Are Blizzard obligated to deliver a "faction war expansion?"

[Omedon]

Would it be a considerable betrayal of investment (in pre-purchases) or almost like some kind of case of "false advertising" if "Battle for Azeroth," as it's being hyped in this period of a lot of talk while they develop the action (which I believe is quite intentional) turned out to *not* be mostly about escalating and perpetuity of the faction war?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a platinum card carrying member of team "screw this faction garbage, we all know it's going to be an old God expansion," but that's a lot of confirmation bias and zealous hope talking. The facts are unfortunately that BFA is being hyped by a cinematic of a pitched battle meant to sum up the whole war, with orcs and humans facing off on the box. Does that obligate Blizzard to deliver on that theme ad nauseum and not swerve from it shortly after launch (saaay around Blizzcon) like so many of us including myself are hoping is actually what's happening?

[Ithekro]

Warfronts say they will deliver faction war for a long time. The main campaign storyline (the Suramar style story) is the War Campaign.

Sure we know eventually the Old God/Void Lords will become a problem and the raids will be centered around that, but they will keep the war going. At least until much later in the expansion (or Patch 8.1 if Queen Azshara raises her city to the surface and causes the two faction to combine force against her.) But the way things have been shown so far has been the Horde and Alliance doing the same things for different reasons. Sometimes at the expense of the other faction. As well as directly fight each other.

While I hope they avoid the Warchief Sylvanas raid concept, or the Storming of Stormwind ending, I think the war will still play a major factor in Battle for Azeroth...until the theme shift to the factions fighting For Azeroth (or if things go badly/we've been tricked this whole time, fighting against the corrupted Titan Azeroth).

[Deleted]

At least half an expansion is my guess. Then we'll likely see some tentacle bois appear.

[Nevcairiel]

Everyone knows that the story changes over time. A cinematic of a war between Horde and Alliance is not a binding contract. Its the first chapter of the story, further chapters can evolve however they want to.

Unless its specifically stated somewhere that BfA is about a faction war and a faction war only, there is no "false advertising". Trailers/Teasers show you the beginning of a story, not its end.

[Lightforged]

My bet is that the expansion will focus on the war at the beginning, then it will slowly be revealed that the real big bad is an Old God. However, the bad blood caused by the war (burning of Teldrassil, the conquest of Undercity and amount of death caused by all the various battles) will cause the war to continue on, unabated even though the leaders know full well they were manipulated into this. It will not be until the last patch that some kind of truce is forged and the people of Azeroth take the fight to N'Zoth.

[babyback]

The battle will be an over arching story and then we will fight different baddies. Kinda like MoP

[Teri]

Warfronts, War mode, PVP-treasure Islands, will remain for the entire expansion.

I don't expect a major "horde and alliance need to work together" until the 9.0 plot change, like an Old God Black Empire 2.0 (world revamp) or a Void Invasion/Other planet.

Plot twist would be if we fill the Heart of Azeroth with Azerite, which basicly is a huge reason for the War, and then it ends up being essence of an already Corrupted World Soul, or a manipulated resource created by N'zoth&co.

Magni letting us enter all those Titan places so easily, just seems a bit suspicious somehow.

[Ithekro]

Warfronts, War mode, PVP-treasure Islands, will remain for the entire expansion.

I don't expect a major "horde and alliance need to work together" until the 9.0 plot change, like an Old God Black Empire 2.0 (world revamp) or a Void Invasion/Other planet.

Where the blame game starts....

"By the Light, They killed Azeroth!'

"You Bastards!'

[Bandaidboy]

*** Spoiler Alert ***

The Old God influence is prevalent from the moment both the Horde and Alliance arrive on Zandalar and Kul'Tiras respectively. Blizzard has made no illusion that there is foul play afoot from N'zoth and his cronies.

[Aeula]

They’re not obligated to do anything.

That said I’ll be disappointed if the Alliance/Horde Storyline is replaced with Blizzard’s poorly done lovecraft ripoff.

[Jujudrood]

I mean, the *entire* xpac won't be *just* faction war, but with the War Campaign (main leveling/max level story) being faction-war-centric, paired with Warfronts, there will be a solid focus on it throughout.
They will have us fight non-faction-related things, like basically every raid (unless we get another ToC 'pvp' encounter... lol), and dungeons will most likely be mostly, if not fully, removed from the faction conflict (maybe some hints of it here and there, but ultimately kill monsters and other baddies will be the theme).

The real key here is, how will the story evolve from the faction war into the "next greatest threat" type of thing.
Some old god, some titan, some voidybois, whatever they choose to do, it needs to make sense and not immediately dwarf the faction conflict, but enhance it.
We'll prolly get some shit like old gods whispering to Sylvy and Waaaaahnduin, tricking them into doing "the things" that cause the war to escalate.
Maybe bitchboi Andy thinks it's the Light telling him to do the things when in reality it's a bad guy... that's never happened before...

Tangent aside, at this point it seems like they've already pretty much delivered it with the zone stories, the warfronts.
Obligations aside, they've done what they said, so far, but we'll wait and see how live plays out.

[Gaidax]

At least half an expansion is my guess. Then we'll likely see some tentacle bois appear.

Trust me, you gonna see tentacle bois much MUCH sooner both sides.

Heck, I'd say for expansion that is supposedly about faction war - there is no faction war whatsoever happening during questing to 120. Like maybe 5% of things you do while leveling is about faction war and 95% is about cozying up to your new troll/fat human friends.

Though things may change at 120, but until then - you barely see other faction at all NPC or non-NPC alike.

[Omedon]

My personal expectation/hope is that "rawr factions" will be the Suramar of BFA.

...So all but irrelevant by 8.2.

I expect that the idea that there is something bigger at play will be prevalent in game by Blizzcon, where we will get another "and then...Argus" type panel from Ion that sets up the road map of the old God content to come for the following year.

[Gaidax]

Well it's very likely as Blizzard did in past say something about expansions being done in story arcs and this is very likely a start of the whole Void arc with this faction thing being a distraction before the real shit happens, just like WoD with it's Iron Horde dud.

[RobertMugabe]

Knowing Blizz, it will quickly turn away from a faction war already at launch and we, the heroes, will know that it was all set up by Azshara (who we're going to kill in the other 8.0 raid).

I do hope that this will not be the case.

[kraid]

The real twist here will be that the old gods come in the prepatch for the new xpac.

[Maljinwo]

The final boss is a double fight against Sylvanas and Jaina who have been possesed by N'zoth and now they have tentacles.

[Steampunkette]

Battle for Azeroth is a Title, not a contract. They are not obligated to have it contain any battles. Or Azeroth. Though I doubt they could avoid the word For or number Four.

It comes up a lot.

[Dug]

I don't know about obligated but they've been selling this as a Horde vs Alliance expansion at least partially so I want to see some of that as a major plot device. If half way through we need to band together for N'zoth whatever but I'd like to see HvA

[Skirdus]

Blizzard is obligated to deliver an expansion where I don't have to feel like some oblivious tool of the Old Gods because of my faction's actions.