The End Of An Era: Arthas Menethil Dies
Arthas Menethil, now known as The Lich King, was one of Warcraft's greatest villains. Not because of the tyranny and fear spread throughout his time atop the throne of Icecrown, but because of the story of how he came to be. The tale of a young paladin apprentice seeking only to do the right thing, and eventually becoming corrupted by demonic influence. The classic good-guy-turned-bad story.
He was without question one of the reasons many played World of Warcraft, and on March 26, 2010 he died for the first time on heroic difficulty, marking the end of an era in Warcraft lore. However, his reign culminated in a gripping cinematic to mark the crowning of a new King; one who would forever be the Jailer of the Damned. No longer would the people of Azeroth be oppressed by the Scourge.
The Raid Game - Redesigned Again
On April 26, 2010 -- just a month after the death of Arthas -- Blizzard revealed the biggest change to raiding since The Burning Crusade reduced raid sizes from 40 to 25 players. No doubt based on the success of 10-player raiding in Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard revealed that all formats would share a single lockout, and you would also receive the same loot in 10-player as you would in 25-player. The new distinction would be normal-versus-heroic, rather than raid size. While this wouldn't be fully implemented until World of Warcraft: Cataclysm released, the impact of the changes were felt immediately and sparked many debates.
Path of the Titans Scrapped
One of the major features of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Path of the Titans, was announced to have been scrapped on June 12, 2010. This information was first revealed during a press tour in early June, and would send ripples throughout the playerbase. Countless threads appeared across forums everywhere, from the official to the non-official, all with players trying to figure out the reasoning behind it being scrapped.
The only light at the end of the tunnel for this now-dead feature was that its supporting profession, Archaeology, would remain in the development pipeline. However, once finally implemented in the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta, it became clear that it was a shadow of its former intended functionality.
Blizzard Sparks Controversy With RealID
On July 6, 2010 Blizzard sparked quite possibly the largest controversy in the history of the company, by announcing that the new Battle.net forums would fully utilize RealID. This in turn meant that any time you posted on the new StarCraft II and World of Warcraft forums, your real name would display instead of your character name. This news sent shockwaves throughout the gaming community, spawning coverage across numerous media outlets, including mass-market news providers like CNN and New York Times.
Influenced heavily by Facebook, this functionality would not make it very far. A few days later Blizzard revealed that they had decided to revert the change, with some sources even citing that the change was reverted internally before they originally announced it. This probably caused quite a few facepalms at the office when Bashiok decided to post his real name, which in turn created a whole new set of problems for many in the company.
The RealID integration with World of Warcraft would eventually be implemented in patch 3.3.5, about a month before the release of StarCraft II.
Blizzard Completely Overhauls Talent & Glyph Systems
The day after the RealID controversy began, Blizzard continued to shake things up by revealing a complete overhaul of the talent and glyph systems. While "improvements" were previously revealed during the press tour and at BlizzCon 2009, this would be far more dramatic than previously expected.
No one could have predicted such a substantial shift in design for the talent system, reducing trees to 31 points, introducing core abilities for a spec at level 10, and providing many passive bonuses based on your chosen specialization. It would promise to be one of the bigger changes in 4.0, forcing players to relearn their classes to some extent.
The new glyph system wasn't implemented in the beta until September, but it was an integral part of this new class system and itself was a fairly hefty revamp.
Wrath of the Lich King Releases In China
After an incredibly lengthy process of iterating on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Blizzard finally received the green light this year. The expansion was released throughout mainland China in August.
While the alterations were fairly extensive, Blizzard knew that it was important to the success of World of Warcraft for it to be fully available in China. Thus, they went through a rather arduous process to ensure it could be released. They would later witness the fruits of this labor first-hand.
World of Warcraft Breaks 12 Million Subscriber Milestone
On October 7, 2010 Blizzard put the naysayers to bed by announcing that World of Warcraft's subscriberbase had grown once again, this time to more than 12 million. Though its growth had been on hiatus, partly due to issues in China, it was now back on track and seeing new milestones met.
No doubt influenced by the recent availability of Wrath of the Lich King in China, as well as the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion, this would quell suggestions that World of Warcraft was reaching its "dying age", so commonly referred to as the point when a large majority of an MMO's playerbase moves on to something new.
Patch 4.0.3a: Deathwing Shatters Azeroth
On November 23, 2010, just two short weeks before the official release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, patch 4.0.3a would go live -- implementing the second step in the most ambitious expansion released for any MMO to date. Deathwing would literally shatter the lands of Azeroth, introducing a much-needed, though risky, revamp to the classic world.
While free for all World of Warcraft players, this update was inspired by the soon-to-be-released expansion and would provide new experiences for veteran players in familiar but changed lands.
New World of Warcraft Community Site Launches
Just days before the release of Cataclysm, the new World of Warcraft community site went live. The new website offered improved forums, a commenting system for news, and an upgraded armory with vastly enhanced player profiles.
It would cement itself as the most innovative official community website for MMORPGs -- and quite possibly gaming itself -- by deeply integrating fansites into its pages, as well as offering an incredibly intuitive browsing experience.
Cataclysm Becomes Fastest Selling PC Game Ever
As if it were destiny for such a world-changing event, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm shattered more than Azeroth, eclipsing its former expansion to become the fastest selling PC game of all time, selling more than 3.3 million copies in its first day of availability.
While first week numbers are not yet available, it's pretty easy to guess that a substantial portion of the playerbase is now deeply entrenched in the fight against Deathwing. It was truly an epic way to close out 2010 for World of Warcraft.
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