Going to be kinda Horde focused since that’s the faction I play.
Pre-BFA
Magni meets with Anduin and has him arrange a meeting with Alliance and Horde to discuss Azerite and the state of Azeroth. Magni says that the Horde and Alliance need to help gather Azerite to help soothe Azeroth’s wounds and to keep the power out of enemy hands as other factions have been collecting it. Anduin suggests they have a temporary truce between the factions until the planet has been healed but Sylvanas refuses. She does not trust the Alliance as they did attempt to assassinate her in Legion and thinks it is foolish to help them gather such a powerful material while they crave Horde blood since the Broken Shore. She states that the Horde will gather Azerite on their own terms and will only give up the Azerite once the Alliance does the same. Horde leaders leave and the cold war arms race begins between the two factions as they gather Azerite, neither side trusting the other with it.
Eventually Azshara appears, having experimented with Azerite to create weapons and even empower herself. As her first act of testing out the nagas’ new weaponry on the battlefield, she wishes to snuff out those who rebelled against her long ago. Naga siege Darkshore and Alliance fight to defend the land. They request aid from the Horde but Sylvanas refuses, still bitter about Stormheim and wishes to have spies study the power of the nagas’ new weapons before having her forces engage them as she could be sending them to their deaths. However, neither side anticipated Azshara setting Teldrassil ablaze and the Alliance’s fury toward the Horde grows. Sylvanas realizes she made a horrible mistake and is called out for it by Saurfang as she just gave territory to Azshara’s forces and possibly ruined any chances of peace between the factions, but she claims Azshara could have easily done the same to Orgrimmar had they sent their military to Darkshore. The uncertainy of this divides the Horde on whether or not the Warchief made the right decision.
Azshara then attacks the Undercity because she knows this is where the Horde creates their extremely dangerous plagues and wishes to use them for herself. Taking this city would also heavily cripple the Horde’s offensive capabilities without the plague and she knows the other Horde races would never allow the creation of new plague in their cities. The Alliance does not aid the Horde because they abandoned them in Darkshore and Sylvanas blows up the Undercity in a cloud of plague so that the naga will never claim it. With Azshara being far more threatening than even before with their creation of Azerite weapons, Sylvanas and Anduin each decide to double their efforts in collecting Azerite by recruiting new allies to expand their navy to cover more land across the world.
8.0
Plays out mostly the same with some changes. There will be more Horde and Alliance npcs who will give orders to the players in quest areas but will be revealed in a later patch that they are Twilight Hammer spies working on behalf of Azshara. Their mission is to make fake reports of attacks from the other faction to fuel the flames of war and decimate their forces as a result by using the player as a pawn. Players are given certain quests like kill certain people or collect strange materials without being allowed to question why. Sometimes the player’s head feels cloudy when speaking with them. The naga, Twilight’s Hammer, and Zul work together to try to free Ghuun to use an unstoppable monster to wipe out both factions through his plagues, giving a stronger reason for Alliance to go to Uldir.
8.1
False reports from spies in the Alliance convince the leaders that the Zandalari are building a massive fleet to aid the Horde in attacking the Alliance so BFD happens except Rastakhan manages to survive. The reason the Alliance doesn’t make a second attack will be they were only able to succeed because of the diversion in Nazmir and now all Horde cities would likely be heavily defended in anticipation of another attack. Rastakhan may be alive, but their assault decimated the fleet and sent a clear message that the Alliance is not to be messed with.
Tyrande does the night warrior ritual to slaughter the naga who are holding Darkshore and take back the land for the NEs. Saurfang and Baine decide to also fight off the naga because they do not like having them holding a position so close to Orgrimmar. Warfront happens when naga forces build up and drive out one faction and while that faction recovers, the other faction steps in to claim Darkshore.
Crucible of Storm still occurs but Horde players are unable to remember who they gave Xal’atath to, but know it is someone in the Horde. Sylvanas nearly has the player executed for this believing them to be a traitor once they report this but Saurfang saves them by explaining that they do have the memory of the traitor in their memories, but they need to find a way to unlock it from whatever magic is keeping them from remembering. Sylvanas orders the player to stay within sight of the Horde and if they take one step out of line, she will put an arrow in their head.
8.2
Factions arrive in Nazjatar but Tyrande and Malfurion play a large role because of their history with Azshara. Although they are still distrusting of the Horde, they say that ending Azshara for good is just one step in atoning for Darkshore and will not refuse help in taking her down. Rather than randomly sticking the Heart of Azeroth into the titan device, Twilight Hammer spies convince the heroes that Azshara is in the process of unlocking N’zoth from his prison and using the Heart can activate an emergency override. Tyrande and Malf contribute heavily to Azshara fight such as Tyrande using a powerful arrow to break shields of P3 adds or Malf zapping and killing all the naga to stop adds from spawning in the last phase.
After the raid, the spies are confronted and are exposed as agents of N’zoth with one of the Horde spies revealed to have taken Xal’atath to give to Azshara (maybe Nathanos can be a spy, showing how dangerously close N’zoth was in influencing the Horde). They mock the heroes and escape, saying they shall await them in Ny’alotha. With the factions realizing they have been played for fools, especially in BFD, they return home to report to their leaders of the events.
At this point, players will start remembering the quests they did for these traitor npcs. Along with delivering Xal’atath, they will remember more details of other quests from the start of BFA. One example will be investigating a camp supposedly slaughter by the other faction, gathering clues, and then striking back. The memory will reveal the player themselves, under the void’s influence with the Heart of Azeroth being much weaker at the time, slaughtering their own allies and planting the evidence under the orders of the Twilight Hammer spy. This shows just how dangerous N’zoth is from the very beginning of the expansion as the player didn’t even realize they have done his bidding until now.
8.3
N’zoth strikes by opening portals into Horde and Alliance cities and unleashing immense destruction, giving his return a real impact on the world. Maybe like Legion invasions, a city can be under siege by the Black Empire for a few hours to show the player is not safe in their own home. Rastakhan ends up sacrificing himself in a blaze of glory to save Dazar’alor from the void, possibly by using so much of Bwomsamdi’s power of death that it kills him as a result. Magni makes another emergency meeting with the factions to deal with the Old God. They first need to secure the two engines with Alliance holding the one in Pandaria (because the pandas don’t trust the Horde since Mists) and the Horde defending the engine in Uldum.
With the engines secure, Magni realizes there may not be enough power to use it against N’zoth himself and there may be hope if enough Azerite is returned to Azeroth to return her strength. Both factions are highly reluctant to give up such a precious resource because they fear that one side will keep theirs and use it against them once N’zoth has been dealt with. With the leaders all in one place, N’zoth unleashes a massive force to wipe them out while also driving some leaders mad enough to attempt to kill their own. With the aid of Wrathion and other heroes (likely Anduin and/or Velen since they are powerful in the Light), the void forces are killed and faction leaders are brought back to their senses. Now understanding how serious the threat is, the Alliance and Horde begin to deconstruct their Azerite weapons and machines to fuel the reorigination device while holding Uldum and Pandaria to prevent the Black Empire from gaining any more ground. Ny’alotha raid is the same except one boss could be replaced with the Council of Traitors, two spies from each faction who players have quested with in a final showdown. Either it would be a standard council fight with them infused with void power or the four would be horrifically fused into the flesh of N’zoth to form some horrible abomination.
Once N’zoth and Ny’alotha are destroyed, the faction leaders congratulate the player for their achievement. Anduin and Sylvanas speak outside the Chamber of Heart. Anduin still wishes to make peace between Horde and Alliance since they always end up working together but Sylvanas tells him there’s no point. This has been attempted multiple times and always failed as well as many on the Alliance want to have her head on a platter so peace would most likely cost her death. Anduin is reluctant, but he begrudgingly accepts this reality, believing to understand his late father a little more. Anduin tells her that the Alliance will take some time to enjoy the peace with their victory over N’zoth and suggests the Horde does the same before leaving her. Horde and Alliance celebrate their victory and continue contributing Azerite to heal the planet. A cutscene of the celebration in Stormwind/Org occurs with Magni and factions leaders honoring the player. Screen goes black and Azeroth is heard saying “Thank you…my champion.”
So in this version, the faction war, Azerite, and Azshara/N’zoth are much tightly packed together. Azshara and N’zoth are more heavily involved from beginning to end of the expansion rather than dropped in for a patch. The faction conflict does not end with the Horde and Alliance being besties. Sylvanas doesn’t have a stupid secret agenda of “play along for now” and instead focuses on running Horde efficiently. There could be great arguments between leaders about what the Horde is with some believing Sylvanas needs to understand honor while others saying her brutal but effective methods mean less casualties for the Horde. As for the Alliance, I think they should have the council instead. With Anduin being younger and much less experienced, it would make sense for him to make one and work closely with the much more experienced leaders. Velen, Genn, and Tyrande could each try to teach him their methods of leadership as Anduin tries to forge his future as a king.
I think the ultimate lesson of BFA is for the writers to write out the WHOLE expansion from the beginning rather than going one patch at a time while also worrying about how to sloppily lead up to the next expansion. That is what most likely led to the crumbling story of BFA and WOD as well.
