[Discovery] Ironforge Airport's surroundings and speculation

[Origano]

Reposts about Ironforge airport have been posted from time to time and new paths invented when blizzard blocks latest path. But none of those threads explore surroundings of airport, and that's what this thread is about.

I started by heading from planes to north, and then following the ridge deeper to west.



There is some kind of frostmane troll campsite outside of the cave, I ventured into cave also but it was generic and empty.

Next I headed to west, following the ledge. After a short walk I found two NPCs,



From left ro right: Seasoned coldmine explorer and Coldmine explorer

This hints that in early part of designing of the world of warcraft these two NPC's gave quest(s) to get something from Frostmane cave I showed you earlier.


Next I journeyed even deeper to west. Excatly north from Ironforge's gate I found this.



I think that might banner of the Coldminers and remains are unlucky Coldminers also. I am pretty confident that whole place was meant to be somekind of Coldmine & Alliance quest hub. As a side note an Ironforge mountaineer path's end is here. Also, this might be one of highest mountain tops of WoW.

There wasn't anyhing interesting left in the west so I went back where I started from, northern ledge, at the border of Dun Morogh and the Wetlands

I started to make my way down the hills when I suddenly saw some beasts in my minimap. I made my way towards them and found these:



(cute arent they? :>)

And these



(what rabbit can survive in these heights and temperature?)

After skinning my furry friends I continued to north towards Wetlands and very soon I found little river that went downhill, it had three waterfalls but luckily not high enough to die from fall damage. So I fell down from all of them and finaly found this:



It appeared to be a farmside occupied by Ironforge dwarfs, some cows/Rams and about five small, locked huts.



Screenshot of Hut and it's proud owner:



I decided to check if there is anything inside the huts. If you run towards some doors etc your pet can go thru it, and you can in most situtations use eyes of the beast after it, this is how I got inside the houses. First house:



Notice that I wasn't able to get fully inside them because the wall starts instantly behind the door. Anyway you get pretty good view inside it, generic one again tho.

While I tried to get my camera to right position behind the door I noticed this..



Maybe somebody tried what would happend if he puts ten gnomes inside one house and throws key away? Who knows

Anyway there was area in the east still to be explored and this image shows what it looks like:



I tried to get in both houses, with first one I had no success, the wall was blocking me again but with the ast one I was able to get in. It was one-floor house without any items inside it. This screenshot should give you a good view inside it


I found a stable in the west also:



Furry friends lost their skin again.

Then there was one and last thing to explore, the cave.



I was able to get fully inside it, no walls blocking the way like in the Ironforge airport's caves. At the end it looked like this.



Quess this was meant to be connected to the tunnel network which connects Wetlands and Dun Morogh but was removed as the rest of the content.

When I jumped down from there I also noticed that Blizzard has added same style of fall dying as in outlands to Aeroth, at somepoint your camera hangs and you see your character dropping in to the void.

My own conclusion about this all is that the IF airport + Coldmine guys were meant to be part of Dun Morogh, (and all of their quests related to fight the frostmane trolls (Some Ironforge people are fighting and endless fight against them on the glacier north from planes), but for some reason they got deleted from final plans. The farmer dwarfes and their area could have been part of Wetlands, but also it can be just Developers joke. The whole THING can be a developer's joke or a testing ground for realtime fights but I like speculation

Thanks for reading!

[0035]

Very nice!

[eti-enne02]

nice find dude, i saw the places(after the pets, btw the pets images are brken..) in a private server, it was the location of the mall =\

[Grymskvll]

A little fun fact about the two Coldmine explorer npc's is that if you kill them, assuming you're Horde, they will drop Alterac Valley hand-ins.

[Yemmiz]

Too bad you didn't post images of the three direction signs saying "This way" "That way" and something I can't remember

[King Protos]

pretty cool, some pictures are missing though (I want to see the house full of gnomes!)

[Origano]

Now they all should work right! And sorry king, you will be a bit disappointed I guess

[undrgrnd59]

I've seen it all before. It is *all* just scenery to make that flight to and from Ironforge more interesting. Very cool stuff though I got to see it back in the wall walking days.

[opahcracky]

ive been at pic 1-4 but rest was new to me nice post.

[kepappi]

the house in the airport is enterable, just need to walljump a little, but its empty anyway ^^

[hendoboi]

Here is the video i made of how to get to IF airfeild for those that dont actually know how, Oh and please tell me if this method doesent work anymore cause i havnt done it for a while
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2zKObqNySI]YouTube - World of warcraft - How to get to the Ironforge airfeild![/ame]

[hendoboi]

oh yeah and in that vid it doesent show where i start, i started up north west of Loch Modan between the 2 tunnels

[Origano]

Yep it still works, has worked for two years