Originally Posted by Liebestod

I don't think that it's been hinted at that the Emerald Dream will get its own expansion.

I mean, I imagine it will since there's enough content in the South Seas already, especially if you include Gilneas and Kul'Tiras, for a full expansion.

But it's also difficult to imagine how an Emerald Dream expansion would work... would it just be Azeroth redone with lots of pretty colors? A set of verdant zones of various themes? Would it tie into existing lore well, or would there be a bunch of ED-only factions and characters?

Personally I have a hard time imagining how an ED-oriented expansion would be as engaging as the others... sure, you have the Nightmare, probably related to Archimonde and/or an Old God, but that's about it. It'd be like having an expansion based around, umm... Azjol-Nerub. It's just hard to imagine there being enough variety there. I imagine it being combined with the Elemental Realms possibly (if Blizzard ever wants to deal with those), but there's the same problem there.

It'd be nice to say an "Azeroth: Loose ends" expansion that would just throw all these things in together (Emerald Dream, Elemental Realms, Pandaria, Azjol-Nerub, Grim Batol, Uldum, Hyjal, maybe the "empty" zones on the map..), but obviously that won't happen.

One thing I will say, though, is that I do find it believable that you'll see Old Gods developed as the real true villains of the WoW universe... maybe to the point where, yes, they ended up corrupting Sargeras. They might receive some serious development in Ulduar, and then it's pretty much guaranteed that there are at least two more which will be dealt with in subsequent expansions. I wouldn't be surprised if the next step in their development would be to allow players to directly interact with them (like all the Arthas cutscenes) or their high-ranking minions in order to learn their story firsthand.

Of course, problem is that players will eventually just roll their eyes - "another expansion, another Old God to kill." So hopefully Blizzard will find ways to keep things fresh.

I got bored a while back and started writing up how I thought the South Seas expansion would play out lore-wise. Deathwing controls the Venture Company! Sargeras is attempting to possess Med'an and controls the Stormreaver Orcs on the Broken Isles! Azshara begrudgingly works alongside Neptulon, trying to free Yet Another Old God. It's kinda fun to do, but I keep having to change things up as new details become available. Namely, if we end up taking down Deathwing in 3.2 I pretty much have to rewrite everything.

Originally Posted by Liebestod

Is Malakk even referred to in the ingame lore? I have to admit that I never really paid attention to the Gun'Drak lore, I think... the specific characters and whatnot there aren't really tied to the lore, there's no real culminating fight, etc. I could see there being a raid there in 3.2, but... I don't think anyone really wants that, beyond the fact that the troll raids so far have been pretty fun.

Originally Posted by Blackins

Does anyone else feel like killing Yogg-Saron would just be "too huge" of an event to happen in one encounter / one instance? He's the source of saronite and has numerous locations all around Northrend, from corrupting the tree in Grizzly Hills to whispering you in Howling Fjord to one of his massive maws at the Weeping Quary. I find it difficult to believe that it would all end in Ulduar.

I kinda bought it with Kael'Thas too. He was the leader of the Blood Elves and arguably one of the most powerful men in Outlands. Having him become resurrected and move his eyes to the Sunwell wasn't that farfetched.



I really hope that 3.2 is Azjol'Nerub, either in a Caverns of Time form or a real new instance. The changes to The Old Kingdom to include a new hallway that seems pretty random - why would they change it if not for some long term purpose? I personally like the idea of fighting Yogg-Saron in Ulduar and having him lose and then submerge back very very deep into Azjol'Nerub. I mean, look in the Old Kingdom and the first portion of Azjol'Nerub - you're still VERY close to the surface, and yet this kingdom is supposed to go hundreds of thousands of feet into the earth.

It could also play into the titans storyline. If Blizzard made it somehow that you had to fight Yogg-Saron before you were able to engage Algalon, then Algalon could be trying to report back that Yogg-Saron had gone back into the depths and that the only possibility was extinction. When you go back to Rhonin, Rhonin could convince the Titans to give you (the raiders) one last chance to extinguish Yogg-Saron for good.

Originally Posted by AJAlkaline

Hm, you know, a lot of people felt that the whole blue dragon storyline was really cut short, what with Malygos being the very second raid. It seemed odd for a storyline that spanned multiple zones and was sort of an expansion selling point, though it is obvious that the storyline was cut back on, what with how Crystal Song ended up.

Now, this might not be very likely at all, but what if Malygos were to pull a Kael'thas? When he dies, he falls into the void, you don't get to see a dead body. They could bring in Crystal Song as a Quel'danas sort of thing, and have him back in the Chamber of Aspects, trying some last ditch effort to bring about some magical catastrophe. It would certainly make sense for Blizzard to keep it a secret.

Of course, with this sort of thing they tend to have a good deal of foreshadowing, and I don't think anything that happens in the Malygos fight really makes you think "Oh, he's coming back". Rather, it's pretty final, especially how Alexstraza is about it.