Originally Posted by
Le Conceptuel
That's wholly possible, though even then I'd be surprised if they went as subtle as calling it something like "Dragonflight" and trying to seriously portray it as an expansion until the punchline hits. I'd expect something more comical right on the spot, unless perhaps the content was more on-the-nose.
Indeed. Every expansion we don't get Ethereals or Nerubians is another period of disappointment for me. Still, I think I have enough interest in the setting to find something interesting in every expansion—the only thing that would really disappoint me, I think, about the expansion would be if the class is only Dragonsworn and not something like an actual Dragon.
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I could see a Prestige Class system work—a questline and reputation to unlock a total reskin of a class. It seems like they'd not want to add all those class skins as perfectly-accessible right off the bat unless they've really learned from BfA. I was thinking a fourth specialization could be interesting, but I don't know if adding several new specializations to balance would be a good idea, so I think it would make the most sense if it were just a total reskin of a class or at least a single specialization.
For instance, think of the Green Fire questline, but on a larger scale and more like Allied Races. Once you reach the end, you do a final quest leading to the unlocking of your new skin and changing your character until you reverse it if you so choose. For instance, let's take a Warlock who wants to follow the Necromancer class quest. They start their questline following around some evil Necromancer and ultimately stealing all of his belongings after they murder him because power-hungry Warlock brain wants power. Afterwards, their specializations all get reskinned and renamed and their plate now says they're a Necromancer. They can replace all their pets with Undead of various types and their spells are reflavored. If it's only one specialization, then they'd just stay as slightly-reflavored Affliction Warlocks changed only where necessary, whereas the more high-effort and probably better option is that all of their specializations are changed to some extent. Destruction's spells are all reflavored as Frost Spells (i.e. Rain of Fire becomes frozen meteorites or shards or even becomes physically-identical to Frost Mages' Blizzard spell, though I think that would be a bit lazy), Affliction's spells are all reflavored as green, plague-y spells, and Demonology's summons are all various kinds of Undead and Demonbolt is replaced with something frost-themed instead.
Similarly, a Hunter does a questline with Velanora and when they complete it, they get a final quest to turn their main character into a Dark Ranger unless reversed. Marksmanship is reflavored and all of the attacks now cause Shadow damage, Beast Mastery has all their abilities turn more explicitly undead-themed and they may even be able to tame non-animal (i.e. Humanoid) undead, and Survival gets more shadow-themed attacks and some of their traps might be slightly changed around.
Your Mage gets a distress call from the Bronze Dragonflight—the Infinites are doing something vague but unequivocally evil! It falls only to you, a mentally-unstable looter, to go commit murder on the Infinites. Eventually, the Bronze Dragonflight is so simultaneously impressed with you, grateful to you for saving them, and horrified by your depravity that they agree to grant you the powers of time-travel. You remain functionally the same, but all of your Fire spells are reskinned as Sand-based, all of your Arcane spells now have a bronze color scheme and runes, and your Frost spells are themed after the Infinites and your Water Elemental is now a Sand Elemental. You have become a Chronomancer, and your plate reflects this.
I was also thinking that in some cases, a transmog could substitute a whole new class skin—Wardens, I think, are similar enough to Rogues that a Warden-themed armor set and one of those cool circular glaives (transmogrified as one weapon even though you'd apply it naturally to two) could be enough to make a Rogue feel like a Warden.