If Blizzard announced the next expansion was the first part of a trilogy of expansion

[Rosstafa]

The only trilogy I'd be cool with is sort of an 'end war' trilogy, by which we fight the big three factions behind WoW: Titans, Old Gods, Burning Legion.

Part I - Return of the Pantheon: The Titans return to Azeroth, and believe that the planet is beyond saving. We, along with the aid of Ra-Den and Tyr, take the fight to the Titans to prove that we are capable of fighting the wars ahead. The expansion could be based on some sort of huge continent suspended in space, that acts as the base of the Titans. Think something like Ulduar crossed with Outland.

Part II - Revenge of the Black Empire: Having proven ourselves to the Titans, they aid us in ridding Azeroth of the Old Gods, stopping the reformation of the 'Black Empire'. N'zoth plans to free Yogg Saron and resurrect C'thun, and we must fight the forces of the Old Gods, revisiting Ulduar, Ahn'Qiraj and the islands around the South Seas, as well as the city of Ny'alotha at the bottom of the Great Sea, where N'zoth resides.

Part III - The Fallen Titan: Having defeated the Old Gods, the citizens of Azeroth with the aid of the Titans, take the fight to Argus to defeat the Burning Legion and Sargeras himself. This would be the penultimate expansion.

That's the sort of trilogy I could get behind. They'd feel unique enough but still connected.

[Acelius]

Considering how they seem to handle expansions in a way that people are sick of them by the end I doubt a trilogy would help.

[Soulwind]

Each expansion has a different style and feel, what you suggest would make those three expansions look and feel the same.

People already complain about gating and the amount of content available, even if those three expansions brought different systems and a huge amount of content, people would say Blizzard has sold them a third of an expansion for the price of one.

As for story delivery, as hard as Blizzard tries to shape the game around its lore, it's still a MMO. Millions of players are going to stampede through the content with very different expectations and no impact on the story. It's already a challenge, and a risk, to tell a somewhat coherent story in such a gameplay-focused genre.

Most MMOs are like "look, an ancient underground city nobody has heard of before, defeat some mean-looking dragon!", which works better for the gameplay than following the rules of an already established franchise. Ever since WotLK, WoW has been fairly consistent about its characters and events, to the point of needing terrible plot devices like time travel to keep the thing going without unfamiliar faces. And even then, they wouldn't and shouldn't commit themselves to a story so much that the game needed several years for it.

Trilogies are for RPGs, not MMOs.

[Temp name]

If the raids are still good and challenging with unique encounters? Sure, wouldn't care.

[Spraxle]

The real issue is the way by which the story is told. The kinds of quests that would make a 'trilogy' interesting won't be put into the game for a multitude of reasons. The story telling in WoW has become very bland outside of maybe 1-2 quests each expansion, but this is just my opinion of course.

Really Blizzard needs a true reset in WoW. Starting over down the road like 100 years or so when all of the characters we know are dead or just that ancient figure that no one heeds anymore. I'm not talking a Cataclysm 2.0, but more of a rebirth of WoW. They're not going to achieve that anytime soon and the more likely bet would be they never do.

But to your question OP I wouldn't really care. The hype train would come into the station for a few minutes, but once into the expansion we'd all probably find it boring etc. They also would need to slash the prices if they're basically going to turn the game into some episodic 'adventure' that lasts a few months. That also means you would see maybe one raid per pack.

[zolok2.0]

Hell no OP. Just make the expansion last longer and release major patches with tons of content, not "congrats, you killed this tier's major boss.... $49.99 to continue to the next tier's raid". I'd literally uninstall and call it quits on this game. Sure I love WoW, but if they're going to try and bend me over a barrel and ass fuck me like that I'm gone. I'll go play GW2's new expansion or just quit MMOs altogether

[TaxmanCDN]

I don't see how this would be any different than current expansions. Each expansion adds to an ongoing story, with little detours along the way. What would framing it as a trilogy change?

[Sabi]

WoD is the end of a trilogy that started with Cata.

If it's Garrosh's rise and fall...that started in TBC

[Deleted]

3 expansions focused on the same enemy/environments poses a problem. There's a reason why every expansion has been so drastically different from each other in terms of lore and setting because people get bored/fed up of the same stuff over and over. Even if each expansion was only a year, that's still 3 years of the same type of enemy and environment.

I predict that the next legion focused expansion will be us defending Azeroth from an invasion. There will be no direct contact with Sargeras. The expansion after that focuses on the legion will be us staging an invasion on Argus and taking down Kil'Jaeden and effectively nuking the planet, killing most of the Eredar race.

Generally, the only way I see us beating Sargeras is either getting the other titans involved or somewhat allying with N'Zoth or using the combined power of the titans to enslave him since some claim that his power is close or equal to Sargeras while others claim N'Zoth is significantly more powerful than Sargeras although I doubt this.

Besides, I very much doubt that they will kill Sargeras off pretty quickly, he is meant to be the big bad and remember, Blizzard have not only a franchise here with multiple expansions in the works at the same time but also a long story that is almost entirely focused on leading up to the final confrontation with TBL.

[ro9ue]

Isn't an MMO just part of one big series? The trilogy was Vanilla TBC Wrath (and probably shouldve been left like that)

[Vargur]

I would probably play only the last tier of the last expansion. Heh.

[TheMediator]

3 expansions focused on the same enemy/environments poses a problem.

Okay, Mass Effect was a trilogy focused on war with the Reapers, and yet in Mass Effect 1 we were fighting Saren's army which was a mix of Geth and Krogan, in Mass Effect 2 we were fighting the Collectors, and in Mass Effect 3 we were fighting Reaper husks. Mass Effect also went to a lot of different environments. Fighting the same enemy doesn't mean we have to be facing off against the same mooks constantly.

Think about the differences between Shadowmoon Valley (Outland) and Netherstorm. Both were Legion-themed zones and yet SMV was our classic understanding of the Legion what with black and green fel stuff with regular demons and Netherstorm was this sci-fi zone of mana creatures and technological elves. Technically the Illidari aren't Legion but even the Illidari were a lot different what with the Fel Horde in the Hellfire Citadel being yet different from the demons and blood elves. Think about Shadow Labs and how different that was too. Maybe it might be hard to stretch out the Legion as the main enemy on the box for three expansion packs, but I can totally see the Legion being secondary villains for two expansions in a row and then the primary villains in a third without feeling tired, if Blizzard shows off the creativity they showed in Burning Crusade.

The universe of Warcraft is implied to be massive and sprawling but the Legion has conquered or destroyed literally every world but Azeroth so a space-travel themed expansion would be a Legion expansion for instance. Traveling back in time could be legion themed since the war of the ancients was against the Legion, the Third War was against the Legion, there was Legion influence in the first and second wars, etc. Azshara could be potentially Legion-themed since the highborne had ties with the Legion. The Legion are everywhere, it would be easy to tie other expansions into the Legion War arc without making them about killing dreadlords constantly.

[Kelathos]

I want them to build up alternative universe Gul'Dan as a new "Lich King" type villain that spans many years of content. He's smart and evil enough to follow us back to our world, he just has to survive Blizzard's inclination to dispose of everything contained within each expansion.

[TheWindWalker]

3 expansions focused on the same enemy/environments poses a problem. There's a reason why every expansion has been so drastically different from each other in terms of lore and setting because people get bored/fed up of the same stuff over and over.

And is why WoD got such a negative vibe from those who weren't thrilled with the TBC throwback: it's Siege of Draenor.

[Deleted]

Okay, Mass Effect was a trilogy focused on war with the Reapers, and yet in Mass Effect 1 we were fighting Saren's army which was a mix of Geth and Krogan, in Mass Effect 2 we were fighting the Collectors, and in Mass Effect 3 we were fighting Reaper husks. Mass Effect also went to a lot of different environments. Fighting the same enemy doesn't mean we have to be facing off against the same mooks constantly.

ME is a single player game that you spend maybe 20-30 hours on a single-player playthrough. In addition, those games took 2 years in between and still had you fighting a variety of enemies.

WoW is an MMO that is constantly updated and that you can literally spend thousands of hours in just a single year playing. People seem to be joining on the "content" bandwagon or lack thereof because people spend so much time in game, its not the same thing.

There are ways to circumvent the whole repetition of content, variety and style but there will always be a lot of negative press focusing on the idea of "rehashing old content".

[Soulwind]

ME is a single player game that you spend maybe 20-30 hours on a single-player playthrough. In addition, those games took 2 years in between and still had you fighting a variety of enemies.

WoW is an MMO that is constantly updated and that you can literally spend thousands of hours in just a single year playing. People seem to be joining on the "content" bandwagon or lack thereof because people spend so much time in game, its not the same thing.

There are ways to circumvent the whole repetition of content, variety and style but there will always be a lot of negative press focusing on the idea of "rehashing old content".

Exactly, and even if some people like X villain, Y theme or Z place, others simply won't. The more it lasts, the more they'll hate it.

Do you think people who unsubscribed from the first expansion of this trilogy would come back for the next two? Most people don't really give a second thought. Pandaria was deemed childish from the second it was announced, long before knowing anything about it, and to this day, after proving to be one the most mature and dark stories of Warcraft, many don't see past that first judgment.

WoD was announced as the return of the original Warcraft, and many are ignoring a bland, predictable story because the buildings have spikes on them. Grom is there, everybody knows Grom is better than pandas, I mean, it's not like those have dozens of pages of lore and he doesn't... right?

With different themes, people are given a different way to look at basically the same game (it really hasn't changed much), an excuse to try it again. And that's what Blizzard pursues. "Forget that you hated some aspect of the gameplay, the new expansion has a new race!". It works better than you'd think.

[Golden Yak]

Sure, that'd be great. When I pick up a title and find that 2 more are planned, as long as the first one was good, I get excited to complete the trilogy.

[Deleted]

Part 1: Lord of the Gnomes
Part 2: The three Tower Defenses
Part 3: The return of Blingtron

[Aeula]

A continuing and evolving story is great, I'd be happier about that than the randomness of the last few expansions.

'Lol world go boom' 'Lol pandas' 'Lol orcs'

[Deleted]

Nah, the first part would be called 'The Brotherhood of the Bracelet', followed by 'A Couple of Towers', with the climactic ending called 'Hey, the King's Back!'