Cheap WoW WOTLK Classic Gold| Location | Abyssal Maw |
| Instance info | |
|---|---|
| Type | Dungeon |
| Advised level | 85 |
| Minimum level |
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| Player limit |
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The Abyssal Maw is a scrapped instance from World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, originally planned for patch 4.1 alongside the Firelands raid. The unused entrance hallway exists next to the Throne of the Tides.
It was initially pushed back to patch 4.2 along with the Firelands, then scrapped entirely to focus patch 4.2 entirely on the Firelands, reasoning that for the time being Throne of the Tides is a good ending to the Vashj'ir storyline.
However, fans have noted that it ends on a vague (and hard to see) cliffhanger where Ozumat kidnaps Neptulon. In regards to this at the BlizzCon 2011 World of Warcraft Lore and Story Q&A panel, Metzen proceeded to dodge the question with jokes about "Neptulon's tryst with Ozumat" and said that it was a hard question and that a "damn mess is what it was."
The fights would have taken place inside a third shelled demigod that had been corrupted by the naga. Ghostcrawler says that "It was three bosses inside Nespirah, with no unique art," though earlier previews described the dungeon as multiple raised underwater plateaus above a chasm.
The Abyssal maw dungeon was scrapped because the storyline and setting was not convincing and fitting.
While it was originally announced as a 5-man, later statements suggested it may have been changed to a raid before getting scrapped.
Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, WoW's lead systems designer, talked about the Abyssal Maw during Blizzard's Cataclysm post-mortem blog series.