So I hit up my definitely real contact about what’s coming after what’s coming after Shadowlands because I know you guys want to stay on the cutting edge of Blizzard developments, and they delivered.
World of Warcraft: The Empty Thrones
Four years have passed since the conclusion of Legacy of the Dragons and the revival of the dragonflights. Four years of a tenuous peace between the exhausted Alliance and Horde, who turn their attentions inwards toward rebuilding. The years are not without their problems as the war economies are ground down into those of a peaceful existence, but they pass without any major flarings of tensions and when conflict does break out, diplomatic solutions are sought and found.
That is, until now. Major and minor figures from across Azeroth have vanished as if by magic, and no amount of divination, scrying or finger pointing locates them. With numerous factions suddenly bereft of leadership and tensions rising, the Empty Thrones threaten to create a whole new conflict – one not guided by any individual, but instead by chaos.
Patch 11.0 brings players back from their excursions in Azjol-Nerub during the last expansion to the zones they know and love. The list of characters that have vanished includes, but is not limited to: Anduin, Jaina, Genn, Alexstrasza, Maiev, Valeera, Chromie, Rexxar, Sylvanas, Thrall, Chen, Li-Li, Muradin, Falstad, Malfurion, Tyrande, and Gazlowe.
With major faction leaders from both sides being disappeared, but not all of them, the Horde and Alliance power balance immediately shifts, and the populace beneath the leadership shifts both with and against that balance. Instead of a normal leveling experience, when you log in you are directed to choose one of four leveling paths per faction. This takes you through a number of directed handheld story quests which last roughly 4 hours each, making this the fastest leveling experience to date. One story path will take you to max level, and once complete you then have the opportunity to play the other story paths you didn’t choose for lore and for pets/mounts/achievements. The story paths aren’t restricted by race, but they are geared towards specific race groups.
The story paths are as follows:-
Alliance:
Nelf/Draenei/Lightforged/VElf: With their leadership vanished, the Night Elves immediately jump to blaming the Horde for this, encouraged by the Lightforged/VElves while Velen tries to keep things from boiling over. Expel the Horde from Ashenvale and Darkshore (no more Shatterspears) and explore what was once the Felwood, now cleansed and part of Ashenvale once more.
Human/Kul Tiran/Worgen: The sudden disappearance of all three of the human monarchs with noe one to blame sets Stormwind, Gilneas and Kul Tiras into a power vaccuum. The human-focused storyline takes you through the reclaimed Gilneas City, Stormwind, and Boralus as you try to calm tensions that are being inflamed by war profiteers – and just those who seek vengeance in general. Large focus on Tess Greymane and Tandred Proudmoore, along with a group of Defias who you end up assisting (though not intentionally) in the killing of a number of war-hungry noblemen.
Dwarf/Gnome/Mechagnome: With only Moira left on the Three Hammers, the Wildhammers and Bronzebeards threaten to expel the dark irons from Ironforge again – they have not forgotten her treachery from when she first came to the city. This grows worse when a number of prominent Senators are assassinated. Mostly plays out as a murder mystery as you get to the bottom of who’s behind all this.
Pandaren: The Pandaren experience is shared between the Alliance/Horde. Lacking any centralised leadership their storyline instead looks to dealing with troubles in Pandaria. A rogue sect of shado-pan have been stirring up trouble in an effort to re-establish the Empire.
Horde:
Troll/Zandalari/Vulpera: Having lost none of their leaders, those of Zandalar and the Echo Isles are sitting pretty. Instead, they look to reclaim land and settle it anew. Their storyline is split between revisiting Vol’dun and Stranglethorn – the latter of which the Darkspear are looking to re-settle and expand to, given it was their home originally. They want Talanji to start flexing her wealth over the Horde for some soft power-grabbing while the others are in disarray, and Rokhan is supportive of this because it will bring some order.
Belf/Nightborne/Forsaken: The Forsaken are no stranger to Sylvanas’ absence by this point, and they are well prepared for her being missing, albeit while suffering the slings and arrows of accusations. This storyline primarily focuses on the reconstruction of Stratholme as a joint Elf/Forsaken city, the rejuvenation of the Ghostlands, and negotiations over land disputes with the Argents. The Scarlets do NOT return, I have this confirmed, but Scholomance is getting another dungeon variant.
Orcs/Mag’har/Tauren/Highmountain/Goblins: Responding to Night Elf aggression in Ashenvale, the Mag’har and Orcs bray for blood, with the loudest voice being Geya’rah and the goblin Cartels. Baine counsels for patience (as he always does). Attacks against the Nelves are interrupted when in-fighting among the Cartels to fill the Gazlowe power vaccuum sees the Horde’s funds Undermined. It’s a pun. Laugh. Anyway their story stuff mostly focuses around the Barrens (Borders/Ratchet) and Gadgetzan (revamped into full city size). They bring in Hearthstone Mean Streets lore because it was well received overall.
Pandaren: See the other Pandaren route. Ji and Aysa team up in both, there’s no difference between the two.
Because of the story focus there is only one or two leveling dungeons for each route which scales with your level. Once you reach max level you automatically unlock all the dungeons from the routes you did not do for max level Heroic gameplay. Alts get everything unlocked straight away once you’ve got one story completed.
Instead of a single multi-boss raid there are a number of storyline-themed smaller raids which are 1-3 bosses long each with some being notably harder than others so that they can preserve the concept of “world firsts”.
The special mechanic that’s going to be dumped after the expansion is the new Outpost, which is essentially Garrison 2.0. Similar setup, but it gives out daily quests to get people out in the world and no mines/herb garden/fishing pond. Includes multiple architecture styles, and you choose where to build it across Azeroth from a number of storyline-relevant locations. Also it’s got a mission table, obvs.
Future patches aren’t fully fleshed out yet but each one will have storyline continuations and zone updates (which use choose-your-timeline phase tech) rather than entirely new zones because it’s cheaper to reuse assets than to make whole new zones from scratch.
Word from the higher ups is that it’s very important that there be no “grand enemy” or “supervillain” of the expac, and that they want to tell more personal interconnected stories without constantly escalating threats. They’re going to be adding a bunch of new minor characters, and the idea is that ones that players latch onto will stick around in the foreground going forwards (like Zekhan has).
Caverns of Time will be expanded for raid/dungeon options from Warcraft’s history to help fill in the required raid/dungeon obligations to keep people playing. At least one of them is helping Arthas and Anub’arak through Azjol-Nerub because they can reuse art assets from Legacy of the Dragons.
The disappearance of major and minor lore characters will have a separate max level multi-patch questline lead by Khadgar (he’s where we get our legendaries from again, expect a bunch of silly jokes) but will not be resolved during the expac, and will continue on into the (yet untitled) 12.0. I don’t have a lot of details yet but it seems like Nathanos is involved because his VA’s had a lot of new lines recorded.
Anyway my secret contact should have more details on the next new expansion soon, so stay tuned. 
