World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria' almost never was.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

A recent article on theverge.com showed that Mists of Pandaria almost wasn't the next expansion.

Small portion of the article:
""We actually had pitched an entirely different expansion to the team," Lagrave told Polygon during this year's Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany.

"We got them all to say this idea was cool and this was interesting, just when we decided not to do it.""

""Pandaria resonated with us, and that had a gripping appeal so when we were like 'well we could explore this' and we could feel that vibe roll through the team saying 'I like this a lot.' We love that sense of adventure.""

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/...arly-never-was

NOTE: Please, no arguing over what should have been next. Keep it clean and only about the article itself.

What interests me most about this is what could it have been? Maybe it is the Legion and it being set up in MoP. What are your thoughts?

[Nerraw]

I think we had a thread about it yesterday.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I think we had a thread about it yesterday.

It was locked because of flaming and stupid arguments. The moderator said I may make another one.

[Yogg-Saron, God of Death]

The thread about it yesterday was locked for a reason.



EDIT: Ahh, alright.

[Ferg]

Probably a Burning Legion themed expansion, which is what will follow MoP.

[lordjust]

...
What interests me most about this is what could it have been? Maybe it is the Legion and it being set up in MoP. What are your thoughts?

I've seen the first part of the legendary questline and Wrathion shows you what will happen in the future. You can see that Azeroth (the planet) will be attacked by someone and it's shown as green meteors and if the Horde and Alliance won't stop fighting against each other they will be too weak to stand a chance against the new invaders.

The moment I've seen the green meteors flying towards Azeroth I immediately thought about the burning legion and all the other hints towards it. Like the battle of Undercity where Varimathras says that his master is on his way, interviews from comic-con that Sargeras will come back, the NPC in Felwood that says that the burning legion and Sargeras are on their way and so on.

So I think the next expansion will be burning legion related because of all the hints that are already given and there are more hints in the datamined legendary questline that show that Horde and Alliance have to work together to defeat the next big thing.

[Yogg-Saron, God of Death]

I've seen the first part of the legendary questline and Wrathion shows you what will happen in the future. You can see that Azeroth (the planet) will be attacked by someone and it's shown as green meteors and if the Horde and Alliance won't stop fighting against each other they will be too weak to stand a chance against the new invaders.

The moment I've seen the green meteors flying towards Azeroth I immediately thought about the burning legion and all the other hints towards it. Like the battle of Undercity where Varimathras says that his master is on his way, interviews from comic-con that Sargeras will come back, the NPC in Felwood that says that the burning legion and Sargeras are on their way and so on.

So I think the next expansion will be burning legion related because of all the hints that are already given and there are more hints in the datamined legendary questline that show that Horde and Alliance have to work together to defeat the next big thing.

That -and- the vision that Velen saw in the lore-canon short story.

[Asmekiel]

Can't we do Emerald Dream first and then wake up with a shock of meteors crashing in the planet?

[Falrinn]

I could definitely see Blizzard planning on a Legion expansion immediately after Cataclysm (there are a few subtle hints in that direction, most notably Velen's prophecy). However then they realized that the Horde/Alliance conflict was going to be totally unresolved at the end of Cataclysm, and that maybe expansion 4 was still too early for a major, possibly the final, Burning Legion expansion.

Still, Blizzard really ramped up the hints of an imminent Legion invasion in MoP, so there's a very good chance it'll end up being expansion 5.

[PenguinChan]

Can't we do Emerald Dream first and then wake up with a shock of meteors crashing in the planet?

Haha, I get it. :P

EDIT: People already said what I was going to say, but after the Burning Legion expansion I suspect one about the naga.

[Asmekiel]

Haha, I get it. :P

EDIT: People already said what I was going to say, but after the Burning Legion expansion I suspect one about the naga.

I actually don't get it :P I hardly know anything about lore.
So, this leader that Varimethras was talking about, is that Kil'Jaeden or Sargeras?

-edit- Was just thinking. At the end of MoP we defeat Garrosh, right? And the return of the Burning Legion was foretold together with if Horde and Alliance don't work together, Azeroth will burn. What if Blizzard changes it so that Horde and Alliance don't really exist anymore like they do now, but that everyone joins together in one big alliance/horde (would need a better name than alliance :P)

[Black Rider]

Interesting, what was next expansion.
And if it had different features

[Aildrik]

There has been a lot of build-up in MoP regarding the Titans as well. Unless I am mistaken, there has been no direct interaction with them (the pantheon; whatever they call themselves) and we have just been playing with and discovering their left over machinery. Would like to see this story arc explored in more details. Where is the Pantheon? What are they doing, etc.

[Xilurm]

Well I really hope the haven't scrapped the idea altogether.

[Mawnix]

I think there were multiple threads about this a few months back.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Um why did you necro my thread? O-o

[-Superman-]

I'm not sure I could accurately speculate what might have been on the table prior to MoP. I would have enjoyed MoP more if we weren't playing Pandas. Introduce the island and the lore, introduce the monk class, but why pandas? Just not a fan of the bears.

On Topic: Not sure that we are ready to take on Sargeras. I think I'd rather bring on the Emerald Dream, or something with more rich lore like the history of elves unfolded. I would also love to see a few more Race/Class combos unlock and get balance before we go adding another race or new class into an already unbalanced world. Just my 2 cents.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Nice necro. Honestly it'd be neat to go back knowing what we know now and think on what could have been.

IMO seeing as Blizz has said point blank the Legion is coming, and almost certainly that'll be next expansion, the almost-MoP must have had a legion-tie as well.

Well I still stand by the fact that 4.3 was too different from MoP to have been an accident. Blizz designed 4.3 around what they originally pitched, not around MoP.

An Azshara-based expansion with a hyper-realistic art style. Essentially "Cataclysm, Act 2."

It was likely canned when the subs went into freefall in an attempt to make the exact opposite of Cataclysm, MoP.

[Ragashii]

Never read that article before, always interesting to find out just how "set in stone" things are at blizzard when it comes to future expacs. On an unrelated note, the title made me think of the theme from the world that never was from KH2.

[babo7000]

I honestly think it was a naga expansion.

Vashj'ir never got a complete finish, Azshara made a completely unexplained and pointless appearance in Darkshore, Azshara was originally one of the major characters of Cata (during its leak/blizzcon), N'Zoth is still out there and hasn't been stopped, the Zandalari storyline originally led us on to the idea that Zul was related to the Old Gods, among other things.

I think the QQ of the Old Gods going from subtle to in your face, and the overall dislike of Vashj'ir led to the scrap. Seeing as how expac 5 will be released during WoW's 10th year, its not hard to imagine Blizz would want to have a big expac, so I think the next ones going to be Azshara/Broken Isles/BL beginning their 3rd legit invasion. (BL will probably be the bad guys 2 expacs in a row)