WoW or D3 expansion? The Dark Below

[Lieris]

I don't mind too much the draenei retcon and the Velen/KJ/Archimonde origins story. It was confusing at first but they somehow made it work. Maybe it has just grown on me even though the spaceships thing still feels horribly out of place and that this is probably the moment when WoW's story started to go off the rails.

I also really didn't like what they did to Kael'thas because he went from sympathetic and likeable in TFT to suddenly being completely corrupted in TBC. Who is the current blood elf racial leader? I can't quite remember and really does anyone care? As much as I loved him as a raid boss I don't think it was the right decision to kill off Kael. I just don't like it when characters do 180s without any foreshadowing and when it's not shown in game; Arthas' corruption worked in WC3 because we experienced it with him. Finding out in guild chat that Kael had turned evil and could be killed was a huge "WTF" moment.

If a major lore character gets corrupted so they can be a raid boss and Illidan gets resurrected somehow for a kooky redemption story then I am completely done taking Warcraft lore seriously. Just wipe the wowpedia servers clean and call it a day.

[Amirya]

Illidan will be resurrected by Tyrande, and then he will use his demonic powers to go to Northrend to convince Bolvar to raise Arthas as a death knight, so that Jaina will be reunited with her lost love, finally.

Oh, and Malfurion will get the monks, shamans, and druids to rebuild Theramore as a sprawling neutral sanctuary that has spiral staircases into Shallowholm. And the staircases will constantly spiral downward like demented escalators, but to get into Shallowholm, you'll have to run up them, all the while dodging the eggs that Alexstraza and Ysera are laying (sired by Neltharion). If you hit an egg, it's a guild-wipe, and you have to start over at level 1.

*waits for bldavis' head to explode*

Edit: Damn, the typo-bandit hit my post!

[bldavis]

the draenei story is ok..i mean how else would we get playable legion race?
plus, having never played warcraft before wow (i played Diablo and a little starcraft though) it helped show the power of sargeras.

Illidan will be resurrected by Tyrande, and then he will use his demonic powers to go to Northrend to convince Bolvar to raise Arthas as a death knight, so that Jaina will be reunited with her lost love, finally.

Oh, and Malfurion will get the monks, shamans, and druids to rebuild Theramore as a sprawling neutral sanctuary that has spiral staircases into Shallowholm. And the staircases will constantly spiral downward like demented escalators, but to get into Shallowholm, you'll have to run up them, all the while dodging the eggs that Alexstraza and Ysera are laying (sired by Neltharion). If you hit an egg, it's a guild-wipe, and you have to start over at level 1.

*waits for bldavis' head to explode*

Edit: Damn, the typo-bandit hit my post!

i hate you some times ami...

you really want to retcon though, you would add in that Go'el (aka Orc Jesus..i mean Thrall) leaves Aggra, hooks up with Jaina, and Arthas apologizes to Sylvanis who admits her quest wasnt for his blood, but for his heart... oh and aggra? she, magatha grimtotem and blaine bloodhoof live together now ..possibly with vol'jin

edit: Lieris, current Belf leader is Lor'themar Theron he is doing a pretty good job based on the isle of thunder stuff, and the 5.1 chain. i personally think he will be the new warchief once we take out garrosh. as much as i would love it to be simple campfire or vol'jin, i think it will be Lor'themar

[Newsom]

Lor'themar has actually been pretty active this expansion. Both in 5.1 and 5.2.

[Ruldar]

You know, it's kind of impressive how long Zandalar has been sinking. Slowest cataclysm ever.

Hell, it's taking long enough, they've had more than enough time to pick up and move and there's plenty of land that isn't particularly inhabited at the moment. At this point I doubt anyone in Dustwallow Marsh is going to complain very long if a bunch of trolls show up.

[Nooska]

Lor'themar has actually been pretty active this expansion. Both in 5.1 and 5.2.

This

Lor'themar has come about in a way as to actually be a candidate for warchief (or ruler of the independent blood elves, though gameplaywise that would not be doable unless alliance/horde was "killed" and we got a more EQlike faction system)

Also, while it is easy to register, that doesn't mean its a troll registration (it fits timewise, as well as thematically, and we have no other 'leads' on the next expansion).

@Lieris; I find your statements confusing; on the one hand you say that the last Blizzard game with a great storey was vanilla wow (rose coloured glasses? I remember starting and found very little cohesive story at all), and at the same time you want a "big bad" on the box, making their presence felt throughout the expansion ( without the saturday morning cartoo villain feel) - which would harken to Wrath of the Lich King, though I would argue that deathwing did not have a cartoon villain feel to him either (though I guess it depends on what cartoons you watched).
It's also an almost impossible balance, how do you have the big bad be felt throughout teh expansion, without thwarting him/her time and again? by fighting a losing campaign - which is not -storywise- a thing that builds up to winning at the end - thats ore of a "hold the line" ending - which would mean that the next expansion would have to be a continuation.

[lythac]

A new race? What is the current version of Kung Fu Panda? Smurfs 2? Despicable Me 2?

New char creation screen has been leaked

[Lieris]

That's good to hear that Theron has finally come out of his shell. I still would have preferred Kael as a race leader though.

@Lieris; I find your statements confusing; on the one hand you say that the last Blizzard game with a great storey was vanilla wow (rose coloured glasses? I remember starting and found very little cohesive story at all), and at the same time you want a "big bad" on the box, making their presence felt throughout the expansion ( without the saturday morning cartoo villain feel) - which would harken to Wrath of the Lich King, though I would argue that deathwing did not have a cartoon villain feel to him either (though I guess it depends on what cartoons you watched).
It's also an almost impossible balance, how do you have the big bad be felt throughout teh expansion, without thwarting him/her time and again? by fighting a losing campaign - which is not -storywise- a thing that builds up to winning at the end - thats ore of a "hold the line" ending - which would mean that the next expansion would have to be a continuation.

I don't think vanilla WoW needed a big villain to tie it together, it had a lot of very well done small stories via sprawling quest lines that were extremely memorable and well loved (nearly all my favourites are from vanilla). I think the writing was excellent and the way it introduced new villains (Ragnaros, Nefarian, C'thun, Hakkar etc.) was expertly done.

WOTLK... open up a closet and Arthas is in there. Will he kill me? No! He's patient about giving me the time I need to get better gear so that I can be in his gang. That said I think the Wrathgate quest was a good example of setting back "the heroes" so that it's not all victories. I think setbacks like that are needed and they need to happen more often.

No rose tinted specs here. We can have a good discussion about the merits of WoW's story but SC2 and Diablo 3 had stories that were dreadful and almost universally despised. HOTS is insultingly bad.

[Fenrìr]

@Pfife, the only issue with your story arch is that Deathwing was blasted into oblivion, there is no corpse. /end nick pick XD




And Velen is an agent for the Legion? Did I miss horribly miss some retcon here?

[bldavis]

@Pfife, the only issue with your story arch is that Deathwing was blasted into oblivion, there is no corpse. /end nick pick XD




And Velen is an agent for the Legion? Did I miss horribly miss some retcon here?

are we SURE DW was blasted to oblivion? or was he just destroyed enough to let what was left of his corpse fall into the water?

and no not yet at any rate..though i will be estatic/pissed as all hell if that retcon happens (estatic cause i called it, but pissed as all hell cause it happened)

[Amirya]

Madness of Deathwing was merely a setback.

[melisandyr]

You could say that with Siege of Orgrimmar the "Leaders" story arc draws to a close, which gives them an opportunity to give us some fresh storylines in the next expansion.

From Wrathion's questline, it's clear he's focussed on the threat of Legion, but I think it's a big question as to whether they appear in the next expansion, or the one after that. Focussing on the Legion would give a strong opportunity to move the story back to strong characters such as Liadrin, Turalyon and Alleria. The reintroduction of Alleria in particular would give great potential for an Alliance Alleria vs Horde Sylvanus conflict early in an expansion, growing to a crisis point later, before redemption comes for both sides in facing a common foe, the Legion.

I'd like to see Lor'themar continue to take a central role in Horde storylines - it would allow Blizz to focus a bit on the Blood Elves, when they clearly don't think Silvermoon is worth redesigning as a flying zone, whilst not alienating all of the Horde. I could see a Horde Council being established, with Baine, Vol'jin and Lor'themar as joint rulers. Horde faction could do with a little nobility adding to them. I like the idea of Sylvanus remaining an outsider, whilst not turning completely to the darkness (part of me wonders if they weren't setting Sylvanus up to be the end boss of this expansion, before doing a U Turn to Garrosh after such a strong reaction against him).

As an alternative, we could have an expansion with the Zandalari Isles as the focus. I see really exciting potential for 3 patches of the expansion with no raids, dungeons or content as the Goblins deny that the island is sinking as a result of their industrialisation of Azeroth, before a 2 hour cinematic featuring a new troll hero Zandal'gore reveals that the Islands are falling into the sea as a result of climate change.

[KysenMurrin]

This is my crazy "what I'd like to see", rather than what I think will happen:
Either the next expansion or the one after should be Burning Legion invasion themed; at the same time they should rework Outlands with a full overhaul, and add in the Demon Hunter as a hero class (my gut says ranged/melee/melee, using bows, polearms/staves, and dual wield). The Demon Hunter would start in the new Outlands at level 55, and only go to Azeroth after all of that content.

I'm not sure how they could handle Northrend, Cataclysm, and Pandaria in that setup, though. More timeline confusion than ever.

[Flex]

The Burning Legion could move Outland through the twisting nether and send it on a collision course with Azeroth. The Demon Hunter opening quest chain prevents that, and takes him to 68.

[KysenMurrin]

Hmm. Trying to work through the timeline convolutions gave me a thought. They could just go ahead and rearrange the levelling path while overhauling Outland. Cut out the 60-70 Outland, insert the new Outland at 90+, move around level ranges of WotLK (60-70)/Cata(70-80)/MoP(80-90) to fill the gap.
Never gonna happen, because damn that's a lot of work.