New Raid
Deathwing raid will be the final raid of the expansion.
You will even get to ride on Deathwing's back during the fight, apparently to take him down over multiple phases.
The project for an Abyssal Maw is gone for the moment, the storyline wasn't convincing enough/fitting.

5-Man Instances
3 new 5-man instances will be added in this patch.
One of the instance will be in the Caverns of Time, for the War of the Ancients

Transmogrifier (Preview below)
The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!)
Players won't be able to change the appearance of their armor into another armor type or class armor set, and you might have to own the armor before you can use it to swap the appearance of your existing armor.

Void Storage
The Void Storage is a new type of bank where players will be able to store their old armors in order to free up space in their regular bank.
It will hold 100-150 items. Anything stored there will lose all gems and enchantments.

Raid Finder
The Raid Finder will be introduced in Patch 4.3, it will work like the Dungeon Finder.

Darkmoon Faire
There will be a new Darkmoon Faire island with a bunch of new activities such as "Whack-a-Gnome"

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You’ve been asking for it, and we were listening. In patch 4.3 you’ll be able to customize the appearance of your weapons and armor like never before.

The Ethereals, emerging from the nether, will bring with them a new technology they call Transmogrification. They’re heading to the capital cities of Azeroth to set up shop and to offer adventurers a unique service -- copying the appearance of one magical item onto another. They only ask for a modest gold donation to recoup their costs.

Visiting a Transmogrifier will present players with a new interface that will allow them to change the appearance of an item while retaining its original stats. This means that you can raid in your paladin tier 12 Immolation set, but look like you’re wearing Lightbringer, while priests can bring Benediction back -- at least in spirit. Hunters can once again roam the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale in their tier 2 Dragonstalker set. You could even slip into the saucy tailored Black Mageweave set for that matter. You know, with the thigh highs, and the little gloves, and the cute little… ahem.

Placing an item into the Transmogrifier interface will offer a preview of how the item will appear once the change is applied. However, not all item pairings are compatible with Transmogrification. In general, only items that have stats can be used in the transmogrification process. You must also be able to wear both items when using this service. Ethereals don’t have much in the way of ethics, but allowing someone to appear as if they’re equipping unusable items crosses the line. Similarly, they won’t allow you to change weapon or armor types. Sneaky death knights can’t make that breastplate look like a cloth robe, and you can’t make a one-handed axe look like a two-handed axe, or transform a sword’s appearance into that of a mace. Guns, bows, and crossbows will be the exception to this rule. You will finally be able to retain your dwarf’s racial gun bonus while appearing with all the splendor and elegance of a bow wielder (or at least the relative silence of one).

Placing items into the Transmogrify interface will increase the gold cost of the process, and clicking the Transmogrify button (assuming you have the necessary funds) will put the appearance change into effect. The process can be reversed by clicking the undo icon on each item, and then hitting the Transmogrify button once more to save the changes. Any item that’s transmogrified will have text indicating it’s been altered by the process for all to see, similar to the item tooltip callout for reforged items.

Transmogrification encourages players to hold onto items with sentimental or aesthetic value, and the Ethereals anticipate that personal bag and bank space will be at a premium now that everyone will be hoarding their frilly pantaloons and leather jerkins. In anticipation of this new demand for additional storage space, they’ll be introducing a unique Void Storage service. What’s Void Storage, you ask? We’ll provide more details soon.

We’re looking forward to seeing how players choose to customize their character’s appearance, and hope you’re as excited as we are for the arrival of patch 4.3 and the Transmogrification feature. Do you have a favorite set or weapon that you’ll be bringing back? Let us know in the comments below.

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We're at GamesCon in Cologne, Germany, and just did an interview with Tom Chilton, Lead Game Developer and Chris Robinson, Lead Art Director, in which they revealed a lot of details regarding patch 4.3 - and it seems that the announcement of it being huge was no joke:

Patch 4.3 will bring us the Deathwing raid instance! This means it's likely that we'll be able to fight the Aspect of Death in an epic encounter within this year. The raid that was originally expected for this patch, the "Abyssal Maw", was cut from the schedule because, as Chilton states, the setting and the story were not convincing enough.

Furthermore, 4.3 will also bring three entirely new 5-man instances - Chilton assured us that these won't contain any re-vamped content, but instead be brand new with unique design and models. Chilton also hinted at one of those being within the Caverns of Time, allowing players to experience another great moment of Warcraft Lore first-hand.

The interview also revealed the purpose of the "mystery ethereals" in Stormwind (and likely other cities, too). The "Transmogrifier" NPC will allow players to change the displayed model of equipment to that of another item while keeping the original attributes: Transmogrification is only possible within an armor class - Plate armor can only assume the looks of other Plate armor, for example.
Class restrictions apply to Transmogrification - Warriors cannot transmogrify their armor to look like Death Knight tier sets.
The developers are considering whether they should only allow using the models of equipment that has already been obtained

The "Void Storage" is a very large bank-esque storage which allows old equipment to be stored, freeing up inventory/bank slots for players. The developers aren't sure yet about the definition of "old equipment". The cost of the storage (and whether there even is one) is another thing that is not yet decided

Another possible feature that was hinted at is the possibility of "void stored" equipment being available to other characters on the account (NOTE: That part might be speculation from Gamona, not cross-server transfers actually confirmed. Hard to tell.)

Overall, it seems that we've got a huge patch ahead of us - a new raid, three brand new instances, Transmogrification and Void Storage.

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Patch 4.3 - Deathwing, Transmogrifier, Void Storage
Tom Chilton (Kalgan) answered a couple of questions from Gamona.de on Patch 4.3, and we got a bunch of very interesting news out of it. Patch 4.3 will feature:

- New Raid - The Deathwing raid, making it very likely to be the last patch before the next expansion.

- 3 new 5-man instances - Including one in the Caverns of Time. (War of the Ancients was mentioned as a cataclysm instance a few years ago, but a lot of things have changed since then, who knows!)

- The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!) Players won't be able to change the appearance of their armor into another armor type or class armor set, and you might have to own the armor before you can use it to swap the appearance of your existing armor.

- The Void Storage is a new type of bank where players will be able to store their old armors in order to free up space in their regular bank.

- The Abyssal Maw dungeon is gone for the moment, the storyline wasn't convincing enough/fitting.

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Seiru said:

Let's hope that changing armor appearance isn't a "premium" feature.

Microtransactions in a game I already pay monthly for really rubs me the wrong way.

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Interfectum said:

Well they did backtrack on that Real ID Cross-server premium feature and ended up making it free... so who knows.

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The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!)

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Gravijah said:

it's free? tempted to come back... just a little.

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Lumine said:

Changing the appearance of your gear to anything you want? I don't understand, loot is such a huge part of this game, isn't this going to sort of ruin it?

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Lumine said:

Changing the appearance of your gear to anything you want? I don't understand, loot is such a huge part of this game, isn't this going to sort of ruin it?

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Kintaro said:

It really feels (just a feeling, not really true I guess) like Blizzard wants to move on from Cata ASAP. It has pretty much been a failure.

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MrHicks said:

just make kil'jaiden the next expansion already
the lore is fucked beyond repair just do it

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Judderman said:

Yeah, let's just fast forward to Sargeras already. Let's get this over with.

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glaurung said:

I wonder how the transmogrification is supposed to work.

Browsing some kind of a huge-ass collection of all the game's armor variations would be insane.

There has to be a pretty damn strict system in place, preventing level 1s from looking like they just murdered Deathwing and whatnot.

meh

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Kintaro said:

4.3 will be Deathwing already? Has he been seen much in Cata much at all besides the start of Hyjal and the end of...uh, forgot the zone name. The zone with Grim Batol and his fight with Alex? I remember Blizzard talking him up in the same vein of Lich King who was everywhere in WotLK.

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SneakyStephan said:

Why don't they just have social slots in the char screen where you equip the armor with the look you want, you know, like in every recent MMO.

Why on earth would you need an npc for this.

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Bisnic said:

Like i said in the official thread, i wonder where is the Deathwing raid. There is nothing in the world to give any sort of hints, unlike Illidan or the Lich King. So either Blizzard will add a new zone somewhere, or they will just do some stupid shit like "Boom! There you go! New fortress magically showed up in Deepholm!"

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Acidote said:

Every single Paladin a few hours after the patch is released:

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Khezu said:

Hopefully so you don't actually have to have the armor, so every paladin ever can style in judgment.

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Aesthet1c said:

Changing your armor appearance sounds utterly stupid. It's nice to be able to look at someone and instantly know how geared they are. It also made everyone look unique because of all the different combinations of gear. Now everyone is going to look the same, wearing old tier looking armor, all matched and everything. Do not want.

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ultron87 said:

To use a Tier of gear you should have to either have had the equipment at one point (can they track that?) or have the achievement for dropping the final boss of that raid dungeon.

Should reward the OG folk by letting them style in the early sets. And if people really want to use the sets they can go 5-man BWL or whatever.

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Aesthet1c said:

Changing your armor appearance sounds utterly stupid. It's nice to be able to look at someone and instantly know how geared they are. It also made everyone look unique because of all the different combinations of gear. Now everyone is going to look the same, wearing old tier looking armor, all matched and everything. Do not want.

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Fularu said:

Uh? He's prety much beneath Grim Batol

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Fularu said:

Uh? He's prety much beneath Grim Batol

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Aesthet1c said:

Changing your armor appearance sounds utterly stupid. It's nice to be able to look at someone and instantly know how geared they are. It also made everyone look unique because of all the different combinations of gear. Now everyone is going to look the same, wearing old tier looking armor, all matched and everything. Do not want.

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Lumine said:

Changing the appearance of your gear to anything you want? I don't understand, loot is such a huge part of this game, isn't this going to sort of ruin it?

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Aesthet1c said:

Changing your armor appearance sounds utterly stupid. It's nice to be able to look at someone and instantly know how geared they are. It also made everyone look unique because of all the different combinations of gear. Now everyone is going to look the same, wearing old tier looking armor, all matched and everything. Do not want.

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Bisnic said:

Really? Did they mention this sometime in the Twilight highlands quests? Because i dont remember. And there is really no raid entrance around Grim Batol to give any sort of hint, unless i missed it.

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Yoshichan said:

Deathwing will eat you all, casuals.

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mclem said:

...and then the raid instance is within his body!

Don't tell me that wouldn't be awesome.

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mclem said:

...and then the raid instance is within his body!

Don't tell me that wouldn't be awesome.

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Acosta said:

It would, but already done isn't it?

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