Lore/Spoiler Warning
- This is a lore prediction thread for WoW.
Hey everyone,
This thread is a prediction of what is going to happen in the next expansions (not just the next 3, but the ones after that too). I’m not going to split it up by expansion since these may happen in a different order than predicted here. Starting off:
Azeroth, Anduin and Anduriel
- Who is Azeroth and why is she so important: Azeroth (the planet) is a prison for a powerful being; a First One. This is the reason for why so many different entities (i.e. Void lords, Zovaal, the Pantheon, Sargeras) are interested in this planet.
- This First One is called Anduriel, the Avatar of Life.
- The Pantheon: they are under the impression that this massive power belongs to Azeroth (the titan), and just wanted to awaken it to integrate Azeroth into their Pantheon. They are mistaken.
- Sargeras and the Burning Legion: Sargeras also believed this was Azeroth’s power back when he was part of the Pantheon, but the Nathrezim told him what they know about Anduriel, who is imprisoned inside Azeroth. They also told him why Anduriel did what he did. Sargeras tried to convince his brethren that Azeroth (the titan) must be destroyed so that Anduriel can be freed, but they forbade this. This is why Sargeras left and created the Burning Legion. It is also for this reason that he stabbed the Sword in Silithus.
- There is another titan matrix under Silithus that is responsible for Azeroth’s prime directives. He damaged it with his sword so that Azeroth would not recognize Anduriel if he were freed; thus giving us an opportunity to awaken Anduriel without getting destroyed by Azeroth.
- Zovaal (and the Nathrezim): Zovaal is aware that Anduriel is imprisoned and wanted to free him. They are aware that this First One is a harbinger of change, and Zovaal sought to gain control of him via a vessel; a fragment of his power. There have been several fragments that we know of thus far. The first fragment of Anduriel was Arthas. The second is Anduin. It is for that reason that he dominated both of them; he knows they can awaken Anduriel’s power within Azeroth and he hopes to control them.
- It is for this reason that Arthas, the Lich King, never invade Azeroth. He didn’t have to; the power Zovaal sought was accessible in Northrend the whole time. The quarries he was digging Saronite in had another purpose: they were meant to be dug into the Vault of Azeroth; where Anduriel’s essence is imprisoned.
- It is also for this reason that Zovaal’s final quote was: “You preserve that which is doomed. A cosmos divided will not survive what is to come.” He understands why Anduriel opposed his father; and what will happen to all living and immortal beings if the cycle of expansion and contraction is not stopped (more info below).
- The Void Lords & Old Gods: They are well aware of this First One, and want to free it. This is because the Anduriel’s war of light is in their benefit (up until Yharim’s defeat; more info below). There is a fundamental disagreement as to how to oppose the Void Lords between Yharim and Anduriel. Yharim is afraid that the entire universe cannot stand up to them and takes measures to prevent such a conflict, while Anduriel wants to fight them.
- How does Anduin tie into this?
- Anduin is a fragment of Anduriel. Arthas was also a fragment of Anduriel. Anduin will eventually reach the Vault of Azeroth and awaken as Anduriel, the Avatar of Life.
Yharim and the First Ones
- Who is Anduriel? Who is Yharim? Why is there a conflict between Yharim and Anduriel? Why was Anduriel imprisoned?
- Who is Anduriel? Anduriel is the Avatar of Life, one of the many First Ones, son of Yharim, who is the creator of the physical universe.
- Who is Yharim? Yharim is the Avatar of Eternity, the creator of the universe, the father of all First Ones. He is himself a Void God and is responsible for the Cycle of Expansion and Contraction that Anduriel and Zovaal both oppose.
- Why there a conflict between Yharim and Anduriel? Yharim, being a Void God himself, decided to create his own universe where he would harbor growth of infant species; the like of which was difficult in the void given the perpetual conflict between other Void Gods. Unfortunately, as his physical universe manifested, other Void Gods began to take notice. They saw his universe as a source of slaves and soldiers to be used in their perpetual conflict. However, they could not manifest within simply due to their size. Void Gods are universe-sized entities, and they could not physically fit within Yharim’s universe without destroying it. As such, they planted tiny fragments of their power within the corrupt the inhabitants of this universe. These fragments are known as Old Gods.
- Unfortunately (must like our current universe here on Earth), Yharim’s universe is expanding. Yharim knows this and understands that at some point the Void Gods will be able to manifest into his universe. Yharim may be able to oppose some of the Void Gods, but not all of them, and he knows that at some point his creations will be enslaved. He could not allow such a thing to happen to his creations as his universe would be gone forever. Instead, he chose to contract his universe; bringing everything inside into a single point, which would then explode into another Big Bang; restarting the cycle of expansion again. This happens over billions of years, and everytime his creations are destroyed. Yharim sees this as a necessary cost; as he would rather them be destroyed and reborn again than be slaves to the other Void Gods forever.
- This contraction includes the destruction of the fragments of Yharim’s power (the First Ones), who are reborn during every cycle. Anduriel, who was never in favor of this Cycle opposed his father Yharim because he thought it would be better to fight, even if it means death, than to kill an entire universe simply to avoid a fight, even if that fight against the Void Gods seemed hopeless. Anduriel thought this was cowardly, and that Yharim had no right to take the lives of his children only to run from a conflict. He opposed him in a thunderous battle at the zenith of the previous conflict and lost. For his transgression, Anduriel was fragmented and imprisoned within the planet of Azeroth.
- Why was Anduriel imprisoned?
- He was imprisoned for disobeying Yharim and starting a war against him.
The Cycle
- What is this Cycle of Expansion and Contraction?
- What is this Cycle of Expansion and Contraction? Much like our current universe, the universe in Warcraft (Yharim’s Universe) expands continuously. Void Gods, who seek to enslave the species in our universe to be used in their perpetual conflict, cannot manifest in this universe simply due to their size (universe-sized beings). It is for this reason that they resort to flinging fragments of their powers (Old Gods) into it to do their bidding. As the universe expands however, they will inevitably be able to manifest within. Yharim cannot oppose all the Void Gods at once, so he instead decided to periodically contract his universe into a singularity, which would again explode (i.e. Big Bang) into the next cycle of Expansion; restarting the next cycle. This process destroys all life and creation of the previous cycle, which is the reason Anduriel opposed it. Anduriel would rather have fought the Void Gods to the death for a chance at life, then see the universe destroyed.
- The First Ones are perpetually reborn exactly as they were (including their memories of prior cycles). Anduriel has lost his memories (and much of his power) because he was fragmented by Yharim after opposing him.
- What is this Cycle of Expansion and Contraction? Much like our current universe, the universe in Warcraft (Yharim’s Universe) expands continuously. Void Gods, who seek to enslave the species in our universe to be used in their perpetual conflict, cannot manifest in this universe simply due to their size (universe-sized beings). It is for this reason that they resort to flinging fragments of their powers (Old Gods) into it to do their bidding. As the universe expands however, they will inevitably be able to manifest within. Yharim cannot oppose all the Void Gods at once, so he instead decided to periodically contract his universe into a singularity, which would again explode (i.e. Big Bang) into the next cycle of Expansion; restarting the next cycle. This process destroys all life and creation of the previous cycle, which is the reason Anduriel opposed it. Anduriel would rather have fought the Void Gods to the death for a chance at life, then see the universe destroyed.
Other First Ones
- What is the purpose of First Ones?
- Yharim spends his time caring for the overall stability of the universe and protects it from outside threads (i.e. Void Gods). The other First Ones act as caretakers for conflicts that arise within. They are usually tasked with a territory of the universe and manage it as gods do.
- What are some unique features of the First Ones?
- Every First One is immensely powerful and controls some aspect of existence, whether it be an element (i.e. Light) or a concept (i.e. Time). All First Ones can use schools of different First Ones (i.e. Anduriel, Avatar of Life, is able to use Shadow magic), but they specialize in their element (i.e. Light for Anduriel).
- Every First One has the ability to enter an “Avatar form”, a substantially more powerful form which they can remain in for a limited duration. These are lore-relevant (i.e. when Anduriel first awakens) and they will be used for phase transitions in combat during raid encounters
- First Ones, even if they are killed in prior cycles, will always be reborn as they were after the Contraction of the Cycle. Anduriel is different because Yharim specifically fragmented him after he opposed him.
- Are there other First Ones in play within this conflict?
Naraka, Avatar of War
- Second to Yharim, she is the most powerful First One in existence. She is a sadistic, tan-skin, athletic, short-and-white-haired woman bearing many scars from prior conflicts (picture Mirko with short-hair). In the early cycles of the universe, she would spend her existence within a cycle by raising armies and attacking the territories of other First Ones. In many of the early cycles, she would be the last First One left alive by the time of the Contraction.
- Naraka has only ever lost once, and it was to Anduriel, who was not fighting for conquest but simply for the survival of his subjects. Since that defeat, she has changed her ways. She no longer seeks to conquer the universe, instead trying to cultivate life and civilization like Anduriel taught her. She later became Anduriel’s lover.
- Naraka is torn in the conflict between Anduriel and Yharim. She fundamentally agrees with Yharim’s approach, but also understands Anduriel’s pain of watching his subjects die. Her allegiance is unclear.
- In the last Cycle when Anduriel opposed Yharim, she voluntarily sacrificed herself to give her power to Anduriel so that he could have the best chance of winning against Yharim, but it wasn’t enough.
- In the War Within cinematic, Anduin is clearly distraught over “what he has seen and what he has done”. This has sparked confusion from the community since he was under Zovaal’s domination when he committed his crimes (i.e. almost killed the Archon in Bastion). However, I believe Anduin is remembering not only these events, but what he did in the previous cycle, where he slew his beloved Naraka in an effort to combine their powers to defeat Yharim. This thought will come back to haunt him, and will be the reason we lose our first encounter against Yharim (leading to the contraction and destruction of the Warcraft Universe, which will be used to segway into WoW 2; more info below).
- In the War Within’s cinematic, there is a female voice calling out to Anduin. This is not Azeroth; it is Naraka.
Hiro, Avatar of Dominion
- Hiro leads the largest empire in the physical universe. In the absence of Naraka destroying him and his subjects, he has begun his own conquest. He has the ability to distribute his powers among his subjects (who look like half-Shadow beings), leading to unstoppable armies empowered by the powers of the First One, although this does leave him weakened. It is his forces that we will be fighting in World of Warcraft: Midnight. It is during that conflict that Anduin will begin to manifest Anduriel’s powers, and will use these to overcome Hiro.
- Hiro appears to be a middle aged man who’s entire right side (split evenly down the middle) looks like it is covered with void energy.
Zere, Avatar of Time
- Creator of Zereth Mortis, life and death; this is a brilliant inventor who fights more with creations that manipulate time and space. He appears to be a well-dressed elderly man with 4 golden arms on his back that weave his creations into being.
- He is fully devoted to his father Yharim and sees Anduriel as an apostate
Vedas, Avatar of Thunder
- Vedas is Naraka’s twin sister, and similar to Naraka she also carries a wickened sadism. However, while Naraka prefers open confrontation, Vedas prefers assassination and subterfuge. Like her sister, she is a tan-skinned, athletic and sadistic woman, but with long white hair and no scars. She uses her physical similarities to Naraka at several points to mess with Anduriel. Her fighting style is that of a lightning-fast rogue, shifting between her humanoid form and shadow-lightning form.
- She loves and hates her Naraka at the same time. She harbors hatred towards Anduriel for killing her sister in the previous cycle, and will oppose Anduriel to her last breath.
Prometheus, Avatar of Progress
- Prometheus is dedicated to the technological improvement of the civilizations under his domain. He focuses his efforts on making sure that the species under his dominion achieve technological progress quickly as he sees this as the key to prosperity, although his subjects frequently end up with technocratic autocracies. We first meet him on a planet reminiscent of Cyberpunk, fraught with corruption at the hands of the ruling government, where we end up helping a rebel organization overthrow their government until Prometheus takes notice and acts against us
- Deep down, he wishes the best for his domain, and is torn by his father’s decision to contract the universe (destroying his work each time). He is drawn to Anduriel’s proposal, but is also afraid of the other Void Gods (similar to Yharim). His allegiance is with his father, for now…
Celestine, Avatar of Beauty
- Celestine has forged the most beautiful kingdom in the Universe, a mighty fortress city from which she rules atop (picture Anor Londo). She has little care for her subjects, only their works of art and their dedication to her.
- She is slender and subtly arrogant woman who sees Anduriel as an idiotic savage who cannot see the beauty in their father’s designs.
Others/More to come…
World of Warcraft 2
- Lore Explanation for WoW 2:
- After killing, and in certain cases (i.e. Naraka, Zere, etc.) absorbing the other First Ones, we journey with Anduriel to the edge of the Universe where Yharim guards his creations from the Void Gods and oppose him in a conflict for the fate of the universe. Unfortunately, even with Anduriel we are unable to overcome Yharim’s power, and after our defeat he contracts the universe once again, destroying everything and everyone in the Warcraft universe.
- Jaina is notably missing from this conflict. It is later revealed that she was sent forward in time by Anduriel (using Zere’s powers) to awaken himself earlier than intended.
- It is also revealed that Anduriel had second thoughts about defeating Yharim, since that would mean he would lose Naraka (whom he killed) forever. If he were to fail, however, she would be reborn in the next Cycle and he would have another chance to defeat Yharim, perhaps without killing his beloved. Knowing this, he infused a large of his power and memories into Jaina (who, with this power, now far exceeds the strength of even a titan) and propelled her forward in time (using Zere’s knowledge after absorbing him) in hopes of Jaina finding Anduriel and awakening him as early as possible from within his prison of Azeroth. Unfortunately for us, this guarantees our defeat at the hands of Yharim for WoW 1’s current timeline, leading to the complete destruction of that universe.
- Blizzard/Company Reason for WoW 2:
Class bloat and Inability to Remove Them
- I predict that in 10-15 years, there will likely be at least 2 more classes with redundancies in the current pool of classes. These redundancies already exist (i.e. Feral Druid and Assassination Rogue). In addition, a number of specs are currently “lost” in their niche, as many of them already have a niche that is filled by another spec (i.e. Elemental Shaman/Arcane Mage/Devastation Evoker and other caster specs, Survival Hunter, Windwalker Monk). This results in a number of classes/specs that exist as bloat, where there simply aren’t enough devs that know these classes/specs intimately. However, these specs cannot simply be deleted due to outrage from that community. This can be circumvented by the release of a new version of WoW, where you can implement a smaller pool of classes/specs but focus on quality above all and bring the lessons learned from current WoW into designing this smaller pool of classes. Picture the following:
- Tank Class that can talent swap between high-self healing (i.e. Blood DK), high-mobility/kiting (i.e. VDH) and damage reduction (i.e. Prot War for physical damage)
- Healer Class that can talent swap between HoTs similar to Resto Druid, Shields/Atonement similar to Discipline and burst-healing similar to HPal or HPriest
- Melee DPS that can talent swap between Warrior, Rogue or Enhancement Shaman
- Range Caster Class that can talent swap between DoTs, summons or burst damage, with various elements chosen (i.e. Fire vs. Lightning vs. Arcane vs. Frost) based on atunement.
- Range Gun/Bow Class that can talent swap between either combat with pets or stealth-range Assassin-type gameplay (i.e. elements of Marksmanship and Rogue combined)
- Support Class that can talent swap between continuous buff uptime (i.e. current Aug) vs burst but stronger buffs (i.e. PI)
Raid size
- There have been many arguments to reduce the raid size over the year. Unfortunately, I inherently see that tied to Class Bloat, since the more classes you have in the game, the more spots you want open in a raid, otherwise you end up picking just those with raid buffs and call it a day. Pairing this one with reducing class bloat, I think WoW 2 would be a good opportunity to see raid size reduced to 10-man
Alt Characters and How to Fix Them
- I think you should be able to swap one character’s class in-and-out (i.e. Mage → Warrior by talent swapping), similar to New World or Final Fantasy XIV. This is currently impossible in the current system for WoW.
Engine and Graphical Updates
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We’ve already seen a number of problems with the WoW Engine, more specifically brought one by the advent of Dragonflying/Dynamic flying, where (as I understand it, please correct me in comments if I’m wrong) the speed of Dragonflying had to get nerfed to avoid certain failures of the Engine (i.e. areas not loading fast enough, such as the Zaralek Caverns when speeding through the entrance near Valdrakken).
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Attached to this is the question of graphics: while the graphics are currently passable, there may come a time in the next 10-20 years where a graphical update would be required for the game to remain AAA quality. Note that I’m not just talking about models, but also about textures and background.
Itemization Structure Change
- There are a number of items currently exist in the game as bloat. Things like belts, wrists, boots, 2 sets of rings + necklace and 2 trinkets seem like a lot of bloat that often serves as merely just stat sticks. Instead of having a lot of different item slots, how about removing some of the redudant ones and making sure that the new items that are made all have unique effects (i.e. only 1 ring equipable but all rings have unique effect similar to Eranog ring). Again, this is a focus on quality over quantity
Secondary Stat Structure Change
- I think you should be able to redistribute all secondary stats however you would like using a slider that distributes a pool of total secondary stat points into Haste, Mastery, Crit and Vers, however much you choose. Want 100% haste? Go for it. 100% Crit? Enjoy playing Fire Mage.
- With the above change to items, this would not render different item slots (i.e. rings) obsolete since they would also carry unique effects that make these items worth getting for certain specs over others
