My personal WoW 10.0 speculation

[Kubinashi22]

Over the last couple of weeks and months the community basically decided that the next WoW expansion will be about the Dragon Isles.
This was more or less reinforced by the Blizzard website itself - the copyrighted name of "Dragonflight" as well as their codes on their homepage and the leaked key-art.

But what if... what if all that is just Blizzard playing with us? Throwing out a false route of breadcrumbs...
Well I'm here to tell you exactly that and I hope you can tell me why I'm oh so wrong about all of it.

So... let's kick things off with the question: Why even Dragon Isles? Or dragons at all for that matter.
There's little to no indication about this bascially confirmed adventure.
Surely, we've had Steve Danuser confirming that the Primus has ties to the infinite dragonflight.
And sure, there's still Wrathion wandering around somewhere. But that's bascially it, or am I missing a point here?

Now, we have confirmation that time in the shadowlands works a bit differently and maybe that even was our first hint that connects everything somehow to the infinite and therefor bronze dragonflights but it's a bit far fetched, isn't it?

So what is my personal wish or speculation then?
For that I have to give you a spoiler warning though, since I will iterate it based on some content coming with 9.2.5.

The next expansion will be built around the light. And we have a lot of things that hint towards it.
I'll list all the things that hint towards a light themed expansion in no particular order and giving some background to them as to what exactly everything means:

- The scourge is rampaging throughout Azeroth: We got our first glimpse of that in the 9.0 Bastion campaign when we saw an attack of the scourge on Lakeshire in Redrige Mountains. In 9.2.5 there will be a new small questline for everyone that has reached exalted with Silvermoon (Sorry, Alliance). This questline evolves around the Ghost Lands, Lady Liadrin and her "daughter" or rather pupil she adopted back in Burning Crusade. There we fight the rampaging scourge, some good old San'Layn and watch a new character grow into hopefully a bigger role later down the road.

- Tirisfal got updated: At the end of BFA we had some undead night elves joining the ranks of the forsaken. Together with Calia Menethil they went to Deathknell to undergo some sort of training. The map files were updated recently with the 9.2.5 PTR hinting at maybe playable dark rangers or maybe playable undead night elves in the future. But you know what is also in Tirisfal? The Scarlet Crusade!

- The Scarlet Crusade as the antagonist: We never completely wiped out their ideology. They are still as pissed about Lordaeron and have even more reason to now that Calia is back... just not the way they maybe wanted. The Scarlet Crusade hates all kinds of undead beings and they wanna see them dead for good. But they also hate the Stormwind nobility. What a coincidence that Anduin got kidnapped and Turalyon sits on the throne now. Did everyone forget about the pamphlets that appeared at the end of BFA? We have a marauding scourge in the Eastern Kingdoms and Northrend, Undead Forsaken that got new allies and a weakened Stormwind - more than enough to appear out of the dark again.

There are some more minor things that could lead into a light themed expansion like the Lordaeron shield drop from Sepulcher or Locust Walker for example - another guy just like Wrathion we haven't heard from for a long time now. But I'll leave it with those 3 main points that strongly suggest the light for me personally.

The only problem I have with this theory though is: I have absolutely no clue where this kind of expansion could play out.
It would need to stay on Azeroth since everything I've listed happens right now on our beloved home planet.
But where exactly? Is there some new undiscovered landmass as per usual all of a sudden? Will we finally get out revamp of the northern Eastern Kingdoms?
That's as I said my main doubt about all of this. Because you'd expect a light themed expansion to be a bit more... cosmic?

But yeah, I won't go into my wishes for this theoretical light xpac. Well, maybe in a later follow-up post under this thread should this gain some interest from you guys.
Let me know what you think of my ideas and I'd love to hear your arguments against it and for other xpac themes like the Dragon Isles.

[Aucald]

Bump back to the first page due to being stuck in moderated status.

[Wonderment2]

Little to no indication?

- Wraithion was actively hunting the dragon isles
- A first one automata literally spoke dragonic at us while it was also cycling through the other cosmic languages. Seemingly suggesting dragonic is the language of life. Along with dragons on distance planets suggests there something "cosmic" about dragons
- Something was trying to murder Chromie and that's still unexplained and unresolved
- twilight and black Dragons have emerged during island expedition
- Ysera ressurection in Shadowlands
- the fact Sintharia is still active
- the infinite Dragonflight still being active in WoD

To name the few I can think of.

Since Legion (or even WoD) blizzard have been peppering the game with plenty of plot points and unresolved threads.

Sure this in the first expansion in a while not to have a direct link, so far atleast, between one expansion and the next but that's good IMO. Not everything needs to be a train reaction.

[ercarp]

To add to the list made by @Wonderment2, there was also the datamined encrypted Green Dragon mount, which I think OP forgot about.

Could all of this still just be a grand ploy by Blizzard to throw us off the scent? Absolutely. But if it is, I still want a wallpaper of the key art with Alexstrasza.

[Zardas]

Now, we have confirmation that time in the shadowlands works a bit differently and maybe that even was our first hint that connects everything somehow to the infinite and therefor bronze dragonflights but it's a bit far fetched, isn't it?

Do you have links for those confirmations ? Because for the few times we went outside of the Shadowlands during the campaign, it didn't seemed to be the case

[Kubinashi22]

Do you have links for those confirmations ? Because for the few times we went outside of the Shadowlands during the campaign, it didn't seemed to be the case

I'll need to look it up again but if I am not mistaken it was in some Q&A when they announced the expansion back then at the Blizzcon. I'm pretty sure they've told us this.

[TheFirstOnes]

"Surely, we've had Steve Danuser confirming that the Primus has ties to the infinite dragonflight."

So...outside of baseless headcanon, what about "The Primus has an ally that showed him the Infinite Timeways" relates to the Infinite flight in ANY way shape or form? Why can't the Primus just be good friends with his cousin from the Pantheon of Order, Aman'thul, or any other Pantheon member for that matter?

[Kubinashi22]

Little to no indication?

- Wraithion was actively hunting the dragon isles
- A first one automata literally spoke dragonic at us while it was also cycling through the other cosmic languages. Seemingly suggesting dragonic is the language of life. Along with dragons on distance planets suggests there something "cosmic" about dragons
- Something was trying to murder Chromie and that's still unexplained and unresolved
- twilight and black Dragons have emerged during island expedition
- Ysera ressurection in Shadowlands
- the fact Sintharia is still active
- the infinite Dragonflight still being active in WoD

To name the few I can think of.

Since Legion (or even WoD) blizzard have been peppering the game with plenty of plot points and unresolved threads.

Sure this in the first expansion in a while not to have a direct link, so far atleast, between one expansion and the next but that's good IMO. Not everything needs to be a train reaction.

Well as I said there could still be something I was missing - and I was also mainly focussing on the major points. Something like the island thingies would be rather minor in my opinion.
I've also brought up the points with Wrathion and the infinite dragonflight myself already and I am not against a dragon themed expansion at all.
My point is just, that there are much weightier reasons as to why the next expansion could be a light themed one in my opinion.
Something like your point with Ysera for example has in my opinion not much weight when it comes to Azeroth anymore. She is dead and will stay in the Shadowlands
unless they pull some mircale in 9.2.5 or 10.0.

Completely forgot the Zereth Mortis automata cutscene though.
It's absolutely compelling but for me personally it's not as feasable as what I've brought up.
I hope you somehow get what I want to say - it's a bit hard putting it all to words.

[TheFirstOnes]

"The Scarlet Crusade as the antagonist" Before we hop into the Light and Shadow conflict aimlessly, how about we slowly build that up throughout multiple expansions first, while also giving us a clear opportunity to just finish off the plots with the other 2-3 Forces first, such as Order, Life, and Disorder, AKA the only forces we've yet seen the Zereth's of, let alone their Realms in full view (Hell, the Pantheon of Life isn't even shown to us yet, and we know not of there's a Pantheon of Disorder or otherwise) before we get to the forces of Light and Shadow, and deal with the MAJOR stuff there, especially when you consider Light and Shadow are HIGHLY fundamental for Reality to even be a fucking thing.

[Kubinashi22]

"Surely, we've had Steve Danuser confirming that the Primus has ties to the infinite dragonflight."

So...outside of baseless headcanon, what about "The Primus has an ally that showed him the Infinite Timeways" relates to the Infinite flight in ANY way shape or form? Why can't the Primus just be good friends with his cousin from the Pantheon of Order, Aman'thul, or any other Pantheon member for that matter?

That's actually a very good point... guess I've just assumed based on the concrete wording from "Infinite Timeways" that he reffered to the infinite dragonflight. It just was the next best thing I could imagine.

[TheFirstOnes]

That's actually a very good point... guess I've just assumed based on the concrete wording from "Infinite Timeways" that he reffered to the infinite dragonflight. It just was the next best thing I could imagine.

Sorry if I sound rude there, I usually have to argue these points with some people, as every time they hear the word "infinite", it's like it HAS to relate to Dragons, or the VOID for some reason (Despite the Void not even being related to the Infinite Flight to begin with), and not the power that GAVE NOZDORMU THAT VERY TIME POWER TO BEGIN WITH AKA THE EMBODIMENT/RULER OF TIME'S VERY CONCEPT ITSELF AND HIGHFATHER OF THE TITAN PANTHEON, AMAN'THUL! LMAOOO!

So like I said, sorry, but I do see where it can get confusing. I can also be a bit of an elitist on here (By a bit, I mean I very much am lol) so if I react that way, I'm not trying to be rude, and if I come across that way, I'll calm my shit down, don't worry friend.

[Kubinashi22]

"The Scarlet Crusade as the antagonist" Before we hop into the Light and Shadow conflict aimlessly, how about we slowly build that up throughout multiple expansions first, while also giving us a clear opportunity to just finish off the plots with the other 2-3 Forces first, such as Order, Life, and Disorder, AKA the only forces we've yet seen the Zereth's of, let alone their Realms in full view (Hell, the Pantheon of Life isn't even shown to us yet, and we know not of there's a Pantheon of Disorder or otherwise) before we get to the forces of Light and Shadow, and deal with the MAJOR stuff there, especially when you consider Light and Shadow are HIGHLY fundamental for Reality to even be a fucking thing.

Well I've never said we'd go to the very fundamentals of the whole universe. And just because it's a light themed expansion we don't yet have to uncover everything about the light and the void yet. We fought against the scarlet crusade once.
And we've also met Locust Walker together with Alleria. It could be a good opportunity to maybe let us deal with the imminent dangers on Azeroth itself, becoming a bit more grounded to then maybe visit the homeworld of the Consortium in like 10.2 or something like that, making everything a bit more "cosmic" again.

Story or lorewise this expansion could be used to build up a lot of concepts or flesh them out a bit more. Like for example reinforce that the light is not always good.
From this home world of the Consortium we could maybe see where they travel, why they do that and maybe tie all that together with the brokers which also have a lot of question marks for us.
What do they persue and why exist things like Locust Walker in the first place? Is he a friend or a foe?
What happened to Xal'atath after she just noped out of our "conversation" with N'Zoth?

What I want to say is: There are so many plot points Blizzard could invest deeper without even touching the fundamentals of the whole universe.
And on our travels we could also encounter other plains of existence like you said - again they could use the Ethereals and the Broker for that since it seems like they have a lot more knowledge about the universe than we do.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry if I sound rude there, I usually have to argue these points with some people, as every time they hear the word "infinite", it's like it HAS to relate to Dragons, or the VOID for some reason (Despite the Void not even being related to the Infinite Flight to begin with), and not the power that GAVE NOZDORMU THAT VERY TIME POWER TO BEGIN WITH AKA THE EMBODIMENT/RULER OF TIME'S VERY CONCEPT ITSELF AND HIGHFATHER OF THE TITAN PANTHEON, AMAN'THUL! LMAOOO!

So like I said, sorry, but I do see where it can get confusing. I can also be a bit of an elitist on here (By a bit, I mean I very much am lol) so if I react that way, I'm not trying to be rude, and if I come across that way, I'll calm my shit down, don't worry friend.

Haha everything is fine as long as you don't attack or insult me directly.
I just didn't think about Aman'thul to be honest but it makes absolute sense. The question then is: How much can the different pantheons interact with each other? Did they do so in the past already? I don't recall any information about that but then again there are clearly some points I don't remember.

[TheFirstOnes]

I mean, the Light and the Void have history with the Shadowlands, the Void Lords hate the Titans and their control over Reality, Sargeras and the Legion tried to invade Maldraxxus and apparently LOST (They tried again, even without the Primus, but that failed before it even happened), Elune has some stuff with the Light and maybe the Titans, and she is of the Pantheon of Life, the Primus has memories of different Titans, etc etc...

Just see the Cosmos, the Design, the Forces and each Pantheon as a unified collective rather than as guys that SIMPLY hate eachother, ya know?

[Wonderment2]

- snip -

.

Nah I get you. Sorry if my first post came across as rude.

I 100% agree there's alot plot threads in and around Lorderon, Light and Scourge stuff. I reckon they'll be an 11 or a side story in 10.

Though to be clear, I reckon the main link for dragons will be a connection to the life lands, so I expect Ardenweald stuff to come up like Ysera. I think Wraithion looking for the islands is much larger then your giving credit. It's rare we get a character expcilitiy looking for a new continent.

[zhorteye]

Little to no indication?

- Wraithion was actively hunting the dragon isles
- A first one automata literally spoke dragonic at us while it was also cycling through the other cosmic languages. Seemingly suggesting dragonic is the language of life. Along with dragons on distance planets suggests there something "cosmic" about dragons
- Something was trying to murder Chromie and that's still unexplained and unresolved
- twilight and black Dragons have emerged during island expedition
- Ysera ressurection in Shadowlands
- the fact Sintharia is still active
- the infinite Dragonflight still being active in WoD

To name the few I can think of.

Since Legion (or even WoD) blizzard have been peppering the game with plenty of plot points and unresolved threads.

Sure this in the first expansion in a while not to have a direct link, so far atleast, between one expansion and the next but that's good IMO. Not everything needs to be a train reaction.

We didnt really have that much of a direct link between Wrath and Cataclysm... Yes we did get Ruby sanctum.. But story wise there really was nothing tying these two expansions together... And same between TBC and Wrath.. (the end of classic leaned more towards wrath than it did towards tbc) so its not the first expansion without a direct link to the next.

[Wonderment2]

We didnt really have that much of a direct link between Wrath and Cataclysm... Yes we did get Ruby sanctum.. But story wise there really was nothing tying these two expansions together... And same between TBC and Wrath.. (the end of classic leaned more towards wrath than it did towards tbc) so its not the first expansion without a direct link to the next.

"Sure this in the first expansion in a while not to have a direct link"

Definition of in a while
Also, after a while. After a period of time, usually a moderately short time. For example, Go ahead, I'll be along in a while, or After a while we turned off the television and went for a walk.

[zhorteye]

"Sure this in the first expansion in a while not to have a direct link"

Definition of in a while
Also, after a while. After a period of time, usually a moderately short time. For example, Go ahead, I'll be along in a while, or After a while we turned off the television and went for a walk.

Gotta be honest, that "in a while" skipped me completely xD my apologies

[Kubinashi22]

We didnt really have that much of a direct link between Wrath and Cataclysm... Yes we did get Ruby sanctum.. But story wise there really was nothing tying these two expansions together... And same between TBC and Wrath.. (the end of classic leaned more towards wrath than it did towards tbc) so its not the first expansion without a direct link to the next.

I completely agree but in this era of wow expansions they didn't present the story ingame as much as they do now.
And since WoD we always had a direct link to the next expansion.

[zhorteye]

I completely agree but in this era of wow expansions they didn't present the story ingame as much as they do now.
And since WoD we always had a direct link to the next expansion.

That might be.. But if you're Anything like me, anything post-cataclysm is to not be considered canon (As this is the time where they REALLY started retconning the original story that was established back in wc1-2-3)
Warlords itself was just a filler expansion and really has nothing with established lore to do.. Legion i can see fitting in.. somewhat... - BFA i consider a nightmare conjured by Nzoth.. And Shadowlands we dont talk about (just another filler to buy time and beta-test systems)

Now, i know whats canon and whats not is all up to the blizzard team.. but yeah.. xD
We have the caverns of time for a reason (its a safefail for blizzard to allow them to just... go back and say "all of this did not actually happen on our timeline") or whatever they end up wanting to call it (i'm sure we'll see the caverns of time in dragonflight if its actually a dragon story expansion btw)

I do however think that we should have direct links between expansions, and that it should all lead to a more fluent story.. (Like between wrath and cata would've been the perfect time to explore more of the dragonflights stories, as they had decided to bring in Deathwing, But instead they decided to just jump right into the whole Twilight cult x Deathwing idea without any real pre-story.. (Wrath ended the story that was started back in warcraft 3 Frozen Throne with the death of Arthas, and would've tied in better together than TBC after classic) .. Anyways. im ranting and going all over the place. im sorry.

[Kubinashi22]

That might be.. But if you're Anything like me, anything post-cataclysm is to not be considered canon (As this is the time where they REALLY started retconning the original story that was established back in wc1-2-3)

I guess I am not like you then. Pretending that everything after cata didn't happen and then engaging into lore talks makes next to no sense to me.
Personally I think they did a fantastic job with the 3 Chronicles books and everything was much more coherent than before.
Retconns can make sense if your universe wasn't built with longevity in mind in the first place.

People can think of the story of Shadowlands what they want but I believe it actually wasn't all that bad. It was just told in a very lame way.
Also... I kinda really wanna believe the fanpost on wowhead regarding the Jailer not being the actual evil and all that if you know which article I mean.