Hey WoW fans. Hope everyone's been having a good merry holidays timesmas season.
It's been many years since I posted my first expansion concept here on MMO-Champion - eight friggin' years this month, in fact! I made all those expansion ideas because I was filled with so much inspiration from WoW, and I just had to share my ideas about what lands could be explored in the future and what creatures and enemies we might face. WoW sure has changed a lot since then, and while the game itself might have gone through ups and downs, I don't love it or it's setting any less.
As this year draws to a close, I know that next year will involve some major changes in my own life. So I wanted to make this thread showing all of the WoW-related fan stuff I've done since I started posting on MMO-C all those years ago. There's links to content I've posted in older threads (though don't feel the need to necro them, just post here or PM me if you want), as well as some projects I've only wrapped up recently or done partial work on. Just for fun, I'll add a poll so folks can vote on which one they think is the neatest.
I also have a link to a writing project I started a while back called Chronicles of the Titan Worlds, inspired by WoW's own Chronicle books and properties like Magic: The Gathering and other games I've played. It offers a look at my take on the future of the Warcraft universe.
Now please fill your eyeballs with all of this stuff I wrote and arted:
The first one! Blizzard cut the Spider Kingdom zone from Wrath, and incurred my wrath, in the form of this underground expansion concept. Arachnophobes hated it, but a lot of non-wimpy scaredy-cats seemed to think it was pretty cool.
The one that Blizzard totally ripped off for BFA! ...Probably not. But if so, Blizzard, get in touch and I'll tell you where you can send the money. Really, 'great sea expansion' ideas had been floating around for ages involving Azeroth's long neglected island nations, so this was my take on them. Can you believe I imagined the Broken Isles as just a single small zone with only a dungeon in it? Ha ha! Legion certainly showed me! But seriously Blizz I had half of your latest expansion's shit worked out years ago, call me.
It was juuust before Chronicle Vol.1 came out and totally turned WoW cosmology on its head that I had nearly finished putting this together. The Void had been a fairly minor and ill-defined element before it was catapulted to the top WoW's greater cosmic powers and filled with all kinds of awesome monsters, but I loved the Void before it was famous!
If ever there was something that would make me permanently mad at Blizzard's creative talent, it would be their attitude towards the Emerald Dream. 'Just a bunch of green forests' indeed! As if Azeroth isn't 95% forests anyway. While threats there seem to have been resolved in Legion, I still think the Dream could have worked as a full expansion setting. Hence this concept. Story-wise, just pretend Legion didn't happen, or something. This one didn't get it's own thread or art or anything, but it's pretty much finished.
So, this is a bit of a weird one. Earlier this year I got it into my head to re-make Spider Kingdom, using many of the same setting elements but updating the story and events to take place post-Legion, and raising the stakes a whole damn bunch. With Sargeras' neutralized, the worldsoul at Azeroth's core comes under attack by the Void, and we need to go down into the underworld to defend the worldsoul itself. With all of the hubbub lately about the worldsoul and the power at Azeroth's core, an expansion involving us going down there might become a reality in the not too distant future. I kinda ran out of steam for this one and didn't do much on it, but maybe I'll pick away at it in future.
This project wasn't a fan expansion concept like the others, but more my own take on WoW's Chronicle books. I decided to take a stab at writing what the future of the Warcraft universe might be like, many ages past once Azeroth has awoken as a true Titan. Azeroth the world may be gone, but an entire solar system of brand new worlds have been born, their destiny closely intertwined and under threat from a host of evils both familiar and brand new. As far as writing goes, I think my strongest stuff is here.
Not complete and never will be, by design, since everything is open ended to allow for unlimited new stuff in the future!
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Whew! Quite the stack of stuff when you lay it all out like that.
Thanks to @Skytotem, @Stormbringer, @GennGreymane, @Choppersan, @DarkLightDisciple, and all the others who read and posted about my stuff and sent me PMs over the years - I read each and every word and loved them all. A single word of praise about a piece of work is what every artist really wants.
That, and to be paid.
On that note, if I might take a brief moment to shill like crazy, please take a look at the work I'm actually doing professionally in actual real actual video games that I actually helped make, right now, for real! The latest game I've worked on is called The Pit: Infinity, an FPS with horror and rogue-like elements. It's still in early release right now, but I think it's really something special, and many of the enemies you can encounter were created by yours truly! Check it out, leave some comments, write a review about how it's the greatest game ever made, and buy a copy! Buy two!
Everybody have a good new year's celebration, and best wishes for everyone in 2019.