Shadowlands could lead to an entirely new Azeroth or WoW2 even

[Beloren]

After seeing the 9.1 raid cinematic ending, who else suspects blizzard setting up to have Shadowlands lead to an entirely new Azeroth.

Zovaal remakes a reality can actually produce a reason to have everything different and effectively bring a new game.

Whether it is Zovaal’s design or he battles with Elune and the new reality is a combination of the two where these two are at opposite ends

Whatever the how, this is where it can lead.

They could effectively produce a new looking game.

Everything updated. New concept. The only thing that stays are the systems and you can do old content so it feels like it’s still wow.

But it is effectively a new game. A lot of shaking up.


We can have class skins,
Prestige classes, new allied races and faction reorganisation.

Now you choose your faction after you pick your race. And some races occasionally change factions. But effectively some raids, dungeons and pvp content are open to all. Not faction limited, while you have certain themes pvp ones

Azeroth though has a very new look.

How they work out the detail is unknown. Is history rewritten entirely? Does
Most of it remain the same? Do the dead from Azeroth return to life?

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No need to do expansions into nee weird zones and planets etc.

You can effectively set up the next 5-6 expansions exploring the remade Azeroth and any other related worlds

[Jabbiz]

I've been thinking the same, and I do hope so. I am actually rooting for the Jailer. He said death is coming to the world soul of Azeroth, meaning he intends to kill our world, and with his recent speech about remaking reality, I kinda hope something happens and we are forced to find a new home, or restart or whatever, basically a WoW 2.
However, with recent patches and expansions, I really doubt Blizzard will do something like this, but it would absolutely be cool if they did.

[Varodoc]

How people can think that a company that constantly recycles systems every new expansion could essentially make a new MMORPG is beyond me. You'd think the failure of Titan and creation of Overwatch would have taught people a lesson.

Cataclysm was WoW 2.0, there is nothing left to say on the subject.

[epigramx]

Really: shadowlands only can lead to that? It's a game about FANTASY. The fart of any mage can lead to a reset.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If you're going to keep the themepark raiding MMO, then dump the factions. They keep players from playing with each other and it's a waste of resources designing content that only half of the playerbase will see. Do the FFXIV thing (or Shadowlands covenants) where you can pick a faction and there is a small bit of exclusive content for it and that's it. Everyone still pretty much plays together.

If you REALLY want to have two factions fighting each other, then at least dump the Alliance vs Horde thing. It's been done to death. The story was closed in MoP, only for it to be dug up from the grave and mutilated. At least be original and change up the status quo. Have the Alliance conquer and break up the Horde, and then years/decades later a group of Alliance extremists want to wipe out the Horde races. Said extremists gain control over the Alliance military and want to dominate everyone, including Alliance races. The controlists eventually begin accepting Horde races into their faction so long as they share their ideology of dominating everyone. Good hearted Alliance officers defect from the Alliance and form an anit-extremist organization, and are joined by former Horde members trying to protect themselves. The player can choose to either join the controlists or the resistance/freedom fighters.

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Or do a time travel thing, where you have one faction that wants to go back in time and change history, versus another faction trying to preserve history and is fighting the historical revisionists.

I know these ideas are derivative of Zeta Gundam and Touken Ranbu, but my point is please, for the love of elune DON'T RETREAD HORDE VS ALLIANCE FOR THE BILLIONATH TIME!

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Even having a third faction would be a huge relief, but at that point you really need to get away from the themepark thing and just go full blown DAOC, which won't happen in this day and age.

[shuubu]

Shadowlands could lead to an entirely new Azeroth or WoW2 even

But it won't.

[Ivarr]

Yes. This is what I'm hoping the future of Wow looks like. Back to the low coddy stakes.

For this to truly work the two factions should be broken up in multiple factions. This can be done gradually. The horde and alliance can still remain as you can't really destroy guilds and friendships without pissing everyone off. But from these two factions players of specific races can defect into new, smaller factions, similar to how Covenants work right now, only now they're exclusive according to race.

These factions can collaborate and compete against each other based on the ebb and flow of the story. One patch certain factions are friendly, another they're neutral, and another they're hostile. This gives Blizzard writers a ton of material to work with and it keeps the players on their toes.

These factions also compete over the refreshed zones. Not just through pvp but also through world quest efforts. Every week the total effort of each faction (corrected for faction size) determines the perks or set-backs this faction enjoys in this region. Influencing any instances that are located in this zone as well.

The way these zones are won or lost determine the access to the gear that players can farm. If you want a particular item from an instance, then your faction will have to 'win' that zone that week first so you can access the conditional bosses / vendors in these zones/instances the next week.

This system avoids a lot of RNG and substitutes it for player-based content. Because it's impossible to win all zones all the time, there's a lot of progress gated behind this faction effort. No more luck, just effort.

[Bramickias]

Since an interview with someone from Blizzard (cant remember who that was) mentionned that time pass differently in Shadowlands, i've been expecting the next expac to feature a revamped Azeroth. They can take it a LOT further then that if they let the Jailer win, but a remake of Eastern Kingdom/Kalimdor is the minimum i'm expecting for the next expac.

[Azerate]

Please stop with the wow2 already.

[SunspotAnims]

Another world revamp is on table I think, but it honestly doesn't need a timeskip or a "remaking" of Azeroth. Azeroth as a planet has been threatened and beaten nonstop since Cataclysm, with so many places getting razed over time. Just rebuilding what was lost is a totally valid theme for an expansion at this point, and honestly I'd prefer it over another huge threat.

[cuafpr]

if SL does lead to a world revamp it will not be that game-changing. At best it would fix the world from the cata revamp, same engine, same characters, factions stay (as they should imo)... maybe an improved game engine (debatable if needed).

[dope_danny]

or it will be another loot pinata as the scale pulls back one and THIS is the real big bad that corrupted the jailer and was behind it all and you CHAMPION need to save azeroth from destruction.

39th times the charm.

[Beloren]

If you're going to keep the themepark raiding MMO, then dump the factions. They keep players from playing with each other and it's a waste of resources designing content that only half of the playerbase will see. Do the FFXIV thing (or Shadowlands covenants) where you can pick a faction and there is a small bit of exclusive content for it and that's it. Everyone still pretty much plays together.

If you REALLY want to have two factions fighting each other, then at least dump the Alliance vs Horde thing. It's been done to death. The story was closed in MoP, only for it to be dug up from the grave and mutilated. At least be original and change up the status quo. Have the Alliance conquer and break up the Horde, and then years/decades later a group of Alliance extremists want to wipe out the Horde races. Said extremists gain control over the Alliance military and want to dominate everyone, including Alliance races. The controlists eventually begin accepting Horde races into their faction so long as they share their ideology of dominating everyone. Good hearted Alliance officers defect from the Alliance and form an anit-extremist organization, and are joined by former Horde members trying to protect themselves. The player can choose to either join the controlists or the resistance/freedom fighters.

- - - Updated - - -

Or do a time travel thing, where you have one faction that wants to go back in time and change history, versus another faction trying to preserve history and is fighting the historical revisionists.

I know these ideas are derivative of Zeta Gundam and Touken Ranbu, but my point is please, for the love of elune DON'T RETREAD HORDE VS ALLIANCE FOR THE BILLIONATH TIME!

- - - Updated - - -

Even having a third faction would be a huge relief, but at that point you really need to get away from the themepark thing and just go full blown DAOC, which won't happen in this day and age.

I like your concept, I really do.. that could work quite well.

[justandulas]

They lack the testicular fortitude needed to make WoW 2

As much as that would make sense, they’ll take the easy road and make 10.0 about the light and the void, space monsters, etc

WoW needs to be more grounded in a reality of some kind tho, instead of every expac throwing away the lore that came before it. Build on the lore rather than gut it for selfish purposes of establishing a new villain of the year every year

[Crimson Spears]

They lack the testicular fortitude needed to make WoW 2

As much as that would make sense, they’ll take the easy road and make 10.0 about the light and the void, space monsters, etc

WoW needs to be more grounded in a reality of some kind tho, instead of every expac throwing away the lore that came before it. Build on the lore rather than gut it for selfish purposes of establishing a new villain of the year every year

I can't imagine how much a cash shop would infect a new wow 2 that has had it infest it from the start as well.

[Ivarr]

They lack the testicular fortitude needed to make WoW 2

As much as that would make sense, they’ll take the easy road and make 10.0 about the light and the void, space monsters, etc

WoW needs to be more grounded in a reality of some kind tho, instead of every expac throwing away the lore that came before it. Build on the lore rather than gut it for selfish purposes of establishing a new villain of the year every year

It's so obvious. Doing this would get people hooked for life. And yet it's not an effort they can expend.

[justandulas]

I can't imagine how much a cash shop would infect a new wow 2 that has had it infest it from the start as well.

WoW cash shop is still rather tame compared to the competition. Both ff14 and eso have more aggressive cash shops imo, altho both games do offer more to do

Imagine housing alone in WoW in an eso model where people could pay for diff rotating homes of varying value. Blizz would be making all the $

[epigramx]

They lack the testicular fortitude needed to make WoW 2

As much as that would make sense, they’ll take the easy road and make 10.0 about the light and the void, space monsters, etc

WoW needs to be more grounded in a reality of some kind tho, instead of every expac throwing away the lore that came before it. Build on the lore rather than gut it for selfish purposes of establishing a new villain of the year every year

They should just make it a law that makes it illegal to milk children with pay to win schemes. Currently the main business model of the game is milking old players with microtransactions since clearly the players are at least 20 times fewer than in WotLK days.

If they were ACTUALLY depended on having subs numbers and not just a mountain of dollars from any number of subs WoW would have been way different: they'd focus on actually bringing people that like good games; not people with sunk-cost fallacies.

[justandulas]

They should just make it a law that makes it illegal to milk children with pay to win schemes. Currently the main business model of the game is milking old players with microtransactions since clearly the players are at least 20 times fewer than in WotLK days.

If they were ACTUALLY depended on having subs numbers and not just a mountain of dollars from any number of subs WoW would have been way different: they'd focus on actually bringing people that like good games; not people with sunk-cost fallacies.

They’ve been trying and failing at those laws. See: fifa ultimate team

[epigramx]

They’ve been trying and failing at those laws. See: fifa ultimate team

I mean money has enough power that even children will remain unprotected. E.g. it will always surprise me that it's even legal to have advertisements for food for children. We're talking about an adult that literally tells to the children of other adults to eat unhealthy junk food and we find that perfectly legal.