What if... 10.0 and Beyond

[Jujudrood]

There's a lot of unhappy customers regarding N'Zoth being built up, then falling over.
I also kind of dislike this whole "Here's a bad guy... and you win!" thing without any *real* consequences.
He was built up, he was a "big bad" for a long time, and then he kinda just... ded.
I mean, yeah, we're the Heroes of Azeroth and not everyone can experience a 'setback' every time just to come back stronger.
But, there's ways to make this pay off later that, in the end, I would probably favor over this whole "we win, he's gone... next!" strategy.
We know Shadowlands is already written, in terms of story arc, so let's just accept that 9.x will be what it is.

What if... (TL;DR - It was all a lie! N'zoth is crazy powerful and crazy shit happened to Azeroth while we were gone in Shadowlands)

We go through Shadowlands as planned, chasing Sylvanas and doing everything else that will come to be, for whatever reasons already decided.
We stop her, kill her, she redeems herself, whatever... who knows; I kinda don't care about her story anymore, and Shadowlands hasn't offered *that* much hope yet, but it's early, even though it seems we *always* say that, but I digress.
Shadowlands plays out, we "beat the bad guy" again, all seems well with the world.

Then, after Shadowlands, we are "awakened" by our factions to find that we, in fact, did NOT finish off N'zoth!
When we 'surrendered to madness', he rendered the Heroes of Azeroth unconscious and we've been living in a twisted reality somewhere between Life and Death for all of Shadowlands.
During our Awakening, we find that basically Cata 2.0 happened, where the entirety of Azeroth was reshaped in N'Zoth's vision, with chaos and destruction everywhere.
We also find that he made a pact with a Void Lord to help him achieve his goals, and their combined might was too much for the leaders of Azeroth to handle without their Champions.

We uncover the truth of what happened, finding out that we've been KO'd for an amount of time to allow this to happen and that everything that occurred within Shadowlands was just part of N'Zoth's crafted reality to make us believe we've won.
He sent our trapped souls on a wild goose chase through the lands of Death, basically just to occupy us because he couldn't outright kill us with the Heart of Azeroth preserving us in our final descent to madness while he was also in a weakened state.
He instead escaped, we were recovered unconscious, and basically they've been working around the clock to revive us, the Champions.

Sylvanas opening the sky, all that stuff, it was just him forcing us to see what he wanted us to see.
Turns out, she was just "on the run" after the duel and denouncement of the Horde, then spent the last X time amassing her own force to maintain control in the Void-torn lands while also mounting her own offensives, striking out at everyone as each faction fails to track her down during all the chaos.
This would be a sub-plot with skirmishes with loyalists happening, with the rise of a new Scarlet Crusade to combat her.
Those would be two "factions" of sorts and the Heroes step in to intervene.
Maybe even offer a story option to join Sylvanas since you were one of her "loyalists" (if you chose during BFA) to get alternative questlines that all lead to the same area, but take a different road (more or less an optional/alternate questing experience through some areas).
At the end, we find that she, too, fell victim to N'Zoth and her lust for revenge allowed her mind to be corrupted and her actions were skewed to allow the will of N'Zoth to happen.
We still deal with the small-time Void stuff, N'Zoth minions, but the focus of Raid 1 is the Sylvanas closure, where regardless of the storyline, we end up fighting her to subdue her (sorry, she doesn't die.... yet) where she's imprisoned and makes a vow to get revenge against N'Zoth for controlling her (not remorseful for actions, more angry she was a puppet).

End 10.0.

What we do beyond is fight back the Void as the "main bad", fight N'Zoth as the "secondary bad", with the tainted and void stuff like other generals making up the rest.
At this point, factions should also be "splintered" of sorts, so while the Alliance is still there, there's mistrust and such between the leaders, who've taken up their own causes to secure their own people and fight the way they see fit.
Some people thought Sylvanas should be put to death, others thought imprisonment, while others seek their own paths to combat the ongoing storm.
Anduin is discovered to refuse/fail to adhere to Genn's advice to teh point where Genn is lobbying to control the Alliance and there's internal conflict (more choices for Alliance players).
On the Horde side, the council hasn't worked out well as the Horde has lost land and lives to the Void, where Lor'themar makes a move to become Warchief, with Talanji being the main detractor, with her being a Queen of her people and feeling she is fit to rule.

The remaining 10.1 and 10.2 will be exploring the faction divides while also repelling the Void and such, with the ulterior motive to try to redeem Azeroth, which is on its last leg and dying rapidly.


With this, I'm talking full blown revamp, Cata style, which can also offer some big shake ups.
Territories remade (including leveling experience), factions splintered with leaders not fully trusting each other, making way for...
Any Race, any Class, and Faction!
Wanna be a Human Horde Druid? Fuck it, be one... at this point, who cares.
Shit's hit the fan so hard, all Orders and Factions are taking anyone interested. No questions asked.
If you pick a "non-standard" race/faction combo, there's 2 starting areas for those, effectively a "defecting boot camp" of sorts, where Alliance and Horde each have one to start people off, then once you hit level 10 or whatever the threshold is, you just level like normal.

Additional features can include a legendary questline if they so wish, something fabled that can weaken the Void's hold.
We venture into Void pockets (kinda like Horrific Visions-style, but not Time Trialed, but rather Challenge Trials) to collect Void essences required.
The base ones are solo, but can be expanded to have 3-man, 5-man, and maybe even 10-man varieties for varied options for gameplay, with each "higher version" rewarding more currency and essences (so it's beneficial to do group content, but solo isn't as hindered should you feel especially anti-social that day).

Warforge/Titanforge come back, but are measured to be a 0/1/2 method (MoP) where they can natively drop at 0/2, 1/2, 2/2, and alternatively you can use currency to manually upgrade, giving you surprise when you get one but retaining a clear path should you not get as lucky.
With this, the 'currency' used can also be spent on "secondary items", such as boots, wrists, and belts, to help fill the gaps in gearing should fortune not shine on you in your content of choice.

I would bring back Tier Sets as well, offering multiple "set bonuses" similar to how Essences work in the neck.
Once you unlock the Set, you get the 2-piece and 4-piece, but if you want to change it, you can by acquiring Void energy do to so, which will twist the gear and give you an alternative bonus, based on your choice of energy used.
Maybe your 4-piece is "Regrowth heals for 15% more on targets with Lifebloom",but you don't find yourself in need of single-target, so instead you change to "When cast, Efflorescence's duration extended by 0.5 seconds for every active Rejuv" or something, for example.
Then, with each Raid, offer these Void energies at a vendor for 'currency' to mix up your bonuses.
Qualify each Energy as a 2-piece or 4-piece level, so you can't put 2-piece ones in play at the same time.
This offers variety in Tier gear should you lose the lottery and get a shitty bonus while also offering a steady progression to gain additional options for them.

There's shit loads of other things that need ironed out, plenty of loose ends and other stories broken because of this.
I'm sure there's a "Blizzard" way of writing an explanation for all of it.
Anyway...
What if... ?

[Eazy]

I'd like that idea but knowing blizzard we all can tell that's impossible.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I hated the "we actually died to Argus and BFA was a dream" and I also hate the "we died to N'Zoth and Shadowlands was a dream" BS.

[Varodoc]

It is obvious that the Old God is not defeated. Something happened which strengthened the Void somehow. I do not know what it is, but what is a fact is that Alleria whispers worsened after 8.3, with new voices joining the chorus. This is clear foreshadowing.

The only problem with your idea is that you want to play the "Sylvanas was just mind-controlled all along!" card. She was not mind-controlled, she is not a secret vigilante, and she is not some chosen one. She is just a crazy psycopath who needs to be put down.

[Maljinwo]

The "everything was a dream" will never stop being an awful literary resource

[Kyphael]

Yeah, I mean, I hate 8.3's ending too, but making things "a dream" reminds me of that episode of Family Guy when Stewie "finally kills Lois." In the end, Brian points out that the viewers likely felt ripped off in finding out it was all a simulation. Stewie retorts "well, hopefully they enjoyed the ride." Brian just says, "I don't know man, I bet a lot of people are still going to be pissed." Shadowlands' story would be a rip off even if technically, it ends up being a good expansion.

[SirCowdog]

I would be more inclined to go with the "Everything was a dream" scenario if it was more like "The Matrix". Where we wake up in shadowlands, but are able to return to Corrupted Black Empire Azeroth on raiding missions to try and weaken the Old God control and eventually try to re-conquer it.

Maybe work in the Nightmare system or something to explain it.

[JoshuaNLG]

Doesn't even need to have been a dream, just have the entire Ny'alotha raid be an illusion, wrathion at the start was an illusion, why couldn't the rest of it have been one as well? N'zoth shows us that we win, so we leave him alone to do his thing while we're fucking around in the shadowlands. Because lore wise, once we enter shadowlands, are characters are meant to be stuck there, it's only for gameplay reasons that we can come and go.

[Bonus]

I am totally in to "Everything was a dream", which I have been thinking a lot about...

[Cosmic Janitor]

Actually, back when we all went to outland we never made it through, we all just slammed against the "Iris" that Illidan installed in the dark portal and the past 13 years were just our souls being tormented in the afterlife because the genocide(s) we comminted in vanilla while farming random shit.

While the current writing is already on the level of "Gunshot - Fade to Black" and "It was all a dream", I'm rather confident in saying that this is the one threshold the hacks at Blizzard will not cross. They'd never live it down if they, at least in the forseeable future, were to invalidate large chunks of their lore, especially the parts that were accompanied by secondary lore material they sold. A more likely explanation is that we will go back in time at some point and change history for good after we fucked it up permanently in a prepatch. Well that is if the franchise is still profitable by that point.

[Keyblader]

The original plot I thought was going to happen, was that Sylvanas got a glimpse of the future, and knew N'zoth would win, and kill all of us. So she started a plan to get to the Shadowlands in order to shepherd us back out so that we could actually beat him when we were able to exit the Shadowlands. And the reason she kept it to herself, was because if she told anyone the events would not happen, similar to Avengers Endgame, there was a chance at victory, but others knowing the outcome would make it not so.

But that plot went out the window, so who knows what's going on now.

[Dracullus]

The "everything was a dream" will never stop being an awful literary resource

To be honest, I would say the same about "let's introduce time travel" and "explain afterlive and make death meaningless", but here we are.

[dewd]

i so hope there wont be an expansion after shadowlands. bfa was the coffin and from what we know so far about shadowlands is the nail on wow. they should just focus everything on legacy servers for every expansion era.

[Syegfryed]

I hated the "we actually died to Argus and BFA was a dream" and I also hate the "we died to N'Zoth and Shadowlands was a dream" BS.

i like the "we actually died to garrosh and everything else was a dream"

[Aristai1723]

We have a lot of breadcrumbs that might be used or total bs:

Where is the blade, it has imprisoned old gods before and it absorbed a lot of void before it disappeared from Wrathions hand.
Azshara wants to join the race for the real throne of power. If she talks about the frozen throne we see her soon. If she has something entirely different in mind, people will see it as a massive retcon because it will be new lore but I bet it will be void related.

N'zoth was hyped by the community who has always overhyped old gods. Ulduar was a great place, Yogg Saron was a great villain. Effectively he was a mid patch end boss. Same game play level as Anub. Cthun was also dealt with quickly after a lot of build up in the lore.

We shall see.

[Nerovar]

I hope it's more like "we were fatally injured in Classic and all of this was some fel-induced LSD fever dream". Then 10.0 starts with the Skyrim opening cutscene.

[Gaidax]

Yeah, not gonna happen.

Blizzard writers won't be earning literature Nobel Prize anytime soon, but I think they know better than to do that.

Also, I think people really need to move on with N'zoth. For all his tentacles and bullshit - he was merely a local threat, albeit a very big one.

[vsb]

Why experiment with revamps, etc when you can execute proven model: new zones, questlines for leveling, questlines at level cap, world quests, daily quests, reputations, dungeons, raids. This formula worked for 15 years, it'll work for another 15 years.

[Wangming]

Can we pretend that everything after the Thunder King died, was just a dream? From the story to the ability pruning? No? Really?

[vsb]

Can we pretend that everything after the Thunder King died, was just a dream? From the story to the ability pruning? No? Really?

Everything after Yogg Saron was a dream. The lucid dream.