Are you prepared for "made up on the spot" landmasses after BfA?

[Al Gorefiend]

The next expansion marks the end of all islands, continents and landmasses recorded in Warcraft's pre-WoW lore. With expansions showing no signs of slowing down, it is inevitable that Blizzard will soon begin adding entirely original continents for the players to explore; lest we resort to intergalactic spacefaring adventures and planet hop from expansion to expansion (and let's be honest here... really? C'mon...).

While we DO have a few remaining areas to -potentially- serve as expansion-sized material, namely the Dragon Isles north of Quel'Thalas and east of Howling Fjord, plus some unseen nations surrounding Eastern Kingdoms such as Crestfall and Balor, the areas would have to be served with a soft retcon to explain the lack of size and given interesting material to make them worthy areas to visit. Which isn't bad, it's just a repeat of what they did with Broken Isles.

So while we're no doubt a few years from seeing what the next expansion has to offer, or potentially even half a decade from another Azeroth based expansion, Blizzard has already settled on the next expansions location and have started concept art on it already (which they've already confirmed to be in concept stage of the next expansion after the next expansion).

Where do you think we'll see new continents land, and are you alright with sudden, out-of-the-blue entire civilizations cropping up into the lore? Personally, I don't mind, though many are still of the opinion that Azeroth is complete.

[EternalBany]

semi related
I am beginning to become a little bit anxious about BFA being a filler expansion like wod

[Arrashi]

Honestly, with them making chaos VOID main enemy in the setting i believe we are more likely to visit "made up on spot" planets.

[Dalheim]

Honestly, with them making chaos VOID main enemy in the setting i believe we are more likely to visit "made up on spot" planets.

I want Chaos Enemies instead of Void. Please, contact Mudmug and make it happen!

[DrMcNinja]

I actually suspect that we'll go inside the planet and travel to its core.

[Brubear]

The next expansion marks the end of all islands, continents and landmasses recorded in Warcraft's pre-WoW lore. With expansions showing no signs of slowing down, it is inevitable that Blizzard will soon begin adding entirely original continents for the players to explore; lest we resort to intergalactic spacefaring adventures and planet hop from expansion to expansion (and let's be honest here... really? C'mon...).

While we DO have a few remaining areas to -potentially- serve as expansion-sized material, namely the Dragon Isles north of Quel'Thalas and east of Howling Fjord, plus some unseen nations surrounding Eastern Kingdoms such as Crestfall and Balor, the areas would have to be served with a soft retcon to explain the lack of size and given interesting material to make them worthy areas to visit. Which isn't bad, it's just a repeat of what they did with Broken Isles.

So while we're no doubt a few years from seeing what the next expansion has to offer, or potentially even half a decade from another Azeroth based expansion, Blizzard has already settled on the next expansions location and have started concept art on it already (which they've already confirmed to be in concept stage of the next expansion after the next expansion).

Where do you think we'll see new continents land, and are you alright with sudden, out-of-the-blue entire civilizations cropping up into the lore? Personally, I don't mind, though many are still of the opinion that Azeroth is complete.

We could also A) take a page out of the Everquest playbook and head underground or to the moon. Or B) travel to void-planets, though after the void attempts to invade Azeroth, making us fight in void-infused areas here or travel to nearby planes that have been corrupted by the Void (elemental planes/Emerald dream/etc).

[Vlaid]

Next expansion, Azeroth gets VOIDed and we board the Draenor spacegoatships and become refugees on a mission to save Azeroth.

Or we explore the SHADOW version of Azeroth where everything is different and wacky!

Who knows man, it wouldn't even be the end of the world if they made up new continents for expansions. Every other game with expansions is able to do this without 10+ years of lore existing beforehand to draw from and they manage to do OK, I'm sure WoW will be able to go off script/bible of "da lore" and do ok also.

[Arrashi]

I want Chaos Enemies instead of Void. Please, contact Mudmug and make it happen!

You mean like Mudmug, brewmaster of chaos launching his crusades to topple false, corpse ghost emperor ?

[Golden Yak]

I actually suspect that we'll go inside the planet and travel to its core.

This would be the best idea.

[Arrashi]

I actually suspect that we'll go inside the planet and travel to its core.

Nah, and you know why ? Because making a proper underground zone takes alot more effort than just plastering skybox over regular zone.

[Maxilian]

I don't mind, but i would like to see more of the unexplored places:

-Underground kingdom of the Nerubians (we only saw a small part)

And if we do go to another planet, i would like to:

-See the Ethereal planet
-Maybe even the Nathzerim planet (should look like an Outland 2.0 based on Illidan's book)
Note: I hope we don't use "spaceships" to go to other planets, with the Illidari technology it should be enough (invasion's points technology)

Note2: I would also love to revisit some old content, mainly Outland (they could add more island to Outland, based around on parts of it that got lost in the Nether) or just revamp it to what it should be now (maybe with the island more separated -showing that they are slowly but surely getting lost in the Nether- with a group of Goblins / Gnomes / Ethereals trying to make connection between the islands so they would stay together)

[Aquamonkey]

From 2013:

Curious, After we goto Argus next expac (wink) theres no more wow zones in lore to give us.Redoing old zones the expac future?
You don't think we can keep whipping continents out of thin air? (Source)

[Wyattbw09]

semi related
I am beginning to become a little bit anxious about BFA being a filler expansion like wod

People need to stop casually using this term based on Alpha builds and no other evidence. Until at least a complete beta build is out worrying about it being a filler expansion is pointless.

[Goldielocks]

There's a whole other side of Azeroth that we've never seen. We don't know how long those ideas have been in development.

[Ielenia]

I'm pretty sure Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles were "made up on the spot" landmasses, back in BC. Also, wasn't Vashj'ir also a "made up on the spot", erm, "landmass"?

[AbalDarkwind]

The next expansion marks the end of all islands, continents and landmasses recorded in Warcraft's pre-WoW lore. With expansions showing no signs of slowing down, it is inevitable that Blizzard will soon begin adding entirely original continents for the players to explore; lest we resort to intergalactic spacefaring adventures and planet hop from expansion to expansion (and let's be honest here... really? C'mon...).

While we DO have a few remaining areas to -potentially- serve as expansion-sized material, namely the Dragon Isles north of Quel'Thalas and east of Howling Fjord, plus some unseen nations surrounding Eastern Kingdoms such as Crestfall and Balor, the areas would have to be served with a soft retcon to explain the lack of size and given interesting material to make them worthy areas to visit. Which isn't bad, it's just a repeat of what they did with Broken Isles.

So while we're no doubt a few years from seeing what the next expansion has to offer, or potentially even half a decade from another Azeroth based expansion, Blizzard has already settled on the next expansions location and have started concept art on it already (which they've already confirmed to be in concept stage of the next expansion after the next expansion).

Where do you think we'll see new continents land, and are you alright with sudden, out-of-the-blue entire civilizations cropping up into the lore? Personally, I don't mind, though many are still of the opinion that Azeroth is complete.

If we don't see Tel'Abim this expansion, I'd argue it'll be a continent with a heavy Arabian theme. The Dragon Isles are also possible as a continent, especially since they already have five possible zones corresponding to each Dragonflight. I expect we'll see some sort of Underground/Hollow Earth-type expansion. Since Draenor Orcs are being added, it seems Blizzard hasn't forgotten about Draenor, leading me to believe we'll get an Ogre/Southern continent expansion, possibly with playable Ogres and Arrakoa in tow. The other side of the planet has been a mystery for quite some time and could hold one or two hidden continents.

Less likely would be Crestfall, Zul Dare, and Balor. I'd bet gold the former two will be patch zones for Kul Tiras and Zandalar, respectively, especially since they could likely re-use assets to make them ala Timeless Isle and Argus. Balor, along with other lesser known locales like Ominous Isle, Ogrezonia, and Hiji, are all quite obscure in lore, so I wouldn't expect to see them as a continent. Who knows, though? They could all be added together in some fashion to make another 'continent'.

[Dagoth Ur]

I still want to visit those islands Darkspear were chased from in War3. There's a volcano there so they could ash it up a bit and create some unique enviorments.

[Ielenia]

Also, slightly off-topic, but still kind of related to "made-up landmasses", imagine an expansion where Azeroth gets destroyed, and we're forced to move to another planet to survive. :P

[Aeula]

Well, they dropped hints about what a light-ruled world would look like and how the void-tainted would be treated there. Could be we’re going back into SPAAAACE! next expansion.

Oh boy, how exciting /s

I wish they’d revamp the world again and give us an expansion based in it with true scaling so we can pick any zones we want from 1-130.

Being able to level one of every class without worrying about burning out after doing the same zone 12 times would be bliss.

And more importantly, with so many zone updates they could give all the various different pieces of lore some proper attention rather than focusing on one thing too much.

Plus we could introduce some more future raid bosses/loot piñatas to kill.

[Sluvs]

Well, they did with pandaria and it turned out pretty great, so... yeah, I'm ready.