The next expansion can only be awesome. Agree?

[Ceece]

The next expansion will be: Releasing the Kraken. I'm not talking about island hopping either, or fighting another old god below the depths of the ocean. Using the phrase as the true cataclysm is coming. To feel actual war coming to Azeroth that's demonic, and both factions at the edge with each other. All races will need to fight for survival. While that's only a prologue to the world we will travel to, I better see Mal'ganis as a raid boss. Him and I... well, we have some unfinished business to settle.

[TJ]

I'm convinced they will want to get away from fat panda farm as much as they can. Even if it means to another planet. I can't wait personally.

Same, to be completely honest. Outland always felt awesome to me, I don't care about the pandas but it would be cool to have something I like as the theme.

[Drithien]

I think that you are almost completely wrong OP. WarCraft 3 and, partly, WarCraft 2's stories are what lured a lot of players into World of WarCraft in the first place. The Scourge, Illidan, Kael'thas, Arthas, demon hunters, death knights, those were story concepts that made the game interesting lorewise.

New content? What new content? Ever since World of WarCraft launched almost every single time there was some kind of new story it was nowhere near the quality of the concepts above. Monks are cool, but not as cool as death knights. The mogu seem menacing but not as menacing as the Scourge. Tryng to change things up a bit with a more asian-themed content was a nice touch, but undead-infested cities are far more natural to the setting of the game. Even concepts that were little developed in the past, like Deathwing, failed, miserably, to elicit the same kind of resonance as older enemies.

So unless the writing team of the game really step up to the challenge, and, finally, manage to produce some truly exciting content, instead of the soap-operish we get mostly right now, I don't see how things will only get better.

I am actually quite worried, because Turalyon's turn is coming up, and judging by the massively underwhelming handling of similar characters, like Malfurion, I half-expect to see Turalyon just handing me a couple of quest, saying some generic speeches, and withering away.

I don't know what on earth happened, but, in general, the at least intriguing stories of the first three games seems to have vanished in World of WarCraft, giving its place to generic, safe, boring, unispired, cheesy, over-expositional, predictable, and just dissapointing writing for the most part.

Also, you don't even take into account the gameplay systems of the game. Right now the developing team seem to be in a whirlwind of confusion about them. They tried to make the game more social and about playing out in the world, while ramping up the challenge on important content, and it backfired on them quite badly. I am wondering what is that going to do to the game. Perhaps another Cataclysm of seemingly endless queues for dungeon runs, and semi-afking in major cities? I do have some hope that they will realise that more actual content, rather than more repeated content would be the solution, and surprise us all by finally offering something more than just two campaigns and seven zones, and shower us with so much content (multiple racial campaigns, class quests, neutral campaigns, out-of-guidance questing, more exploration) we can finally stop complaining out of shock and just play and be happy. But I doubt that that is going to happen.

[Airwaves]

People said this about mop. But here I am lucky to even log on once a week now.

[MrSerious]

the next expansion should be one that deals with sargeras. If they keep bleeding 1.3million subs every quarter like they are it won't take long before no one is left.

[wariofan1]

i would agree if they had portrayed deathwing the way he was originally, instead we got "rawr ima dragan i gone mess up yous park!"

atleast deathwing going crazy made more sense then kael'thas or illidan. old gods did it is a better excuse than 'never explained'

The ironic thing is that Nefarian got Deathwing's personality. Deathwing used to be cunning and intelligent, even if he was mad, but for whatever reason that just didn't go over in Cataclysm, and they gave Nefarian his personality. The point was that even the most awesome things can flop without given proper care.

and then what do you expect them to do? wow isnt going to end anytime soon, and if we kill what is one of the most powerful beings in the universe what do you expect them to follow it up with? right now theres only three possible things that could top sargeras, the titans, space old gods, possibly whatever built the titans.

the legion spans thousands of worlds and planets do you even know what levels of plot armor we would need to go in there and kill their leader in ONE expansion.

we could barely defeat the lich king, it took the expense of all the dragons powers combined to stop deathwing.

sargeras is like a million deathwings. the dragons were given a tiny bit of the titans powers, sargeras was the strongest of all the titans, and hes probably grown in power gobbling up magical doodads and mystical thingamabobs in space.


please tell me how the hell you expect us to stop him? and no the titans WOULD NOT help us, at best we might be able to get the old gods to help us but even then they would just stab us in the back so no go there.

wows writing has never been a masterpiece but that would be like taking the lore in warcraft and breaking it in two.

I really don't see Sargeras lasting more than one expansion, his power has been blown out of proportions by the fanbase so much that it's ridiculous, people are fooling themselves with their own headcanons. Sargeras is a strong Titan, yes, that's a very powerful being, but a million Deathwings? C'mon, Deathwing was incredibly strong, during his rest before the Cataclysm it was stated his power grew tenfold, by the end of Cataclysm Deathwing was much stronger than any other Dragon Aspect, the fact that it took 3 hits from the Dragon Soul goes to show that, taking into consideration that the Dragon Soul evaporized a whole dragonflight and thousands of demons in one shot during the War of the Ancients. No doubt that Sargeras is strong, but he's not invincible, there are ways to defeat every threat, Sargeras is someone who can be defeated physically, and that's not a new concept to us at all.

I also don't know where the whole "The Titans are our enemies" thing comes from. Yes, they don't care much about us (though we have won over both Algalon and Ra-Den), but that doesn't equal that they hate us. The Titans care only about order, and given how big a mess Azeroth is, it's no wonder they had plans on blowing it up. We have convinced two Titan keepers that we're allies, I don't see why we can't convince the rest. Also, the Old Gods are the last guys that'd help us, given that they're obviously being built up as the ultimate evil in the Warcraft universe.

[Wildtree]

- Unknown villain and the other side of Azeroth

Where is this other side you speak of? Unless the planet is unbelievably huge, it seems to me that it's covered pretty well with land.
For it to be extremely huge, the map would be totally out of whack.. I mean really totally.
We have our north/south ever-winter zones in Northrend and Pandaria. Apparently they copycat this part from our irl planet. From there I have a pretty good measure. Using those two points I can create a sphere shaped object, and if I do, there's no other side. There would be but a little spot left opposite to the maelstrom, for maybe a few smaller islands.
Just my take on that....

[tacosarecool]

lesson learn from the army never assume, im sure it will get people back to wow but putting numbers around 12 mill ehh..

[Omgarsh]

WoW became a lot more popular when the story of the Lich King continued in WotLK. That was because many played Warcaft 3 before and wanted to know what has become of the Lich King, because that was a villain they were familiar with. Burning Legion is an older villain and most younger player didn't know of them until TBC came out. It's necessary that Blizzard makes an expansion with already familiar-with villains. That is what brings players back. MoP has no familiar villains and most were not sure where the story would bring WoW. But now we know it opened new chapters of the Warcraft story. In short: Familiar villains brings players back. That's why Mario has to beat Bowser over and over again. That's why Call of Duty is still a FPS shooting game. Why? It's familiar.

I disagree that the Legion weren't as interesting as the Lich King is a reason why WOTLK brought more players in. Mostly because there wasn't enough of the Legion in TBC for most players, especially casual players, to make that kind of judgment. Yes, we went to Outland, but most of the story outside of possibly BT/Sunwell didn't involve the Legion enough. You get a little bit early on in Hellfire Peninsula, but the rest of the questing never makes them feel like a threat. And the dungeons/raids seemed to focus more on TFT characters like Kael, Vashj, and then Illidan as the big bad guy.

[Mooshelle]

Lore, Lore, Lore C'mon at this point its been bent broken and shattered so why would anyone care anymore? All I want is to have something fun to play ....Burning Legion, Emerald Dream, South Sea's ect ect dont really care as long as its fun.

[Deleted]

Where is this other side you speak of? Unless the planet is unbelievably huge, it seems to me that it's covered pretty well with land.
For it to be extremely huge, the map would be totally out of whack.. I mean really totally.
We have our north/south ever-winter zones in Northrend and Pandaria. Apparently they copycat this part from our irl planet. From there I have a pretty good measure. Using those two points I can create a sphere shaped object, and if I do, there's no other side. There would be but a little spot left opposite to the maelstrom, for maybe a few smaller islands.
Just my take on that....

There is a quote somewhere of explorers leaving the coasts of Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor, and disappearing in either direction. Just because the map currently doesn't feature another side, that doesn't mean Blizzard can't put one in there.

[Deleted]

I like how, even with the criticism mop had before and after its release, even after the huge loss of subs, people still call it "blizzard's best expansion". At least clarify with "in my opinion".

But then again, critics have been bullied on this forums since beta so it doesn't strike me as a surprise.

[Gimlix]

The next expansion will be: Releasing the Kraken. I'm not talking about island hopping either, or fighting another old god below the depths of the ocean. Using the phrase as the true cataclysm is coming. To feel actual war coming to Azeroth that's demonic, and both factions at the edge with each other. All races will need to fight for survival. While that's only a prologue to the world we will travel to, I better see Mal'ganis as a raid boss. Him and I... well, we have some unfinished business to settle.

Wasn't Mal'Ganis Defeated??

And let's be real Blizzard can lure alot of people in WoW easily, If they make a Trailer as awesome as they did always, With Sargeras being badass in it:

And Kil'Jaeden being awesome:

Then they can get easily millions of subs.
If they stay is a different story though

[Wildtree]

There is a quote somewhere of explorers leaving the coasts of Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor, and disappearing in either direction. Just because the map currently doesn't feature another side, that doesn't mean Blizzard can't put one in there.

Absolutely right, what's not on the map doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Yet that's only a wild speculation. The reference of those explorers comes from the RPG btw.

[Chickat]

Based on what reasoning?
WoW is having its 9th birthday this year.
We wont see an xpac released this year so at the very least it'll be spring 2014, roughly 8months from now.
Its more then possible WoW will be below 6mil subs at that point; no xpac thus no infusion of returning players.
Garrosh alone doesn't have the same appeal to cause the same effect so 6mil seems a pretty fair guess.
You could hold of releasing the big bad super villain for eternity but at what point do you release it tho?

After TBC people said; nah its way to early!
This was 6 years ago, wow had roughly 15mil subs.
Then Wrath wrapped up, 4 years ago.
WoW was slowly losing subs but still had a healthy 11-12mil.
Deathwing died, finished around half a year ago.
Subnumbers in the high 9/low10 mil.
6 months of MoP, down to 8mil subs.
If this pattern goes on you'll have 4mil subs before 'its time' for a Sargeras xpac.

WoW had 11m subs after tbc not 15. Wow didnt lose any significant amount of subs until cata hit. At the end of wrath subs were at 12. The quarter after cata released subs immediately fell to 11.4m and then 10.3 and so on. So no. Something happened to wow when cata launched and it hasn't recovered from it since.

[Zoma]

Wasn't Mal'Ganis Defeated??

Defeated several times, never killed. The last time we saw him was at the end of the Scarlet Onslaught quest chain in Icecrown, where he vows revenge on us.

[Ianus]

Based on what reasoning?
WoW is having its 9th birthday this year.
We wont see an xpac released this year so at the very least it'll be spring 2014, roughly 8months from now.
Its more then possible WoW will be below 6mil subs at that point; no xpac thus no infusion of returning players.
Garrosh alone doesn't have the same appeal to cause the same effect so 6mil seems a pretty fair guess.
You could hold of releasing the big bad super villain for eternity but at what point do you release it tho?

After TBC people said; nah its way to early!
This was 6 years ago, wow had roughly 15mil subs.
Then Wrath wrapped up, 4 years ago.
WoW was slowly losing subs but still had a healthy 11-12mil.
Deathwing died, finished around half a year ago.
Subnumbers in the high 9/low10 mil.
6 months of MoP, down to 8mil subs.
If this pattern goes on you'll have 4mil subs before 'its time' for a Sargeras xpac.

wow never had 15 mil what are u smoking?

[Tuor]

From here, we can only get awesome, fresh content.

- Burning Legion and a new world
- Azshara and the oceans
- Unknown villain and the other side of Azeroth
- You name it

So I'm calling it - the next expansion will see WoW return to a 11-12 million strong subscription base.

What do you think?

Fresh content its exctly what they provide us since vanilla days, it comes with most gear tiers, sometimes its not even associated with a tier, like Maraudon patch...

How about focusing in gameplay quality??

Because when i see a game where i can't even decide the way i have fun playing it, the the game starts being problematic.

Another issue is, how Blizzard suddently started to provide us less gameplay and more built-in features, a good example of this are Shaman's spirit wolfs, Shaman's had a tool bar for those pets, spirit wolfes even had a taunt feature, can anyone explain me how is not be able to controll your pets better then being able to?

All i see at this point is people being forced to do content they dislike, dailies for example, who the hell had the awsome idea of forcing PvP'ers with PvE content?? Does Blizzard wants to maintain subs this way?? It won't happen. My contentent/gameplay model would be around wrath model, everithing is optional, and there is nothing mandatory. If you want to focus on PvP, you could, if you wanted to focus on PvE you could, if you just wanted to quest and do daily quests, yes, you had some of the best in-game daily quests ever.

Overhall, Blizzard is putting to much effort in content, whille they should start focus on gameplay it-self, because one thing you could be sure, when someone dislikes the games's core, aka gameplay itself, there is no content able to maintain that guy subbed.

[Ianus]

WoW had 11m subs after tbc not 15. Wow didnt lose any significant amount of subs until cata hit. At the end of wrath subs were at 12. The quarter after cata released subs immediately fell to 11.4m and then 10.3 and so on. So no. Something happened to wow when cata launched and it hasn't recovered from it since.

Arthas died...best villian ever.. you love him and hate him at same time..

[Joey Ray III]

my opinion is the game is old an bloated. too many fucking buttons, they need to skimm it down hardcore. too much worthless shit to worry about (pet battles? the fuck is that?), doing dailies for some fucking charms to get better chance at loot - THE FUCK? dailies for valor - are you fucking shiting me? zergable world bosses - just fucking LOL.

raiding lost all of its mistery (that mystery got me in to raiding in the first place), there's no 'heroes' for new players to be looking up too, every monkey can be succesful without out even trying to hard. server community went down the tube, making douchbags and baddies run around with no conseuenes. homogenized classes that are hardly different from each other ('bring the player not the class' is such nonsense). and don't get me started on those fucking scenarios - total waste of time.

NO CHANGE IN SCENERY IS GONNA BRING POEPLE BACK - they really need to make the game a bit more old-school, not vanilla kind of old school, some compromise surely is possible - when being in community and not being and asshole actually matters. raiding needs to be more more difficult to get into - NOT EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE EVERY SINGLE BIT OF CONTENT.

/rantoff