Friday, August 16, 2013

...Or Maybe All Bets are On Again?

Ok, so it's possible that The Dark Below was not a hoax after all.

I don't really know much about the nuances and intricacies of trademark law. Supposedly there is a European copyright for the Dark Below, and not simply an application. This is the internet, folks, so take everything with a grain of salt.

To give a little more detail, the reason we thought the Dark Below was a hoax was that someone found a similar application from Blizzard for a game called "Corgis Unleashed," which did not have the sound of your typical Blizzard game (though who knows? Maybe they want their own version of Nintendogs?) The conclusion people reached was that some person who was not involved with Blizzard made the trademark application, and that someone else applied for Corgis Unleashed under Blizzard's name to demonstrate it could be faked. However, if there is, actually, a registered trademark for the title by Blizzard, that is probably harder to fake. So, it's either definitely real, or totally fake. We just don't know!



Essentially, I would say that this puts The Dark Below in strong contention to be an actual expansion. Again, though, this title is vague enough that it could refer to any number of things. A lot of people seem to think it has to be Azshara, though somehow I think a title referring to her would use "Deep" or "Depths" instead of "Below," though Ozumat's epithet "Fiend of the Dark Below" does lend this theory some credence. Still, I would not rule out an Old God expansion, a Burning Legion Expansion, or a Titan-based expansion on this title - or, frankly, any number of things.

I think it bears a look back to 2009. At the time, Wrath of the Lich King was still in full swing. We were raiding Trial of the Crusader, eagerly anticipating the release of patch 3.3, which would bring about Icecrown Citadel (funny that the expansion with the most raid tiers had the fewest patches...) At that time, dataminers discovered that there was a new set of Hallow's End masks. At the time, said masks were only for playable races, and so it was quite an interesting development that nice-looking, new masks were found for Worgen and Goblins. Thus, it seemed evident (and, as history showed, absolutely correct) that the new playable races for the following expansion would be Worgen and Goblins (somehow, some people tried to argue that Worgen would go Horde and Goblins would go Alliance, despite the fact that Goblins were obviously never going to go to anyone if not the Horde.)  Blizzard responded by adding new files, creating masks for Ogres, Naga, Vrykul, and Murlocs, though some of these had less impressive visuals. While many of us remained confident that Worgen and Goblins would become playable, this demonstrates the lengths to which Blizzard is willing to go to discredit a leak.

So is "Corgis Unleashed" the new iteration of those extra masks? It's possible. Ultimately, we won't know for sure until Blizzcon, but I'm leaning back to "yes, The Dark Below is probably the next expansion." Whether that's a Below that is Dark or a Darkness that is Below remains to be seen, as does any other detail about the expansion, but I've got my fingers crossed for a new hero class (with its own starting experience, etc.) and a really cool new environment.

Anyway, just for fun, I'm going to list expansion titles that I'd like to see some day. Just to be explicit: these are coming straight from my brain to my fingertips. I don't work for Blizzard (I don't know how their story team works, but man would I love to be involved there) so unless there's a huge coincidence, none of these are titles of future works.

World of Warcraft: The Return of the Titans

A Titan-themed expansion with a cool Magitek theme (with a side of steampunk, because hey, who doesn't love some steampunk?) The heroes of Azeroth have to fend off creators who aren't happy with the state of Azeroth. Maybe a Tinker class?

World of Warcraft: Flames of the Legion

The ultimate Burning Legion expansion, where we confront Sargeras once and for all. Maybe set on Argus, or perhaps on some Titan-built home world. Unless this comes later than another Legion-themed expansion, we'd get Demon Hunters (mixing some of Illidan's abilities from Black Temple with Diablo Demon Hunters to get around the fact that Warlocks stole most of the DH's abilities from WCIII)

World of Warcraft: Shadows in the Deep

Azshara ascendant. Set on the raised city of Zin-Azshari, a continent-sized urban environment, we face Azshara's Naga forces, with both Satyr-demons and Faceless Ones having strong presences. Perhaps Ny'alotha is a raid? If they could swing it, maybe the Naga as a playable race?

World of Warcraft: Nightmare

We travel into the Emerald Dream to discover that the Nightmare has spread once again (there would be some retcons to allow druidic towns to exist there.) The Dream is a surreal, Alice in Wonderland-style place, and the Nightmare is like insanity, manifested. We would encounter the Druids of the Pack, as well as the Ancients. N'zoth might be the final boss.

Anywho, there's some ideas. Pure speculation, of course, but given the ambiguity of the legitimacy of "The Dark Below," I can't really say these are necessarily any less likely than that.

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