Leak Season is Upon Us
As the summer comes to an end, the cooling temperatures and shorter days all point to the changing of the seasons. And the season upon us now is leak season, for World of Warcraft players. With Blizzcon on November 1st, and Battle for Azeroth reaching its climax in the next couple of patches, players begin to eagerly wonder what’s next for the erstwhile heroes of Azeroth, Alliance and Horde. And with that eagerness comes a plethora of fake leaks. But in the past, expansions have been leaked early, leading to everyone now having a bit of a carnival of ideas as we wait for the official announcement. Here are just a couple of the more wide-spread rumors out there.
Before we get into the two most widespread leaks, take a moment to read up on our previous coverage on the success of World of Warcraft Classic and find out what it could mean for Blizzard and the Warcraft franchise.
Now, on with the show. Our first leak began making the rounds back in March this year. World of Warcraft: Awakenings showed up on the MMO-Champion forums from a new 1-post account claiming to have “a couple” of sources who gave them the info.
The initial post claimed that the final arc of Battle for Azeroth would involve a massive showdown for the Alliance and Horde leading to the damaging of both Stormwind and Orgrimmar, with many leaders on both sides dying.
The aftermath of this battle would be the opening act of the next expansion, with a time jump of five years taking us to a peaceful Azeroth trying to rebuild from years of war, with the help of a new playable class; the tinker.
Also included in the expansion would be two new zones, the Dragon Islands and a new revamped, much larger Caverns of Time called the Edge of Time. In addition the leak claims we will also get a level squish, coalescing the current 120 levels down to 60, with level 70 being the new cap for leveling through Awakenings. In addition, the older zones would also be revamped to bring the whole game into the current timeline, rather than each expansion’s zones being stuck in the period of time the expansion took place in. This leads to strange inconsistencies, like the King of Stormwind and Warchief of the Horde changing depending on which zone or continent you happen to be on.
The initial post concludes with mention of a battle-royale-type mode battleground. This every player for themselves type battle would scale and be usable as a leveling tool for players as well.
For a couple of months that’s all we heard of Awakenings until June, when a couple more posts showed up, with one being posted on 4chan.
In addition to what was mentioned in the initial post from March, more additions were made, including a revamped timewalking system, a 3-player PVE boss rush-type scenario, changes to the transmogrification system, instanced player housing, instanced guild housing, and a procedurally-generated megadungeon that would be different every time a player ran it.
Then in July a number of screenshots purported to be logs and log-in screens of Awakenings made their rounds through the fandom.
Finally, in August, a purported screenshot of a healer-spec Tinker/mechanic popped up. This references many of the previous features, while showing the dungeon guide open showing new dungeons alleged to be in Awakenings, including Baron Valimar’s Castle, Hall of Thanes, two Dragon Islands dungeons, N’yalotha, Void Dungeon, and Stormwind Prison, with many names being placeholders.
The next major leak making its way around is called World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. Shadowlands was posted to 4chan, so as with the previous leak, and anything else on 4chan, take it with a large grain of salt.
The Shadowlands leak starts with a rather interesting screenshot.
Here we see Stormwind harbor with lots of ghostly dead soldiers and heroes loading onto what looks to be Kvaldir ships...with Sylvanas’ shattered mask emblem on their sails. That can’t be good news.
There’s also a map that was leaked earlier that the Shadowlands leak references, purporting to show the Shadowlands, the real of death where we’ll be residing for the next expansion.
According to the Shadowlands leak post, Battle for Azeroth will end with a massive battle in Stormwind after Sylvanas tricks the Alliance into helping the Horde rebels led by Saurfang and Thrall defend against an attack on Tauren capital Thunder Bluff that never happens, leaving the Banshee Queen free to sack the human capital of Stormwind. The final raid will be the Alliance and Horde rebels attacking occupied Stormwind. The raid will see Nathaos beheaded by an avenging Tyrande, and during the showdown with Sylvanas, the Lich King Bolvar, having sat quietly in Northrend since the end of Wrath of the Lich King, strikes. Not knowing that elements of the Horde are helping the Alliance, Bolvar seeks to help his former Stormwind compatriots, and daughter Talia, who fights with the Alliance, by using his unending undead minions to indiscriminately kill Horde forces. This leads to the Horde rebels essentially falling in line with Sylvanas in an attempt to stay alive. Eventually, all the faction leaders die save for Sylvanas Windrunner and King Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind, who essentially will die to one another in a final duel.
That’s apparently when the fun begins, as we all awake as ghosts in Stormwind harbor, with Sylvanas’ previous alliance with Kvaldir leader Helya finally being explained. Sylvanas’ murder-spree across Azeroth was to gather souls to fight in the Shadowlands against the encroaching power of the old god N’Zoth. So basically, Sylvanas is murdering the whole world to save the world.
Details on the next expansion are a little sparse in this leak, beyond saying we will be fighting our way through the Shadowlands to contain Ny’alotha, the pocket dimension the old gods were imprisoned in that has begun to bleed into the Shadowlands, probably by design of N’Zoth. The leak also mentions a tinker class, introduced when Gallywix flees Stormwind before the final fight and comes upon Gnome High Tinker Mekkatorque in stasis and after waking him up their both work on technology to allow our heroes to move back and forth between the world of the living and the Shadowlands. This will allegedly be told in a cinematic that we will see at Blizzcon on November 1st.
So those are the two big leaks making the rounds. As you can see, they both share similarities, namely tinkers and some kind of big shake up to the Alliance-Horde system and the world at large. While both are most likely a mixture of educated guesses and conjecture, mixed with a good dose of wish-listing, it’s always fun to read leaks and get excited about what could be coming our way. The closer we get to Blizzcon, the higher the chances of a legitimate leak. DO you think either of these leaks are true? Let us know in the comment section!
Before we get into the two most widespread leaks, take a moment to read up on our previous coverage on the success of World of Warcraft Classic and find out what it could mean for Blizzard and the Warcraft franchise.
Now, on with the show. Our first leak began making the rounds back in March this year. World of Warcraft: Awakenings showed up on the MMO-Champion forums from a new 1-post account claiming to have “a couple” of sources who gave them the info.
The initial post claimed that the final arc of Battle for Azeroth would involve a massive showdown for the Alliance and Horde leading to the damaging of both Stormwind and Orgrimmar, with many leaders on both sides dying.
The aftermath of this battle would be the opening act of the next expansion, with a time jump of five years taking us to a peaceful Azeroth trying to rebuild from years of war, with the help of a new playable class; the tinker.
Also included in the expansion would be two new zones, the Dragon Islands and a new revamped, much larger Caverns of Time called the Edge of Time. In addition the leak claims we will also get a level squish, coalescing the current 120 levels down to 60, with level 70 being the new cap for leveling through Awakenings. In addition, the older zones would also be revamped to bring the whole game into the current timeline, rather than each expansion’s zones being stuck in the period of time the expansion took place in. This leads to strange inconsistencies, like the King of Stormwind and Warchief of the Horde changing depending on which zone or continent you happen to be on.
The initial post concludes with mention of a battle-royale-type mode battleground. This every player for themselves type battle would scale and be usable as a leveling tool for players as well.
For a couple of months that’s all we heard of Awakenings until June, when a couple more posts showed up, with one being posted on 4chan.
In addition to what was mentioned in the initial post from March, more additions were made, including a revamped timewalking system, a 3-player PVE boss rush-type scenario, changes to the transmogrification system, instanced player housing, instanced guild housing, and a procedurally-generated megadungeon that would be different every time a player ran it.
Then in July a number of screenshots purported to be logs and log-in screens of Awakenings made their rounds through the fandom.
Finally, in August, a purported screenshot of a healer-spec Tinker/mechanic popped up. This references many of the previous features, while showing the dungeon guide open showing new dungeons alleged to be in Awakenings, including Baron Valimar’s Castle, Hall of Thanes, two Dragon Islands dungeons, N’yalotha, Void Dungeon, and Stormwind Prison, with many names being placeholders.
The next major leak making its way around is called World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. Shadowlands was posted to 4chan, so as with the previous leak, and anything else on 4chan, take it with a large grain of salt.
The Shadowlands leak starts with a rather interesting screenshot.
Here we see Stormwind harbor with lots of ghostly dead soldiers and heroes loading onto what looks to be Kvaldir ships...with Sylvanas’ shattered mask emblem on their sails. That can’t be good news.
There’s also a map that was leaked earlier that the Shadowlands leak references, purporting to show the Shadowlands, the real of death where we’ll be residing for the next expansion.
According to the Shadowlands leak post, Battle for Azeroth will end with a massive battle in Stormwind after Sylvanas tricks the Alliance into helping the Horde rebels led by Saurfang and Thrall defend against an attack on Tauren capital Thunder Bluff that never happens, leaving the Banshee Queen free to sack the human capital of Stormwind. The final raid will be the Alliance and Horde rebels attacking occupied Stormwind. The raid will see Nathaos beheaded by an avenging Tyrande, and during the showdown with Sylvanas, the Lich King Bolvar, having sat quietly in Northrend since the end of Wrath of the Lich King, strikes. Not knowing that elements of the Horde are helping the Alliance, Bolvar seeks to help his former Stormwind compatriots, and daughter Talia, who fights with the Alliance, by using his unending undead minions to indiscriminately kill Horde forces. This leads to the Horde rebels essentially falling in line with Sylvanas in an attempt to stay alive. Eventually, all the faction leaders die save for Sylvanas Windrunner and King Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind, who essentially will die to one another in a final duel.
That’s apparently when the fun begins, as we all awake as ghosts in Stormwind harbor, with Sylvanas’ previous alliance with Kvaldir leader Helya finally being explained. Sylvanas’ murder-spree across Azeroth was to gather souls to fight in the Shadowlands against the encroaching power of the old god N’Zoth. So basically, Sylvanas is murdering the whole world to save the world.
Details on the next expansion are a little sparse in this leak, beyond saying we will be fighting our way through the Shadowlands to contain Ny’alotha, the pocket dimension the old gods were imprisoned in that has begun to bleed into the Shadowlands, probably by design of N’Zoth. The leak also mentions a tinker class, introduced when Gallywix flees Stormwind before the final fight and comes upon Gnome High Tinker Mekkatorque in stasis and after waking him up their both work on technology to allow our heroes to move back and forth between the world of the living and the Shadowlands. This will allegedly be told in a cinematic that we will see at Blizzcon on November 1st.
So those are the two big leaks making the rounds. As you can see, they both share similarities, namely tinkers and some kind of big shake up to the Alliance-Horde system and the world at large. While both are most likely a mixture of educated guesses and conjecture, mixed with a good dose of wish-listing, it’s always fun to read leaks and get excited about what could be coming our way. The closer we get to Blizzcon, the higher the chances of a legitimate leak. DO you think either of these leaks are true? Let us know in the comment section!
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