Will Coerthas ever return to normal?

It looks like the issue of the Dragonsong War will be resolved within the next few patches, but there's still the matter of the region's current climate. Throughout the MSQ/ sidequests, it's been mentioned that the cold weather wrought by the Calamity has been as much a hindrance on their lives as their fight with the Dravanians, yet I wonder if we'll ever see this rectified?

It's true that the cold will be easier to deal with once the dragons are out the way, but leaving Coerthas as it is once the war is over would make things feel unfinished, somehow... though I don't see the devs taking out the only snowy region the game has.

Do you think Coerthas will stay this way forever?

It was horrible they made Coerthas the snow zone to begin with, it was one of the most beautiful zones in v1 and they go and muck it up. It felt forced and out of place too from a lore perspective imo.

But since the snow is specifically spoken about in the msq there is no way they will remove it, at least from central and western Coerthas. We may get some of the old beauty back in southern and eastern but I am not holding my breath that we will even get these zones period, much less them being snow free since we got so few new zones in HW. I was hoping that they would release new zones in the patches to expand the areas we currently have, but nope.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

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It's possible that they intend for Ala Mhigo and the surrounding areas to look similar to how Coerthas did originally. Or at least that's my hope.

I don't mind all the snow and ice throughout Coerthas though. It has a certain charm to it and it 'fits' the gritty nature of Ishgard. I do agree that it'd be nice to have new zones show up in major content patches to expand the game world though.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

Do you think Coerthas will stay this way forever?

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From a lore standpoint, I personally choose to see the weather anomaly in Coerthas as something similar to a nuclear/atomic winter, just on a fantasy scale. Instead of persistent smoke and ash driving down temperatures, we have a persistent aetherical disturbance of some kind.

If that's the case, then this wouldn't be permanent, but it would be long lasting. Once the land has had requisite time to heal the temperatures and weather would eventually return to normal; however that process could take decades, possibly longer depending on how many other factors are in play. Wanton destruction or repeated primal summoning would likely sustain the effect longer, as both tend to cause undue stress on the land and throw extra pollutants (such as smoke/ash) into the sky.

From a technical standpoint, I don't see them changing the visual design of Coerthas anytime soon. Not only would it be a royal pain in the butt to reprogram an entire region's visual aesthetic, but, as you said, it's also the only snowy area in the game. SE will probably want to hold onto Coerthas for a good long time. If my theory about it being similar to a nuclear winter (or something with similar extended consequences) is true, then SE could run with it as an excuse to keep the region cold and snowy for practically as long as they wanted. I wouldn't be surprised if the snows only finally started to clear at the very end of the FFXIV lifespan, when the game is officially being put out to pasture. It would be a nice, hopeful, way of ending the game by leaving the world in better shape then when we first started our adventures.

I'm all for having parts of Coerthas being the beautiful craggy green pastures they were in 1.0 (especially if they bring back that music <3)

I was actually talking to a friend of mine about all the changes from 1.0 to 2.0 and made this image to show a rough estimate of what we have access to now - http://imgur.com/28dFXIc. There's still plenty of Coerthas that they could change back, but according to Moose in this thread, some of the currently unused areas of Coerthas might be up in the sky now. :(

Edit: Was just looking over a 1.0 Coerthas map and saw a region labeled "Wyrmking's Perch" a little north of Dusk Vigil. Any word on what that was supposed to be? Are any of Midgardsormr's brood called the "Wyrmking"? (Labeled 1.0 map for anyone curious)

Devil's advocate: parts of La Noscea (and also the Dravanian Hinterlands!) already fill the plains-style-geography niche that a Green Coerthas would fit into, and Snowy Coerthas makes for a more distinct region vis-a-vis the rest of Eorzea.

I wouldn't mind see the Eastern Highlands and the Lowlands at some point, though. It might be nice to see the transitional geography between them and Mor Dhona/the Shroud.

Nope, because it looks too cool. (And it would be too much effort to rework zones and content within zones)

The situation in Coerthas is the result of an Umbral Calamity. I'd expect the situation to remain the same until the world is reconfigured by the NEXT Umbral Calamity. Which likely won't occur within the scope of this game (and, in fact, since we're Great Heroes it wouldn't surprise me if the game eventually leads us up to putting an end to Calamities in general).

In terms of design Coerthas is intergrated as being cold and mentioned via npc's and story who even dress for the occasion so it would be a bit odd to be in a sunny highland with npc's mentioning the cold and snow.
It would have to be a instanced area which is a whole bucket of not-gonna-happen issues and story wise it will probably take decades to a generation for the weather to return to normal eitherway.
I would prefer East Coerthas instead added as a transitional area with mostly green pastures. I much prefer the green highland and stone farm look from 1.0 and the music gave it a wonderful rustic countryside feel I sorely miss as well as areas like Owl's Nest.
The lack of landmass for Ishgard (even with West Coerthas which is just tundra and the Falcon's nest) just gives it less presence for me in spite of it's suggest military strength.

When you have a significant gravitational pull suddenly encompass your planetary mass instead, you can expect some weather changes to be the least of your issues.
One could derive that Corethas was chilly before Dalamud was placed up there, and it's returned to it's natural state after many thousands of years.

I don't expect us to be seeing the greenlands anymore there. :(

I'll second King, here. Coerthas in 1.0 seemed to me more like a snowless tundra than anything rather than sweeping, warm plains. The snow is actually more likely an imbalance of water aether that is freezing once it hits the already-frigid temperatures. Or, rather, a re-balancing of water aether that was disrupted by Dalamud and the Crystal Tower. I'd wager that Coerthas was always cold, and even colder pre-Allagan meddling.

That being said, though, I dearly, dearly miss 1.0 Coerthas. Those bleak plains were some of my favorite for exploring (inb4 THEY ALL LOOKED THE SAME LOLOLOL).

I could see that Ishgard might do like a reclamation project - Look at the abandoned fortress north of town. I could see a new dungeon crawl where they're trying to clean it up much like The Lost City of Andapor(HM) and Gridania's efforts to reclaim it - It's a tactical stronghold and could be pivotal in dealing with a Garlean attack.

There's also something that's been bugging me - there's a large ship frozen in the middle of the lake - The North Star, and what bothers me is that it's just... sitting there, all immaculate and frozen in the lake. I could see them trying to either reclaim it or turn it into some kind of raid or new dungeon. Could be some time-lost precious cargo and the ship happens to be carrying it, only to find that something else lurks below the levels of the ship.

Or they might SOMEHOW breathe life into the lake once more, but somehow keep the snowy tundra intact.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

When you have a significant gravitational pull suddenly encompass your planetary mass instead, you can expect some weather changes to be the least of your issues.

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On that note, I'm surprised we haven't heard of any further reaching effects of Dalamud's fall. A moon fell within the atmosphere before exploding into a billion pieces and ceasing to exist. If the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun dictate the tides of the planet, why did we not hear of any crazy tsunamis or similar disasters? Strictly speaking, a large portion of Limsa should have undergone dramatic changes as well (aside from the apparent shrapnel damage), not to mention what ever catastrophes occurred across the sea. I feel for whatever island nations might be on Hydaelyn, because they would have probably been utterly destroyed and drowned as a result of such an event ... which would have made for a pretty cool dungeon or something.

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Originally Posted by Februs

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Aside from such consequences usually not glossed over/not thought of in much of fiction, the reasoning for why it isn't as bad as it should be is probably Allagan related. They put the thing up there, wouldn't surprise me if the reasoning goes that (with the help of the Crystal Tower) they were able to minimize the effect of the planet suddenly having two moons instead of one and its return ultimately ended up being less damaging as far as climate goes because of it.

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Originally Posted by Februs

On that note, I'm surprised we haven't heard of any further reaching effects of Dalamud's fall.

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I think part of that goes back to something I mentioned in another thread - I think part of the event was essentially a redistribution of the massive amounts of aether in play following Louisoix's attempt at resealing Bahamut and his subsequent actions as Phoenix.

There are references to the land being healed, at least partially, as well as changed in unexpected ways...which could certainly be attributed to aether being poured back into the land.

Also, Dalamud was very much the lesser moon - it's large, but it's more like a large asteroid (you could probably extrapolate a rough estimate of the size via Bahamut's hand from T5, actually...I've heard someone did and put Bahamut at around 1.9km tall, which puts Dalamud between 5km and 10km in diameter...our own moon is 3,474km in diameter, for reference) than a full fledged moon...and since Eorzea's main big moon is still in the sky, I'd bet that's why you didn't hear much in the way of the expected natural disasters that would of course follow such a moon descending and then disappearing.

You need to remember as well that Dalamud was incredibly small. We couldn't even see it in the sky until they pointed it out to us. So like Celie said there is no way it could have had any effect on magnetism or weather. I think it would be safe to think of it more like a weather or communications satellite in the way it would effect the atmosphere

Here is a reference for how we saw Dalamud through the stages of v1, as you can see it was small and waaaay out there.

http://i.imgur.com/YRUEAX0.jpg

There's one way we can see it in its original state. Just wait a few years, because there's one trope that never fails to show up eventually: TIME TRAVEL!!!! :D TO THE DELOREAN! Or Atomos.... Whatever.

Yeah, Dalamud was WAY too small to have any effect on weather or tides just from its gravitational pull alone. However, it's possible that one of its functions up there was to keep Coerthas warm, for some unknown Allagan reason. Once it stopped performing that function, Coerthas cooled off again.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Yeah, Dalamud was WAY too small to have any effect on weather or tides just from its gravitational pull alone. However, it's possible that one of its functions up there was to keep Coerthas warm, for some unknown Allagan reason. Once it stopped performing that function, Coerthas cooled off again.

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Wouldn't that suggest a more gradual process to the cooling as the region lost the heat? From the accounts that we do have, it was a sudden shift more like a snap freeze.

There's also how Dalamud was described as essentially dormant until Nael van Darnus and crew managed to awaken it via the Meteor project...plus how it was designed as an additional power source for the Crystal Tower. Not sure they would also make it a source of generating heat in the Coerthas region (which would probably take additional Allagan technology in the area...and the only Allagan tech I've heard of in the area are the pieces of Dalamud that landed there.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

When you have a significant gravitational pull suddenly encompass your planetary mass instead, you can expect some weather changes to be the least of your issues.
One could derive that Corethas was chilly before Dalamud was placed up there, and it's returned to it's natural state after many thousands of years.

I don't expect us to be seeing the greenlands anymore there. :(

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I always thought Coerthas was meant to be a mirror of the Scottish highlands. Freezing and plenty of snow in winter, with cooler, moderate temperatures the rest of the year.

Either part of Coerthas is fine, or Xelphatol will be visually similar to 1.0s Coerthas, since the Howling Eye remains untouched by winter...

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

Aside from such consequences usually not glossed over/not thought of in much of fiction, the reasoning for why it isn't as bad as it should be is probably Allagan related. They put the thing up there, wouldn't surprise me if the reasoning goes that (with the help of the Crystal Tower) they were able to minimize the effect of the planet suddenly having two moons instead of one and its return ultimately ended up being less damaging as far as climate goes because of it.

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Didn't they always have two moons? I seem to remember something about them converting Dalamud into Bahamuts prison, rather than building the satellite themselves... At the very least, one of the Allagan Runestones depicts Dalamud, and it really shouldn't if they built it...

I also doubt, given the fantasy setting, that the climate is controlled by much more than aether... I doubt the moon does anything for the tides and I doubt Dalamud had any impact outside throwing the aether out of whack... Coerthas is a frozen wasteland now because the Calamity disturbed the aether and Coerthas lucked out with a bunch of ice-aspected aether floating around...

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Originally Posted by Februs

On that note, I'm surprised we haven't heard of any further reaching effects of Dalamud's fall. A moon fell within the atmosphere before exploding into a billion pieces and ceasing to exist. If the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun dictate the tides of the planet, why did we not hear of any crazy tsunamis or similar disasters? Strictly speaking, a large portion of Limsa should have undergone dramatic changes as well (aside from the apparent shrapnel damage), not to mention what ever catastrophes occurred across the sea. I feel for whatever island nations might be on Hydaelyn, because they would have probably been utterly destroyed and drowned as a result of such an event ... which would have made for a pretty cool dungeon or something.

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Lower La Noscea was ravaged by a tsumani, which is why they had to build a bridge to reconnect Gods' Grip to Vylbrand. Not to mention the rift along the Nym River in Middle La Noscea.

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Originally Posted by Hinoto-no-Ryuji

I wouldn't mind see the Eastern Highlands and the Lowlands at some point, though. It might be nice to see the transitional geography between them and Mor Dhona/the Shroud.

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The Fields of Glory PvP Zone is the Coerthas Eastern Lowlands.

You know, ever since 2.00 came and people were sad that none of Coerthas was still the Rocky Mountains of Eorzea, I've been watching for them to seize an opportunity to give just one zone of it back. Clearly there's a niche of people that don't want to give up on it, right? (I've been pushed back to sitting on the fence, myself.)

We got the central highlands so we could get into Ishgard at all, but that was snow. And we got the western highlands back with Ishgard, but they served as a frozen, heretic-and-dragon-laden wasteland barring travel to Dravania, which meant worse snow.

Then we got back the eastern lowlands, which connect to the shroud, in the form of PVP. I assume that means that they just didn't have anything better to do with it. That's also made me more or less give up on seeing the west Shroud, which stood between the western highlands and the central Shoud. Even though you can see it from Camp Tranquil, even though it's in the concept art, it doesn't look like anything too important can be done with it so isolated. Though, we have a La Noscea PVP, a Thanalan PVP, and now a Coerthas PVP. West Shroud PVP...?

Anyroad.

That leaves the central lowlands, which you'll notice we skip right over between leaving the central highlands and arriving in Revenant's Toll, similar to how we skip over southern Mor Dhona (Brittlebark and Silvertear Falls) when we come in from northern Thanalan. Doesn't seem likely we'll get those back in open-world form, from our current point of view (but you never know!). Even the beast tribe regions seem to be in the process of being funneled into dungeons so we can accelerate the movement out of Eorzea (starting with Xelphatol). (But you never know!)

Aaand that leaves the eastern highlands, which go ... vaguely east. In the direction of Xelphatol and Ala Mhigo.

HAS THE TIME COME!?

Who from the "gimme dat old Coerthas" camp is willing to get their hopes up, again? lol

My hopes are always up. Let's not forget when we visit the Howling Eye in the early MSQ (Lv44ish) it's still lush and green--seems like a candidate for "old Coerthas" to me!

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

You know, ever since 2.00 came and people were sad that none of Coerthas was still the Rocky Mountains of Eorzea, I've been watching for them to seize an opportunity to give just one zone of it back. Clearly there's a niche of people that don't want to give up on it, right? (I've been pushed back to sitting on the fence, myself.)

We got the central highlands so we could get into Ishgard at all, but that was snow. And we got the western highlands back with Ishgard, but they served as a frozen, heretic-and-dragon-laden wasteland barring travel to Dravania, which meant worse snow.

Then we got back the eastern lowlands, which connect to the shroud, in the form of PVP. I assume that means that they just didn't have anything better to do with it. That's also made me more or less give up on seeing the west Shroud, which stood between the western highlands and the central Shoud. Even though you can see it from Camp Tranquil, even though it's in the concept art, it doesn't look like anything too important can be done with it so isolated. Though, we have a La Noscea PVP, a Thanalan PVP, and now a Coerthas PVP. West Shroud PVP...?

Aneroid.

That leaves the central lowlands, which you'll notice we skip right over between leaving the central highlands and arriving in Revenant's Toll, similar to how we skip over southern Mor Dhona (Brittlebark and Silvertear Falls) when we come in from northern Thanalan. Doesn't seem likely we'll get those back in open-world form, from our current point of view (but you never know!). Even the beast tribe regions seem to be in the process of being funneled into dungeons so we can accelerate the movement out of Eorzea (starting with Xelphatol). (But you never know!)

Aaand that leaves the eastern highlands, which go ... vaguely east. In the direction of Xelphatol and Ala Mhigo.

HAS THE TIME COME!?

Who from the "gimme dat old Coerthas" camp is willing to get their hopes up, again? lol

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For some reason though Anonymoose SE keeps calling the PVP zone Coerthas Eastern Highlands instead of lowlands. Is it possible its just a typo or mistranslation? A dev has never responded to any thread that its mentioned in even threads I've commented on for it. Which makes me wonder if we will get the Highlands at some point or along with many other zones it will be forgotten.

On topic:
I feel like we were given the Hinterlands as a representation of the old coerthas. Its green, has mountains and where Alexander is currently looks VERY similar to the old Ewe Lake. But I'm still holding out hope for a 1.0 coerthas somewhere else ingame one day!!

Old concept images for Coerthas Central Highlands actually had the snow being a gradual thing... South of the map was meant to be more green, though I guess with the scope of 2.0 maps that wasn't going to make much sense... Something the size of Western Highlands might have worked... Can get a sense of climbing a mountain with a zone that size, a gradual change in climate would work better as a result... Can always do that with Central Lowlands, yes we skip over it, but that could easily just be because that path is fairly boring and sidesteps much of the zone... Take West Shroud, there is obviously something going on there, but it seems entirely reasonable that our path from Central Shroud to North Shroud would go around it, not through it...

With Xelphatol being a dungeon though, I think I'm about ready to give up on the open world content in this game... As much as I love something like Dravanian Forelands, and want every region of Eorzea to be treated like that... They didn't do much with the area... Open world content in this game is just woefully lacking... There's some nice lore to be had with things like the sightseeing log, but even that could be so much more... Forelands has plenty of ruins hidden away, that could all be entrances to something, but how long did we wait for Issom-Har to get more than a mention in a few quests? There are still plenty of areas like that in 2.0 zones (North Shrouds door, for example), and Forelands doors don't even get names/quests hinting at any relevance... FATEs/Hunts/Levequests would need a serious overhaul for me to start caring for open world zones again... Hunts in particular, I'd like a more rigid spawn structure like XIs, I just loath wandering around aimlessly looking for Hunts, but if you stick Lord of the Wyverns in that cave with the door? Then his lore becomes that caves lore...

I would expect that the Ixali gate north of Natalan will be the entrance to Xelphatol, rather than the future zone to Eastern Highlands I've long speculated it to be... Although I'm really hoping we get there by Airship, Cid needs to enter the MSQ again, if only to meet Hilda... I think we may still get the Eastern Highlands in some form though, I have a nagging suspicion that Dawn Vigil might be converted into a housing area one day... One might expect it in the city-proper, given there is even the perfect gate for it near one of the High Houses, but players wanted Ishgard Housing for a snowy themed area... The Pillars ain't particularly snowy... Dawn Vigil would be, though I guess that means still no green-Coerthas...

Sigh... So many areas, never enough developers or content... Oh how I dream of all the unused Castrums being used for something... You can't give me Platoons and not have me think "A TRPG style assault on these would be awesome!", Yoshida... Instead I'm probably getting Grand Company Ventures, aren't I? That (presumably) Coerthas Western Lowlands Castrum will taunt me until the day I die...

I wonder why they have the stance against open world content that they do.

My biggest wish is that they open zones that we have as dungeons to us after the hm versions have been completed. It would be amazing to explore Wanderer's Palace or Amdapor, Snowcloak or Cutter's Cry. The maps already exist as does the music, they could do it with slight alterations. Fates don't need to be in them, they could put some gathering nodes in there, give it some side quests (that for the love of the twelve do not involve finding lost something or others). Special treasure maps for those areas or something. Give them some life. So many of these areas are wasted by faceroll dungeons and they are so beautiful that its a shame not to use them in another capacity.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

I wonder why they have the stance against open world content that they do.

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My guess is fear that the players would abuse it, that they would be unable to faithfully adapt XI's content to XIV's open world, or because of general association with 1.0

I liked it back in 1.0 the music was nice too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XWjdKre5kg

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Originally Posted by LalafellDown

I liked it back in 1.0 the music was nice too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XWjdKre5kg

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Literally all the feels coming back lol. I would kill for this feeling back.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

My guess is fear that the players would abuse it, that they would be unable to faithfully adapt XI's content to XIV's open world, or because of general association with 1.0

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Pretty much take all the drama and abuse that is hunts and drop that onto open world dungeons/whatever. That's why we won't get anything open world.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

My biggest wish is that they open zones that we have as dungeons to us after the hm versions have been completed. It would be amazing to explore Wanderer's Palace or Amdapor, Snowcloak or Cutter's Cry. The maps already exist as does the music, they could do it with slight alterations. Fates don't need to be in them, they could put some gathering nodes in there, give it some side quests (that for the love of the twelve do not involve finding lost something or others). Special treasure maps for those areas or something. Give them some life. So many of these areas are wasted by faceroll dungeons and they are so beautiful that its a shame not to use them in another capacity.

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I've gone back and solo'd several of the 2.0 dungeons just to be able to explore at my leisure. The dungeons really do have an incredible amount of detail in them that you miss when are running it for the nth time for exp/tomes and just want it to be over already.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

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To be honest, with how much they neglect the open world, I doubt they'll expand and/or update it and I completely lost hope for it.
Eastern Lowlands is in the game but it was made into a PvP zone. I guess that's the only purpose they can come up with for that zone. I don't think Coerthas is going to expand any further though.

While I am aware about the problems, I still do prefer the 1.0 Coerthas which was massive, complete, green and how barren it was made it have room for expanding/improvements like landmarks and civilization (which I could say for about any 1.0 zone) and it also had a bunch of secret areas + dungeon waiting to be released but we end up with a snowy, bitter wasteland with less of it. Also not gonna lie, 1.0 was better in open world content compared to now because that's what they aim for, not really instanced content like today.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

To be honest, with how much they neglect the open world, I doubt they'll expand and/or update it and I completely lost hope for it.

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It's a shame really... Treasure Maps and Hunts had a fair amount of potential that's just be wasted...

Hunts in particular annoy me, just because they're trashy world-bosses that I cannot bring myself to care about, but Treasure Maps are just as bad... I like Aquapolis, but I'd rather they have just adapted Maps to function that way from the start... When was the last time you bothered with a Wyvernskin Map, let alone a regular Leather one? Dragonskin Maps are the only things worth a damn, and it seems to me like the Aquapolis formula of a 50/50 chance at advancing could have instead revamped Treasure Hunts... You get a Leather Map, 50% chance it drops a Goatskin Map, then you're actually going on a series of Treasure Hunts, where as Aquapolis is just a linear jaunt through a dungeon...

Hunts though... Hunts could have added so much lore to the world... Take Agathos... We've got a little tidbit of lore about him, but that's it, and it adds nothing to the world... If he instead was spawned at the Statue of the Unsung? Well, then you've got some lore via association, and something like that creates a much more interesting world, IMO... Nope though, all Hunts are trashy world-bosses, no way we could have had something with decent structure like XIs ZNM system... Meanwhile we've got dozens of caves through the game that are just there, they don't have any purpose... All those caves at the Bed of Bones, for example... Why not have Mirka spawn in a random one of those, rather than the whole zone? Then you get his pop item, and you search those caves for him... They'd have purpose...

This... Is completely off topic though, this thread was about Coerthas, not my disappointment with certain events... Actually I'm probably disappointed by all events in some regard, I could probably write an essay on it... Probably have, actually... This week alone I've made posts much longer than this on dungeons and raid progression...

From a lore perspective, Coerthas may not go back to how it once was, at least not for many many years. Based on the Lore book preview, the Umbral Age of Fire experienced a heatwave to the point that Thanalan was scorched to the point of being a desert and that was thousands of years ago.

From a dev standpoint, I don't see why they would make Coerthas back to how it once was when they can be focusing on creating new zones for the expansion. How will it even work in terms of new players, npc dialogue and quests talking about the change in environment.

It's logical to assume that at some point it will thaw and return to "normal" but the question is "on what timeline?" After any natural disaster on the magnitude of Dalamud, one would expect some temporary climate changes, but the scale of those changes can vary from a few years to millennia.

That said, what we have here is essentially a meteor that fell out of the sky. In our universe, when that happens, large amounts of dust are thrown into the atmosphere and blocks/refracts sunlight and heat causing a slight cooling (as we've seen in Coerthas).

Alternatively, volcanic eruptions release massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and cause a global heating effect. Since indications are that the volcano separating La Noscea and O'Ghomoro is about to erupt, I would guess that when that finally goes, (just before release of 5.0?) we can expect to see Coerthas thaw.

... of course that assumes that Hydaelyn/Square-Enix follow the same physics we have on Earth.

On what timeline?

Well if we visit one of the remaining shards, we might see old coerthas again. The shards really provide endless possibilities. If we can magange to access them.

I don't imagine Coerthas will change back to how it was, the aether in the Coerthas region has changed from what it was to a more ice aspected aether, I'd imagine it's a more permanent change.