That would actually be cool now you think about it.
No… Wait… That would require effort, enterprise and originality on part of the game leads.
Ok so hear me out.
The current story goes wherever it goes to get us to fight Thanos and end the expansion. Turns out though time passed differently in the magical nonsense realm we had to fight him in. We return to Azeroth victorious only to discover we were actually gone for 200 years in Azeroth time. The world looks like that one dungeon from Cata that’s post apocalyptic because it’s a future where you didn’t stop the dragons or whatever. We discover that the horde and alliance both turned to infighting during what appeared to be the permanent absence of all their strongest leaders. Each of the races has become more xenophobic/isolationist without their leaders to unite them, each suspecting the others had something to do with the disappearance of their leaders. It is now up to us, the returning champions of now ancient legend, to rebuild the fractured alliances and unite the horde/alliance once again. The entire world of Azeroth is remade in a fashion befitting the current theme. The major cities and their surrounding zones are less cosmopolitan and more consistently race themed. The borderlands are a bit of a Wild West, probably a few active war fronts, skirmishes, and cold wars. The time is now to rebuild our former alliances in order to defeat old enemies who have gained power unchecked for 200 years without the interference of Azeroth’s greatest heroes. Each of the former race leaders who were “lost” to the Shadowlands will have to engage their people’s descendants and work towards restoring the one great factions who formerly ruled Azeroth.
I just got us out of the cosmos and back on Azeroth with a world update and a race focused expansion with like ten minutes of thought on the topic.
The flip side of course is how many “previously undiscovered landmass” expansions can they keep doing when the ones we have already stretch plausibility pretty thin. Also, what are the threats left at home aside from each other?
Because it is an ongoing game, there are certain story elements they can’t resolve even though they are beyond stale at this point like the faction conflict and when we resolve other ones that have been going on for years (old gods, burning legion) other threats have to take their place. So I think it was inevitable that they would have to start looking beyond for more story.
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AGREE…
I like a story about us going across the great seas and see the rest of Azeroth or even one where WE fix the world from the cataclysm. Image the horde build a bridge across that great divide of the barrens. Maybe a rebel faction of the alliance who hate this peace with the horde. Like believers and survivor of Defias Brotherhood and Scarlet coming together…
I like for the dev team and us to step back from another world ending story and look at the world as a whole.
Now that you mention Danuser, when/where do you think Nathanos will show up again? Is that the next expansion? Finding Nathanos because he is the only one that can kill the Jailer.
The most recent book had the narrator pointing at the taurens’ beliefs and laughing at them for being so wrong about everything. The current staff doesn’t like tauren.
I came back to WoW (in Legion) because i missed spending time in Azeroth. Good stuff. I enjoyed BfA, saving Azeroth was right up my alley. I played a lot.
I have no real connection to the Shadow Lands. we are saving reality (i guess, or something). And by extension saving Azeroth.
But i have spent next to no time in Azeroth proper this ex-pac. Kind of a bummer.
I too, hope the next ex-pac inst some crazy other worldy type stuff.
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i honestly dont care anymore, man. Im so done with theorycrafting for blizzard and always being disappointed. any idea ive ever had for what might happen is always significantly cooler and more coherent than what actually happens.
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Same here 
I wish we could crash back on Azeroth again! 
I agree.
I miss the Scarlet Crusade, the Scourge, Defias Brotherhood, and the like.
I prefer the universe to be mysterious and distant with limited interactions with god-like beings. You interact constantly with Jaina, Thrall, the gods, etc. and it becomes much less special when you do.
I also don’t care for the sci-fi feel of parts of the current game. Oribos looks more like it belongs in a 50 sci-fi than it does in a fantasy setting.
Make us a band of adventurers again, not flawless demi-gods.
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Yeah, more Cosmic Horror and less Dragon Ball Super though.
If you do the Kyrian storyline you find out the Scourge is all the way in Redridge killing everyone. So they most likely already took out alot of major areas atleast in the Eastern Kingdom. They never really had a foothold in Kailmdor other then Razorfen Kraul/Downs but we cleared that out with the help of the Red dragonflight.
Its to bad Blizzard doesn’t focus on world building anymore. If you read the text in the Mission table from WoD-BFA our followers were doing alot of cool stuff that we should have been doing… Having us go back to actually defend the Planet in some sort of Assault type events like we got in Legion could be fun. Add in daily hubs and new storylines that are focused more on the people would be great.
Except this cosmic level stuff has been in the game since day 1 vanilla… Darkshore comes to mind, but there’s a ton of other things as well. Emerald dream is another.
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Since most of them were the apart of the Old God forces and we basically killed the last Old God, most of them would already be liberated. As for the Scarlet Crusade, I highly doubt they would be a threat to some player character Monsters.
Although, I do love another expansion where my character was the most terrifying-looking thing in the game.
/Cosmic-level eyeroll
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And you got nerfed… Cosmetically.
Exploration and vibing > Ending the 50th world ending calamity.
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To the people that play WoW like Skyrim, sure. But that’s not the majority of players and those Skyrim players don’t keep the lights on for ActiBlizz.
Yep, this setting really kills it for me.
I feel like Shadowlands should be it’s own separate IP. Then it wouldn’t feel so out of place and maybe I’d enjoy it. But mixing it with WoW… feels like some B level Mass Effect spin-off just crash landed into WoWs universe and the writers were like: “yeah this is good.”
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