The Next Xpack's Lore, 7 Theories!

[MisterMxyzptlk]

Facts
1 Wrathion says Something bad and not of Azeroth is coming.

Theories

• 1 The Burning Legion (Tinfoil Hat Level 0/10)
• This is the most common theory and it makes a lot of sense as it really the only well known off world threat but I personally think its just a little TOO obvious.
• 2 The Void/The void walkers (Tinfoil Hat Level 1.5/10)
• I have never seen this one before it actually didn't hit me till i was writing this. Yes void walkers are demons, but they might not belong to the burning legion. Allow me to quote Wowpedia
  "Most voidwalkers who are not in the service of warlocks belong to a faction known as the Void, lead by Dimensius. Dimensius' forces destroyed the ethereal homeworld of K'aresh" and... "Whether or not the Void invasion was planned by the Burning Legion, or if the Void are even officially a part of the Legion is unknown. It can be speculated however that the Void is a force acting on its own, since the Ethereals seem to hold no vengeance for the Legion; as well as the fact that Voids are not present in Legion encampments."
• 3 A New Threat (Tinfoil Hat Level 3/10)
• This is a rarely heard one but its in this list on the grounds of if its not Burning Legion or the Void it must be some new group.
• 4 The Titans (Tinfoil Hat Level 5/10)
• I personally like this one. We don't know much about them, what we do know is they seem to value order more then anything even good or evil, and we aren't exactly conforming.
• 5 Wrathion is Lying (Tinfoil Hat Level 8/10)
• He is evil and will kill us all enough said.
• 6 Evil Naaru (10/10
• Not much to say on this one cause we really don't know much about them, in fact id say we know more about the titans then them so i call this the "Yo the Naaru have turned evil!" theory
• 7 The Zerg (Tinfoil Hat Level 9000/10)
• Why? Why not! I mean it could happen! What?! Stop looking at me like I'm crazy!

[Yogg-Saron, God of Death]

I think it's naga-related. I know Wrathion is hinting towards a Burning Legion xpack, but Blizzard also said next xpack, Horde is gonna focus on rebuilding, and I doubt the Alliance and Horde would survive the Burning Legion if they're not at full-power.


And my thought on the Titans is that they are not our guardians, not our friends. They create order, and that is their primary objective.


It is like Algalon said. It was only after we defeated him that he saw our strength. Before that, as one of his quotes implies:

"I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames. Their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and raised in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart, devoid of emotion... of empathy. I... have... felt... NOTHING! A million, million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do?
Perhaps it is your imperfection that which grants you free will. That allows you to persevere against cosmically calculated odds. You prevailed where the Titans' own perfect creations have failed."

The titans don't see emotions, they don't see willpower. They don't see our intention to fight until the very end to protect our planet and ensure our survival. They don't see our happiness, our pain, our struggle. They see only in black and white; chaos and order. Until Algalon's defeat, he never saw any of the above. Like he stated, his own heart was devoid of emotion. He wasn't being moved. He could spectate as entire civilizations were wiped out in mere seconds and never saw how the denizens valued their lives, how they enjoyed creating the bonds and friendships they made.


It is in that aspect that I think the Titans may just be the most dangerous and scary enemies yet. They aren't inherently evil, but that's exactly the scary part. They see it as their task; they think they are doing the right thing. They think they are just correcting errors.


That's why I think the closest comparison to another group is the Reapers from Mass Effect.



If Algalon wasn't created with compassion and everything like that in mind, then I doubt it's something that the Titans themselves are capable of either, at least -- to great extents.

[ttak82]

Did we not defeat Dimensius in Netherstorm quests? It would be another setback.

[Deleted]

I think it's naga-related. I know Wrathion is hinting towards a Burning Legion xpack, but Blizzard also said next xpack, Horde is gonna focus on rebuilding, and I doubt the Alliance and Horde would survive the Burning Legion if they're not at full-power.


And my thought on the Titans is that they are not our guardians, not our friends. They create order, and that is their primary objective.


It is like Algalon said. It was only after we defeated him that he saw our strength. Before that, as one of his quotes implies:





[/FONT][/COLOR]The titans don't see emotions, they don't see willpower. They don't see our intention to fight until the very end to protect our planet and ensure our survival. They don't see our happiness, our pain, our struggle. They see only in black and white; chaos and order. Until Algalon's defeat, he never saw any of the above. Like he stated, his own heart was devoid of emotion. He wasn't being moved. He could spectate as entire civilizations were wiped out in mere seconds and never saw how the denizens valued their lives, how they enjoyed creating the bonds and friendships they made.


It is in that aspect that I think the Titans may just be the most dangerous and scary enemies yet. They aren't inherently evil, but that's exactly the scary part. They see it as their task; they think they are doing the right thing. They think they are just correcting errors.


That's why I think the closest comparison to another group is the Reapers from Mass Effect.



If Algalon wasn't created with compassion and everything like that in mind, then I doubt it's something that the Titans themselves are capable of either, at least -- to great extents.

I hope it's not naga related because my personal feelings are that would be rather dull. I find naga boring and one dimensional. However, bravo sir on that stirring explanation of a possible Titan threat. You put that forwards incredibly well and now I think I want to see this in WoW more than anything.

[Poochy]

I think it'll be the burning legion, it's been hinted at since Cata. I just hope it'll be epic, and that it won't be underwater zones (like Vash'jir) or island/land hopping like Cata zones.

We might get Titans progressively in the next few expacs with the burning legion. Maybe something like we get proof the Titans are not friendly and more about Sargeras. Something.

[Yogg-Saron, God of Death]

Well defeating a voildlord who is supposed to be behing destroying a whole planet by finishing a group quest, was weird on it's own.

Yes, Dimensius should be way stronger than that. Besides, Void Lords, like Elemental Lords, can apparently not die out completely unless vanquished on their home-plane. Nathrezim also have this advantage.

I hope it's not naga related because my personal feelings are that would be rather dull. I find naga boring and one dimensional. However, bravo sir on that stirring explanation of a possible Titan threat. You put that forwards incredibly well and now I think I want to see this in WoW more than anything.

Thank you very much! It's just something the titans have reminded me of, and I built it up from the quotes given by titanic creations. I really do think their past behavior indicates that they are like that indeed. Just look at how many re-origination/doomsday devices they have put all over Azeroth.

[Lynneiah]

"Evil Naaru" potentially already exists within lore, in the form of Void creatures. It's not known if dead energy beings become Void creatures, or if Void creatures simply feed off of energy beings, but there's deffinitely a relationship there. I can see at the very least a patch or two heavily focussing on Naaru and the Void. Possibly Ethereals too.

[Chickat]

I'm like 65% sure it will be the Burning Legion. 25% thinking it will be naga and Azshara, and 10% thinking it will be something random again or maybe even Emerald dream some how.

[Talen]

I see only a few likely possibilities.

1: The Burning Legion
Obvious. Its going to hppen. Just a question of when. Wrathions vision suggests "soon"...which could be up to 3 Xpacs away.

2: Azshara
She was seen in Cataclysm. There are prophecies of a land rising form the depths. Neptulons story is yet to be finished. The BattleMaiden story has to be finished. You could fit in an Emerald Dream raid. And the Naga have been rested as enemies.

That's the likely ones.

Less likely?

Far side of the World
What does lie tio the West of Kalimdor?

Offworld
Argus, Korosh, the Moons....

The old world.
Blizzard doesn't like reusing content without good reason.

EJL

[Florena]

Wrathion is definitely worried about the Legion, 5.3 makes this explicitly clear even if you interpreted his message in 5.1 as being more vague. As for whether the BL will be the next expansion... I couldn't say for sure obviously, but I'd bet it will be related to them one way or another. It's been getting a lot of build up in MoP, both in game and from devs teasing about Turalyon etc.

My second guess though would be South Seas. Azshara, N'zoth, Ny'alotha, tomb of sargeras, Kul'tiras, Undermine, Ruins of Zandalar, there's a lot to work with here. Could also include more lands raised from the sea by the naga, similar to how the tomb of sargeras was raised in Frozen Throne, as part of a naga invasion. N'zoth by speculation is suspected to be the old god under the sea that is connected to the emerald nightmare, so the dream/nightmare could fit into the zone as well. Could be interesting if the Nightmare was a zone, and within it is a link to Ny'alotha raid where N'zoth is, following his corruption back to the source to get to his underwater domain.

Third option: Something unexpected. Let's face it. I doubt anybody saw Cataclysm coming. Speculation was all that we'd be going to the emerald dream or something else established first, rather than an EK/Kalimdor revamp with new zones within them. Though Cata was sort of the old world/Elemental Planes expansion too, as we do go to all 4 elemental planes to varying degrees. Earth is a whole zone + dungeon. Fire is shown in some quests, a daily hub and raid. Water in one dungeon (was going to be 2 but second was cancelled) and Air is a dungeon and raid. After Cata came something even less expected: Pandaria. Myself and others thought that Cata would be the curveball expansion nobody expected and then we'd be back to something else established. But instead we got MoP. And I love MoP, but even when the name Mists of Pandaria came out I still thought that Pandaria would simply be one part of a south seas expansion and not the whole expansion. So what's coming next? After two in a row that were unpredictable I have no idea.

The second above is what I suspected the current expansion would be, following up on the naga/azshara/n'zoth stuff left hanging by Cataclysm, but it seems blizz is leaving it to be addressed another day. So while my money's on a Legion expansion in one form or another, they could potentially put that on the back burner too and give us something different.

[Deleted]

The Nightmare needs a new leader. Could the next xpack be Emerald Dream related?

[Kazlofski]

I see only a few likely possibilities.

1: The Burning Legion
Obvious. Its going to hppen. Just a question of when. Wrathions vision suggests "soon"...which could be up to 3 Xpacs away.

2: Azshara
She was seen in Cataclysm. There are prophecies of a land rising form the depths. Neptulons story is yet to be finished. The BattleMaiden story has to be finished. You could fit in an Emerald Dream raid. And the Naga have been rested as enemies.

That's the likely ones.

Less likely?

Far side of the World
What does lie tio the West of Kalimdor?

Offworld
Argus, Korosh, the Moons....

The old world.
Blizzard doesn't like reusing content without good reason.

EJL

Pretty sure Eastern Kingdoms lies to the west of Kalimdor, hopefully not though.

[Falrinn]

Wrathion's 5.3 dialogue names the Burning Legion very explicitly , so any remaining doubt as to what he is worried about is no longer any consideration. At this point the only way the next expansion might not be the Legion is if Blizzard is very intentionally misleading the playerbase.

More specifically, I think Argus will likely be the setting for the next expansion. Blizzard is on the record as disliking the disjointed nature of Cataclysm, so chances are any Legion invasion of Azeroth will be short lived and possibly confined to just the opening event. That means we will need to launch a counterattack against the Legion, and Argus is the world that's most grounded in existing lore. Whether or not we kill Sargeras is iffy, but Kil'jaeden and a few other Legion heavyweights are definitely toast.

[Sturmbringe]

IMO the next expansion will also be heavily anime/manga based as well, and will have nothing to do with original Warcraft Lore.

After having introduced Kung-Fu Pandas and Pokemon to the game, I think that they will try a manga/anime dragon based playable race:




That will be a fitting sequel to Pandas and Pokemon IMO.

[Golden Yak]

[*]2 The Void/The void walkers (Tinfoil Hat Level 1.5/10)

I don't buy them carrying a whole expansion by themselves, but if we do get another Burning Legion related expansion, I'd like to see a zone/questline/raid devoted to the Voidwalkers for sure.

[Falrinn]

I don't buy them carrying a whole expansion by themselves, but if we do get another Burning Legion related expansion, I'd like to see a zone/questline/raid devoted to the Voidwalkers for sure.

Agreed. While Blizzard did extrapolate a lot for MoP, at least they had the general theme of a "lost continent expansion" to go off of, as well as one very well developed character. The Voidwalkers wouldn't really even have that since the only one of any note got killed off in BC.

But they could serve a decent enough role in a Burning Legion expansion, especially to vary the themes a little bit. We can't just be fighting piles and piles of Burning Legion demons.

[Mawnix]

Where's Azshara?

[Shampro]

My money is on Azshara and Nzoth, then the Legion. We're not going to Argus yet, are you guys crazy? Thats basicly the ''known'' stronghold of the legion we're totally going there when all hell is breaking lose right beneath our feet . Not to mention the Horde is undergoing a civil war.

[dirk123]

Aszhara/N'zoth
- Prophecy of land masses rising from the depths (@the Maelstrom?)
- Dawn of the Aspects E-Book saying the Emerald Nightmare is expanding again, green drakes can't help fight it anymore. They are leaving it to the druids.
- Neptulon
- N'zoth most likely the voice Azshara heard to offer her survival by changing them into Naga (War of the Ancients trilogy)
- Adding south seas, Tomb of Sargeras etc for more places to go.
- Zandalar (What is still left of it) to finish the Zandalari story

Burning Legion
- Wrathion's "hologram" showing the abyssals (green meteors) decending on Azeroth -> Azeroth invasion
- Wrathion text in 5.2/5.3

Burning Legion 2
- Finishing off the legion (Sargeras/Kil'jeaden/Remaining dreadlords) -> We go offworld

[La]

With so much talk and so many hints at a burning legion xpac, I'd be pretty upset if it wasn't so.

I'd also extremely dislike an expansion about azshara and the naga, but to each their own.

what better way to attract people back to the game than a great burning legion/sargeras xpac? What better face for one?

I like the tinfoil hats.