What "Expansion Theme" would Completely Blindside You?

[Azerox]

I want something dark and heavy themed.
Like Wotlk, MoP or Legion.
If it is something like cata/bfa i would be dissapointed.
I hope it is something with Death/Shadow/Void.
Also i like Mechagnomes and stuff so i hope they can implement that.

[Lightforged]

Other side of Azeroth. It would be too good to be true.

Somebody betrays us and imbues Xal'atath with N'Zoth's essence (hopeful candidates: Anduin, Wrathion, Azshara, Sylvanas).
Does something to unleash it upon the world or whatever, effectively covering everything in darkness.
We're forced to travel into the Veiled/Forbidding Seas to discover a new continent.
The continent could be ret-conned to be the location of the Dragon Isles, which was previously mentioned as being near Northrend IIRC.
We discover one of the final titan facilities and go through an adventure in which we unlock the powers of the Dragonsworn.
We return to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms as these cloaked bad asses, like an exiled Jedi or Strider from LotR, and fight back against the Black Empire (or Death) in a corrupted world.
Eventually we win and Azeroth is reborn, with a complete revamp in 10.0.

But eh, it'll probably be some dumb continent that does nothing to fix the broken timelines, feels like a pause from the current story and re-uses some old villain.

I kind of think something like this, but instead of the dragon isles, we go to Northrend for safety because "Bolvar can protect us" (or maybe it is a place Nzoth fears to tread?). Then we get wrapped up in the dragon stuff with the Wyrmcrest Accord (and Wrathion's political machinations) which leads us to the Dragon Isles which are like the Suramar of 9.1.

[hynx]

All this talk about Shadowlands, death and the Lich King, the Dragon Isles, the Black Empire... all of these fake leaks are regurgitating the same themes. Who knows if the actual expansion will contain any elements of any of them.


However,


What would totally come out of left field for you? What expansion theme would totally blindside you?


Understanding that Blizzard likes to set up the next expansion near the end of the current one, you would think we're going into a Black Empire/Shadowlands/Death versus the Void/Dragons kind of expansion. But what if we weren't?


What totally unexpected theme of an expansion would genuinely make you say "I didn't see that coming" and perhaps even re-interest you?


Of course something that may totally be unexpected and from out of nowhere to yourself may be not be the same to somebody different. Personally I think if we had another expansion about discovering some brand new continent filled with a brand new race we've never seen before (or that is scarcely touched on in the lore) being targeted by brand new bad guys akin to "Mists of Pandaria" would unexpected to me. Since WoD we've seen the next chapter of the story so that -- to me -- would be different.

emerald nightmare is stopped in "the other realm", and instead slowly destroys our current Azeroth, for us to eventually go into the Emerald Dream, and essentially perform a factory reset on current Azeroth...and we finally abondon WOW and start priming for WOW 2.

[AbalDarkwind]

Return to Draenor with the Lightbound and Yrel as the villains (At least, initially).

I think it's coming, especially with the obvious set up along with Farahlon and the southern continent both still being shrouded in mystery. I just don't think it's 9.0.

Runner up would be a "hidden continent" expansion centered around Tel'Abim with a mythical Arabian theme.

[Ehrenpanzer]

Any expansion that didn't have a theme of either killing or deposing the Horde Warchief... Its getting to be worse then being a red shirt in Star Trek

[reploid]

One with good writting and that the warchief survives throughout the expansion, as a functional and accepted member of the Horde leadership.

You can only mean green jesus, yeah, we had him up till wrath. he sucked

[apustus]

Elemental planes and how the defeat of Al'akir and Ragnaros has disrupted them

[Powerogue]

After Pandaria and WOD it's really hard to come up with something too bizarre to believe.

Uhh, WC4. Still WoW, but literally everything becomes structured around ordering units around.

[Soulwind]

After Pandaria and WOD it's really hard to come up with something too bizarre to believe.

Uhh, WC4. Still WoW, but literally everything becomes structured around ordering units around.

That sounds like warfronts.

[SoulSoBreezy]

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth - Reforged

[luciano]

An "Evil Anduin" expansion.

Like...Sylvanas kills Jaina or nukes Stormwind or w/e, and Anduin just snaps. Straight up snaps. He hits Sylvanas with some light-bomb spell that explodes her from the inside, leaving nothing to resurrect. He destroys Orgrimmar and some Horde towns. Anduin gets so dark that Genn and the dwarves step in to try and calm him down, and they can't. Genn is wounded, nearly killed, in the process.

You could go about a dozen different directions from there.

[Tiwack]

Hard to beat going to the past so I guess it would be heading to the future.

[Paraka]

A passive "adventure" theme. None of this ridiculous power creep each expansion has done. Letting players get "lost" in a new world, undiscovered by the factions. Like a weird free-for-all world. Faction lines are blurred here (and not permanently), everything is the player surviving til their faction comes, which draws ire of the next expansion focus.

[Teriz]

Steampunk is less popular than magic. That is basically the essence of why Tinker would be ditched in favour of magic/edgy (or even both, thatd be win win) class. You see technology can be explained and thus doesnt have the appealing charm of mystery that magic has.

Also gnomes and goblins are least played races. It would be stupid to try and make a cake out of turds.

While Steampunk is less popular than magic, it's still extremely popular. It would also be a new expansion theme that has the potential to pull in new players.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

A part of me always liked the the idea of a "mongrel Horde" concept -- which was Blizzard's first idea for WoD -- which was all the savage races of Azeroth being united under one banner by Garrosh.


Using the same concept I'd always thought a cool idea (or just marginally neat idea) would be a return of the Scarlet Crusade/Onslaught but they recruit all of other bad guy organizations that have been thwarted by the adventures/heroes under their banner. Defias Brotherhood, Gordunni ogres of Dire Maul, remnants of Nefarian's "Dark Horde" and the like. Those are the only ones I can think of off the bat.


Of course the Scarlet Crusade/Onslaught would have to shift away from their xenophobic tendencies but hey, I think they're cool.

[Unholyground]

Emerald Dream

[Soulwind]

Hard to beat going to the past so I guess it would be heading to the future.

A portal opens and... it's modern day Earth!

[Lightforged]

You know what, an entire expansion focused on Bronze Dragon Timey Wimey stuff would be interesting and unexpected. Like we get a bunch of new zones but they are all existing zones plucked from different points in time.

[Kyphael]

An expansion that isn't about Anduin marrying Taelia and having Varian Bolvar Wrynn.

[StillMcfuu]

Pandas.

/10char