Reign of Azshara [Fan Expansion Concept]

[DarthMonk79]

My god did none of you read it..... the land at the bottom of the ocean would be raised.. therefore not underwater. There might be someone watery areas but that is it. I for one like it.

[zubaja]

Omg, whole expansion based on vash'jir?.. No, please no.. god please no, I hated that zone so much.. The concept is cool, the art here is cool, but god, underwater zones in WoW just don't work. I got through that nausea-inducting piece of headache back in Cata, and I don't want to go through it again :/

You haven't read the OP, have you? The lands have risen from, as in 'No longer underwater', from the bottom of the ocean.
Vashj'ir's story was good, but my god was depth-perception there annoying as hell.

[Acelius]

Sounds like a cool concept. I just can't shake the feeling that if Blizzard ever released an expansion like this a lot of players would feel disconnected if they aren't heavily into lore.

[Kiingy]

Tel Abim is closer to Thousand Needles and Kezan and The Broken Isles are also far too close to the Maelstrom. The Maelstrom is also tiny.


Here is Azeroth seen from Outland atop black temple. Maelstrom should be a lot bigger.

https://i.imgur.com/0YzNFb3.jpg

[azkhane]

why not a isle for ourselfs with a lighthouse,fortress,docks with our own warships with naval strategy minigames/missions.

[Deleted]

sounds proper but probably too difficult for blizzard to bother making, inb4 we go to AU northrend for some bullshit reason Kappa

[Golden Yak]

Yow, lots of new comments, i love it! 'cept you, Vishy and golds, ya butts! Thanks for all the kind words everyone, I'll try and address direct posts.

First Xavius added to the side of Azshara, he's supposed to be deceased, but so are so many other characters that pop by on your average day.

Actually, lorewise Xavius is still alive - he was defeated at the end of the novel Stormrage and imprisoned in the Rift of Aln. If I had done an Emerald Dream expansion concept, I would certainly have used him.

I probably won't use any Emerald Dream elements in this concept - I think it would be possible to do so, but I'm of the opinion that the Dream can stand alone on its own merits and doesn't need to be combined with another theme. When I plotted out the basic story and content of the Reign of Azshara, I did the same for an Emerald Dream expansion, and there was actually more Dream stuff to start with. I might do it after the RoA concept is done.

As for the Tomb of Sargeras and Zandalar, there are definitely going to be things happening there in the future. I don't have any new dungeons planned, though I did consider making a new version of the Temple of Atal'Hakkar, but I felt that would make more sense as a Dream related dungeon (as you say, Hakkar has some connection there). Not sure whether Hakkar will be showing up in Zandalar or not.

I'm still wondering if we have to have a need to level from 100 to anything? Why not just give us 10 plus new zones to play in come expansion time? And for that matter.. make all the other zones "Max" level. What happens when you "finish" a zone. Gate it to a zone where you can come back and repeat dailies, quests etc. I'm looking at you secret world type questing!

Honestly, there probably doesn't need to be a standard level increment, I just had it like that out of habit to work out the content. In my Spider Kingdom I toyed with the earliest version of the Path of War, a way of improving your character without using the typical experience grind - mechanics aren't my strong suit though. I thought something like the Diablo Paragon system might be interesting.

Goblinbots? Oh hell yeah. I look forward to finding out why they were so advanced before and have since devolved in terms of intellect!

Lots of secrets are buried in Kezan. Patch X.2 will reveal them all!

Great idea. A lot of people have been suggesting a Naga expansion for a long time now. It's good to see someone actually flesh it out and theorize all of its features. My only suggestion would be a new race or class (MAYBE BOTH?!?!?). 2 Expacs in a row without a new class or race would be pretty rough. The lack of those in WOD was forgivable because they introduced the new player models, your idea doesn't really have an excuse. Really interesting post though.

I'm no good with class concepts and I decided not to put in a new race because I didn't want to go to the trouble of working them into the story. There's no reason why there couldn't be one, though. I'd probably make it a group of renegade naga or the Merrow race, some kind of fishy/snakey/scaley folk.

Instead of a garrison, we should get a sea port.

How 'bout a ship?

Dont forget the Kvaldir! Looks sweet

You'll run into them plenty on the high seas during warship adventures and the legendary campaign against Neptulon!

Awesome idea's Golden Yak, and beautiful artwork as usual! I was just wondering if you plan on having the Makrura involved (lobster humanoids) ? I've always had a thought that they are like the Aqir of the sea, an offshoot of the old empire like nerubians and mantid. I see them as minions of N'zoth, and are actually a far more advanced and superior race lurking in the depth's, compared too they're shallower water cousin's. I imagine they'd look like the twin emperor's or higher ranking qiraji. I Would die of joy, if I saw some concept art :P

I do indeed have the makrura involved, though not quite as indepthly as you've suggested! The idea that they're related to the aqir like the nerubians is honestly an idea that never occured to me - it makes sense, since lobsters are arthopods and related to insects and arachnids, but I always imagined they came from a big lobster Ancient or something! It's an intruiging idea though...

The makrura I depict in RoA aren't outright hostile and actually call on the Alliance and the Horde to help them evacuate their capitol city, Mak'Aru, from being overrun by both the naga and the undead stygians, eventually fleeing into the deep sea. I honestly haven't gotten anything more planned for them than that. Maybe a few nasty mutated makrura will show up later, when N'Zoth's forces really start to get moving...?

Would love Ogres to be part of this expansion to, and it could lead up having Neptulon coming back and joining our cause and two new Elemental Lords are chosen for Azeroth and we try to get the other two The Earth Lady Chick and the Neptulon to get used to the whole new experience.

Sounds like that might make a good subplot for a full on Elemental Plane expansion.

Tel Abim is closer to Thousand Needles and Kezan and The Broken Isles are also far too close to the Maelstrom. The Maelstrom is also tiny.

Here is Azeroth seen from Outland atop black temple. Maelstrom should be a lot bigger.

Azshara did some re-shuffling.

Also, pretty sure the globe is showing the weather patterns of clouds around the Maelstrom, and is not meant to represent the size of the vortex itself. Recall that in Cataclysm, the actual vortex was big but not excessively massive - that vortex is what is being represented on my Zin-Azshari map.

[Higgit]

OI Blizzard... give this man a job!

[Deleted]

thumbs up for the creativity and effort! Thumbs down for a underwater expansion full of crabs and tuna

[Wries]

10/10 blizzard hire this person!

[Lochton]

Goblinbots? Oh hell yeah. I look forward to finding out why they were so advanced before and have since devolved in terms of intellect!

Kajamite has a lot to do with it.

Brillient fan theme, Golden Yak. Wouldn't mind that.. specially not since well... Screw you guys but a damn Warship.. Sign me up..

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Tel Abim is closer to Thousand Needles and Kezan and The Broken Isles are also far too close to the Maelstrom. The Maelstrom is also tiny.


Here is Azeroth seen from Outland atop black temple. Maelstrom should be a lot bigger.

https://i.imgur.com/0YzNFb3.jpg

Old model, remember. That there is the mealstrom raging, we do questlines to make it withdraw in power.

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Omg, whole expansion based on vash'jir?.. No, please no.. god please no, I hated that zone so much.. The concept is cool, the art here is cool, but god, underwater zones in WoW just don't work. I got through that nausea-inducting piece of headache back in Cata, and I don't want to go through it again :/

But Golden Yak didn't say underwater zones alone. As well, old Vashj'ir was fun the questing wasn't. Did love world PvP there.

[Deleted]

Very very good work! Amazing stuff there. Only thing is... why does every fight have soo many adds?

[Gadzooks]

Fantastic! And come on, Yak! Ya gotta include some more playable races. Fourth spec is cool, but we want new races!

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Most of the stuff is above water, though there's lots of deep sea things going on I suppose. Just brought to the surface.

And yes, MURLOCS! WE NEED LOTS OF MURLOCS!

It's time...murloc dungeon or raid.

Sadly, the current Blizzard dev team would look at this and say "Do you know how much work this would be?". And that's sad - this is conceptually as potentially as good as Wrath, in depth and ideas and story, but I'd be shocked to see something this good, with this much content, ever again. And, there's no mention of Thrall.

Seriously, though, good work, really good work. I hope you get to apply your skills to a game someday, with other designers with your passion.

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10/10 blizzard hire this person!

He'd be wasted at Blizzard, they'd reject most of it as being too hard. If they can't put the effort into making Karabor a city, they're not going to green light this much work. Better off to go work for a company that's just getting started and trying to make waves, rather than one that's resting on their laurels and avoiding too much commitment on their products, and is full of prima donnas.

[Huntermyth]

blizzard should hire you man, 10/10.

[Deleted]

Very good, and very likely too... The tomb of sargeras should be in there somewhere( where illidan found the skull of gul'dan).. Gul dans actually in play now so i can totally see this happen.. Love the warship idea too.. A garrison without the farmy stuff and with followers, brilliant

Why is this guy not working at blizzard?

[Deleted]

Why is this guy not working at blizzard?

Beat me to it.

If the dev team put as much effort into the game as the OP's concept ... I can't bear to think how good the game could be once again.

[Keren]

yeah, art and lore is a good way to shape a valuable concept for an expansion. But thre problem is that blizzard is really limited on the coding site. Thus they only have slow develoement progress and tend to scrap half of the ideas the art team come up with...

Over all, i like the number of Ideas you present. But things like "Path of War" and "Art of War" are things that will not happen anymore. The "Art of War" concept would increment all work that is needed for class-balance. A %-wise increment of work is something that blizzard cant cope with anymore. I really would like to see some of these specs (Nightward, Chaos Shaman) but some ideas are not really appealing and do not differ enough from actual implemented specs. Other ideas need a update; e.g. Ranger seems to depend on Mana - but Hunter dont use Mana anymore.
The "Path of War" concept needs to be worked out completly with some sense of balance in mind. Its fine to give 3 ways of progression. But the ultimate goal has to be that no one is screwed for only progressing one way. As long as one can get the same number of buffs for only chasing one path as for pursuing all of them - it will be fine. Nonetheless, PvE and PvP playerbase will dictate BIS specs anyway. Thus most of the general nodes in "Path of War" will be skipped when you have decisions between stat points, glyphs, enchants and gem sockets.


Overall, you have shown some very good ideas, art and lore. I really like to track the progress you might show in the next iterations and hope that my feedback somehow helps ^^

[Kryos]

Thank you for all that work. It confirmes not matter how much work you put into this concept. I am not interested in this scenary even a little bit. Even your good ideas don't excite me. I still hope the next expansion will be on Argus.

[Ayasee]

I kind of like some ideas you have. But I guess too much underwater stuff wouldn't be very much fun. Since I saw how many abilities work if you are underwater, I really hate such zones or even fighting near water in WoW.

What I love is the attention for the sin'dorei. Blizzard is lacking the ability to give every race / faction some story developement, there are so many unfinished ideas, so it's cool someone is using at least some of them.

[Mask]

This is amazing, I would love an expansion like this!! Water zones never bothered me, just so long as it's not the majority of the expansion. A couple zones, though, would be fine.