tea, don't bother reading.

One thing that I've been wondering:

With the changes to Azeroth, how is Blizzard going to address continuity breaks in the leveling process? Since Azeroth has always been a static setting, I've simply assumed that when I start a new character the world (from my perspective) has reverted to an earlier time period. For instance, when my character hits 58 and heads to Outland, I've always figured that from a continuity standpoint they are arriving in Outland around the same time as my very first character who ever hit 58 and headed off to war with the Burning Legion. Then at 68, when I head to Northrend, it's the start of the newest chapter in the conflict against the Scourge and the Lich King.

But with the changes that will be caused by the Cataclysm, this perspective doesn't work anymore. Azeroth wasn't shattered when we started the conflict with the Burning Legion in Outland; Arthas will be defeated (although possibly not dead) when Deathwing cracks the globe.

So how does this affect our new characters? Does it make sense for us to fight our way through this new, savage Azeroth and then whoops, there's 58 - better head to another dimension for awhile, and ding 68 - let's go and fight the Scourge up north!

While I know that a lot of people have been referring (sometimes jokingly, sometimes deprecatingly) to Cataclysm as World of Warcraft 2, I almost hope that they treat it as such, and make it so that you have the option to wholly level your character from 1 to 85 in "New Azeroth", rather than having to jaunt to Outland and Northrend for a total of 20 levels before returning to where the action is (and should be). Otherwise, it would sort of be like a movie where the hero witnesses the ascent of the major villain to power, and then says, "Oh, but wait, I need to focus on this sub-plot for 45 minutes before I actually get back to doing the important stuff."

Сообщение от LordHiccup

Hmmm, yea you do have a point there. I kinda hope that they have a Caverns of Time portal to pre-cataclysm Azeroth, other than that I have no clue how they're going to pull this off without making lore-lovers heads explode...