9.3, 10.0,11.0 Figured Out! Possbile Spoilers

[Powerogue]

Not impossible. A lot of the point of the island expeditions was to plant a ton of these smaller plot seeds everywhere for future storytelling. Dragon Isles and the void-infused ethereals coming back in the near future seem particularly likely.

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Y'all really need to stop with the Dragon Isles.

It's been predicted since before MoP, and every time, there's a resounding "NO" as no one wants it or is asking for it.

https://www.wowhead.com/quest=53170/...scale#comments

Seeded in BFA. Considering they already pulled out several of those seeds in later BFA patches I'd say it's a near guarantee. Just a matter of when.

[Unholyground]

I would love to see them do a Dragon expansion that takes a break from the main cosmic stuff, heck they could even made a good chromatic Dragon line with the remaining power of the other aspects that is free from corruption and that could be the race we get as playable.

Then you add a new Dragoon class based on the aspects.

[ohwell]

After the Broken Isles, I could see the Dragon Isles getting a similar treatment. That many dragons could give dragon fatigue though.

After skipping BfA until October and leveling up, I'm already sick of trolls so I hope there's never a troll expansion.

[tommyhil622]

If they ever do dragon isles it will be a content patch, nothing more.

[Harbour]

Im pretty sure this is what is going to happen but they will skip Dragon Isles expansion and give it Argus/Nyalotha treatment.

There is the fight between Life and Death in Shadowlands ending with the Light being a secret ally of Death. We turn back to Azeroth just to see Yrel's armies marching, Scarlet Crusade scheming behind Alliance while Turalyon greeting Yrel and Garrosh Lightscream as a new allies. Meanwhile Alleria and Locus Walker open the portal to K'aresh planet where we see the Void Lords sightings.

There will most likely be new Playable Race in form of Ethereals available for both Horde and Alliance. Though, i wouldnt be surprised if there will be no Faction split and Blizzard implement crossfaction gameplay.

I also wouldnt be surprised if they will not only bring new playable race, but also new hero class.

Obviously, Orcs would be able to be Paladins too.

Obviously, new zones would be spread across new planet K'aresh (with Void/Ethereals Raid), AU Draenor (certainly scrapped Shattrath raid will be reintroduced) and Post SL Azeroth (with another raid (Siege of Stormwind? Dragon Isles?)).


Reasoning: Blizzard built up way too many Light-linked plot and character lines just to put them all on hold for 4 more years (2 years of SL+2 years of Dragon Isles Expansion). The Light theme would be fully explored in 10.0. Maybe, maybe - with addition of the Void.

[Syegfryed]

im almost 100% sure they will waste the dragonflights and dragon isles in one patch of a random expansion, unless something big dragon related come up first so they can take things

[Reinhart11]

I mean, its definitely not beyond Blizzard at all to waste the Dragon Isles as a content patch. Just look what they wasted in BfA alone. Azshara and Nazjatar, which a lot of people, and rightfully so in my opinion, expected to be the center of its own expansion. And on top of that N'zoth, Nyalotha and the Black Empire. Its pretty insane to be honest. Same could be said for Argus. They neither respect their own story, neither are they able to see and realize its potential.

[huth]

Headcannon is believeing something be true despite what the creator says or does.

I am just speculating. Nothing i said is fact.

If we're not fighting death then what are we fighting? Murlocs?

Headcanon is your personal take on a story regardless of what the creator says. It may even agree with the official take, although that is rarely talked about.

A headcannon is an artillery piece affixed to your head.

And you are presenting your speculation as if it was fact. That's the problem.


We're fighting The Jailer. We're not fighting Death itself and are in fact trying to fix it back up.
If you were to fight a group of terrorists from, say, Mexico, you wouldn't be fighting Mexico, either. They might even give you support if those terrorists are a problem for them as well.

[Mehrunes]

Chromatus isn't in storage, when he fought against the Dragon Aspects he was placed in an Arcane prison.

Arcane Prisons are tiny boxes you can see in Borean Tundra. So I'd say it counts as storage.

[Ardenaso]

2.0 fel
3.0 death
4.0 void
5.0 void
6.0 fel
7.0 fel
8.0 void
9.0 death

we have never had an arcane, life, or light expansion.

void has been done 3 times now (cata, mop, bfa)

cata is more like fire

[LemonDemonGirl]

After skipping BfA until October and leveling up, I'm already sick of trolls so I hope there's never a troll expansion.

Well, having troll dungeons/patches IS kind of a tradition for WoW

[ohwell]

Well, having troll dungeons/patches IS kind of a tradition for WoW

A dungeon or raid is fine, but people were wanting a whole expansion dedicated to it at several points. Half an expansion containing troll atmosphere was too much.

[TheFirstOnes]

2.0 fel
3.0 death
4.0 void
5.0 void
6.0 fel
7.0 fel
8.0 void
9.0 death

we have never had an arcane, life, or light expansion.

void has been done 3 times now (cata, mop, bfa)

None of these expansions focused on merely 1 Cosmology. It's just that Fel, Death, and Void were the enemies most of the time. However, we have fought Arcane, Life, and Light multiple times in similar cases.

Hell, Legion's main focus was Order/Disorder

Most of the OG Expansions were focused on the Black Empire only, and less on the cosmic shit.

WoD, Legion, WoTLK, and BFA showed the bad sides of Light, Life, and Order.

And now SL is expanding upon the Warcraft cosmology, while also focusing on the Life/Death Cosmic war (Similar to how Legion focused on Order/Disorder's cosmic war).

And the same thing will apply to the Void Lords and the Keepers of the Naaru with their Cosmic war.

[huth]

And now SL is expanding upon the Warcraft cosmology, while also focusing on the Life/Death Cosmic war (Similar to how Legion focused on Order/Disorder's cosmic war).

SL is so far exclusively Death vs Death. Life isn't even playing a role in it. Besides, it's not x vs. y, it's a six-way FFA war.

[TheFirstOnes]

SL is so far exclusively Death vs Death. Life isn't even playing a role in it. Besides, it's not x vs. y, it's a six-way FFA war.

No, it's been stated multiple times that SL is exploring the Life Vs Death cosmology. In fact, we're getting a TON of life shit regarding Ardenweald, etc.

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Why do you guys think the Light will be the main enemy next expac, and not...well...

The Void? The Light can be an enemy, but like, they're not going to be the main foes next expac.

[CaptainV]

Honestly this is pretty much my prediction aka: this post, but yeah, I agree almost entirely.

Frankly however I think that around 10.0 they'll be working on a sequel to wow... Shadowlands while being preordered more than any other expansion is also likely to end up being the least played expansion due to wow fatigue, people want a new wow, not a revamped one.

And this is the issue, blizz keeps trying to rejuvinate a dead horse rather than making a new one. Classic is mainly dead these days save a dedicated group, current wow is in a pretty bad way because people are done with waiting for new content.

Before this comes across as a pessimistic ramble about how wow is dead, its more of an analysis about a sign of the times. I played wow back in vanillia back in patch 1.5 onwards, the game has had a massive lore and story shift since then and they're rapidly running out of story to tell.

So either, they end it and give us a finale, and thus dont bother making a sequel, or they leave wow on an apt cliffhanger with a suitable epilogue for its current journey, while adding room for a new journey after it.

With the potential teaser of the Ancient Ones being added in Shadowlands who are some "Over titan" race then we have some inkling of something great enough to be a threat to even the champions of Azeroth themselves... Nozdormu is also the final true threat on Azeroth itself unless they add new threats aside from Azshara who is still alive but sort of... indebted, for now, to the heroes.

Frankly, they need a Warcraft 4, not a remake 3, but a new RTS game to serve as a gapbridge between the current timeline and the next wow storyline in wow 2...

Something that either takes us to a new world to set up the story a new, or something that adds a fresh perspective to the multiverse of Azeroth and beyond.

...We *really* need something that isnt just rehashed stuff, bringing dead chars back to go through a montage of "hey this guy" is cool but its not the same as adding *new* antagonists and heroes to find memorable/and terrifying.

And one more thing...

Instead of defeating a villian or copout defeating one/imprisoning them... we need an expansion where the villian wins.

So far, we've never had a single expansion in wow where the antagonist actually *wins* in the end, and while the nature of wow has always been to let the champions do epic marvel hero moments or anime weeb super badass moments... we still need a story where the stakes hit us too hard and we're punished for our hubris.

I believe that Shadowlands is a good place to start there, we need a loss, we need to be utterly defeated by the end of this expansion, something, has to go wrong.

I do hope that based on the teasers that Elune may not be entirely benevolent nor the Arbiter we get some play into that and that defeating the Jailer may infact be a bad idea.

[huth]

No, it's been stated multiple times that SL is exploring the Life Vs Death cosmology. In fact, we're getting a TON of life shit regarding Ardenweald, etc.

There are no Life forces present anywhere so far(unless you count player Druids), so that'd be rather hard. And expanding on the cosmology of Life and Death isn't the same as focussing on a war between them.

[Eurhetemec]

Frankly however I think that around 10.0 they'll be working on a sequel to wow... Shadowlands while being preordered more than any other expansion is also likely to end up being the least played expansion due to wow fatigue, people want a new wow, not a revamped one.

Blizzard have been very clear over the years what it would take to make a sequel to WoW worthwhile - and that's the technology of gaming changing enough that the way WoW does things is no longer appealing to gamers. So far WoW has been able to keep up sufficiently that this isn't an issue, and fundamentally, we still play games the same way in 2020 as we did in 2004. There was a while when it looked like PC gaming might become niche/die out as a force, but then it came back with a vengeance, and is huge today, so that was one "technology of gaming" change that was averted, which could have lead to a "WoW 2".

VR, had it become prevalent as the "preferred" mode of gaming for a lot of people (rather than remaining ultra-niche despite slow, steady gains), could have been that change. But it hasn't happened. It could still happen, but it seems unlikely to be soon.

Procedural generation of content is getting bigger, and could change gaming a lot (as it expands to speech, NPC behaviours, and so on, and becomes more mainstream - c.f Watchdogs Legion etc.), especially with knock-on effects. But this may simply be possible to integrate into WoW.

Action elements in MMORPGs could have been significant enough to warrant a new WoW, but in actuality, every MMO that was more action-y than WoW has failed or been a moderate success. The most successful non-WoW MMO, FFXIV, is even less action-oriented than WoW.

Graphical fidelity could eventually also be an issue, but the next generation of consoles aren't quite enough of a jump. If it gets to the point where typical AAA games look like Pixar cartoons in motion (which is probably at least the generation after this - the Xbox Series X etc. aren't quite there), then we might see movement, especially if people start really expecting that, as it would be hard to re-do all of WoW to that fidelity (and similar in effort to making a new game).

People, including me, back in the day, have been saying "Oh people want a new WoW, Blizzard will surely start on one soon!" pretty much every expansion since Cataclysm. Unless there's a technological change to make it worthwhile, Blizzard will likely just keep iterating on WoW. I strongly suspect Blizzard have a small "WoW 2" team, who keep working on ideas/possibilities for a WoW 2, to cut the lag-time it'll take them to make it when they do, but they're probably just a regular meeting that happens as part of the main WoW development. Further, even when they do decide to do it, they're going to be looking 3-5 years from decision to start to actual release, and hundreds of millions of dollars.

As 10.0 will be two years from now, still before mid-way through the PS5/Xbox Series X gen, and 11.0 likely 2 from that (I mean, give or take), so not far after mid-way, I wouldn't expect work on a WoW 2 to start even for graphical fidelity reasons until they were very sure the PS6 etc. gen was going to be a big deal, and they could tell whether VR was going to matter. I do think we're closer to it than we once were, because we're seeing jumps in capability that are bigger than since the original 3D graphics card deal back in the late '90s.

[TheFirstOnes]

There are no Life forces present anywhere so far(unless you count player Druids), so that'd be rather hard. And expanding on the cosmology of Life and Death isn't the same as focussing on a war between them.

Huh? What do you mean? We have Ysera, literally all of Ardenweald (Which, while it's connected to death, is also said to be HEAVILY connected with the plane of Life, which makes it great potential for patch content), the potential of a female Nathrezim spy, and some other stuff.

Also, yeah, it's not the same. But, both are still happening, ya know? It's just that we're mostly focusing on Death, though life is definitely going to be touched upon. It's kinda similar to Legion, where we were mostly focusing on the Fel, yet we also touched on the Titans and dealt with them for a lil bit. The Expansion was Order Vs Disorder, yet the expansion was mostly focused on Disorder, ya know? SL and possibly the potential Light/Shadow Expansion will work the same way.

[huth]

Huh? What do you mean? We have Ysera, literally all of Ardenweald (Which, while it's connected to death, is also said to be HEAVILY connected with the plane of Life, which makes it great potential for patch content), the potential of a female Nathrezim spy, and some other stuff.

Also, yeah, it's not the same. But, both are still happening, ya know? It's just that we're mostly focusing on Death, though life is definitely going to be touched upon. It's kinda similar to Legion, where we were mostly focusing on the Fel, yet we also touched on the Titans and dealt with them for a lil bit. The Expansion was Order Vs Disorder, yet the expansion was mostly focused on Disorder, ya know? SL and possibly the potential Light/Shadow Expansion will work the same way.

Except the expansion is, from the very start, focusing on Death vs. Death. The entire conflict in it is about this. Death vs. Life probably exists, but it isn't part of the expansion story. Both allied and opposed factions are Death.

And no, Ardenweald doesn't count. It's connected to life, but in the same way your mirror image is connected to you. What the Nathrezim spy has to do with any of this isn't really clear, since it's been made clear they're plotting against just about anybody, not just Life.