Spooncraft

I received a tip today via email regarding my recent post on the leaked image of the Howling Fjord map. Nothing has been officially released by Blizzard proper but I have pretty good reason to believe that this is legit.

First off the screenshot of the map is real. The current test zone is in fact the Howling Fjord. It makes sense as well in that the Howling Fjord is one of the two possible starting areas where Lv. 70 players will gain access to Northrend. This was designed by Blizzard so that there would not be a massive bottleneck like in Hellfire Peninsula (when Burning Crusade launched) and there won’t be such fierce competition over quest targets and terrible lag.

As well we have been discussing what the next big money sink is going to be. Blizzard has stated that they have no plans to add a new mount skill and I like that. It doesn’t even make sense logistically to add another level of riding skill if we already have epic land and flight covered. The tipster confirmed to me that as of right now the biggest money sink will be building defenses for towns. This idea has me very excited as it would mean Blizzard might be leaning towards more city-siege type situations between factions like the old Tarren Mill vs Southshore battles. As well from Blizzcon and other sources we know that Valgard is under constant attack by the Vykrul (Valgard being the Alliance town of entry in the Howling Fjord) and so it would make sense that with the new feature of destructable buildings and siege weapons, having to sink money into fortifying your town/quest hub makes perfect sense.

The last thing mentioned was gear. All the quality gear is essentially reputation based and instance drops. It’s a little vague but with such a strict NDA in effect I am grateful for any information at all really. Left to speculate I think that aside from Tier tokens, we might be seeing more of the Sunwell Plateau system for gear. Given the proper reputation you can take a drop from an instance, and then turn it in for something else at the proper NPC for that faction aligned with the instance. Think Honor Hold or Thrallmar, you get a drop from Ramparts and can turn it in for something else in town if you’re honored of whatever.

Very interesting ideas folks. Stay tuned!