WOW: Down by the Beach. Player housing with tons and tons of customization. We’re talking Barbie mansion. Guild halls so I can chill with my friends during the lulls. Content? Who needs content? We’re going to have 500 mounts at launch with 100 transmog sets. All attained from world quests. I’m going to finally add in the druid glyph we all need, the one lets your mount ride you. And lots of fun stuff like this. Think of this as the customization expansion-pack. Not all expansions need dungeons and raids.
I’d arrange a collaboration with Square Enix and have a Secret of Mana/Chrono Trigger themed Expansion with Queen Zeal and Lavos as the Big Bads…
I would have Emperor Vandole hijack the Alliance through the Noble Houses(with the Vandole Family being the rightful ruling Family due to the Wrynns being usurpers) and have him casually work with Danath Trollbane to blow up a few Planets because they might potentially side with the Horde should the Horde show up on said Planets…
Vandole’s Four Heavenly Kings will be there and the most recent Thanatos would frame the Horde for an attack on Jaina(by having one of his Zombies attack her while she is protesting Vandole’s atrocities) driving her insane enough to become a vessel for Queen Zeal to use as an avatar to recreate Zeal in the Mana Realms.
Zones would be the Mana Realms:
- Fire: Valley of the Flames(based on SNES version which has actual Flames instead of Lava)
- Water: Frostbite Fields(with the Kingdom of Zeal floating over it)
- Darkness: Night Cavern/Dark Castle/Jungle of Visions/Mirage Palace/Palace of Darkness(last one being Secret of Mana Dungeon & others being Trial of Mana Locales) combined into a single Zone
- Moon: Lampbloom Woods
- Sun: Kakkara Desert where half has Stars imbedded in the ground with the far end being the Cosmos where one of the Sun Palaces float and is overrun by Moon Elementals while the other half is sand-filled with the far end being based on the Golden Isle with all architecture replaced with that of the Golden Isle’s Palace
- Wind: Upper Lands Spring Forest from Secret of Mana combined with Heavensway from Trials of Mana
- Earth: Gemstone Valley Daria
- Wood: Woods of Wandara
- Light: Shimmering Ruins
Raids would be: Dark Castle(Launch Raid with His Dark Majesty as Final Boss), Zeal Palace(1st of the 2 Patch 1 Raids with Queen Zeal possessed Jaina as Final Boss), Vandole Castle(2nd of the 2 Patch 1 Raids with Geshtar as Final Boss), Ocean Palace(Patch 2 Raid with Thanatos the Dark Lich as the Final Boss) and the Mana Fortress Black Omen(Final Raid of Expansion with Queen Zeal/Anise the Witch as Second to Last Boss and Lavos as the Final Boss)
If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.
- I revert aoe caps, at least for all content older than current expac to allow easier farming and completion of mechanics via cheesing while soloing.
- I make high elves a playable race for the alliance and implement a purification questline to allow existing void elf characters to become one without paying a race change fee. New characters can be high elves right out of the gate. Alternatively I just give void elves the high elf hair colors and styles (see 5).
- I destroy the faction line entirely, with an extended questline anyone of any race can defect to either faction once. If they want to change their minds they have to pay a faction change fee because the NPCs aren’t about to forget your treachery.
- I lift class restrictions. All classes can now be all races. Void elf paladins? Yes but you’re locked to high elf hair colors and skin tones.
- I add extensive customization options for all races and allied races, plenty of hair colors, scars and tattoos exist as separate options and not tied to other options.
- I add player housing with a variety of charming default settings and locales that you can place your instanced house in and a ton of collectable (and updated with a few new items every major patch) items for customizing the house. I make sure the chairs are sit-able for RP purposes and add the ability to make the spaces very cozy and customized along racial pride lines as well as perhaps along the lines of new factions and species we meet and their cultures.
- As per above I add new items for housing and make some of them limited time free for subscribers to encourage people to continue playing and paying so I don’t get fired. They may be added to the game later for exorbitant amounts of gold but there will be a clear benefit that players derive from their subscription beyond new pve content.
- I focus heavily on making the game impactful at multiple levels, I focus on retention of casual players and giving them meaningful engagement (see for example player housing items collection) while still offering rewards, incentive and glory to cutting edge players who want to be competitive.
- I open up free realm transfers more frequently to encourage better realm balance and attempt to shift people off dead realms to more concentrated ones so they don’t complain about having no one to play with.
Stop all WoW content intended for SL and just immediately start working on the next expansion. 
Do I start with a golden parachute?
Go scorched earth, take a gamble that will make or break the game, probably get fired after.
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Crunch:
Faction disparity solution:
1st migrate alliance to alliance servers and horde to horde servers to balance by population.
2nd rebalance racials so that every racial is represented through an opposite faction (gnome escape artist is also undead remove limb)(vulpera get shadowmeld) or a toy/engineering (troll pterodactyl is slowfall umbrella//hand glider).
3rd reskin players to be alliance or horde depending on the players preference, as in I want to be a tauren, so my party members are all horde. Players I encounter are either friendly horde, or hostile alliance. The player names are changed on the opposite faction from their real names. World pvp is balanced around servers of similar size. Bgrounds don’t need to be broken down by alliance/horde because of reskin system.
Bring back pvp and pve servers.
Solo MMR for bgrounds. (Blizzards excuse of we want people to make groups went out the window when they created a system for tanks and healers to make 2-3k gold a run through veiled augment runes and a gold bonus in a call to arms system). This system is for the current random battlegrounds and you cannot be in a party to obtain points/rank for this style of play. Also the joined pool of all players means that players should be able to be of similar gear/skill for random battlegrounds.
Class balance-> go back to vanilla style talent trees. Have enough points to create hybrid specs. All trees are not equal, example Tanking/healing trees are smaller than dps trees. Points left over/not used in tanking tree can be used in DPS tree. Reduce number of trees to single target damage, aoe damage. Class balance can be adjusted by modifying damage to tree abilities/cooldowns.
Quality of life:
Bring back Tier armor sets (4 pieces, chest shoulder helm legs)
Transmog lets you change colors of gear for better matching.
Mythic raiding has tiers of difficulty, on weekly basis/difficulty level one boss mechanic gets added to other bosses. (all bosses 20% enrage) (movement slowed for everyone if they move too much, etc).
More engaging rep grinds (kill 1000 of these guys, then kill 3000 of these guys in this dungeon is not fun) Offer a dungeon, 5 world quests, and kill 1000 of these guys as a minimum. Just weekly cap the amount that can be earned.
Fluff: After returning to Azeroth magic is fading (excuse for class changes), and champion has to figure out why. Things have changed from their absence in the shadow lands (everything isn’t on fire anymore), and the alliance and horde are at it again and seek to push the other faction out of various zones in Azeroth. Portals have also stopped working so its zepplins and boats. Leveling the 10 levels is establishing footholds in different areas and then claiming territories. People won’t really like it, but we will link the pvp loot pinata to a few zones.
In the quest for failing magic the first raid will be molten core, but with new bosses to try to find a way to the center of Azeroth; also throw in a vehicle fight for the luls. Other raids/dungeons will include Karazans basement, and a raid that is a prison like the violet hold where you fight old bosses that reappear due to fluctuations in time that is caused by the waning magic. As the investigation continues the horde and alliance push for world pvp blaming one another.
Each major content patch will have the alliance/horde fighting for a chunk of azeroth and the servers will dictate how it looks. Night elf victory has a different skin than Forsaken Victory. (if your server loses the opposite faction of your choice gets the skin of the zone).
There is also an ongoing war effort where your faction wants XYZ of materials to shake up the auction house and get rid of excess materials on the auction house. It will have the vanity rewards, and There will even be a war effort drive for battle pets. The numbers will be adjusted by server population so everyone finishes around the same time. The content patches are also locked by this feature.
The final part of the story is that it is one of the dragon flights that is causing the disruption of magic and they must be stopped in the final raid of the expansion at the center of azeroth.
The idea with the loss of magic is to get away from the spec system and allow players to min/max or not to their hearts content with points to unlock fun spells.
Instead of trying to balance fire/frost and arcane, a hybrid spec becomes the to pvp spec, and a core mage spec develops for pve that has as few must take abilities. Fire turns into single target, frost aoe damage, and arcane is the filler/utility portion. Then instead of “fire mages are underporforming” it is Mage single target dps is lower than where we want, buff XYZ by 3% by saying some power crystals are now energized. This could also end up being on a rotation like M+ until enough data exists to find an equilibrium.
Honestly I’d just be happy with the solo mmr for pvp and turning everyone into a merc for/against your chosen faction.