Expansion Face-Off - Azshara v Emerald Dream

[Golden Yak]

Dawn of Justi-no, end sentence, being anew!

TL;DR - what expansion would you prefer, an Azshara-based one or an Emerald Dream-based one? Don't overthink, pick one now! Look at the pretty pictures, pick one! Blue or green! Go!

Longer bit:

Some of you may be familiar with my Spider Kingdom thread / wowpedia page, wherein I unloaded a mess of bizarre fan-wankery about the nerubians and their awesome hidden kingdom deep beneath the frozen lands of Northrend.

Well, that's been over and done with for a while now, but I remain a WoW fanatic, and Blizzard has yet to deliver on some other expansion concepts that I'd love to see, which leaves them wide open for me to speculate on.

Long story short - I'm gonna do another fan expansion thread. I plan to restrain the concept much more this time - the Spider Kingdom thread had way more content than an actual expansion could possibly contain, and ran for a stupid long time. The next one will be essentially an expansion summary, brief descriptions of zones, dungeons, raids, and patches, with loads of lore and concept art written/drawn by yours truly. Hopefully completed within a frickin' year, this time. WoWpedia pages will also be made to hold expanded content, and also maybe a Tumblr. Been thinkin' of setting up a Tumblr specifically for my wow fanstuff.

The only question that remains is - what should the concept be about? Well, there's two ideas that I'm equally excited to explore:

An Azshara expansion where the heroes of Azeroth must contend with the vile queen of the naga and her scheme to dominate first the Great Seas, and then the entire world.

An Emerald Dream expansion where Azeroth's champions must venture into a completely unexplored plane of existence and combat the insidious corruption of the Old Gods.

This thread is more fun than just flipping a coin. Make your choice in the poll - what would you rather explore? The Great Seas or the Emerald Dream?

[micwini]

Reign of Aszhara, just cuz of the amazing maps you make. Curious to see whichi zones you are going to use in that one

[ro9ue]

Looking forward to this, Yak. I'm goin with Azshara, though I'm sure you would kick ass at either.

[Lane]

Frankly, if the Emerald Dream looks anything like it has in the game so far (i.e. exactly the same except for a heavy green tint), no thanks. :P

As a fan of all things NE I would probably pick Azshara & the naga.

[Deleted]

all I can think of is vashir , so I went emerald dream

[RigidCannibal]

I want guild galleons, so I'm voting for Azshara and Great Seas.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

An Emerald Dream expansion would be just all... green.

Whereas with the Azshara expansion, we have islands chains, underwater zones, naval combat, and old god infested caverns to explore.

[babyback]

Id rather have an Emerald Dream expansion. It's too bad It wont happen since Blizzard already abandoned it.

[Deleted]

Azshara narrowly beats out the Emerald Dream, but I would love to see both. And have ideas for both, so if you need a brainstorming partner I would be very happy to be of assistance.

I think that Azshara is the part of the lore I am more interested in, and I feel will have the bigger impact on the lore. She's ties to the Legion and to the Old Gods, and an open sea mega-zone with player ships (the next evolution of Garrisons?) would be super cool. The Emerald Dream on the other hand I'd love to see/do an expansion concept on just to prove wrong all those people who think it would be boring Green Forests. It's literally a dream world. Limitless possibility.

[Golden Yak]

Frankly, if the Emerald Dream looks anything like it has in the game so far (i.e. exactly the same except for a heavy green tint), no thanks

An Emerald Dream expansion would be just all... green.

Go with your hearts, but fwiw - the Emerald Dream represents an unmarred Azeroth as the Titans originally envisioned it, therefore its lands were never affected by the Sundering or the Cataclysm. Regions in the Dream would represent regions of Azeroth that were lost to the Sundering 10,000 years ago. That includes all possible climates you'd find on Azeroth - forests, jungles, mountains, deserts, etc. 'Green' might be a prominent tone, but only in the same way that 'White' was for Northrend.

In addition, the Dream is a plane not bound by mundane physical laws, and would contain geographical wonders not possible in the material universe (think Outland level weirdness, times ten.)

[Cover25]

Considering the Emerald dream has been solved, Azshara is the only viable option.

[Bryci]

"The Emerald Dream is a nice idea and the team has talked about making it into an expansion many times. Building an entire expansion worth of zones around a green lush forest theme would get very boring, so the Emerald Dream would be better used as raid, dungeon, or a subzone, not an entire expansion."

enough said i think so don't really dream about emerald dream as an expansion

[Deleted]

Considering the Emerald dream has been solved, Azshara is the only viable option.

It hasn't actually. N'zoth was contained within the Rift of Aln, but even in Cata there where hints of his resurgence. He just needs a new Nightmare Lord as his puppet. I would put forth Maiev as a good candidate for Nightmare Queen. It would give her the power she wants to try and restore the Night Elves to glory.

[rcshaggy]

Would of been nice if both expansions were fused together.
Queen Azshara and N'Zoth would be the main bosses, while we go and face the creature who stole Neptulon away and free him.
Kul Tiras can finally be added to the game and near Eastern Kingdoms with Tel Abim added to the Kalimdor map and a new hub for the Horde.
Kezan should also be revisited, The Lost Isles as its area too, The Broken Isles return with the Tomb of Sargeras, Zandalar added to the game as well with the Troll Tribes wanting to get their forces combined once more. Shellface Islands (Renamed after the Murlocs took over and their Naga allies. Risen from the sea floor)

[McNeil]

Why not fuse them both into 1 expansion? I've always imagined The Emerald Dream could a huge zone in a Azshara expansion, alongside other islands risen from the sea. I'd imagine The Emerald Dream would be like Vash'ir being split into 3 seperate zones.

[Lane]

Go with your hearts, but fwiw - the Emerald Dream represents an unmarred Azeroth as the Titans originally envisioned it, therefore its lands were never affected by the Sundering or the Cataclysm. Regions in the Dream would represent regions of Azeroth that were lost to the Sundering 10,000 years ago.

I would love to see pre-Sundering Azeroth, but that seems like a huge undertaking, especially if current Azeroth is only 1/3 what is was.

[A Dark Knight]

people keep saying the emerald dream, i dont think it means what you think it means.

from wowpedia "The Emerald Dream is basically how the world would have been, if intelligent beings had not altered its surface"
good luck making that into an expansion

[Fatalfuror]

I don't think Azshara and N'Zoth should be separate. Neither one really has enough content to stand on their own in a typical expansion, plus you'd end up with a lot of the same stuff over and over if you tried.

But, I so want an expansion with both of them acting together as the villains. Azshara's the focus for 66% of it (with N'Zoth kind of omnipresent in the background), and then N'Zoth takes up the last chunk. Also, lots of Old God/Titan lore gets explained (finally). There's also plenty of ways to end the expansion such that the next one makes sense, whether it's Titans or Burning Legion (or both).

Such an expansion could feature raids like:

The Golden Fleet (Prophet Zul under the control of N'Zoth)
Abyssal Maw (Rescue Neptulon)

Necrophotic Palace (Nazjatar, formerly the citadel of Zin-Azshari, where we fight Azshara)

Rift of Aln/The Emerald Nightmare (Literally fighting inside the gigantic body of an Old God who has managed to ride the boundary of both worlds - raid bosses would have split abilities depending on whether you were fighting within Azeroth or the Dream - final fight against Core of N'Zoth and the Heart of the Nightmare)

That's just the main stuff. There's plenty of content left for dungeons and everything else. I'd say a couple surface zones (Islands), one underwater zone, and several "deep places" zones (caverns and such) - including the zone that's just us playing around/within the body of a slumbering Old God (which I think could be one of the most awesome zones from an aesthetic freedom standpoint - all kinds of options). Also, an Emerald Dream zone that releases with the last raid.

[Xtrm]

Azshara, Great Seas, Nzoth, and Neptulon!

[Ciddy]

I'd be all about an Azshara expansion.

I can't explain why, but the whole Emerald Dream story just never managed to keep my attention. I picked up Stormrage a while back, and I've never been able to finish it. Not because it's a Knaak book (I'm actually a fan of Knaak and love most of his work), but anything related to the Emerald Dream just doesn't do it for me.