I would rather enjoy a simpler expansion.
I play some constructions based games like NMS, Satisfactory and stuff . If it is engaging as that in an MMO way …then cool 
Or, all of the elves form a 3rd faction and annihilate the rest of Azeroth.
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Sounds incredibly dumb and boring…not to mention it makes no sense. You don’t just go from literal god slayers to being threatened by a bunch of bandits who probably can’t count to 10 with their teeth…if they can even count at all.
World rebuilding efforts though? Absolutely. More content to do in the world that has lasting and tangible effects (like seeing a zone permanently altered by our actions/efforts)? Heck yeah. Base the entire expansion around that? Heck no.
[Paen falls asleep]
i wanna piggy back ride a tauren so bad
I see what you’re saying, at the same time however I don’t know if jumping from god to god especially after smiting death itself is a good move. I can’t imagine any player taking it serious if next expansion is “I am Shamakoolio, God of Chaos! Lord of the Void! Fear me mortals, your end has come!” I mean… at this point we’ll all just give him the deadpan look and stare him right in the face like Saitama, “Ok.”
And I know it sounds pretty stupid to go from gods to bandits, but it’ll let the narrative properly build up future cosmic threats and establish their presence in the world and cosmos before we confront them. It’s also not too crazy, look at Shadowlands, we went from fighting a literal old god to needing to level off killing caterpillars in Ardenwald. How do I gain experience killing caterpillars when I’ve already owned an old god and the Legion already? So they do the power scaling crap weirdly all the time.
There already is a viable path to reset the narrative properly. We need something like a light vs void expansion where the void wins and consumes us all and we “wake up” in a world where we don’t have the powers we have…an Azeroth reset but twisted in favor of keeping us down.
Like say the defias rebellion does go too far and ends up killing Varian and in the chaos, they take control of the throne but Stormwind is a run down slum because nobody is actually leading it and everyone is in a free for all for resources/survival…or suppose the burning legion does invade via the dark portal but we aren’t able to fight them back and our world is largely destroyed and we’re fighting instead to survive and retake it bit by bit.
A narrative like that correctly resets us…not just coming back from the Shadowlands having bested cosmic forces and after previously killing a cosmic god and before that killing a titan who cleave planets in half for funsies just to have a bunch of Qullboar rise up it totally be a credible threat.
Edit - This also gives a great tie in to an expected expansion feature…cross faction grouping/guilds. In this twisted old god version of Azeroth, the Horde and Alliance wouldn’t exist as factions as we know it…we would all need to band together wholly with none of this cold war/past transgressions = need for retaliation nonsense.
Sure, Edalora! I’d love all this.
And I add: repair also Westfall, Loch Modan, the Park in Stormwind, Southshore, Menethil, Theramore, the Barren, and restore Thrall’s original Orgrimmar (I think it was fabulous).
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I would like that …
they could release the raids wich were declined - Shatrath in WoD … and others …
Yeah I think that’d be cool too, a lot of those zones still affected by the Cataclysm could be focused on being healed very similar to how the Veil of Eternal Blossoms finally healed!
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So I’ve thought about this concept a lot, sort of an AU of Azeroth. The only reason I feel that’s a bit much compared to the alternative I presented is because it really requires more rework of already established characters / zones. Repairing the world can build on the current narrative in a healthy way.
But how is an AU unhealthy you might ask? Well I’d say to that, it’s kind of like how Cataclysm jacked up the timelines and you got all these weird mixed periods. In an AU, you pretty much have to change the entire dynamic of the world to fit that narrative. It’d be weird if Exodar for example is completely the same with Velen standing there meanwhile Stormwind is entirely different. Or if Baine is still Baine and suddenly Sylvanas is back as an extremely good person or something.
The scope of that narrative is insanely large because all of Azeroth pretty much has to be affected. All the established characters and their history has to change up in some sort of way. It’s an extremely massive undertaking by comparison, and not only that, this AU has to take into consideration the history of all the defeated enemies we’ve gone through. It wouldn’t really make sense for them all to be 100% dead in an AU. That means having to address old enemies again, Deathwing, Arthas, Zovaal, Azshara, Ragnaros, N’zoth etc. I mean, it’s just insanely convoluted.
However with rebuilding the world, it would make sense to start small. No real legwork required in terms of changing character motivations and personalities, just further development and lore for them. Repairing zones and addressing smaller threads seems manageable yet still leaves room for bigger threats to be developed down the road. A whole new AU would mean needing to really readdress past threats in a realistic / interesting way. I feel this is super hard to do, like WoD was narratively speaking.
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Honestly I agree with you I would love just a simple treasure hunting expansion.
This is actually what vanilla was. Vanilla took place after the events of WC3, where the Alliance, Horde, and night elves (separate faction at the time) allied against Archimond.
The expansion to WC3 had that unstable alliance on unstable ground because of old hatreds, Particularly Proudmoore’s (no not her, her father) which effectively ended the Horde-Alliance alliance. The mistreatment by the Alliance toward the Blood elves ended their participation in the human Alliance and left it open for them to join the Horde in BC.
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