I'm sorry to say everyone but this is most likely the next expansion (Spoilers)

Zlyrax-moon-guard · October 30, 2023, 2:57am

Posted on Oct. 18 on MMO champion:

World of Warcraft: Storms of Avaloren
lvl cap raised to 80
New neutral race: Algaren. tall dwarves made of stone but have colored hair.
New continent: Avaloren.
4 zones. Art looked like jungle, desert, snowy peaks and rocky peaks.
Khaz algar capital city partially underground. Like IF if half of it was above ground.
No new specs. Some specs turned into support specs.
lightbound titan keepers
storm dreadlords
fancy dragon/moth hybrid things
Saw what looked to be a boat piloted by a player character.
Image of Silvermoon with a harbor and a lot of nightborne asthetics around as well.
gilneas repaired with night elf asthetics around and a harbor where the worgen starting zone is.

Same poster later clarified:

i wrote fast on my lunch break let me clairify some things. I only saw some slides and pamphlets.
Algaren look cool, lots of rocky protrusions out their shoulders and back that look customizable, and lightning beards like dark irons lava beards. they are still smaller than orcs but a head or so taller than dwarves. Their haird is real hair and not rock shapoed like hair.

The zones looked great but only saw concept art.
khaz algar being partially underground its more like in a giant cave with part coming out.
lightbound titan keeper meaning a very holy looking infused thing that looked like a titan keeper to me. doesant mean it was one.
A very elemental looking dreadlord. could have just used the skeleton but it looked pretty dreadlordy to me.
dragons with fur, antenea and moth wings. looks very different then waht i saw. one was being flown by a dracthyr in visage form in a mage gear set.
Also saw a dracthyr shaman in the support spec image, as well as what looked like a dwarf in druid like gear and an Algaren priest. looks like priests can get angel wings and hover around a bit like evokers, but maybe thats already in game i dont play priests.
boat looked like a massive mount. had a night elf at the wheel and a bunch of alliance races running around the deck.
silvermoon has a big statue of lorthemar and thelysra at the harbor and lots of ships including high elf and human ones.
gilneas had night elf asthetics in one shoit but i think its more like a night elf district than the entire city. there was also a drust kul tiran district. Gen gets a new human model with fancier coat. mia still in her pixelated dress.

This poster posted about 8 days before WoWhead displayed the screenshots shown here:

And the last compelling piece of evidence is:

This is just like previous leaks. BFA actually leaked long before Blizzcon, but the idea of destroying iconic starting zones sounded so bad, nobody believed it.

So I’m sorry to say, but an expansion full of underwhelming zones, content, features, and plot nobody asked for is pretty par for the course.

This is your next expansion.

Slightly larger dwarves
Multi-class Dracthyr
More support specs
Plot we probably don’t care about and aren’t invested in, because it’s not centered around the Horde or Alliance

Couple caveats, the poster later said his leak was fake and there’s a slight mischaracterization of the zones. The desert biome has rock formations, but there’s no “rocky peaks” zone in the wowhead screenshots, unless it’s referring to the forest zone.

Christtel-stormrage · October 30, 2023, 11:09am

Why would this be a bad idea? People always say “this is gonna suck” like pandaria, warlords, “they will never make a legion expansion right after tanan jungle” legion, “they would never destroy a capital city” BfA.

We will have to wait and see it. Personally I would love it but they have to drop the disney/Ggenshin impact coat of paint we have nowfrom the next expansion. Its too nice too friendly, I want my faction pride back.

Zlyrax-moon-guard · October 30, 2023, 11:11am

Yeah, I want faction pride back too.

But that probably won’t happen. This is going to be another SHL/DF where the faction stories are non-existent. Instead, we visit some distant land and help a bunch of neutral races and characters with their problems.

WoW was better when faction expansion, exploration, and empire building were driving parts of questing and story-telling.

Solarion-wyrmrest-accord · October 30, 2023, 11:57am

I’m going to say this, “leak,” is probably also fake.

For starters, would an entire continent really be mountainous, like that? Avaloren is a continent. Think Northrend, think Pandaria, think of what we could explore in Draenor. Unless Blizzard really wants flak for a four-zone all-mountain continent, I wouldn’t be surprised if it included just about every biome.

Also, that race diversity is pretty lacking for a continent. Elemental Dreadlords and Hairy Rock Dwarves? I’d expect proto-trolls, maybe some Ogres from the Second War whom crashed a Juggernaut on the coastline (or heck, even Orcs, how about that for a change of pace), maybe more Sethrak (which should be a new playable race). Lightforged Titan Constructs, I suppose I could see it, although where the Light plays into this remains to be seen.

Kohnila-bonechewer · October 30, 2023, 12:22pm

Hopefully this is fake because for crying out loud I’m so freaking done with “neutral” races

Like, I’m not even asking for faction conflict but this game is built around faction dichotomy, something that’s shaped our appreciation of the lore and our story expectations for 20 years, and this dichotomy hasn’t been relevant at all for two expansions in a row, I shall not suffer my way through yet another one and you WILL give me the type of content I legitimately expect and enjoy

Also where my Ogres at

Luciferinxx-dalaran · October 30, 2023, 1:15pm

Leak=fake…or there saying it’s a fake leak but it’s a real,? I’m confused…if the new faction is dwarf…that’s fine…but if the whole expansion is dwarf I will pass…might be hanging the game up for a while.

Degas-feathermoon · October 30, 2023, 1:44pm

“No new specs. Some specs turned into support specs.”

This part is what has me thinking it’s fake. They explicitly said in interviews about Augmentation that is something they won’t do. If we’re getting any more Support-type specs, they’ll be brand new.

Anyaceltica-llane · October 30, 2023, 2:09pm

I dont see how thats a bad thing. Faction stories are the most braindead, status quo maintaining drivel that always lets players down.

Gavik-zuljin · October 30, 2023, 2:12pm

I don’t understand why anyone thinks “This looks like previous leaks that turned out to be true” is compelling evidence.

Obviously the people putting together fake leaks are looking at those and using them as a template.

Legonar-the-scryers · October 30, 2023, 2:18pm

Dwarves are cool, beats elves for the 100th time.

We knew this was coming, cool.

Interesting, would be cool to see how it plays out.

Correction, plot you don’t care about. I’ve been waiting all expansion to see where this Avaloren/Khaz’Algar plotline goes.

2 expansions is not enough time for me to want to return to faction-based stories, I’d take any other cosmological realm before I even run the risk of another BfA.

Christtel-stormrage · October 30, 2023, 2:25pm

As I was arguing over another thread we dont need a faction war expansion to have faction pride or representation.
We could have avaloren or whatever it is and have an event be seen from two perspectives kinda like the broken shore. Eaach faction does something that makes you go “for the alliance” or “for the horde”. Small skirmishes here and there just like stormheim in legion.

Wow has too many races that aee all too different to just assume “oh well peace time we will smell flowers together”.

Gavik-zuljin · October 30, 2023, 2:25pm

My issue with a Dwarf-first expansion is that… Dwarves are an Alliance race. They are arguably the most Alliance race, given that the Horde has Elves of its own, and the Forsaken are essentially human.

Morover Blizzard has a long and irritating history of treating the Bronzebeards as if they were neutral. If I’m seriously expected to follow a Brann or Magni for another entire expansion I’m probably just going to check out and see ya’ll in a year or so.

Msdoubtfire-eranikus · October 30, 2023, 2:29pm

As a big fan of (fem)dwarves, and someone who wants dwarf druids, I hope this is real. Lines up with them making druid forms race agnostic in 10.2.

They also said they weren’t gonna do Aug before they did Aug. Why do you believe them?

Zlyrax-moon-guard · October 30, 2023, 2:58pm

Nuh uh

(Also hello, <3 Yag)

Horde Civil Wars are bad

Horde/Alliance carving their way across Northrend with separate stories and fortresses was cool

Degas-feathermoon · October 30, 2023, 3:39pm

I don’t ever remember them saying they would never do a spec like Augmentation. I just remember the players on the forums saying it would never happen.

Naovi-moon-guard · October 30, 2023, 3:46pm

I’mma be real and say that even though Avaloren sounds ‘meh’ to me overall, I will play it because Azeroth has an iron grip on my throat that no other game has come close to.

If it IS real, the Algaren sound… ugh. I wish they’d focus more resources on their existing races and adding customizations to them without needing to pump out half-baked lore for a race that won’t be touched past this expansion. I’ll wait to see them but another Dwarf race when we have two perfectly awesome ones that could use some love RIGHT HERE is sad. Also, the whole ‘ISLAND THAT HAS BEEN HIDDEN BUT NOW SUDDENLY IS NOT’ idea is a very dead horse that they need to stop beating. Not to mention, all this Titan lore and Algaren probably having clear ties to their Alliance brethren feels VERY alienating for Horde players.

In an effort to be positive, some of the environments look pretty neat and Dracthyr getting more specs will be cool. I hope they can be Shaman 'cause I am desperate for more Alliance Shaman options.

The biggest plus from my personal perspective is seeing Silvermoon with Nightborne presence and conversely a renewed Gilneas with Night Elf presence. Gilneas is my favourite city, and I’d love to finally see it renewed. That being said though, this piece seemed the most ‘off theme’ for this leak so I’m not getting my hopes up too much.

Xoroth-crushridge · October 30, 2023, 4:13pm

Boo neutral races are garbage.

Sarm-malganis · October 30, 2023, 4:17pm

I hope it’s fake because “tall dwarves” sounds awful to me, doubly so as a neutral race.

Christtel-stormrage · October 30, 2023, 4:32pm

But we are running out of stablished zones in lore. Nobody who thought about the world map back at blizzard thought this game would need a new map evey couple of years. What is your suggestion to the need of new zones when there are vey few left?

Naovi-moon-guard · October 30, 2023, 4:42pm

There are plenty of dropped opportunities and story threads they could be revisiting, namely using their phasing technology to allow us to revisit old zones for new content similar to what they did in BfA with Warfronts. There are LOTS of things we could be circling back on in old content.

Heck, there’s even dropped content spots floating around from old expansions like the portal in the Abyssal Maw that could be re-purposed. I just wish Blizz would put just a LITTLE story thought into their content these days because the marketing choices are becoming more and more glaring as each expansion comes out. Alas, I know the majority of players don’t give a rat’s crap about the story so it is what it is.

It would honestly even be refreshing if they said something like, ‘This was here the whole time but we didn’t have a reason to go there until now’. The whole ‘hidden lands’ thing is just overdone.