The story for Shadowlands was disappointing with Arthas in Shadowlands. Huge possible ideas that most likely won’t happen but in my opinion is a missed opportunity.
Cataclysm classic can easily be avoided with WOTLK classic + and what better way than to have Arthas face off against Deathwing and STOP the cataclysm with the help of the heroes. Instead of killing the Lich King Arthas in WOTLK classic, why not try to save him? We seen Bolvar get his helm ripped from his face by Slyvannas, so it is possible to separate the Lich King from his human form. Convince Arthas, let him see the future, let him see the destruction caused by Deathwing, I am sure many great stories can be rewritten. Instead of the fall of the Lich King patch lets change it to the redemption of the Lich King. Or another great way this can work is to have a cross over event with retail (Dragonflight).
Cross over event. Something big goes down in Dragonflight, something unordinary and the only way to prevent it from happening is to travel through the Warcraft multiverse and save Arthas. Maybe something comes from WOTLK classic and causes trouble in Dragonflight, so the heroes go back in time on a parallel timeline to help the old heroes stop it, creating a new timeline for classic players. Some new villain that can travel through different multiverses. This could allow for a BIG event WoW Dragonflight X WoW WOTLK classic, some new que up system that will allow both games to join each other, maybe even a raid. Most likely it would work if this new villain traveled from Dragonflight’s current timeline to WOTLK classic and changed an event, which would lead to Arthas surviving. The ending of fall of the lich king would change, and eventually lead to the precata patch, but instead wotlk classic + takes place, alternating history by surviving Arthas, continuing on to fight Deathwing along side Arthas. This can open a whole new possibilities with a parallel timeline of events to occur for the future. Crown Arthas as the new king Stormwind? or Azeroth? Wed him to Jaina? Arthas kids become the new evil? Some house of dragons in your WoW? Just some overthinking of possible storylines, but it could expand Warcraft and even create new universes.
What do you guys think?
I want to see what classic players think too because the other general seemed to be mostly retail players that shut it down quickly. So I want to know if WOTLK classic players want a classic + or do they just want cata classic + and then eventually MOP +
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I play both wrath classic and retail, and I’d love this idea. I’ve always at least wanted something after Wrath besides normal Cata, and I would definitely play and get heaps of enjoyment out of this. Great idea op, even if blizzard likely wouldn’t do it 
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I think that would be an excellent idea. I don’t see them doing anything different with the ending to wotlk though.
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I would much perfer it that if at the end of cata the dragon aspects, instead of crying about their low t count instead say ‘there must always be a deathwing’ as alexstraza gives birth, very empowering.
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To make a xpac takes them 2 years of focused development and well as 2 xpacs worth of pre work and planning as per blizzards statments in that past with the full wow team working on it this is over 100 people. They don’t just start a xpac after the last patch of a xpac to make them. In fact per there interviews, the xpac is mostly “done” when it releases with all content ready mainly missing the balancing and qa, which is done by a different team while the main team is working on the next thing.
Wow classic has as far as the dev team goes 3 people if you look at the credits.
No 3 people are not going to do the work of 80 people over 2 years in mabye a year and a half at best that’s left of wrath classic, likly less time than that. That’s if you assume they already have a fully fleshed out plan and use retail assets a ton to reduce the pre work. Still there missing the story and a ton of fundamentals that happen pre that 2 year period.
If blizzard was going to be doing a wrath plus alt timeline we would know already and would not be seeing them doing a q and an about cars classic.
As much as you want it there is 0 chance of it happening at least as the thing to come after wrath.
The idea itself is also nothing new its been suggested for awhile and fact blizzard has shown no signs of doing it shows there not going to.
While classic community has been rather consistent in what it wasnts there is two camps:
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that wants no or as few changes as possible these people spilt into wanting cata OR jsut classic to restart after wrath and keep repeating the 3.
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the classic pluses that want classic plus which is what SoM was. It din’t do well. This is party since it came to early people just did van doing again was to soon. If they are going to be classic + is should be starting with van and going to wrath than spilting if they so pick to. This lets us see there changes and whats going to happen before they go and make cata retail addition than no one wants to play and it flops, as classic+ would flop in van or tbc likly if they went to far on changes like SoM did (but as mentioned SoM had other factors adding to its level of play).
Crossover will NOT happen that is one thing set basically in stone. Blizzard made that clear at the start of classic and changing it now WILL piss of more than makes happy. As many people picked to play or not play classic due to it never interacting with retail so no rewards move over or otherwise. A crossover is one of the examples blizzard outright said will not happen.
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Wrath isn’t Classic WoW. It’s a retail progression server just as tbc was before it. Classic+ starts in Classic Era Phase 7.
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I do not like the idea that retail players “save” Classic, no.
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It would be neat to see them develop an alternative history or lore.
If the objection to this is that it will cause discontinuity in the canon across the archival breadths, I’d contend that the very concept of a distinction between classic and retail already does this, because it’s an anachronistic juxtaposition of spatio-temporality, so hey, I’m all for the inadvertent ‘death of the author’ as it were, here.
But naw I’m just bored and trolling with my phrasing. In all seriousness, yea it would be a cool idea; classic is already different from retail and even from the older version of itself that it’s trying to emulate, and if we’re going to bother with wrath+ we inherently have to deface the continuity of the lore compared to retail anyways, so sure, I’m down for some alternative history.
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Nah. Classic Cata and MoP is where we are going and I personally cannot wait.
Classic+ … 
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I liked all posts thank you all for the feedback.
I’d rather just play Cata then MoP. I don’t trust them to do any different content.
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I dont want to do cata again so count me in.
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So do they stop at MoP? No WOD and so on?
If they don’t change the timeline then I agree with this, they should just stop at WOTLK classic and let it live for ever there, and just do season of mastery servers.
Dunno. All I can say is that I’d play cata and mop.
no thanks, Arthus needs to die for what he did to Stratholme and Lorderon
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If they do continue then that is my limit too. I won’t do WOD and so on.
I guess from a financial standpoint they wouldn’t gain much. More than likely most players would either be current classic players or they would pull some players from retail which wouldn’t make them any extra money.
If they make some tweaks to cata it might not be terrible. Tone down the dungeons first of all.
What do you mean by tone down the dungeons? As in difficulty?
Arthas could easily come back to the timeline. It’s not hard. Just look at guldan.
Let us hope so that it happens