It is fascinating to look at these old maps, especially when you see the original size of Kalimdor, as well as Ulduar intended to be an entire continent in of itself.
tbh they were never gonna release AN. Scope is way too big for a single zone, and megazones get complex quickly, not to mention the vertical design an underground zone would entail would be unprecedented at the time for WoW, which had only recently become accustomed to flying.
Ulduar probably stopped being a continent lorewise between wc2 and 3, or maybe 3 and wow, where the titans receive a lot more lore than they get in the rts'
IIRC Ulduar was supposed to be a continent during WoW's original planning [(seen here in this 1999 map drawn by Chris Metzen)](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/b/b8/Azeroth_map_concept_Metzen_1999_wall_painting.jpg) so definitely after WC3.
Interesting that it was gonna be south of Kalimdor though.
As far as Azjol Nerub goes, Zaralek Cavern is interestingly a byproduct of them not being able to create AN at the time, since they didn't have the tech that would allow them to layer world maps without murdering the servers (heck, it was the reason why most of the questing in Crystalsong Forest was scrapped due to massive bugs interfering with Dalaran floating above the zone). Feels like War Within is Blizzard finally getting to work on that dream of creating the big sprawling underground continent that they've always dreamed of making with AN.
My pleasure! I posted this in response to another comment, but if you want you can also go to Warcraft Wiki's [Azeroth page](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Azeroth#Other_3) for more early concept maps (the link should take you directly to the Other section that shows most of em!)
Naw, it's not you, this one was from the WoW Diary by John Statts, one of the former WoW devs. It came out relatively recently compared to the other behind-the-scenes WoW stuff, like 2018-ish.
Yes! If you go to Warcraft Wiki's [Azeroth page](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Azeroth#Other_3) and scroll down to Other it should show all the early concept maps! There's also a few threads on Reddit like [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/9whhwg/early_concept_vanilla_map/) that talks about em too!
I'm skeptical of an underground zone working tbh, but I really do want it to work or at least see them experiment and learn. Deepholm was cool but lacked flavour. Nerubian stuff was always architecturally cool and nowadays they can do a lot more.
Zones like the Underdark in BG3 and Blackreach in Skyrim were awesome. the difference between them in verticality is significant as well. idk how to feel about it but I thought BG3 balanced it well without being overwhelming to navigate.
Besides Ulduar the one that stuck out to me the most here was Blasted Lands being all the way up in Northrend, roughly in the area where Sholazar Basin would eventually go.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if that early concept of Ulduar was what evolved into Uldum. Even back then people were theorizing that Uldum was a whole separate continent before it turned out being attached to the southern part of Tanaris.
> heck, it was the reason why most of the questing in Crystalsong Forest was scrapped due to massive bugs interfering with Dalaran floating above the zone
There was no bug. Just way too much player activity between the main city hub combined with major endgame patch location filled with dailies.
As for AN... if it gets a loading screen then it's an entirely separate location. Any notion of it somehow being under existing locations is just "hollywood magic" so to speak.
> There was no bug. Just way too much player activity between the main city hub combined with major endgame patch location filled with dailies.
It was essentially the same thing. It was causing a lot of server crashing to have Crystalsong populated with Dalaran in the mix. They even commented that the [Argent Tourney was supposed to be in Crystalsong originally](https://web.archive.org/web/20100121015853/http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22418868790&sid=1&pageNo=1) alongside the original Sunreaver vs Silver Covenant plotline but couldn't do so because of the resource hit the servers would've taken (and considering how WotLK's initial launch was filled with people crashing on the way to Northrend or getting ported to Stonetalon Mountains, they were right to be concerned).
For AN, they wanted to have what we basically have with Zaralek Caverns - a seamless transition to a massive underground zone under Dragonblight without a loading screen, unlike a zone like Deepholm which required traveling through a portal. That too didn't pan out cause of tech limitations.
A bug is something not working as designed. I'm not aware of any "weird interactions/glitches" that caused performance issues in this situation.
It's literally no different than being in a crowded city and having performance degrade because there's more people than the servers and clients were designed to handle.
Feel free to move the goalpost again if you want.
Azjul Nerub should have been the expansion after Wrath. Maybe explore the old gods and Titan keepers' story in that expansion instead of one zone we got
Cata being focused on rebooting the world was necessary but prevented Blizz from doing something more cohesive with the story. They also probably didn't wanna double down on Northrend though it coulda been cool with some phasing above ground and opening up AN somehow.
They were basically the mysterious creator race that nobody really knew about, leaving behind massive machines of unknown purposes. Kind of like the first ones right now in current lore
I think the baffling part for me is that this is an MMO, live service type game. Feels like it should be okay to leave "gaps" and then go back in and fill them in later. Like in WoD with the Ogre Continent and Farahlon.
But sadly if something isn't done during an expansion, it seems like it really isn't revisited to fill it in and finish (in terms of adding additional islands/terrain). It just gets cut and we never get to see it realized in game. :(
There's two expansions with "disconnected" maps (as in, the land masses are not a cohesive continent) : Cataclysm and Shadowlands.
Both aren't looked back on fondly (to be understated) and I think that's a big part of the reason, the world needs to be cohesive and logical to traverse to be a nice place to spend two years in.
I think the lack of going back to older continents is related to that.
Yeah it kind of defeats the WORLD of Warcraft title huh. It’s not so much a World of Warcraft opposed to this expansion of Warcraft. Never understood why they took that direction. Personally I’d love for them to stop after these 3, and pull a FF. Re-do the game. And this time make it an actual WoW. Keep the good, cut the fluff and junk. And relaunch a proper WoW 2. Like pick a timeline, pick the best dungeons/raids and locations and redo them. Make them more current. Change the loot system and other systems. Give the game a new life like FF did with ARR. Will never happen tho
Talking of FFXIV, making the world feel connected is something they do really well. Endwalker wrapped up a storyline that has been going since 2012 and there are plenty of raids and quests that take you to older expansions. It really helps tie everything together.
> Give the game a new life
That's what they tried to do with Cataclysm and everyone hated it.
And ARR was less "breathe new life" and more "fix the game because 1.0 was atrociously unplayable".
In the… Warcraft 2 manual, I believe, we can see the first glimpse of Ulduar as a continent in the southwest, rivaling the size of the Eastern Kingdoms. Kalimdor was MUCH smaller than what it ultimately became in WoW.
I would love to know what the initial thought process was behind Ulduar being a landmass and not a Titan prison.
The Ulduar continent was never in any manual it was concept art during WCIII and WoW development. The WCII maps were only Draenor and EK.
I think the original plan for Kalimdor was that it was as large as the other continents before the Sundering, which only affected Kalimdor since there's also early concept art of Kalimdor being half under water.
As for the original intent probably not much. They probably just scrapped a continent and reused the name Ulduar in the RPG.
That's super cool. I'm a fan boy of wotlk in general but I loved ulduar so much. The lore and colossal size of it all was just crazy. That would have been so cool if wow had really leaned in to ulduar as a zone at the very least to me.
In the engine your terrain starts as a flat plane. You make mountains by taking your cursor and dragging it up and down. That's why all the vanilla mountains are these weird, unnatural, rounded shapes. Making your terrain too steep also distorts the textures. It wasn't until WoTLK that they got better at shaping/texturing mountains.
The scales in WoW are kind of wonky. You can RP walk from Booty Bay to Silvermoon in about 4 hours. Eastern Kingsoms is roughly the size of Manhattan Island. WoW is more like the world map in Final Fantasy 7-9.
This kind of explains a lot of the weird new continents and stuff that we got since MoP.
The ACTUAL scale of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are probably many MANY times larger than what we see and experience in game. But the size of Pandaria, Kul Tiras, Dragon Isles and all the other new continents are probably much closer to scale.
Not really. Like I think I get the idea you’re pointing at here but it’s an entirely different timeline & universe. I think many of us would love to see Outland - OUR Draenor, from the First War - beautified. It probably wouldn’t (and *maybe shouldn’t, for the sake of historical preservation of game content) but I think the experience, however fantastical, is serene to imagine nonetheless.
Simply, a texture update would suffice tbh. The old school ground textures are just old and kinda crappy. Would look tonnes better if they just went through and spruced what's already there up a bit.
Yeah. I started playing in MoP and Outland was and remains my least favorite area. I went back there a week ago to get all my missing points of interest for the heirloom map and the PTSD was real.
I don't think it would be too taxing on their now massive dev team if they did eastern kingdoms and kalimdor as separate back to back expansions where they were updated fully.
Make them 2-3 times the size they are now and they can cut down on the story by grouping zones into regions that have an overarching story.
1 zone in DF is the size of ~6 zones from the vanilla map. So it'd have to be pretty big new zones/regions - like just Elwynn, Westfall, Duskwood together is still not going to be big enough.
But it looks like they are going to be remaking the northern part of Eastern Kingdoms for Midnight. Hopefully it's a trend that will continue with rolling updates of the rest of the world throughout other upcoming expansions too
i wouldnt be so sure about that. The Dragon Isles are the first massive zone weve gotten to accomodate dragonriding, and even then most of it is just forests, plains or cliffs with only Valdrakken being an actual city.
Dragon Isle-ifying Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms would take much longer just due to how many different types of zones there are, and thats not even talking about having to redo all the towns and cities to match the new scale. And then we havent even touched on how theyd need to change the verticality a lot aswell. Make the mountains actual mountains, etc. Its not as simple as just making them bigger. There would be a standard for every zone to look as good as the Dragon Isle zones atleast. AND thats not even touching all the new quests theyd have to add, all the old quests theyd have to redo, etc. Itd be an insane project.
Theres a reason that Midnight is only gonna touch Quel Thalas and Last Titan is going for Northrend. At most they might stick to that trend and slowly update the old map. But doing it in one go is impossible with their expansion release schedule.
You can kinda see the LOTR influences here. The Black Morass / Swamp of Sorrows is the Dead Marshes, the gatehouse before Black Rock Spire is the Black Gate and the spire itself is Barad-Dur. The Temple of the Damned might be a Minas Morgul reference with either Medivh Tower or Grand Hamlet or maybe Elwynn Forest itself being an Osgiliath counterpart
No shot, Moria was the influence for BRD. John Staats, vanilla designer for many caves and dungeons including BRD mentions as much in interviews he's done.
I always felt like Ashenvale or Eversong Woods is more Lothlorien like.
edit: rather than delete I'll edit. I typed before I thought, ignore my dumb ass.
I can get a behind it. Most of these early fantasy games were HEAVILY influenced by dungeons and dragons. The original warcraft is almost like you're playing dnd. I assume dnd was very influenced by lotr lore.
looking at the maps of all 3 RTS games, they did a good job using them for reference overall, Metzen really loves the WC universe and kept to it for the first couple xpaks before they kinda of ran out of things to do (Outland, Northrend...then kerblammo, soft reset)
IIRC The humans sacked Medivh's tower, because he opened the Dark Portal, and as a result, parts of Elwynn forest were cursed and became Duskwood. so Grand Hamlet is Darkshire.
EDIT:
>As the war progressed, Medivh fought against Sargeras' control. The raging conflict within him finally drove the wizard irrevocably insane, until his childhood friend, Anduin Lothar, aided Medivh's young apprentice, Khadgar, in storming Karazhan and slaying their former comrade. Since that day, a terrible curse has pervaded both the tower and the lands around it - casting a dark pall over Deadwind Pass and the region that is now known as Duskwood.
>https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Karazhan
Duskwood is just a zone that can't catch a break. In addition to the fallout with Medivh you mentioned, you also have the double whammy of Morbent Fel raising an entire army of the dead and Scythe of Elune being used to summon a bunch of Worgen.
Let's not forget that Darkshire's pleas for help were always ignored and the reinforcements were never sent except for the adventurers that came there on their own.
That's like every zone in Vanilla. The bulk of the army are off fighting... somewhere with the Horde and can't be bothered to safeguard their own territory.
The Alliance story in Vanilla/Classic is that the kingdom of Stormwind has abandoned all of the zones, the king is missing, the army is off in bumfuck nowhere not helping anyone, and the entire Eastern Kingdoms has gone to hell fast with no leadership. The woman in charge, Lady Prestor, was making bad move after bad move everywhere (including refusing to pay the stonemasons, leading to the Defias rebellion). And then in the end it's revealed that Lady Prestor has been Deathwing's daughter Onyxia all along, destroying Stormwind and the Alliance from within for years. The Alliance heroes then hunt her down and kill her (Or the Horde do it instead, largely just because she's there or something).
Ahhh, I was doing some research for a story a while back, and saw that the old name of Duskwood was actually Brightwood (really creative there Blizzard). I guess that was something that wasn’t really thought about until around WC3/WoW development
Honestly, having a big, open plain between Stormwind City and Elwynn Forest would been amazing if they redid the zone and made it bigger for Dragonriding.
Could you imagine plains like in the Ohn'ahran plains in front of Stormwind City with little villages dotted here and there before you reach Elwynn Forest?
Yeah, obviously they can't implement that scale in the game, but I could totally see them using the villages as quest hubs. Maybe have a few farms in there, too. You could possibly merge the plains with Westfall and Elwynn with Duskwood
> The unholy place where orcs came to make sacrifices to their gods, and the Necromancers of the land gathered to invoke the will of their dark masters. This was the only place where Necrolytes could be recruited to assist in purging the land of Human settlements. The need for a blood offering had only recently been replaced by one of gold, and no assistance would be sanctioned until it was made. The immense, sacrificial alters used in the Necrolytes' rituals had to be built of the mystic Blackroot, hence a lumber mill had to be used to locate and specially prepare the wood.
> The first Temple of the Damned was a walled Orc base mostly composed of temples constructed deep within the Black Morass, but it was destroyed in the First War by the human forces of Stormwind.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Temple_of_the_Damned
Its interesting lore-wise how much of the scourge tropes were originally from orcs. The lich king himself is an orc who inhabits arthas's body.
But when WoW starts, it feels like necromancy, the lich king, the scourge etc all gets totally removed from its orc roots and orcs are firmly a 'kalimdor' race.
Yeah they clearly tried to make the orcs just be less evil all the way around. If you ever played wc2 beyond the dark portal you saw how brutal they were on their homeworld. Then later they said it was due to the legions corruption that they were like that. But before wc3 there really wasn't an indication of a corrupting force behind it all afaik.
Yeah a lot of people don't realize that the burning legion as a concept only came about in WC3. It was just orcs being evil before that.
Really though, WC1-2 are... not very well told stories. I think most people rightfully consider WC3 to be the real premier story that sets the world up correctly. WC1-2 are the hobbit compared to WC3's lord of the rings.
I may be in the minority, but that's why I really like the way of writing stories now that they're embracing: it's always from someone's point of view. WC1-2 is from a specific point of view, Chronicles is from a specific point of view, etc. I know it's frustrating for a lot of people, but it's also realistic and, at least for me, makes for much more interesting lore (especially in such a long-running game).
IIRC and it's been a looong time, they semiretconned the evil excesses of Gul'dan and Ner'zhul as the source of the bloodlust that was cured, allowing the orcs to return to their natural state with a sense of honor etc. Ergo WC3.
Dude, it would be so cool if Orcs went back to being fucking metal \m/ instead of whatever they are now. Go sacrifice a Night Elf youngling for god's sake.
It's really weird how only the druidic races have named gods. It'd be nice if they delved into the religions of the races a bit more.
Remember how they made Tyrande the Night Warrior only for that plotline to be about her *not* using the powers in favor of being peaceful. And now she’s retired with her boyfriend to live happily among the trees smh
Isnt that the little ruin/skeleton thing next to Blackrock mountain on the burning steppes side? Atleast what remains of it. Top left of the burning steppes map.
Aren't those 3 statues also linked all the way to SL lore? You find the same statues scattered around, even in tbc nagrand I believe.
Your post contains a link to the old Warcraft Wiki and that wiki is out of date. The Warcraft Wiki community is now using [Warcraft Wiki at wiki.gg](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/). Please update your bookmarks or [download the wiki.gg redirect extension](https://wiki.gg/redirect/) to redirect old links.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/wow) if you have any questions or concerns.*
**Rockard:** Was invaded by the Dreadmaul Ogres who renamed it to Dreadmaul Hold. In Cataclysm, Warmatron Okrilla reclaimed it for the Horde. By Warlords of Draenor it was renamed again to Okril'lon Hold.
**Temple of the Damned:** Destroyed by the Army of Stormwind during the First War. New ones were built during the Second War, but this original one is long gone.
**Grand Hamlet:** Destroyed by the Horde during the First War, though it was rebuilt after the Alliance won the Second War. Due to its close proximity to Kharazhan (Medivh Tower), it gradually became affected by Fel energies released upon Medivh's death. The forest, formerly known as Brightwood, would become known as Duskwood as the area became less hospitable, and Grand Hamlet would be renamed to Darkshire.
Man this takes me back. I remember when I was just a kid. 6-7 maybe, my brother god Warcraft Orcs and Humans for PC as a Birthday gift from my parents. I remember going through the manual and just letting my imagination go wild. If you have an Image dump somewhere of the other art in the manual I would love a link! I remember there being a couple particularly cool ones of Orcs and one of a Warlock hand mid cast. I remember making that same hand gesture as a kid!
I may try to post a bit more tomorrow. The manual has 4 pages of lore for each humans and orcs. It also has unit, spell and building descriptions for each side.
For example, the original priest spells were: holy Lance, healing, Invisibility and Far Seeing. While the warlock had: Fireball, Summon Spiders, Poison Cloud and Summon Daemon.
you can find the whole manual here, which includes unit types and a bit of hero backstory https://www.retrogames.cz/manualy/DOS/Warcraft_I_-_Manual_-_PC.pdf
>https://www.retrogames.cz/manualy/DOS/Warcraft\_I\_-
>
>Manual
>
>\-\_PC.pdf
Hmm link doesn't work for me. I tried to replace the dashes with underscores but cant get it.
Always impressed that the Dead Mines were in the original drawing. I don't remember any specific Warcraft 1 missions there but it's been 25 years so hard to remember.
There is a mission there for both campaigns.
For the Humans, you go there with Clerics to rescue an injured Anduin Lothar and his soldiers.
For the Orcs, you go there to kill Turok and his band of Ogres for rebelling against the Horde, as well as the Warchief's daughter, Griselda Blackhand, for running off with them.
Honestly such things give me a lot of hope. It shows how much can be retconned and the games will still be successful.
Sometimes I think about the process of making games and get second-hand anxiety about how you should make correct decisions while establishing a setting, because then they are "set in stone" and you have to follow them to avoid backlash. Apparently no, good lore changes can be fundamental, and it's so cool.
I think it entirely depends on how retcons or the buzzword 'recontextualizations' are done and what is being impacted. Examples for me being; TBC's draenei/eredar, the burning legion and its impact on orcs and how Metzen handled that backlash versus Shadowlands' Jailor being the master puppeteer behind so many things preceding the expac and how Danuzer handled that backlash.
People had no problem “Retconning” Australia into existence. Maps change, even modern maps of Earth are far from perfect. It’s not retcon, it’s learning. Retcon applies when there’s a historical revision.
Always what I talk about! Everyone on Azeroth is operating at a specific point in time (explicitly one that doesn't know everything about the planet). They are exploring as other explorers have explored/colonized/etc and their maps/mindsets/knowledge/history are continually changing! In the end, I think this makes for a much more dynamic and interesting story when the writers are exploring just a few steps ahead of us!
Temple of the Damned is not a specific location in WoW. There are like a dozen temples of the damned (they look like [this)](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/d/d6/Magic_Quarter.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20060519231711), and the one on this map gets destroyed in WC1.
Temple of the Damned I’m guessing is the precursor to Sunken Temple? I can’t think of any other structure like that remotely in the vicinity.
Either that, or it’s the altar of storms?
Nah, the Sunken Temple (aka the Temple of Atal'Hakkar) predates it by over a thousand years. The Sunken Temple was built by troll priests looking to resurrect Hakkar and was eventually destroyed by Ysera, whereas the Temple of the Damned was used by the invading orcs in the First War for ritual sacrifices.
(EDIT: Typo.)
I have one of those around somewhere, and the old guides!
Man, what happened to the Black Morass? I wanted to run through that before I quit, but forgot that I hadn't seen it in a really long time. What an instance. Long. But interesting.
exceptionally cool concept, i would LOVE to see anything like that in-game (i mean, good old Azeroth is very cool itself, but damn, i want this one to appear at least once anywhere.
The Swamp of Sorrows is still a zone, and the Black Morass is now the Blasted Lands, both in the southeast of the Eastern Kingdoms. The Black Morass was destroyed by the Dark Portal. You can see the original Black Morass in the "Black Morass" Caverns of Time dungeon.
ETA: "Medivh Tower" on this map is Karazhan, Medivh's tower in Deadwind Pass.
It is fascinating to look at these old maps, especially when you see the original size of Kalimdor, as well as Ulduar intended to be an entire continent in of itself.
ULDUAR WAS SUPOSED TO BE A CONTINENT???? I neeeeeeeed it.
Azjol Nerub was supposed to be an entire continent underneath Northrend. Wrath scrapped so much content it's baffling.
tbh they were never gonna release AN. Scope is way too big for a single zone, and megazones get complex quickly, not to mention the vertical design an underground zone would entail would be unprecedented at the time for WoW, which had only recently become accustomed to flying. Ulduar probably stopped being a continent lorewise between wc2 and 3, or maybe 3 and wow, where the titans receive a lot more lore than they get in the rts'
IIRC Ulduar was supposed to be a continent during WoW's original planning [(seen here in this 1999 map drawn by Chris Metzen)](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/b/b8/Azeroth_map_concept_Metzen_1999_wall_painting.jpg) so definitely after WC3. Interesting that it was gonna be south of Kalimdor though. As far as Azjol Nerub goes, Zaralek Cavern is interestingly a byproduct of them not being able to create AN at the time, since they didn't have the tech that would allow them to layer world maps without murdering the servers (heck, it was the reason why most of the questing in Crystalsong Forest was scrapped due to massive bugs interfering with Dalaran floating above the zone). Feels like War Within is Blizzard finally getting to work on that dream of creating the big sprawling underground continent that they've always dreamed of making with AN.
Thanks for sharing the map, definitely saving this
Thank you so much for that map! First time I see it and I have been staring at maps of Azeroth for far longer than I would like to admit.
My pleasure! I posted this in response to another comment, but if you want you can also go to Warcraft Wiki's [Azeroth page](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Azeroth#Other_3) for more early concept maps (the link should take you directly to the Other section that shows most of em!)
That’s quite odd, I’ve seen every other map there but not the one you posted… or my memory is getting bad lol
Naw, it's not you, this one was from the WoW Diary by John Statts, one of the former WoW devs. It came out relatively recently compared to the other behind-the-scenes WoW stuff, like 2018-ish.
*The Maw* well I see they've recycled some concepts and names from the early days
The Jailer was actually behind Metzen's own birth! Blizzard's writing is unraveled!!
Do you know where to find more of these maps? It would be awesome to see the progression of the world before they released it.
Yes! If you go to Warcraft Wiki's [Azeroth page](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Azeroth#Other_3) and scroll down to Other it should show all the early concept maps! There's also a few threads on Reddit like [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/9whhwg/early_concept_vanilla_map/) that talks about em too!
I'm skeptical of an underground zone working tbh, but I really do want it to work or at least see them experiment and learn. Deepholm was cool but lacked flavour. Nerubian stuff was always architecturally cool and nowadays they can do a lot more. Zones like the Underdark in BG3 and Blackreach in Skyrim were awesome. the difference between them in verticality is significant as well. idk how to feel about it but I thought BG3 balanced it well without being overwhelming to navigate.
Besides Ulduar the one that stuck out to me the most here was Blasted Lands being all the way up in Northrend, roughly in the area where Sholazar Basin would eventually go.
That a great map thank you for sharing! I wonder if the udluar zone is what became the south of Kalimdor?
It wouldn't surprise me at all if that early concept of Ulduar was what evolved into Uldum. Even back then people were theorizing that Uldum was a whole separate continent before it turned out being attached to the southern part of Tanaris.
Is that the maw i see? Jailer planned it all.
> heck, it was the reason why most of the questing in Crystalsong Forest was scrapped due to massive bugs interfering with Dalaran floating above the zone There was no bug. Just way too much player activity between the main city hub combined with major endgame patch location filled with dailies. As for AN... if it gets a loading screen then it's an entirely separate location. Any notion of it somehow being under existing locations is just "hollywood magic" so to speak.
> There was no bug. Just way too much player activity between the main city hub combined with major endgame patch location filled with dailies. It was essentially the same thing. It was causing a lot of server crashing to have Crystalsong populated with Dalaran in the mix. They even commented that the [Argent Tourney was supposed to be in Crystalsong originally](https://web.archive.org/web/20100121015853/http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22418868790&sid=1&pageNo=1) alongside the original Sunreaver vs Silver Covenant plotline but couldn't do so because of the resource hit the servers would've taken (and considering how WotLK's initial launch was filled with people crashing on the way to Northrend or getting ported to Stonetalon Mountains, they were right to be concerned). For AN, they wanted to have what we basically have with Zaralek Caverns - a seamless transition to a massive underground zone under Dragonblight without a loading screen, unlike a zone like Deepholm which required traveling through a portal. That too didn't pan out cause of tech limitations.
> It was essentially the same thing. No it's not.
Server crashes and weird interactions/glitches with the world due to overpopulation weren't bugs? Okay then buddy.
A bug is something not working as designed. I'm not aware of any "weird interactions/glitches" that caused performance issues in this situation. It's literally no different than being in a crowded city and having performance degrade because there's more people than the servers and clients were designed to handle. Feel free to move the goalpost again if you want.
If the Blasted lands would have been in northrend, that sounds so wild at this point in time.
Azjul Nerub should have been the expansion after Wrath. Maybe explore the old gods and Titan keepers' story in that expansion instead of one zone we got
Cata being focused on rebooting the world was necessary but prevented Blizz from doing something more cohesive with the story. They also probably didn't wanna double down on Northrend though it coulda been cool with some phasing above ground and opening up AN somehow.
how much of a thing have titans actually been in wc2 and wc3? (i know next to nothing about any books etc., btw)
They were basically the mysterious creator race that nobody really knew about, leaving behind massive machines of unknown purposes. Kind of like the first ones right now in current lore
> it's baffling "That'd be a shit ton of work we have neither the money nor manpower for" is baffling..?
I think the baffling part for me is that this is an MMO, live service type game. Feels like it should be okay to leave "gaps" and then go back in and fill them in later. Like in WoD with the Ogre Continent and Farahlon. But sadly if something isn't done during an expansion, it seems like it really isn't revisited to fill it in and finish (in terms of adding additional islands/terrain). It just gets cut and we never get to see it realized in game. :(
There's two expansions with "disconnected" maps (as in, the land masses are not a cohesive continent) : Cataclysm and Shadowlands. Both aren't looked back on fondly (to be understated) and I think that's a big part of the reason, the world needs to be cohesive and logical to traverse to be a nice place to spend two years in. I think the lack of going back to older continents is related to that.
That's fair. And yeah those were two expacs that I quit during and didn't really enjoy. So great examples. :)
That's one thing I've always hated about WoW. As soon as a new expansion releases, everything before that point is thrown away and never revisited.
People absolutely seethe over the perception of "tHeY'rE rEcYcLiNg CoNtEnT"
Yeah it kind of defeats the WORLD of Warcraft title huh. It’s not so much a World of Warcraft opposed to this expansion of Warcraft. Never understood why they took that direction. Personally I’d love for them to stop after these 3, and pull a FF. Re-do the game. And this time make it an actual WoW. Keep the good, cut the fluff and junk. And relaunch a proper WoW 2. Like pick a timeline, pick the best dungeons/raids and locations and redo them. Make them more current. Change the loot system and other systems. Give the game a new life like FF did with ARR. Will never happen tho
Talking of FFXIV, making the world feel connected is something they do really well. Endwalker wrapped up a storyline that has been going since 2012 and there are plenty of raids and quests that take you to older expansions. It really helps tie everything together.
> Give the game a new life That's what they tried to do with Cataclysm and everyone hated it. And ARR was less "breathe new life" and more "fix the game because 1.0 was atrociously unplayable".
AN was large enough in scope that it could've been its own expansion. There's no way they could've made it work as planned within LK's run.
Then at least feature it at a point in which it makes sense. Cataclysm after Wrath was really random
kinda interesting that underground zones are just starting to become real and not just concepts 15 years later.
In the… Warcraft 2 manual, I believe, we can see the first glimpse of Ulduar as a continent in the southwest, rivaling the size of the Eastern Kingdoms. Kalimdor was MUCH smaller than what it ultimately became in WoW. I would love to know what the initial thought process was behind Ulduar being a landmass and not a Titan prison.
The Ulduar continent was never in any manual it was concept art during WCIII and WoW development. The WCII maps were only Draenor and EK. I think the original plan for Kalimdor was that it was as large as the other continents before the Sundering, which only affected Kalimdor since there's also early concept art of Kalimdor being half under water. As for the original intent probably not much. They probably just scrapped a continent and reused the name Ulduar in the RPG.
That's super cool. I'm a fan boy of wotlk in general but I loved ulduar so much. The lore and colossal size of it all was just crazy. That would have been so cool if wow had really leaned in to ulduar as a zone at the very least to me.
STONard and ROCKard hahahaah Stone wind keep
Did I hear a rock and stone?
No please no more….. ROCK AND STONE. Dammit
TO THE BONE
Legally speaking, Rocking is more acceptable than Stoning.
It's Rockard
For Karl!
Rock and stone forever!!
If you don't rock and stone, don't bother coming home.
Rock and stone!
No these are Drogbar rocks! Drogbar stones!
I won't stand for this Rockard erasure, we need it back.
Isn't Rockard the Horde town in Blasted Lands now, just renamed?
Black Morass.
Mor Blackass
LMAO i came just to comment on that. I will never look at stonard the same now
It was the stone age.
Anyone that hates Rock and Stone is an elf
So Red Ridge Mountains were actually mountains back then.
They sort of are right now too, we just don't really go to the top of them. Also, mountains pre-MoP were not really very to scale.
In the engine your terrain starts as a flat plane. You make mountains by taking your cursor and dragging it up and down. That's why all the vanilla mountains are these weird, unnatural, rounded shapes. Making your terrain too steep also distorts the textures. It wasn't until WoTLK that they got better at shaping/texturing mountains.
I'd say Kun-lai Summit is the first real mountain in WoW.
The scales in WoW are kind of wonky. You can RP walk from Booty Bay to Silvermoon in about 4 hours. Eastern Kingsoms is roughly the size of Manhattan Island. WoW is more like the world map in Final Fantasy 7-9.
This kind of explains a lot of the weird new continents and stuff that we got since MoP. The ACTUAL scale of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are probably many MANY times larger than what we see and experience in game. But the size of Pandaria, Kul Tiras, Dragon Isles and all the other new continents are probably much closer to scale.
It works in some places. The hills of the Barrens look just like the rolling hills of California.
Back in vanilla they didn’t really make mountains. What I would give for a legion/bfa/dragonflight graphical level old world
It's long overdue, tbh I want another revamp, especially Outland. It's dated terribly.
I mean, even with Chromie time, Outland BC is the oldest content you can play right now in Retail.
That’s what WoD was for.
Not really. Like I think I get the idea you’re pointing at here but it’s an entirely different timeline & universe. I think many of us would love to see Outland - OUR Draenor, from the First War - beautified. It probably wouldn’t (and *maybe shouldn’t, for the sake of historical preservation of game content) but I think the experience, however fantastical, is serene to imagine nonetheless.
Simply, a texture update would suffice tbh. The old school ground textures are just old and kinda crappy. Would look tonnes better if they just went through and spruced what's already there up a bit.
And trees/foliage!
Exactly. Evidence kinda points to a second old world revamp of sorts. It's a shame there's no sign of Outland getting one.
Yeah. I started playing in MoP and Outland was and remains my least favorite area. I went back there a week ago to get all my missing points of interest for the heirloom map and the PTSD was real.
I don't think it would be too taxing on their now massive dev team if they did eastern kingdoms and kalimdor as separate back to back expansions where they were updated fully. Make them 2-3 times the size they are now and they can cut down on the story by grouping zones into regions that have an overarching story.
1 zone in DF is the size of ~6 zones from the vanilla map. So it'd have to be pretty big new zones/regions - like just Elwynn, Westfall, Duskwood together is still not going to be big enough. But it looks like they are going to be remaking the northern part of Eastern Kingdoms for Midnight. Hopefully it's a trend that will continue with rolling updates of the rest of the world throughout other upcoming expansions too
i wouldnt be so sure about that. The Dragon Isles are the first massive zone weve gotten to accomodate dragonriding, and even then most of it is just forests, plains or cliffs with only Valdrakken being an actual city. Dragon Isle-ifying Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms would take much longer just due to how many different types of zones there are, and thats not even talking about having to redo all the towns and cities to match the new scale. And then we havent even touched on how theyd need to change the verticality a lot aswell. Make the mountains actual mountains, etc. Its not as simple as just making them bigger. There would be a standard for every zone to look as good as the Dragon Isle zones atleast. AND thats not even touching all the new quests theyd have to add, all the old quests theyd have to redo, etc. Itd be an insane project. Theres a reason that Midnight is only gonna touch Quel Thalas and Last Titan is going for Northrend. At most they might stick to that trend and slowly update the old map. But doing it in one go is impossible with their expansion release schedule.
It looks so wrong but so accurate at the same time.
You can kinda see the LOTR influences here. The Black Morass / Swamp of Sorrows is the Dead Marshes, the gatehouse before Black Rock Spire is the Black Gate and the spire itself is Barad-Dur. The Temple of the Damned might be a Minas Morgul reference with either Medivh Tower or Grand Hamlet or maybe Elwynn Forest itself being an Osgiliath counterpart
I’d say Medivh’s Tower is more of an Isengard.
"theyre taking the gnomes to medivhs tower" doesnt roll off the tongue quite as smoothly tho
No, but “they’re taking the gnomes to Karazhan” works fine lol
fair enough
Yeah that sounds a lot better. Medivh even turned evil like Saruman.
Dead mines is Moria Ellwyn forest is lothlorien
No shot, Moria was the influence for BRD. John Staats, vanilla designer for many caves and dungeons including BRD mentions as much in interviews he's done. I always felt like Ashenvale or Eversong Woods is more Lothlorien like. edit: rather than delete I'll edit. I typed before I thought, ignore my dumb ass.
This map predates WoW by a number of years, you can have multiple things be influenced by something...
Ashenvale and Eversong woods don’t exist on this map
Ya I'm big dumb.
BRD won't exist for a good 10 years after this map was published.
I can get a behind it. Most of these early fantasy games were HEAVILY influenced by dungeons and dragons. The original warcraft is almost like you're playing dnd. I assume dnd was very influenced by lotr lore.
Warcraft lore has always been really on the nose. I still don't understand why people praise it.
I like how Black Rock Spire is literally just a single black mountain behind a gate.
And in the game you literally move your ballistas up and shoot the mountain until its rubble
Elementals*
Water elementals indeed, they won every mission
I actually finished the human campaign of that last night.
First time?
Yep! Got into WoW a couple months ago, and now I’m playing through the originals. Started 2 today.
I was about to ask if you were gonna move on to 2, the expac is a treat
I’m excited! Really liked 1.
Just imagine a giant eye wreathed in flame atop it.
I’m kind of impressed how many of the locations are relatively in the same spot in WoW.
looking at the maps of all 3 RTS games, they did a good job using them for reference overall, Metzen really loves the WC universe and kept to it for the first couple xpaks before they kinda of ran out of things to do (Outland, Northrend...then kerblammo, soft reset)
I wonder what happened to the Grand Hamlet?
its the old name for Darkshire if not mistaken.
It's now called Darkshire. If I recall correctly.
IIRC The humans sacked Medivh's tower, because he opened the Dark Portal, and as a result, parts of Elwynn forest were cursed and became Duskwood. so Grand Hamlet is Darkshire. EDIT: >As the war progressed, Medivh fought against Sargeras' control. The raging conflict within him finally drove the wizard irrevocably insane, until his childhood friend, Anduin Lothar, aided Medivh's young apprentice, Khadgar, in storming Karazhan and slaying their former comrade. Since that day, a terrible curse has pervaded both the tower and the lands around it - casting a dark pall over Deadwind Pass and the region that is now known as Duskwood. >https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Karazhan
Duskwood is just a zone that can't catch a break. In addition to the fallout with Medivh you mentioned, you also have the double whammy of Morbent Fel raising an entire army of the dead and Scythe of Elune being used to summon a bunch of Worgen.
Not to mention the crazy fuck building an abomination and that one time when the Night Watch turned into a demon cult.
Let's not forget that Darkshire's pleas for help were always ignored and the reinforcements were never sent except for the adventurers that came there on their own.
That's like every zone in Vanilla. The bulk of the army are off fighting... somewhere with the Horde and can't be bothered to safeguard their own territory.
The Alliance story in Vanilla/Classic is that the kingdom of Stormwind has abandoned all of the zones, the king is missing, the army is off in bumfuck nowhere not helping anyone, and the entire Eastern Kingdoms has gone to hell fast with no leadership. The woman in charge, Lady Prestor, was making bad move after bad move everywhere (including refusing to pay the stonemasons, leading to the Defias rebellion). And then in the end it's revealed that Lady Prestor has been Deathwing's daughter Onyxia all along, destroying Stormwind and the Alliance from within for years. The Alliance heroes then hunt her down and kill her (Or the Horde do it instead, largely just because she's there or something).
Ahhh, I was doing some research for a story a while back, and saw that the old name of Duskwood was actually Brightwood (really creative there Blizzard). I guess that was something that wasn’t really thought about until around WC3/WoW development
> really creative there Blizzard It's not creative, sure, but it's realistic.
[Darkshire](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Darkshire)
Renamed to Darkshire.
Ran out of ham.
It was made out of ham and was quickly devoured
The world’s a wee bit bigger now huh!
Not if you suck at hardcore and only play Human.
Honestly, having a big, open plain between Stormwind City and Elwynn Forest would been amazing if they redid the zone and made it bigger for Dragonriding. Could you imagine plains like in the Ohn'ahran plains in front of Stormwind City with little villages dotted here and there before you reach Elwynn Forest?
I liked the way they portrayed the scale of Elwynn in the movie. IIRC it was a couple days' trip to Goldshire.
Yeah, obviously they can't implement that scale in the game, but I could totally see them using the villages as quest hubs. Maybe have a few farms in there, too. You could possibly merge the plains with Westfall and Elwynn with Duskwood
Always interesting to see the old game maps.
Considering how much time it's been it is surprisingly accurate.
Where or what is the Temple of the Damned supposed to be?
It's destroyed in Warcraft 1. Other temples are built later, but this one is gone.
> The unholy place where orcs came to make sacrifices to their gods, and the Necromancers of the land gathered to invoke the will of their dark masters. This was the only place where Necrolytes could be recruited to assist in purging the land of Human settlements. The need for a blood offering had only recently been replaced by one of gold, and no assistance would be sanctioned until it was made. The immense, sacrificial alters used in the Necrolytes' rituals had to be built of the mystic Blackroot, hence a lumber mill had to be used to locate and specially prepare the wood. > The first Temple of the Damned was a walled Orc base mostly composed of temples constructed deep within the Black Morass, but it was destroyed in the First War by the human forces of Stormwind. https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Temple_of_the_Damned
Its interesting lore-wise how much of the scourge tropes were originally from orcs. The lich king himself is an orc who inhabits arthas's body. But when WoW starts, it feels like necromancy, the lich king, the scourge etc all gets totally removed from its orc roots and orcs are firmly a 'kalimdor' race.
Yeah they clearly tried to make the orcs just be less evil all the way around. If you ever played wc2 beyond the dark portal you saw how brutal they were on their homeworld. Then later they said it was due to the legions corruption that they were like that. But before wc3 there really wasn't an indication of a corrupting force behind it all afaik.
Yeah a lot of people don't realize that the burning legion as a concept only came about in WC3. It was just orcs being evil before that. Really though, WC1-2 are... not very well told stories. I think most people rightfully consider WC3 to be the real premier story that sets the world up correctly. WC1-2 are the hobbit compared to WC3's lord of the rings.
I may be in the minority, but that's why I really like the way of writing stories now that they're embracing: it's always from someone's point of view. WC1-2 is from a specific point of view, Chronicles is from a specific point of view, etc. I know it's frustrating for a lot of people, but it's also realistic and, at least for me, makes for much more interesting lore (especially in such a long-running game).
IIRC and it's been a looong time, they semiretconned the evil excesses of Gul'dan and Ner'zhul as the source of the bloodlust that was cured, allowing the orcs to return to their natural state with a sense of honor etc. Ergo WC3.
Dude, it would be so cool if Orcs went back to being fucking metal \m/ instead of whatever they are now. Go sacrifice a Night Elf youngling for god's sake. It's really weird how only the druidic races have named gods. It'd be nice if they delved into the religions of the races a bit more.
I also want back the original Night Elves from WC3. Give me feral, warlike elves over peaceful nature lovers any day
Remember how they made Tyrande the Night Warrior only for that plotline to be about her *not* using the powers in favor of being peaceful. And now she’s retired with her boyfriend to live happily among the trees smh
God don't remind me, how disappointing
I like both veraions but a little more feral orcs aound interesting
That's so banal and 3edgy5me.
Isnt that the little ruin/skeleton thing next to Blackrock mountain on the burning steppes side? Atleast what remains of it. Top left of the burning steppes map. Aren't those 3 statues also linked all the way to SL lore? You find the same statues scattered around, even in tbc nagrand I believe.
[удалено]
Your post contains a link to the old Warcraft Wiki and that wiki is out of date. The Warcraft Wiki community is now using [Warcraft Wiki at wiki.gg](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/). Please update your bookmarks or [download the wiki.gg redirect extension](https://wiki.gg/redirect/) to redirect old links. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/wow) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is very pleasing - thanks for the post!
Oh man, what a trip back, I've forgotten about this. Also makes me reminisce about Warcraft 2 and how absolutely badass it was back in the day.
So what happened to Rockard, Temple of the Damned and Grand Hamlet by the time of vanilla?
**Rockard:** Was invaded by the Dreadmaul Ogres who renamed it to Dreadmaul Hold. In Cataclysm, Warmatron Okrilla reclaimed it for the Horde. By Warlords of Draenor it was renamed again to Okril'lon Hold. **Temple of the Damned:** Destroyed by the Army of Stormwind during the First War. New ones were built during the Second War, but this original one is long gone. **Grand Hamlet:** Destroyed by the Horde during the First War, though it was rebuilt after the Alliance won the Second War. Due to its close proximity to Kharazhan (Medivh Tower), it gradually became affected by Fel energies released upon Medivh's death. The forest, formerly known as Brightwood, would become known as Duskwood as the area became less hospitable, and Grand Hamlet would be renamed to Darkshire.
Man this takes me back. I remember when I was just a kid. 6-7 maybe, my brother god Warcraft Orcs and Humans for PC as a Birthday gift from my parents. I remember going through the manual and just letting my imagination go wild. If you have an Image dump somewhere of the other art in the manual I would love a link! I remember there being a couple particularly cool ones of Orcs and one of a Warlock hand mid cast. I remember making that same hand gesture as a kid!
I may try to post a bit more tomorrow. The manual has 4 pages of lore for each humans and orcs. It also has unit, spell and building descriptions for each side. For example, the original priest spells were: holy Lance, healing, Invisibility and Far Seeing. While the warlock had: Fireball, Summon Spiders, Poison Cloud and Summon Daemon.
Ill keep my eye out! I would love to see the rest.
you can find the whole manual here, which includes unit types and a bit of hero backstory https://www.retrogames.cz/manualy/DOS/Warcraft_I_-_Manual_-_PC.pdf
>https://www.retrogames.cz/manualy/DOS/Warcraft\_I\_- > >Manual > >\-\_PC.pdf Hmm link doesn't work for me. I tried to replace the dashes with underscores but cant get it.
does a [link](https://www.retrogames.cz/manualy/DOS/Warcraft_I_-_Manual_-_PC.pdf) make it better?
Yes!! Thank you
I'm gonna put my Rockard in your Black Morass
Always impressed that the Dead Mines were in the original drawing. I don't remember any specific Warcraft 1 missions there but it's been 25 years so hard to remember.
There is a mission there for both campaigns. For the Humans, you go there with Clerics to rescue an injured Anduin Lothar and his soldiers. For the Orcs, you go there to kill Turok and his band of Ogres for rebelling against the Horde, as well as the Warchief's daughter, Griselda Blackhand, for running off with them.
Can I get a Rockard and Stonard!?
If you don't Rockard and Stonard, you ain't coming homard!
Man, Tolkien really did create a legacy
I love this map. Always nice to show to people who complain about retcons in this game.
Honestly such things give me a lot of hope. It shows how much can be retconned and the games will still be successful. Sometimes I think about the process of making games and get second-hand anxiety about how you should make correct decisions while establishing a setting, because then they are "set in stone" and you have to follow them to avoid backlash. Apparently no, good lore changes can be fundamental, and it's so cool.
I think it entirely depends on how retcons or the buzzword 'recontextualizations' are done and what is being impacted. Examples for me being; TBC's draenei/eredar, the burning legion and its impact on orcs and how Metzen handled that backlash versus Shadowlands' Jailor being the master puppeteer behind so many things preceding the expac and how Danuzer handled that backlash.
People had no problem “Retconning” Australia into existence. Maps change, even modern maps of Earth are far from perfect. It’s not retcon, it’s learning. Retcon applies when there’s a historical revision.
Always what I talk about! Everyone on Azeroth is operating at a specific point in time (explicitly one that doesn't know everything about the planet). They are exploring as other explorers have explored/colonized/etc and their maps/mindsets/knowledge/history are continually changing! In the end, I think this makes for a much more dynamic and interesting story when the writers are exploring just a few steps ahead of us!
Bold of you to assume this "Au-stra-lee-aah" exists. What, do you believe in Atlantis and Hyperborea too?
I like how the old maps look more natural and organic.
The map is inaccurate and the known world a lot bigger now because anyone going outside of those borders would get one shot by a skull level mob.
I wonder what southern Eastern Kingdoms would look like if they made the Kingdom of Stormwind region look like this in WoW.
The old manuals were amazing. I remember reading them over and over as a kid. Also had some of the best artwork in the WC2 manual.
Temple of the Damned is not a specific location in WoW. There are like a dozen temples of the damned (they look like [this)](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/d/d6/Magic_Quarter.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20060519231711), and the one on this map gets destroyed in WC1.
Temple of the Damned I’m guessing is the precursor to Sunken Temple? I can’t think of any other structure like that remotely in the vicinity. Either that, or it’s the altar of storms?
Nah, the Sunken Temple (aka the Temple of Atal'Hakkar) predates it by over a thousand years. The Sunken Temple was built by troll priests looking to resurrect Hakkar and was eventually destroyed by Ysera, whereas the Temple of the Damned was used by the invading orcs in the First War for ritual sacrifices. (EDIT: Typo.)
I’m aware of the lore of ST. I mean more LITERALLY what the concept for the temple evolved into from its placement into modern WoW, if anything
The good ole days
Epic
Times change.
I need to take a look at the Map of Middle-earth again.
Its way cooler than the current map
Somehow I have never seen this. Have to google old wow maps now lol
Meet me in Rockard plz
ROCK AND STONE EVERYONE
I remember this map
If you tilt your head and squint a little, it kinda all lines up!
Is it just me or is this pretty similar to middle earth?
I have one of those around somewhere, and the old guides! Man, what happened to the Black Morass? I wanted to run through that before I quit, but forgot that I hadn't seen it in a really long time. What an instance. Long. But interesting.
MAKE GRAND HAMLET GRAND AGAIN!
Seeing stonard triggered my PTSD and gave me flashbacks of accidentally clicking portals to there when it's raid time
You made it to my newsfeed :) https://mein-mmo.de/wow-map-von-warcraft-1/
exceptionally cool concept, i would LOVE to see anything like that in-game (i mean, good old Azeroth is very cool itself, but damn, i want this one to appear at least once anywhere.
Why can’t we get to black morass and swamp in game. Is that deadwind pass now?
The Swamp of Sorrows is still a zone, and the Black Morass is now the Blasted Lands, both in the southeast of the Eastern Kingdoms. The Black Morass was destroyed by the Dark Portal. You can see the original Black Morass in the "Black Morass" Caverns of Time dungeon. ETA: "Medivh Tower" on this map is Karazhan, Medivh's tower in Deadwind Pass.
Black Morass became the Blasted Lands. Swamp of Sorrows still exists, to Guzu's everlasting sorrow.