Cataclysm was a very necessary expansion in many people’s eyes. It had a revamped leveling experience from 1-60 and it saw us finally face off against a dragon who has tormented mortals since the time of the Sundering. There was, though, a lot of stuff that was very much left unfinished.
Sylvanas and the Val’kyr
If you didn’t play an Undead or Worgen in Cataclysm, you missed some of the key points of the story surrounding Sylvanas and her new Val’kyr friends. I will try not to spoil you from one of the most amazing (and controversial) stories in Cataclysm, but I do recommend making both a Worgen and Undead, and getting them each to roughly 15 or 20, to get a good idea of what’s going on, but also that you take a look at the story in Western Plaguelands and the contested town of Andorhal.
To summarize the story of the Northern parts of the Eastern Kingdoms in Cataclysm, after the events of the Wrathgate, Icecrown, and the end of the Northrend campaign, we see that Sylvanas has made a mysterious pact with the Val’kyr. The Undead, at her command, have taken to using the Undead plague at every opportunity, including against the people of Gilneas and South Shore, displacing one, and obliterating the other.
In one event that happens after the Worgen starting experience, you see Sylvanas killed by a former Gilnean, and then resurrected by the Val’kyr, who mention an agreement between the former servants of the Lich King and the Queen of the Forsaken. What is this mysterious agreement? What does this agreement mean for the Forsaken, who are now brought back with an almost cult like adoration for the Banshee Queen, and for the rest of the living that the Forsaken despise so much?
Neptulon’s fate
If you venture through the events of Vash’jir, you explore the events of the underwater kingdom of Neptulon, one of the elemental lords. At the end of the journey through Vash’jir, where we as players travel back into the past to events where the Naga forces of Azshara plan an invasion of Neptulon’s lair, and then at the end those forces try to take control of his watery domain. In the Throne of Tides dungeon from Cataclysm we encounter the results of that attempt, but at the end we only see Neptulon and his new close friend Ozumat disappear.
In the 4.2 patch, Blizzard had originally planned to have the Abyssal Maw raid, where we as players would see the final fate of Neptulon and Ozumat. However, as the patch development progressed, the design team leaned more and more heavily towards the fiery side of things. Due to this, the Abyssal Maw raid was scrapped and sadly with it went the closure on the fate of Neptulon, Lord of the Watery Depths. Blizzard folks have said that they are happy with the ending. Chris Metzen said at Blizzcon 2011, however, that the situation was a mess.
Did Ozumat take full control of Neptulon? Could we as players finally have won against the massive leviathan and freed a grateful elemental lord, the only one who seemed to not side with Deathwing and his Old God masters? While Cataclysm had many stories, including several for each zone, these are two stories I would dearly love to hear more about. They feel like dangling threads of the Cataclysm era, and I do like to see loose ends tied up. Cataclysm was not alone in the list of expansions with loose ends. What would you like to see wrapped up from expansions of the past?
Thank you to Rioriel of Postcards from Azeroth for the use of the header image.
