Caer darrow's dark portal & old map design

[Nyarly]

So i bought this book http://www.gallerynucleus.com/assets..._cover_500.jpg and found an interesting map in it.

First thing i noticed is this : https://i.imgur.com/LdvUUimh.jpg
As some of you might remember, there were three dark portals in the alpha build of vanilla. One in the blasted lands, one in Azshara and one in Caer darrow (pic : http://photos1.************/blogger/8...cholomance.jpg )
Since there is scholomance in Caer darrow now, we supposed dark portals in the alpha were placeholders for future instances.
But this map places the dark portal in Caer darrow. This is extremely weird because the dark portal is in the blasted lands since warcraft 2 and it doesn't fit the lore to put it there.
It isn't said when this map was drawn but it could explain the dark portal of caer darrow during the alpha.
No idea about the one in azshara though..

Then, i saw this : https://i.imgur.com/i6340sAh.jpg
Notice the two paths to kul'tiras. The island isn't drawn there but can be found on this map : http://hydra-images.cursecdn.com/***...rdaeronLoC.JPG
To me, it is another hint that kul'tiras will be added in WoW in the future since they already planned were the access paths would be.

Next is this : https://i.imgur.com/DsCdr6sh.jpg
World tree near zul'aman and misplaced Quel'thalas. I don't know what to think about this..


On to this : https://i.imgur.com/2ywLNoWh.jpg
Zul'dare appears and dalaran is near the seashore. I'm extremely intrigued about zul'dare, i didn't know about this island until now. Another thing to add to my watch-list
About dalaran, i have no idea why it was placed here.

And finally : https://i.imgur.com/3f2AOfUh.jpg
Continents names, yay !
We have : Azeroth, Northrine, Calendore and Lordaeron of Quel'thalas.
I couldn't find any info on these alternate names and have never saw them before. I don't know what made blizzard change them.

Here is the full album : Photo Album - Imgur

I bought the book to find stuff like this, unfortunately, there aren't any other maps in it but this one is already so exciting to me

Would you have more info about what i pointed you out ? Do you notice something else ? Have you discovered anything like this on other old maps ?
I hope this thread fits in the exploration section even though it isn't really an exploration..
And i wish i can have inspired others to study old maps aswell

[Zerovii]

Actually, I dug out the original leveling path maps from when they were planning out vanilla and they included northrend, and both those islands were present up to that stage of development.

imgur: the simple image sharer

[Eldhenn]

>Northrine, Calendore

Looks like... phonetically mispelling.

[Nyarly]

Actually, I dug out the original leveling path maps from when they were planning out vanilla and they included northrend, and both those islands were present up to that stage of development.

imgur: the simple image sharer

Very interested in this, can you tell me more ? Where/when/how did you find these ?

[Satori]

Interesting like usual Nyarly +rep to ya if I can.

Edit: Must Spread

[Zerovii]

Very interested in this, can you tell me more ? Where/when/how did you find these ?

I frankly don't remember where I got it from, it's one of the oldest images in my beta folder though. I kept it because I was hoping eventually someone might show up with a higher quality one.

I just figured it might help give some idea to the original gameplay plans for vanilla, since we can see tol barad island and the unused zul island in it in the level progression plan. Maybe someone with the vanilla wow alpha can shed if they tried to put one of them in back in the alpha?

[Koruun]

I just resubbed and just now visited owned core after a long break. I must say, that personally, these types of adventures and explorations are my favorite. + rep from me, there are many more secrets to be found in wow, yet we always seem to confine ourselves into a box, a single path of thinking and processing after we have explored for so long.

-kor