I mean would anyone be surprised or annoyed if any old god returned? I think they make much more sense as an eternal threat that we can only really delay/ smack down when they appear
You wouldn't want to eliminate as a threat forever though; that would cost the narrative much
A C'thun, Yogg and N'zoth expansion seems inevitable
Back to the past or elemental expansion, chance to get void expansion 0%
I remember an old interview where the developers talked about possible intervention in the past.
Unless of course, as the devs have eluded to, that as a mysterious background force the Old Gods are great but as a tangible character who has to serve as an actual antagonist the individual old gods are terrible and only serve the function of a punching bag.
I don't think this is necessarily true, but it seems to be the philosophy the developers are following.
I think Old Gods were overused in WoW, and Blizzard need to move up in the Shadow hierarchy. Void Lords, where are you at?
Going back through BfA, it's clear they tried to that the Old God expansion. However, the also made it the Faction War expansion AND Azshara expansion at the same time, so it was all so jammed together that there was no narrative breathing room.
If N'Zoth died from the laser at the end of an expansion following his escape, it would not have felt as underwhelming as it did in the patch directly after his escape. (I'm also disappointed that the "God of the Deep" swims into the ocean and the ocean is never used again.)
It also felt bad to play mechanically, which will ruin any expansion.
You say that, but outside N'zoth all the Old Gods have been phenomenal villains. Even C'thun in Vanilla was a strong final boss in his raid, and Yogg-saron is one of WoWs most iconic bosses. Y'sharrj might have been more subdued, but even then the way he was slowly built up over MoP was fantastic.
Had BfA had the balls to go all out on the underwater stuff, and really built up N'zoth as a villain that way I think it would have worked much better.
The world revamp dream will never die!
The potential for a black empire expansion is insane; they you said - the dipped their toes in for BFA - they need to fully go for it
Have it so the Old Gods survive and are recuperating under the earth of Azeroth
Yogg's zone could be an massive ulduar type installation the size of a whole zone, underneath Northrend
C'thun's zone could be a modern silithus/AQ zone, would also let us revisit silithids, underneath Kalimdor
N'zoth could get an aquatic underwater zone, underneath the Maelstrom
Last boss could be Y'shaarj at the deepest part of Azeroth, underneat Pandaria
BFA felt bloated because of three themes that make sense together but too major each on their own to not feel cut here and there in a single expansion.
Legion in this sense was perfect - it had one major theme (Legion) and few smaller ones (Suramar+Emerald Nightmare+Odyn and Co, from which only Emerald Dream could have potentially take over the whole expansion (in retrospective i feel it would be way too much)).
It's old, just trying to annoy people. I actually like the idea of Tinkers tbh, and in that case, almost certainly more than Dracthyr Evokers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...of_tinkers_in/
Naga and N'zoth are a natural fit, so I was not as mad when they were paired together. I was more mad that the expansion supposedly all about Naval exploration ended up abandoning that aspect completely for the final patch against the supposed God of the Deep.
We even had the interesting dynamic of hte underwater prison we saw briefly at the end of Eternal Palace, and never again. I was so ready for us to keep going down into the depths in search of N'zoth.
The world revamp dream will never die!