It is happening already. I was hoping that once SL ends, in the next expansion we’ll be back to Azeroth, and this lifeless, soulless, joyless, depressing chapter ends, and SL’s dead sterile atmosphere will be left contained in the Shadowlands, never to be touched again (like Draenor).
However, the story seems to have taken another turn, Zovaal won yet again and his plan it to remake reality (in WoW’s case, Azeroth) in his image to make it as lifeless and boring as the Maw.
We ARE heading in that direction. Not only the current expansion sucks now, but the existing game is being damaged.
Btw, earlier I was hoping that 10.0 would be a Cata-style revamp, but if it is, then it’d all be replaced by terrible depressing content with bad writing like we have in SL.
we return through the Dark/Red Portal from Draenor, and realise that everything that happened since the end of Mists was in an alternate reality. We resume exactly where the game was at the end of Mists. (They can keep M+, though.)
They need to do the much anticipated “You wake up in [insert your respective race’s starting zone] and realise it was all a vivid dream” angle and save WoW.
9.2.5 doesn’t mean anything anymore. .5 patches are no longer content patches in Shadowlands, but slightly bigger hotfixes and QOL changes. Heck, BFA had that essentially with Legion buying corruptions, Legion going legacy loot, double EXP/Rep, etc. By SL standards, they could have called it 8.3.5.
I’d be kind of ok with this… I like the more Azerothian expansions.
But I feel like what we might get is:
Zovaal is well underway with remaking reality
We intervene, but are only partially successful
Azeroth remains life-bearing, but very different; reconfigured, juggled around, with a combination of natural wildlife and extra-dimensional monstrosities bleeding in from elsewhere
We spend the next expansion trying to get some semblance of order in this new, wild, hostile, familiar terrain
The faction divide remains, but open hostilities cease since everyone who got back from the Shadowlands has arrived to an uninhabited world and there’s plenty of territory. For now. (I.e. we get the option to make x-faction guilds, comminities, raids, and parties but we’re still not welcome in the other faction’s cities.)
Really? I mean, I like Azeroth - but I’d like a reason to explore it again. It could keep the same terrain features under my vision, but all the microdetails, flora, fauna, and especially the faction encampments are fully re-imagined
Whelp, I guess we will see what the future brings. I personally don’t see old Azeroth any more so I can’t really see a reason to keep it. They already fiddled it around with Cataclysm ^^;
Yes please. I’d love to see that!
Add some horror, darkness, fear, tragedy and let us struggle without hope of victory.
How about we also don’t use NPCs as main heroes this time and shape the story around our own survival? I’d very much like a darker WoW in every sense…but uh, hey erm, that’s just me! I know many would hate this idea!
