Does a line of copium right off from the beak of a hawkstrider.
Even if Avaloren is the real deal, and even if it ends up looking sort of uninspired, there’s nothing to say some older locals couldn’t be visited as well.
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That’s not copium but Hopium. We’ve built a tolerance over here.
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I hope it’s good but it doesn’t sound like an expansion for me. Dragonflight promising a ‘return to Azeroth’ enticed me (nevermind, I guess), but Avaloren is mentioned in a single offhand extremely missable item. Simply do not care about another mystical land that was hidden from everyone forever and never mentioned in any real way.
Pandaria had stuff since WC3, scattered though it was, and the Dragon Isles were briefly mentioned here and there, with years of ‘meta’ teasing via the datamined files from wayyyyyy back in the day.
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Yeah, Avaloren needs to mighty world building to actually get lore, more and better than how MoP did it, because at the very least, Pandaren were part of WC3 even if as a joke. Here they’d have to make up an entirely new thing from scratch.
Guess what else was basically made from scratch? Shadowlands.
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Honestly hate the world map as it is and another jank continent between EK and Kalimdor will make it look like more stupid.
well I’m guessing it’ll actually be west of Kalimdor since that’s what that other stupid one off book mentioned, so instead of being in the middle it’ll ram EK+Kalim closer together to make room at the side.
Don’t wanna doompost, wanna bloompost, but man…not what I was hoping for from the DF follow up at all.
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The problem with what we’ve seen of the Avaloren leak, to me, is that it lacks a compelling central fantasy to sell the expansion.
MoP had pandaren, monks, and the overall Chinese theme. Dragonflight has dragons and a land with verticality built around the flight fantasy. What does Avaloren have to offer? It’s like if we got Dragonflight, but without the dragons, and the marketing focused on meeting the centaur, tuskarr, and niffen.
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I don’t want any more races. 
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As usual, I’m just going to reserve judgement until we’ve actually got it in hand. I know plenty of people were kicking up a storm about Dragonflight only to come around once it’d released.
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Presents hands in a begging position
“Depth to existing races please? How about dem kobold? Maybe friendly harpies? What says you about the under-developed Allied Races?”
I legitimately don’t know if I’d prefer a chivalric/knightly theme to be central to Avaloren (because its derived from Avalon, from Arthurian myth) or not.
On the one hand, at least then it’d make it somewhat appropriate for the naming of the place.
On the other hand, I’m a Horde player primarily. In WoW, knightly themes already just mean Human (Alliance) coded and after having to suffer through Night Elf drama and focus for so long I’d kinda like something that wasn’t so strongly Blue-focused.
And yeah BElves have (blood) knights too but they’ve been neutered since TBC and if there’s a chivalry focus I expect that to only get worse, not better.
But yeah, don’t wanna spiral into theorising bad stuff when the reveal’s like a week away.
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If it is legitimate, it is the most “more of the same” that any expansion has ever been.
Battle for Azeroth after Legion had a bit of that, but the hype factor of red-versus-blue and the splurge of allied races caused everyone to overlook that. But at this point in time, I’m not aware of anything special about this expansion that will cause it to seem like more than a previously hidden continent dotted with previously isolated cultures and Titanic mysteries for the heroes to explore. If that’s the case, then what we’ve got is going to be Dragonflight without the dragons and possibly without the focus on catharsis and healing.
I’m going to reserve judgement since the expansion isn’t even officially announced yet so we’ve got no idea about its possible themes, but it needs something to prevent it from feeling like a weak continuation of Dragonflight.
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As others have said reveal is gonna be soon. I’ll just throw a pre-emptive “I expect nothing…” the second part will be on reveal time if it’s warranted.
Alright, New Hopium Tank Installed.
Let’s think about this Lads:
This is the 10th Expac
on the 20th anniversary of WoW
on the 30th anniversary of Warcraft
There is no way, no matter how bad your PR team is, that they decide during such a momentous occasion (especially for an mmo), that the new expansion is 4 generic zones with 0x lore attachment to anything Warcraft, with no familiar characters and a new setting that’s been rehashed from MoP and DF. I do not believe, no matter how AWFUL Blizz’s PR might actually be, that they’re tone-deaf enough to do a reveal like that during such a momentous occasion for Blizzard and Warcraft. There ain’t no way.
Edit: Also given how absolutely doomer this leak has made every WoW website I have to wonder if Blizzard is monitoring and watching, maybe its just a red herring (I say, inhaling 10 gallons from the Hopium tank).
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As a night elf player, I feel you. Though it was the announcement of Legion with the Broken Isles and new night elf lore that brought me back to WoW in 2015, the race has had its time in the spotlight. I hope that 10.2 will bring a non-terrible conclusion to the story arc that began in 8.0, and we can set night elves aside for a while.
I’d actually be aboard for more content focusing on Horde races.
Links?
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Largely thinking about Twitter and MMOChamp, the Speculation for 11.0 thread on MMOchamp has been hundreds of pages of non-stop depression and gloom since these leaks dropped.
On Twitter I’ve seen similar reactions, just a lot of ‘whelmed’ feeling, a lot of disappointment over yet another 4 zone, 8 dungeons, 1 raid generic landmass with no ties to Warcraft during such a massive day for Warcraft.
Yikes, no thanks.
They’re doom and gloom about everything. More so than the AD forum, even. There’s no pleasing them.
But yes, I see your point.
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After Baine’s quest in DF (it was good!), how utterly wasted the tauren were for both shamanism in 10.0/10.1 and druidism in 10.2, and the strong focus on Elune for multiple expansions while giving nothing towards An’she, it does feel like it’s tauren’s time to shine.
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[The Monkey Paw Curls]
A golden light descends to azeroth on the eve of 11.0, a crystalline figure of pure gold and orange.
It chimes within your mind.
“Greetings Mortal, I am An’she.”
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I think there´s also one very important thing to be pointed out: AI has become really popular and capable at creating convincing stuff.
Back in ye olde days of early 2022, people weren´t able to do anything close to what they can do nowadays with it. I think someone with enough time and patience could genuinely create these images using AI. We´re no longer in the days when to come up with a convincing “leak” you had to have a talent for forging this stuff, anyone can do it.
And, while I might eat these words later if it proves to be legit, the zones in the pictures also don´t really look unique enough. When I look at the picture, I keep getting the feeling that I´ve seen these assets. There´s just that weird sense of familiarity which I never got before by looking at WoW zone reveal videos.
But, where I am worried is that Blizzard has often in the past been very clueless about the mood of the players. Combined with expansions often taking such a long time to develop that they can reflect the opinions people had two expansions ago, I worry that they genuinely thought an adventure to explore new hidden lands connected to Titans will be what players want for 20th anniversary.
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