[Alpha-0.5.3] The badlands theory

[Nyarly]

Hello, do you know this land ?

Oh you think you know, this land ?
I went there a long time ago, and I can tell you how it looked like.

After reaching the top of a mountain in the badlands, a strange path lead me to an even stranger discovery. I huge white square, and two other abnormally meeting grounds.


Confused, I lost my way and walked for an unknown amount of time.
When I thought my mind was beginning to clear up, the vision I saw told me the exact opposite was going to happen.

In front of me stood a gigantic tomb, that all the souls in the world wouldn’t fill..

Wanting, needing to get out of this place, I ran to the sea.
Discovering I still had my parachute intact, I decided to use it to scout the surroundings.
I saw things I can now never unseen.

The land formed a giant dragon, with his head cut.


Determined to escape these mad lands, I focused on my destination, only to see that the sea wasn’t there anymore.
I landed on a desert, and took at last glance at that mountain behind me.
A vain attempt of my brain to reassure itself, as that, hidden on this side of the mountain laid the entrance to a huge underground cavern or temple.

I felt something, calling me, wanting me north. With the last bit of sanity I had, I went south, lounging the absent sea in an orange and grey desert.
Giant bones were laying on the ground now, what could have been remains of the dragon.

After for what seemed to be a long time without visions, I looked at the “coast” to start reaching inland territories and real populations.
The visions had not ended; only waited, to twist me a bit more… A giant hooded figure appeared in the mountain, dead, or stoic.


It seems at peace, is it a sign ? my only hope ?
I went the figure’s way, and after a small climb, stumbled upon a giant throne. What could have been his throne.
But there's a lot of blood leaking out of it...

Am I close to home ? Is it possible still to come back from here ?
Oh it’s that white land again, the entrance to my nightmare ? The end of this ?


Curiously, I managed to escape and get back. So I investigated a little bit, at a distance.
This was only present in 0.5.3, and got removed for the most part in 0.5.5.



I may be mad right now, but this is a whole lot of coincidences.
Traces of this monuments in the new maps:


Facts are :
- this part of the coast is getting smaller and smaller. Blizzard is hiding or removing traces.
- this area isn't shown in any map, always foggy, no one knows what was intended to be there.
- deathwing, a dragon, fell in the badlands.
- I used abyssx and a real 0.5.3 client, this is the real ingame footage.

Theory is :
- this is a vestige of the original design of deathwing's crash site.
- the area is surrounded with traces of a massive being. A guardian or a titan that fought there ?
- the presence of the temple and the tomb may indicate something else is buried there, an old god ?

Case opened.

[spoutnik]

I think you're reaching faaaaaaaaaaaaaar too much on this.

- this is a vestige of the original design of deathwing's crash site.

I don't think that at the time these maps were done (2001-2003) they had the idea of Deathwing and the Cataclysm. At the time, last time we saw Deathwing was on another planet (Draenor on Warcraft II)

- the area is surrounded with traces of a massive being. A guardian or a titan that fought there ?
- the presence of the temple and the tomb may indicate something else is buried there, an old god ?

There's Uldaman, a titanic complex, in the Badlands. May be related, but my gut says no.

Did they intended for something to be there ? Yes, most certainly. But probably not what you are suggesting.
At the time, I don't think they had any clear idea about the concept of old gods, except the "Forgotten ones" (which was present in the Warcraft 3 TFT mission with Arthas & Anub'Arak: Forgotten One (Warcraft III) - Wowpedia - Your wiki guide to the World of Warcraft and looked more like C'Thun than anything else).

When I say you're reaching fat too much on this, it's because I think you've overlooked a very simple fact.
Look at the shape of the mountains and the way we get to a "plateau" in the bottom: does it remind you anything ? It's the exat same topology as the one we have in the bottom of the sea ;-)
I think they didn't remove this terrain, they may only have put it under the ocean.

[Nyarly]

I think you're reaching faaaaaaaaaaaaaar too much on this.


I don't think that at the time these maps were done (2001-2003) they had the idea of Deathwing and the Cataclysm. At the time, last time we saw Deathwing was on another planet (Draenor on Warcraft II)


There's Uldaman, a titanic complex, in the Badlands. May be related, but my gut says no.

Did they intended for something to be there ? Yes, most certainly. But probably not what you are suggesting.
At the time, I don't think they had any clear idea about the concept of old gods, except the "Forgotten ones" (which was present in the Warcraft 3 TFT mission with Arthas & Anub'Arak: Forgotten One (Warcraft III) - Wowpedia - Your wiki guide to the World of Warcraft and looked more like C'Thun than anything else).

When I say you're reaching fat too much on this, it's because I think you've overlooked a very simple fact.
Look at the shape of the mountains and the way we get to a "plateau" in the bottom: does it remind you anything ? It's the exat same topology as the one we have in the bottom of the sea ;-)
I think they didn't remove this terrain, they may only have put it under the ocean.

Deathwing had a lair on draenor in warcraft2 : Draenor
It's very possible they had it planned for a long time, given the more or less fake leak that more or less happened anyway.
It may not have been Deathwing, but it sure looks like a huge dragon on that minimap and terrain.
You cannot deny the weirdness that the symbols on the minimap also happens to show similar stuff in 3D.

I must admit the old god stuff is far reached, but something not usual happened there, and it wasn't supposed to be under the sea I think : it stayed above the sea until it got removed. But even if it was sunken, no other coast shows this stuff for something that didn't or won't happen. Take quel thalas, it was only a green flat land before.
See the last location on the first post, to me it really looks like a lava or acid pool. But i'd say lava because it's the blood of the dragon that could have filled it. Or it could be a fountain + lake.
Also, this pic :



An island appears in the vanilla CE maps near the badlands, and the foggy ingame map (see first post) also showed a small patch of land there.
When you went on that coast, it showed ***On Map Dungeon***, instead of South seas or something like near Gilijim and Lapidis.

Plot thickens I say.

[WizardTrokair]

All my +Reps to Nyarly for his in-depth theory and explanations.
No matter how far fetched or stretched... this is awesome.

[akspa420]

The " ** On Map Dungeon ** " was an area id that was painted on zones that didn't have an appropriate area id yet. As you've already pointed out, the original maps for this region appeared to have some significance. Since 0.5.3's maps actually have quite a bit of ret-conned terrain, we can dream up all sorts of speculation as to what those areas would have been used for.

That isn't to say that this thread is all too far off from the truth - there's a nugget of truth to every story, and honestly, you've hit the nail on the head.

On sort of the same topic, the as-yet-seen Undermine continent was Map ID #2. It may have been planned early on, and scrapped, as another continent to go along with ID#'s 0 and 1 (Azeroth and Kalimdor). The ID numbers are all categorized in some fashion - dungeons were numbered higher, as were test zones. There's a lot of hidden gems of information still sitting in the 0.5.3 alpha, which will only make sense once we decode the secrets.

[elzabbul]

A bit far fetched, by I enjoyed reading your theory. Be sure to check the PVPZone (can't remember which one) in the same alpha client - it contains an even earlier version of Badlands if I remember correctly.

[ReznikShaman]

Interesting theory... It's true, here in the Eastern Kingdoms was more earsed places.

[Hazzbazzy]

Interesting theory... It's true, here in the Eastern Kingdoms was more earsed places.

I didn't even think you were still alive.

[akspa420]

I like to refer to that landmass near stormwind as the Azeroth Dong. There's nothing there in the 0.5.3 terrain - this map is probably from the E3 2002 build, 0.4.3, or earlier. I think it may have been the original land basin for Stormwind. As for the badlands landmass, I have no idea.

I'm working on something in relation to the old minimaps and interface world maps in 0.5.3 - Image hosted on sli.mg

[Nyarly]

I like to refer to that landmass near stormwind as the Azeroth Dong. There's nothing there in the 0.5.3 terrain - this map is probably from the E3 2002 build, 0.4.3, or earlier. I think it may have been the original land basin for Stormwind. As for the badlands landmass, I have no idea.

I'm working on something in relation to the old minimaps and interface world maps in 0.5.3 - Image hosted on sli.mg

Help me help you ! you could check : Exploader : the explorer's multitool
I added interface map merger first version thanks to your idea, I may finish it today.

Thanks for the input reznik, where did you get this map ? I don't remember ever seeing zul aman there : o
Is it in some files ?
And yes hazz, reznik is very much productive on his exploration wiki (in Czech). We should maybe start one in english here too?

[greg098]

It is more likely that Uldaman was going to be a dungeon that lead to a raid, similar to ubrs-bwl, brd-mc and strat- naxx. This was clearly the common theme for higher level dungeons. This is why the last boss in Uldaman was a much higher level then the rest of the dungeon. The last room before this boss also required people to click an item to open the last room. Maybe this was meant to be used to open the entrance to the raid. Maybe this raid would of been shown in the outside world in this 'unknown zone'. This was very relevant with the questlines in Uldaman and Badlands in vanilla. To the eastern part of Badlands had a very hard elite area full of dragons which was level 50+ and extremely hard to kill. They rewarded very good loot which was still good at level 60.

[ReznikShaman]

Help me help you ! you could check : Exploader : the explorer's multitool
I added interface map merger first version thanks to your idea, I may finish it today.

Thanks for the input reznik, where did you get this map ? I don't remember ever seeing zul aman there : o
Is it in some files ?
And yes hazz, reznik is very much productive on his exploration wiki (in polish). We should maybe start one in english here too?

MPQ of the 0.5.3 client contains this map. BTW Czech, isn't Polish :-)

[akspa420]

It's interesting, to say the least. As per the Azeroth WDT file, converted to 3.3.5, it lists an adt tile that doesn't exist - 35,20. This tile would have been more of the Dragon Isles terrain. If you venture up to that part of the Azeroth map in Noggit, there are blanked tiles starting at 41,21-43,22. This would have corresponded roughly to the original zone for Zul'Aman. By the time of 0.5.3, they shifted a lot of the world around, but the shadowy outline of the Dragon Isles can be seen in adjoining tiles, indicating that it had either been a very recent removal by 0.5.3.

I'm curious to see if we ever get to see a variant of the Dragon Isles in a later xpac, given the odd tie to the Sea that the original artwork seemed to indicate (I suspect that it is something to do with a yet-undisclosed old god). Seeing as the Emerald Dream was finally implemented in one way or another, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the secrets are revealed (right?)...

[BloodMagic]

lol this dragon isles are nice ))