… To be the next expansion?
Do you believe a remnant civilization not unlike Azeroth will show up and express their dedication to the Black Empire by pillaging Azeroth?
Perhaps the Titan fog system that keeps well over half of Azeroth shrouded will finally open and reveal continents such as Southrend?
Lich King 2.0 Fire Edition?
AU Invasion 2.0 Deus Vult Edition?
Wrathion becoming Deathwing 2.0?
I’m interested to hear your speculations.
My speculation since 8.0 stuff was datamined has been an expansion focusing on the Shadowlands and death as an antagonistic theme in general.
Idk if that means Bolvar comes into play as a helper or a hinderer, but I’m sure he’ll be around. As will Bwonsamdi and Helya, though I’m confident the latter will be a villain. What Sylvanas’ role in that will be, I have no idea honestly. Nothing they’re doing with her makes any sense, so trying to guess is a crapshoot.
And with the recent news of Vol’jin I can understand the whole death theme being a bIt crowded to guess further.
I haven’t read Chronicle 3 yet but I heard it touches on Shadowland origins.
No not really. We still don’t know a ton about them. If they were created by the Titans, or are a cosmic force, or what.
Maybe it’s just my opinion but I don’t think Light and Void are all that powerful. Just because they were the first doesn’t mean they were the strongest cosmic forces. If anything the byproduct of them clashing had created far stronger Cosmic Forces. Which might be hinted at the Void disliking Undeath.
Lolol, Southrend.
I’m dying.
of the three planes of ‘bad’ magic, the shadowlands is the one we’ve had the least encounters with and know the least about, unlike the void and the nether
given that death and necromancy are such a heavy theme this expac and sylvia is busy scourging so many people i imagine its the next stage
Now that you mention it, didn’t Sylvanas make a deal with Helya in Legion?
Do we even know what that deal actually was? Perhaps it was setting up for a future expansion.
It had better be a good expansion, that’s all.
As for content, I don’t know. All you can do when speculating is reason from established patterns and that is pointless with Blizzard writing. They’ll throw in whatever thing they feel like doing and ignore as much of what they previously did as is necessary to make it make a modicum of sense. If they even bother with that much.
Some are giving Sylvie the benefit of a doubt and suggest that her recent decisions are influenced by this “deal” she made.
Sounds similar to the “deals” Bwonsamdi makes, don’t it?
Maybe she burned Teldrassil and have all them souls to Helya? But why is Sylvie spotted with her new “dagger”? How did she obtain it? And where will it lead the narrative?
My thoughts: She’s gonna pull a Dark Knight to make herself the villain while kinda being Azeroths hero.
I wouldn’t quit over a plot beat that painfully stupid, but dear lord that plot beat sounds painfully stupid.
Giving her any kind of out that allows for her to walk away scott-free would be absolutely outrageous. And basically prove that they prioritize fanboy arousal over any kind of plot stability.
We kind of already knew that. I’d really prefer not to have my face rubbed in it, though.
I’m hoping we get trounced hard (Horde, Alliance), and the next expac is us picking up the pieces and another zone revamp.
What I’d like is an old gods ascendant pack or something in the line of MOP, but with a few familiar zones. Maybe go back to Outland to regroup as a plot point.
What I expect to get is “We raid Shadowlands, all story about the old world is incidental”.
Given all that. When was the last time WoW writing impressed you AND was a pivotal moment in an expansion and not just filler?
I’m bracing myself for the worst.
We do know that, yes. I’d rather not get further proof though.
Frankly? Shadows of Argus. The last patch. That recently, they made me go “Wow, that was actual pretty awesome.”
Velen and Illidan’s little exchange in the last cinematic was pretty nuanced character development, and kind of made their relationship very interesting in the end. Honestly most of Legion, I felt was pretty excellent writing that kept me engaged, and caring about the game. Now I finish the quest zones and it feels like nothing is happening anymore.
Pretty much this, yeah.
In regards to the actual plot, my theory is that the Horde will, with the aid of Bwonsamdi, and the Alliance with the aid of Bolvar, plunge into the Shadowlands after Sylvanas and Helya.
Sylvanas will abscond with all the Horde’s Azerite and most of the Alliance’s after gaining the aid of Lady Ashvane and Gallywix to steal it and surrender the lion’s share of the substance with Helya, who seeks to not only free herself from her shackled existence as the first and most powerful of the Val’kyr, but restore herself to Titan Watcher status with an actual body purged of all of Loken and Yogg’Saron’s influences.
Of course, along the way we’re exposed to the ‘boss’ of Bwonsamdi and even Helya, the World Soul of Azeroth itself who devours the souls of the Living that wander, unclaimed, in the Shadowlands for long enough that their individual sense of self and consciousness has faded to nearly nothing, and uses the released energy to further her own gestation and to produce more Spirit energy, which is necessary for both Elemental and Organic life to flourish on the planet she occupies, and the presence of that life draws in the Light, which further increases the life on the planet, which in turn dies, is drawn into the Shadowlands and the process repeats itself.
Helya’s goal, however, while not running counter to this cycle of death, consumption and reincarnation, still throws a wrench into things since in the thousands of years of Helya’s existence as a Val’kyr, she’s become a part of the system and her removing herself and returning to being a Titan Watcher could cause a chain reaction since there’s other, far less benevolent beings in the Shadowlands who would just love to step in and feed off the abundant flow of life energy, souls and spirit energy, and there’s also the Old Gods who have their souls dwelling in the Abyss, the plane of existence where the Void and the Shadowlands meet who are also quite eager to abuse the situation to finally complete their own mission and convert Azeroth into a Void Titan for their masters.
With both the Horde and Alliance struggling with the revelations they face in the Shadowlands and the so-called heroes of the Story stuck for months in a realm of shifting phantasms and lost souls from various periods of time, as well as drifting through the various afterlives and dealing with the repercussions of meeting actual gods who may not entirely live up to their living followers’ doctrines, Azeroth’s nations groan under economic collapse, famine and civil unrest that threatens to tear both the Alliance and the Horde apart from within even as their beleaguered armies square off over the resource-rich islands exposed during the aftermath of Sargeras stabbing the planet and people who should know better continue to push for satisfaction for their personal vendettas as the world threatens to burn to ashes around them.
In terms of new expansion locations, the only Canon places in game we haven’t gone are the south Sea Islands (Many of which are arguably represented by island expeditions) and the sizeable neutral seaport that’s now in Desolace, according to the Traveler book, which is hardly a new zone of its own.
We’re either going to go back to Draenor and face the Yrel Horde, getting a revamp of all zones in the notcatacylsm or getting the south Sea Islands for some reason
Eh, they could pretty easily have a never-before-heard-of landmasses crop up out of nowhere. It’s what they’ve been doing with the ones we’ve heard of but not seen. It’s a suspension-of-belief thing that I don’t really fault them for. There’s no way to handle it better for an MMO.