Why don't you guys believe The Dark Below was a real trademark anymore?

[Jessicka]

If we know the legion is coming, as the King of the Alliance and the Warchief of the horde should be planning to defend our homelands. If we have that information now, then if we do nothing and instead go to Azshara or underwater or something like that, its pretty irresponsible.

We should be planning our defenses and some sort of offensive. Even if the offensive is sending a small band of 10-25 heroes to upload a computer virus to the legions mothership.

What reason would the Horde or Alliance leaders have to believe that information? I don't recall Garrosh or Varian giving much of a shit about Wrathion's story, otherwise Pandaria might have gone a little differently. And it certainly wouldn't be irresponsible to take action if Azshara/N'zoth were the ones to make the first move - which is highly likely.

[Devboy]

My point is that you're using a flawed prediction system.
You're looking backwards at a massive amount of content trying to find a connection between expansions.. obviously you're going to find one.

If the expansion order had been Wrath > Mists > BC > Cata

You could claim that the panda cub that came with WoW CE, and the Chen quest in the barrens were hints towards Mists of pandaria, and that the demons locked up in Violet hold were a hint towards a BC expansion, and that the Old god stuff and "yawning chasm of darkness beneath you mortals, vast, endless, and all consuming." was a hint towards Cata.

I'm not saying TDB is or is not the expansion.. It's very likely that the expansion will be Azshara/N'zoth or Legion.

But people really need to stop using the expansion-after-next prediction thing as an argument for an expansion being likely.
You're just seeing patterns where you want to see them.
And even if there WERE a pattern, you'd have no way to know what part of Cata is pointing towards the next expansion. It could be the demon in Hyjal who talks about the Legion's return, it could be the faceless ones pointing to a N'zoth expansion.. it could be Kezan pointing towards a southseas steampunk expansion that would make Teriz happy.

To quote myself arguing about this in a previous thread:

Fair points, but I think you mistook my post as a "this is the prediction, here is proof"

I purely intended it to be speculative, and ultimately just a theory. And I agree, there are lots of references elsewere in game that could point to other expansions. I could probably find references that would lead to an expansion that will never happen.

Its all for funzies at the end of the day I enjoy reading peoples opinions and speculative theories about expansion predictions etc, as do I coming up with them myself .

[Jessicka]

Or he thought he'd fail. Or thought he'd be able to stave off the legion invasion while he worked, or the expansion is supposed to happen a year after the events of SoO, or any number of things.

And like I said, that'd be a colossal, pointless bait and switch. Instead of having everyone pissing themselves about the Legion, including Wrathion himself, they could have just been talking up the threat of N'zoth or Azshara, which is apparently what we should have been planning for this entire time if this indeed does come to pass. But there wasn't ONE damn mention of them. At all. No Naga attacks, no giant tentacles invading Pandaria... nothin'. Not even weird tidal conditions.

How would it be a bait and switch if that story continued and escalated throughout the next expansion? Pandaria came completely from the left field too, as did Cataclysm.

Going "What a twist!" is not exactly good story telling when the twist is out of left field and has nothing to do with anything we've been doing on Pandaria.

because right now, it'd be like this:

MoP:
-Wrathion eluding to the Burning Legion's invasion
-Wrathion flatly saying "the burning legion is coming
-Wrathion making a heartfelt appeal to the August Celstials for powers to help fight off the Legion
-The burdens of Shao-Hao detailing the emperor's lesson needed to protect Pandaria from the legion, and the lessons needed to be learned by the Pandaren people in order to defend themselves from the Burning Legion in the future.

-and then the big bad we have to contend with in the next expansion, of course, is...

The Burning Le- JUST KIDDING! It's N'zoth!

So it's not the most... sensible... story avenue.

But it's hardly left-field when we've been expecting N'zoth and Azshara for years beforehand. We know they're now planning 2-3 expansions hense, and N'zoth/Azshara would tie in perfectly with Vashj'ir's story. Just suppose for a moment that the Abyssal Maw raid was canned because they decided heading down that hole to confront Azshara and N'zoth was expansion rather than raid worthy?

Who said that would need to be his final chapter?

And besides, he's two... in dragon years.

He may be two in dragon years, but in story and in game he's still incredibly one dimensional because he's been actually pretty marginal in those two years. He's supposed to be a big new major NPC and if his focus is, as it has been since day one, on the Legion. Fighting the Legion is his self appointed and only real purpose, and rushing him into that feels a really weak thing to do from a storytelling standpoint. If it's not his final chapter, then he absolutely needs more character development to make him useful and interesting after the Legion expansion we're expecting.

[Gimlix]

Just be happy you don't know it yet, a surprise is more fun then knowing what it will be.

[xinjun]

It makes absolutely no sense to either:

1. Have us confront the Burning Legion and possibly defeat Sargeras and have an expac AFTER that where we deal with N'Zoth. Sargeras is like the ultimate baddie of the wow universe. The old gods are pretty bad too, but I feel that Sargeras is worse since Titans are pretty much all-powerful.

or

2. We defeat the Burning Legion and wow ends peacefully and N'Zoth is never dealt with

N'Zoth has been actively fucking with Azeroth for several expacs. For anyone to think that we aren't going to have to deal with him seems unreasonable. The Legion is out in the nether somewhere, we don't actually know when they will find us. Just that they will. Which is what Wrathion is on about. N'Zoth is HERE, he is an active threat right NOW. It makes more sense to me that we put him down first.

I could be wrong, of course, but those are my thoughts.

[Berri]

It makes absolutely no sense to either:

1. Have us confront the Burning Legion and possibly defeat Sargeras and have an expac AFTER that where we deal with N'Zoth. Sargeras is like the ultimate baddie of the wow universe. The old gods are pretty bad too, but I feel that Sargeras is worse since Titans are pretty much all-powerful.

I think the Dark Below is probably real. But what makes you so sure that IF we had a Legion expansion, we would even deal with Sargeras? We'll probably have a Kil'Jaedan expansion before we even touch Sargeras, and to be fair Kil'Jaedan is probably a lot weaker than Azshara, so it could stand to reason that a legion expansion is logical.

[xinjun]

Right, the third option is that it goes Legion > N'Zoth > Legion

Which is an option. But seems a little tired.. Idk.

[chrisisvacant]

Right, the third option is that it goes Legion > N'Zoth > Legion

Which is an option. But seems a little tired.. Idk.

I find it hard to believe that we will take down Sargeras without the aid of the Titans (or, for that matter, vice versa).

There is more than enough room for an expansion dealing with just Sargeras, his inner circle, and the Titans' return.

[xinjun]

So, what, you'd label it more as Legion > N'Zoth > Titans (including Sargeras) ?

That's a possibility. This is all pure conjecture of course so anything is a possibility except random Chinese furries ... wait..

Anyway... yes, there has been heavy indications that we are going to have to deal with the Legion soon. I think any of us who know anything about the Warcraft universe knew that was inevitable all along. We definitely will have to fight them again, they have not been defeated. But, again, anyone who thinks that N'Zoth is not a threat (or wants to bury their head in the sand because 'waah we've already fought old gods before') is kidding themselves.

[Teriz]

You have yet to address Ruby Sanctum setting up Cataclysm in a non-*.0 patch.

You mean other than Ruby Sanctum being a RAID and not an entire patch?

Again, raining balls of green fire means that we have infernals dropping out of the sky DURING the Pandaria expansion. That would mean that the next expansion begins DURING the Pandaria expansion.

Blizzard doesn't end expansions in that fashion. Expansion level events like that always happen in the new expansion's patch. In this case, that would be 6.0.

Like I said, the Skysunder is an example of a good hoax. The Dark Below? Not so much.

[Julian Rayne]

I'm only gonna say this once.

Back in 2011, Blizzard registered a trademark with the USPTO for "Mists of Pandaria." When the news came out -- on about August 2, 2011 -- you could at that very moment go to the USPTO website and do a trademark search for "MISTS OF PANDARIA" and it would come up as a LIVE TRADEMARK. Not an application -- an actual, existing, REAL, live trademark, in TESS, the USPTO's database of actual trademarks.

If you search TESS for "The Dark Below", there are NO RESULTS. If you search by company name ("Blizzard Entertainment") it comes up with over 100, and none of them are "The Dark Below."

There is a difference between the APPLICATION and the ACTUAL TRADEMARK. All these "teas.uspto.gov" links are to the APPLICATIONS, which anyone can create for free and don't mean ANYTHING. TEAS stands for "Trademark Electronic APPLICATION System". TESS stands for "Trademark Electronic SEARCH System." TEAS is for looking at applications; TESS is for looking at actual trademarks.

To check:

1. Go to uspto.gov
2. Mouseover "TRADEMARKS" in the top nav
3. Click on "Trademark Search"
4. Click on "Basic Word Mark Search (New User)"
5. Type "DARK BELOW" (no quotes) into the "Search Term" field. (Or "THE DARK BELOW" if you prefer.)
6. Hit enter.
7. See that the only result that comes up is a mark that happens to contain both "dark" and "below" in the (lengthy) description. If you select "exact search phrase" from the search form, it finds NO RESULTS for either "DARK BELOW" or "THE DARK BELOW".

Now, all this proves is that there are currently no trademarks for the term "DARK BELOW". It does not prove that "DARK BELOW" isn't the name of the next expansion. However, as of right now there is NO reliable evidence that I know of that "THE DARK BELOW" is the name of the next expansion.

Thanks. That helped me understand.

[xinjun]

You mean other than Ruby Sanctum being a RAID and not an entire patch?

Again, raining balls of green fire means that we have infernals dropping out of the sky DURING the Pandaria expansion. That would mean that the next expansion begins DURING the Pandaria expansion.

Blizzard doesn't end expansions in that fashion. Expansion level events like that always happen in the new expansion's patch. In this case, that would be 6.0.

Like I said, the Skysunder is an example of a good hoax. The Dark Below? Not so much.

The expac prepatch can include events leading to the next expac. I could be wrong about this, but I recall the Cata prepatch occuring before the actual Cata launch.. it had elementals spawing all over Stormwind and Org that the players had to fight off. Not unbelievable that they would do a prepatch event similarly with demons and comets. For it to be a full fledged patch with actual content (rather than a half patch temporary event) is unsusual, though.

[bluspacecow]

Reaper of Souls doesn't show up either.

That would be your assumption.

The Hearthstone trademark showed they're able to register it in a foreign nation then apply for the US trademark after the fact. It's called a 44 d filing essentially :

http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/proc...4dtimeline.jsp

http://www.tmview.europa.eu/tmview/basicSearch.html

Searches 29 European Trademark sites.

Do a search on "Reaper of Souls" and you'll find Application # 012064606 , Reference # TM98417EU00/SS/NH

Trade mark office listed is OHIM. Go to the OHIM site and you find this via their eSearch on the right hand side :

http://esearch.oami.europa.eu/copla/...data/012064606

Credit to Eldorian of Blizzpro for showing me how :

http://www.blizzpro.com/blog/2013/08...ent-1001200552

Now you know how to ! *Gi Joe Rainbow* THE MORE YOU KNOW!

Disclaimer : I am not a trademark lawyer.

[Worgoblin]

The more I think about it, the more I hope The Dark Below is a hoax. I think it would be pretty damn epic if we don't find out what the x-pack is and the announcement at Blizzcon is the first time we hear about it. To actually be surprised by their reveal will be incredibly exciting.

[Dvaldin]

Next expansion; World of Warcraft: Into the Ether.
You heard it here first.

[Jessicka]

Next expansion; World of Warcraft: Into the Ether.
You heard it here first.

An expansion based on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? I don't think that would keep the PEGI 12 rating

[Sierra85]

An expansion based on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

i think we'll see something alot worse than the worst of vegas.

Morning Glory in Wisconsin

[Renley]

So why do the Naga and the Legion have to be separate expansions? Azshara opened the portal for the Legion once, why not again? It's quite possible, considering she is still considered one of the most powerful witches/mages, if not the most powerful. Gives us variety and lots of story. Azshara and the naga, Legion, and possible old god madness.

[Thalian]

I'm pretty sure The Dark Below was the real deal, Blizzard just posted "Corgis Unleashed" to throw us off.

Yep. And Boub is probably in on it (told by Blizzard to shut everyone up).

[xinjun]

So why do the Naga and the Legion have to be separate expansions? Azshara opened the portal for the Legion once, why not again? It's quite possible, considering she is still considered one of the most powerful witches/mages, if not the most powerful. Gives us variety and lots of story. Azshara and the naga, Legion, and possible old god madness.

Possible but that's an awful lot of stuff goin on!