alt="Cataclysm Logo"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87615/preview"
width="600">

An
Exclusive Cataclysm Preview Q&A: Redesigning
Darkshore

In href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm">Cataclysm,
the upcoming
third expansion for href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow">World
of Warcraft
,
much of the world of Azeroth as
we know it today has undergone some fairly major changes. New zones
have been added but plenty of old world zones have also been given both
a visual and content pass that will make them just as vital as they
were when the game first launched nearly six years ago.

Darkshore is one such zone, and
game designers Luis Barriga and
Craig Amai sat down with us to discuss
upcoming changes to Darkshore's landscape, the fate of Auberdine, and
the challenges of redesigning an old-world zone from the ground up in
this exclusive World of
Warcraft: Cataclysm
content
preview.



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href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87614"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87614/preview"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 300px;"> href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87613"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87613/preview"
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Above:
Darkshore as it is seen in-game today shown on the left, while the new
map for the zone appears on the right.



Q.
What was the original concept for the zone?

A. Darkshore was one of the
areas
hit hardest by the Cataclysm, so the
main idea was to present a zone that had literally been shattered by
those events. That was the approach we took for the revamp in terms of
lore and aesthetics.

In terms of gameplay, our goal
was to take advantage of the changes to
the environment and use them to help address previous issues with quest
flow. It was an opportunity to streamline progression within Darkshore
so that the overall experience for players would be much smoother and
require less running back and forth.

Q.
Who will be using this zone (what levels/factions)?

A. Darkshore is designed for
Alliance players, primarily night elves
and worgen, from level 11 through 20.

Q.
What is changing about the zone?

A. Auberdine has been
destroyed; entire species of creatures have been
wiped out, and the land has been torn wide open in multiple places.

The Cataclysm has also given
the upper hand to a number of nearby foes,
including coastal naga, Twilight's Hammer cultists, and opportunistic
trolls of the Shatterspear tribe who seek to exploit weakened night
elven settlements.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87612"> alt="Auberdine in Cataclysm"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/87612/preview"
width="600">

Q.
What's happened to Auberdine?

A. Auberdine has been nearly
razed to the ground, and what wasn't
destroyed by the Cataclysm is now under assault by air elementals led
by Twilight's Hammer cultists. The city is pretty much in ruins, but
some survivors did make it out alive.

Q.
With Auberdine in ruins, where do night elves go now?

A. Lor'danel. It's a small
night elven town just to the north of the
ruins of Auberdine.

Q.
Without giving up any spoilers, what's the general storyline for
this zone?

A. Darkshore has suffered
immensely from the massive seismic ripples of
the Cataclysm. The night elves are in survival mode, helping refugees
and, wherever they can, fending off the advances of the Twilight's
Hammer cult, the naga, and the Shatterspear trolls. Meanwhile,
Malfurion Stormrage, recently returned from the Emerald
Dream, has
traveled to the epicenter of the destruction and called upon the
ancient powers of Cenarius to contain it.


Q.
What do you think is the most exciting new addition to the zone?

A. Without a doubt, the most
exciting addition to Darkshore is the
gigantic vortex in the center of the zone, where the devastating forces
of the Cataclysm are being pit against the primal power of Malfurion
Stormrage. Our amazing artists and level designers made us an epic
energy vortex to serve as a visual centerpiece for the destruction, and
it looks phenomenal.

Q.
What goes into redesigning a zone like this?

A. Redesigning Darkshore
required much more work than we originally
anticipated. This was one of the first zones we tackled that centered
on the effects of the Cataclysm, so we started out with the modest goal
of adding a few themed quests and improving the general flow of the
zone. As we piled on the visual changes, though, we soon discovered
that a lot more manpower was needed to generate content that correctly
reflected Darkshore's new landscape and lore.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/85292"> alt="Statterspear Trolls in Darkshore"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/85292/preview"
width="400">

Shatterspear
trolls are just one of the many inhabitants of Darkshore in Cataclysm.

Q.
What was the most challenging aspect about implementing these
changes?

A. At first we thought that we
would be able to work with
the majority
of the original quests in Darkshore, but most of them just didn't make
sense when viewed in the context of the zone's new storyline and
direction. For example, chasing after corrupted wildlife and
investigating washed-up threshers would seem out of place when
everything around you is being ravaged by natural disasters,
elementals, naga... and worse. Reaching the realization that we would
basically have to scrap all of the old content and start from scratch
-- and then actually bringing that plan to fruition -- was probably the
hardest part of the process.

Q.
What should players do or go see first?

A. Players should start in the
town of Lor'danel and then play through
the quest series naturally, slowly heading south. Higher-level players
(levels 15 and up) may want to skip ahead and meet up with Malfurion
Stormrage at the center of the zone, but Darkshore feels best if you
experience the entire storyline from the beginning, as intended.

Q.
What's happening at the Master's Glaive? The last time we saw it, it
was mostly buried underground.

A. Twilight's Hammer cultists
have recently begun to unearth the
remains of Soggoth, one of the more powerful servants of the Old Gods,
from beneath the Master's Glaive with the intent of bringing him back
to life. Players will have to foil the cultists' plans before the new
incarnation of Soggoth reaches full strength.

Q.
Is there anything new at the Grove of the Ancients?

A. The Grove of the Ancients
was shielded from most of the devastation
caused by the Cataclysm, due in large part to the power of the ancient
guardians residing therein. Protecting the grove required an enormous
amount of energy, though, and as a result, most of the guardians have
gone into a sort of slumber. Players will have to figure out a way to
wake them and bring them into the fight to ensure the survival of
Darkshore.



Thank you, Luis and Craig, for
taking the time to talk about your
involvement in reshaping Darkshore for World
of Warcraft: Cataclysm
!

Looking for more information on
the upcoming expansion? Hop on your favorite epic mount and fly on over
to href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm">Ten
Ton Hammer's Cataclysm content
portal for zone previews, instance walkthroughs and more!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Reuben "Sardu" Waters has been writing professionally about the MMOG industry for eight years, and is the current Editor-in-Chief and Director of Development for Ten Ton Hammer.

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