Can someone please explain why all the 10.0 speculation is about dragons.

[Iheartnathanos]

I haven't played a second of Shadowlands so I'm out of the loop - why is everyone so convinced that this expansion will lead to... dragons?

[exsanguinate]

I would rather have an expansions without dragons or more not focused on dragons. I don't know if I'm the only one.

[Gourbaak]

probably because of a popular streamer

[Thaneo]

There isn't really a lot of directions left that are obvious for wow to be honest.

[Ragu4]

People have been pushing Dragon Isles every leak cycle since the beginning of the world...of Warcraft.

[Teriz]

1. Wrathion searching for the Dragon isles in 8.3.
2. Wrathion showing up in 8.3.
3. Wrathion finding some Twilight Drake eggs after defeating N'zoth
4. Steamscale Incinerator Mount
5. Timeless Mechanical Dragonling pet
6. Ysera popping up in the Shadowlands
7. Dragon Pack
8. Emerald Dragon buff in encrypted files
9. Empire of Dragons logo

Still could mean that we're not going the dragon route though.

[Lolites]

bcs there was dragon pack on shop and people lack imagination to think of something different

[StillMcfuu]

I haven't played a second of Shadowlands so I'm out of the loop - why is everyone so convinced that this expansion will lead to... dragons?

Because SL kind of sucks and the location isn't interesting and they are hoping that the next expansion is somewhere they like and more familiar to warcraft and has a bunch of nostalgia/history attached to it.

[Izalla]

1. Wrathion searching for the Dragon isles in 8.3.
2. Wrathion showing up in 8.3.
3. Wrathion finding some Twilight Drake eggs after defeating N'zoth
4. Steamscale Incinerator Mount
5. Timeless Mechanical Dragonling pet
6. Ysera popping up in the Shadowlands
7. Dragon Pack
8. Emerald Dragon buff in encrypted files
9. Empire of Dragons logo

Still could mean that we're not going the dragon route though.

All of this except I would leave off the "leaked logo" because we have no proof it is real where everything else came straight from the game or Blizzard.

[DatToffer]

A mix of wishful thinking and noticing how much dragons were mentioned lately.

[Promilie]

Because the next expansion's collector's edition mount's encrypted files were datamined and it's an emerald drake.

[Syegfryed]

1) Multiple hints from various sources
2) There is not many plots to go forward after shadowlands

[Nalam the Venom]

I haven't played a second of Shadowlands so I'm out of the loop - why is everyone so convinced that this expansion will lead to... dragons?

The speculation is that jailer messes up azeroth somehow in this final patch and we need to go to the dragon isle in search of a way to heal the world.

[epigramx]

The core of the meme is people wanting it to happen for at least a couple of years now; most of the fake leaks are the same people too; people "leak" fake stuff when they usually want something to happen to see people saying "yes I like".

The recent technical reason is that mmo champ first posted conjecture that some datamined mount reminds of expansion launch mounts (from special edition purchases) (I don't think it's that much of a proof).

Then wowhead copied the conjecture almost verbatim and then some youtubers copied it including mega clickbaiter asmon (and almost everyone else).

[trandwidther]

I haven't played a second of Shadowlands so I'm out of the loop - why is everyone so convinced that this expansion will lead to... dragons?

Because it is the one thing that was planned to be in the game early on that they haven't yet implemented.

[AcidicSyn]

People have been pushing Dragon Isles every leak cycle since the beginning of the world...of Warcraft.

basically this. Before it was Southseas. Then BFA happened. Now its dragons.

[Neuroticaine]

I haven't played a second of Shadowlands so I'm out of the loop - why is everyone so convinced that this expansion will lead to... dragons?

The Dragon Isles are one of the few major known lands that we haven't seen yet in WoW, and running out of options, so it's a logical guess for what's to come. Obviously, as seen with Shadowlands, they can just create entirely new worlds for us to go to if they want to.

[Vakna]

All of this except I would leave off the "leaked logo" because we have no proof it is real where everything else came straight from the game or Blizzard.

Plus Empire of Dragons doesn't sit well in the English language, it's fine at face value as a specific adjective but as a name it's just off. It would likely be called something more like "The Dragon Empire". Empire of Dragons sounds like a rough Google translate or a Chinese mobile game.

Then, grammatical errors aside, the Dragons never had an empire of any sort, so... yeah.

[Lochton]

I haven't played a second of Shadowlands so I'm out of the loop - why is everyone so convinced that this expansion will lead to... dragons?

Because an unknown, heavily encrypted file has been data-mined for a mount, which uses some spell animations named after the emerald dragons. This was found together with an encrypted pet, and an outfit, also encrypted - all data-mined early on like previous digital rewards for previous expansions that has been done.

[Marlamin]

The core of the meme is people wanting it to happen for at least a couple of years now; most of the fake leaks are the same people too; people "leak" fake stuff when they usually want something to happen to see people saying "yes I like".

The recent technical reason is that mmo champ first posted conjecture that some datamined mount reminds of expansion launch mounts (from special edition purchases) (I don't think it's that much of a proof).

Then wowhead copied the conjecture almost verbatim and then some youtubers copied it including mega clickbaiter asmon (and almost everyone else).

The post was about the bundle being similar to previous preorder bundles, the mount is just part of the bundle, whether or not that mount ends up being the emerald drake remains to be seen.

Because an unknown, heavily encrypted file has been data-mined for a mount, which uses some spell animations named after the emerald dragons. This was found together with an encrypted pet, and an outfit, also encrypted - all data-mined early on like previous digital rewards for previous expansions that has been done.

While the datamining did increase dragon isles related speculation/leaks most of the majorly discussed leaks around it had already happened, so I wouldn't say it's the cause.

Because the next expansion's collector's edition mount's encrypted files were datamined and it's an emerald drake.

*could be an emerald drake. Connections are there but nothing is confirmed.