My Totally Crazy Predictions for the Next WoW Expansion

This post is nothing but completely insane speculation. There's nothing of any actual import here, nor has any sort of backing to it aside from just rumours over the past decade of possible expansions. Basically, I'm just here to have fun. But without further ado, my "predictions" for possible content.


South Seas Theme

This is the one I've sort of heard the most floating around. Pirates, Kul Tiras, Azshara and the Naga. Who knows, maybe Blizzard will finally find Neptulon if they go this route. Lots of islands means lots of opportunities for super diverse content (not that it really stops them, given zones go from hot to cold in the blink of an eye).

Also, they could have garrison-like content where you end up building/modifying your ship. Send scouting missions, etc. Make the core feature required (rather than pretending it's not required), ie: you need to reinforce the hull before you can make it to the next island. But make the pieces like followers, scouting missions, etc. all optional. Literally optional, don't tie it to anything but minor rewards, perhaps the occasional mount/pet, and some cosmetic stuff. They're almost there with the shipyard today, except that the legendary quest requires it.


Burning Legion Theme

*SPOILER ALERT*



Since [redacted] escaped at the end of HFC, we could easily get pulled into more of the Burning Legion. Perhaps they follow [redacted] to our Azeroth? Or maybe we say screw it and take the fight to him? It's been a while since we've done any super active Burning Legion stuff, though given that HFC with the Fel theme was left-field because the devs didn't want to fight yet another orc leader in Grom, I doubt that the expansion they've been working on since at least October 2014 will tie much into the remnants of HFC.



*END SPOILER ALERT*

Perhaps one day we'll even visit Argus? More Draenei love, perhaps? Granted, they did just get a fair bit. But if we go Burning Legion, it might be easier to make a movie tie in next summer than a South Seas expansion.


More Convenience Features

We know they put off the Tabard collection because they couldn't finish it on time, so hopefully we'll see that soon.

Perhaps they'll even get the whole Toy/Not Toy distinction down; we have so many not-toys that they're eating up bag space, so much bag space. Also, can we start using half of these not-toys outside of Tanaan and/or Draenor? I don't understand why that limitation exists in the first place. Seems a bit silly to me.

Perhaps we'll get the new Diablo III-esque transmog system we know they've been working on. It'd basically be a replacement for Void Storage in effect, but it'd be super sweet to basically "DE" gear into a transmog closet.

I'm a massive fan of the jukebox in our Garrisons, so I'd love to see that feature move to whatever our home base becomes next.


Some Sort of Movie Tie-In

Duh. The question is what will it be? Caverns of Time Instance perhaps? If we're going to an AU Azeroth after AU Draenor, though, I'll be so done with the franchise. I don't care about alternate Azeroth. Heck, we dealt with "alternates" via the Infinite Dragon Flight previously (who are clearly still around), and even prevented our Azeroth going down that path in Cataclysm. Especially since we've been told there's only one "real" timeline over and over again by the Titans and the Bronze Dragonflight--part of why this whole AU stuff drives me up the wall.

Blizzard would be stupid not to have a tie-in. So we know there's going to be one, no matter what. Maybe a new starting zone for Orcs and Humans? Then you go comatose for 20 years and boom, you're awake in the world of WoW, a grizzled 40 year old war veteran? Nah, that's a bit silly. Another battleground, like they did with Southshore/Tarren Mill?


More WoW Token Stuff

What if you could trade WoW tokens in for digital in-game goods? Rather than spending your money, spend your gold to spend someone else's money for that Sparkle Pony mount, or Lil' XT?

As far as I can tell, the WoW Token has gone smoothly, and the community has largely embraced it, or ignored it. Even when it was announced, there was some sky is falling doom and gloom, but overall it hasn't really changed that much about the game so far.

And allowing for digital goods purchases means you're expanding the cap of what people will buy. Right now you can purchase 36 tokens over 24 months to be used as game time. They can keep the game time limit, but expanding the market means those AH barons can continue to float the token for gold side of the equation with further purchases.


Raiding Largely As Is, More Changes Around 5-Player Dungeons

I doubt we'll see many changes to raid formats. They'll probably want to see another expansion at 20 Mythic to see how it shakes out, not to mention trying to avoid shaking up their top-end guilds too much. Flex Normal/Heroic has, by and large, worked out rather well, aside from a few goof-ups for smaller raids mechanics-wise (and most of those they fixed after the fact).

Basically, Blizzard has raiding down to a science, mostly. Mostly I just think we'll see differences in how LFR and 5-man dungeons fit around the raiding model, if we see many/any changes. I'm hoping they finally figure out that small group content is extremely popular.


Your Predictions

Nothing is too crazy, too outlandish! Well, okay, that's clearly not true, but things really could go in any direction right now--I mean, how many people though we'd go time traveling for Warlords before the expansion was announced? Blizzard isn't afraid to take us into left field. So what are your predictions? #WorldOfWarcraft, #Expansion, #Predictions