The Expansion after Shadowlands may be a “Soft Reboot” of WoW

Community General Discussion
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TLDR: I think the entire world map of Eastern and Western Kingdoms is going to see a massive revamp. I think A LOT of the dead from Shadowlands will come back with us post Shadowlands, including many prominent heroes and villains to tell new stories that will last years; and I suspect that each class will get a new spec. Shadowlands will essentially be the “Avengers End Game” of WoW.

I have a hunch that the biggest changes WoW will ever see are coming post Shadowlands. I think the entire game is going to get a sort of “soft reboot”. I suspect many past heroes, villains, and unnamed race characters for the sake of bolstering populations, will return from Shadowlands with us to usher in a new saga of lore and story telling that will last at least another 10 years.

Blizzard has implied a time skip will occur. I suspect that not only will prominent lore characters both good and bad be reintroduced to WoW, I suspect the world will be updated on a scale even bigger than Cataclysm. The Draenei and Blood Elves have evolved so much since BC, their areas are in dire need of updating; I fully expect those zones will be updated. Gilneas and the ruins of Lordaeron are definitely in need of a possible lore update at the least. EPL and WPL have changed a lot as well. On Kalimdor, there is room for drastic changes with places such as the Theramore crater, the Night Elves and their land, and so on.

The point I am making is, with the time skip, anything can happen. Perhaps Theramore will be reclaimed as a new Forsaken zone and city. Perhaps we will see a new city entirely built in the Dalaran crater that is either Horde or Alliance. Who knows? I suspect that updating the world on this scale will be a large undertaking, but not as time-consuming as the undertaking that occurred during Cata, since the zones this time around are already built for flight. A lot of the WoD assets can be used when building/updating locations, so an undertaking this large may be more feasible than many would think – Blizzard might already be working on that part of the post Shadowlands expansion already, having started the process since perhaps the beginning of BFA.

Lastly, I think the massive change won’t end there. I suspect the classes will see the biggest changes since, ever. I suspect every single class is going to get a new spec. Possible new specs would be a Gladiator spec for warriors, a DPS spec for paladins that utilizes shields similar to the D2/D3 Paladin, a Tidesage spec for mages that gives mages a healing spec, a caster spec for Death Knights that turns them into the highly requested necromancer caster class. Those are just a few, so many options.

I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect something along the lines of my thought process will occur post Shadowlands. At the very least, the “what ifs” of this possibility make for some interesting discussion. The Shadowlands conclusion has the potential to be the “Avengers End Game” of WoW.

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A lot of zones, mainly the Classic ones, could use some updating. If there is indeed a time skip this would be the perfect opportunity to do so.

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When Cata hit and a lot of my favorite zones were altered to meet the new narrative, I received the changes pretty well. I think the time skip could usher in an ever greater level of overdue change, and I’m excited for it.

To mirror your expectations, I am very much expecting the time skip and I’m hoping Blizzard deploys the zone team with the mission of a geographical refresh on-par with the new zones from the last couple expansions. The zone teams have been crafting some incredible vistas.

I’d love to see the Vanilla continents given the same level of lushness and density we’ve seen since Broken Shore. My only hope is that they don’t alter the zone music; that needs to stay as-is.

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Speculation threads are always amusing to read.

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While all of those I love the idea of. Every class, getting a new spec I have my doubts as they are barely able to keep up with the balance of the current specs they have now. And trust me I hate that “excuse” as well, but I think it’s the sad reality and probably why we didn’t get a new class like majority of us were guessing before Shadowlands official reveal.

I also believe this and I think there is a fair point on two things Blizzard has said and multiple things in game supporting this.

BFA while overall, a :poop: Xpac in terms of gameplay it had a lot of setup story wise.

  • The Horde no longer is working on a Warchief system, now it’s a council.
  • The Forsaken’s main zone is in ruins and they no longer have a leader.
  • The Night Elves primary capital and world tree was burned to near ashes.
  • Tyrande is on a revenge driven hunt that I suspect will get her killed.
  • Anduin put someone else as temp king while he was away. Which is NOT Genn.
  • The Night Elves and Worgen, mainly Genn & Tyrande are questioning Anduin’s leadership more and more…
  • Calia Menethil in SL seems to be with the Horde.

Majority of that can be seen as political based and because of that I feel a time-skip is a huge possibility. Why do I say this? Well Blizzard themselves have said there are multiple more political faction based stories that they won’t be able to get to in Shadowlands. Not to mention, Blizzard’s side comment of time being very random in the Shadowlands, compared to Azeroth.

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There certainly is opportunity for something fresh… we’ll see…

Every moment is another opportunity.

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Honestly wouldn’t be a bad way to lunch WoW 2 and kick this franchise into current century.

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I choose my words wisely, as only Blizzard knows what comes next. I’m just following the dotted lines to a possible outcome.

My hunch was formed based on the perfect timing of many events both in game, and in real life, that could lead to a soft reboot of WoW. And also, it’s just fun to talk about.

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I don’t necessarily doubt that we’ll see a major change in the expansion after Shadowlands. We’re going to be “away” from Azeroth for some time, and we’re not even sure if time works the same way in the Shadowlands AFAIK.

So I could see another world revamp. I could see new specs.

But I hope to GOD they leave dead lore characters in the Shadowlands. I want WoW to actually do its own story going forward. It’s just now getting to the point where it’s no longer shackled by old RTS plot points, villains, and locations. Let it go.

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Oh man, I’d love a complete refresh of the whole platform.

If Blizzard did it though, I think they’d end up producing the first, real WoW killer, and I fear both versions would collapse.

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Though I think the zones can be updated The time skip is not changing the world from what we know it but changing us instead.We are the ones it is affect truly we get older in sl but time outside doesn’t.

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It depends on what their definition of a time skip is I suppose. Time will tell.

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While it is exciting to think of all the possibilities and directions they can go with this, until we know more it’s important to remember to not let our imaginations run too wild lest we wind up bummed that we come back from the shadowlands and it’s the same as before with a few minor changes and not a drastically different makeover.

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I think the time to have done this would have been after WoD. Blizz could have had us return to Azeroth only to discover it was the AU Azeroth.

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Sadly I disagree.

I thought this was the direction they were going in with BfA since there was just a massive amount of old models updated. Even ones that don’t appear in any new zones at all. We also had Warfronts and zones being overhauled. Then of course there were all the asserts created in Legion for zones like Val’Sharah and could literally be recolored and used to update Ashevale, Feralas, Winterspring, etc. But the leveling changes in Shadowlands strongly take away a need for a revamp of the old world since that content can just now be bypassed.

So unless they plan on making a time skip version of EK and Kalimdor the new end game for 10.0 I think it’s very unlikely you will see anything but a piece mail updating of the zones

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I can say that I agree that it would make sense. They are changing the leveling experience, so where you can choose which expansion to level through. Also with Mob scaling, you dont out level the zones. They have classic wow going strong currently for those who want to experience the zones. They have shown how they can reuse assets with patch 8.3. Changing the 2 zones to fit a new narrative.

It doesnt make any sense to make new lands at this point. There are so many zones and assets that sit empty and unused. They have a great opportunity to use a lot of existing assets, enhance them, and put a lot of effort into creating content as opposed to new zones. Maybe it would give the team a lot of time to… re-work classes and make them ALL fun to play. Not bandaids of borrowed power.

Lets hope.

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Revamp? I’m hoping for a straight up remake and replacement of everything in Kalmidor and EK. Shard the Cata zones into Chromie time but otherwise hide EVERYTHING pre-10.0. That’s how I’d do it at least.

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