Future Expansions for WoW
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Alright, lets lay some cards on the table. What’s going to happen with WoW? Not WoW2 as we tend to discuss, but WoW.
Will we run out of characters? How many expansions will there be? How long will it go for?
The answers are, No, Five, and 2013.
Here’s the time-line with a history thrown in as well.
11/2004 - World of Warcraft released. End boss, Kel’Thuzad.
01/2007 - Burning Crusade Released. End boss, Illidan/Shade of Kil’Jaeden.
Okay, here’s where we start to speculate…
11/2008 - Wrath of the Lich King. End boss, Arthas. We also know from Metzen that there’s an Old God in the spider kingdom. You’re probably wondering how I came up with that release date. Here’s how.
Beta testing hasn’t even started yet. Heck it isn’t really even being buzzed about yet. No one is talking about Alpha. With that in mind, it’s at least 6 months out. Probably a bit more. Once you hit October, you have to figure that Blizzard as a company is going to want to milk Christmas. As a fellow fanboy though, I’d rather err on the side of optimism. So I’ll say November of this year instead of December.
Alright, lets continue to be optimists and say that after WOTLK we begin getting expansions every 18 months. There are two more expansions that are obvious.
5/2010 - The Emerald Dream. End boss, The Nightmare. I think it’s safe to say that “The Nightmare” is another Old God.
11/2011 - The Maelstrom. End boss, Queen Azshara. This expansion will feature all of the island kingdoms that we know exist like Kul Tiras and Kazan (the Undermine), not to mention the Tomb of Sageras and Tol Barad. Queen Azshara would of course be in or near Nazjatar. I would be surprised if there wasn’t an Old God down there too, along with the original portal (now dormant) to Sargeras’s home-world from the War of the Ancients.
At this point we’re now all level 100 and all five Old Gods are dead: Darkshore Skeleton, C’Thun, Spider Kingdom, The Nightmare, and Maelstrom.
So what is left? One more expansion.
05/2013 - Sargeras’s homeworld. End boss, Sargeras. In a patch similar to 2.0.3 I bet we’ll see the original War of the Ancients portal reopen, allowing us to finally take the fight to the Burning Legion’s own home-world (following in Brox’s footsteps). This is where Kil’Jaeden would really die along with all the other remaining major demons. I would not be surprised if Jarod Shadowsong returned from his long absence to lead the Horde/Alliance invasion as he’s more than capable of leading a cross-faction army against the demons. We kill Sargeras, perhaps with some help from the Titans. End of game.
The year is now 2013. We are level 110. WoW is nine years old and finally in need of a rebuild from the ground up. Everything that could serve as a major threat to the Horde and Alliance has been defeated. The perfect time for peace… and of couse, also the perfect time for the Forsaken to leave the Horde, the Night Elves and Dwarves to break out in civil war, and all sorts of other fun stuff to happen making for a rip-roaring WC4 or WoW2.
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April 14th, 2008 at 6:21 am
No Sargeras?
No Old Gods?
Where does that leave WoW? I mean, epic battles is what the game is all about, and with no demons, no old gods, no legion, what will there be left to fight?
Each other? Make WoW some DAoC pvp oriented game?
God I hope not.
Up until now, we’ve mostly been fighting a losing stalemate. I’d be afraid to see that change. If we go from fighting the corrupted to fighting the corruptor, that will completely change the dynamic of the game. I mean, 25 Kil’jaedan’s couldn’t take down Sargeras. Why should we be able to?
Though… it would be pretty awesome to defeat Sargeras and find out that the Naaru aren’t all they say they are. Those twinklers have struck me as off since day 1
April 14th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Like you said. What would be left to fight? Each other.
Perfect for the beginning of WC4. Don’t forget that most of the stuff we fight now was introduced in WC3, and that game began with nothing to fight but each other. All that’s required is introducing something like “The Scourge” in the first couple missions and suddenly the whole Dynamic changes again.
But don’t underestimate fighting each other, there’s a ton of great intrigue, story and possibilities that comes just from that. And it wouldn’t be that tough to come up with some epic bosses for end game.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:51 am
Introducing a new Scourge is one thing.
Killing Sargeras and all of the Old Gods is another.
Keep in mind, Mannoroth and Magtheridon are dead. Pit Lords are dropping like flies. When they are all gone, the old Warcraft staple of Fel Orcs goes with them. No Pit Lord blood means no Fel Orcs.
Like I said, it’s the difference between killing the corrupted and killing the corruptor. Warcraft has hundreds of possibilities for the corrupted, but only one or two real corruptors. I’m talking of the Old Gods and Sargeras.
If you remove them from the equation, Warcraft will suddenly be lacking in major villains to drive all of the sub-villains in the storyline.
I could see Kil’jaedan being the final boss in a Sargeras’ homeworld expansion, but not the big man himself.
Keep in mind that WC3 started with things at a relative peace. That only changed when Ner’zhul introduced the Scourge and everything went downhill. If WotLK has us killing Arthas AND Ner’zhul, that’s one major corrupting force gone from Azeroth proper. It could also herald the killing of all of the rest, which would effectively end the story.
Ask yourself why there is no Lord of the Rings post-Sauron. It’s easy. Sauron was THE corrputing influence of Middle Earth. All other evil came directly or indirectly from him. When the ring was destroyed, all major evil in Middle Earth went with him.
So, we kill Sargeras, WC4/WoW2 starts and where are we? Suddenly, the world implodes on itself and we all start fighting each other. Fine, but for the big bosses, the epic fights, that WoW has come to be known for, you need something bigger than yourself. With no corrupting influence, there’s nothing to facilitate a new generation of Kel’thuzads, Arthases, and Illidans
Unless the Naaru are really out to corrupt and destroy us all… which is a possibility I haven’t discounted yet.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 am
Well, like you said… all you need is one Pit Lord and you have Fel Orcs. It’s not unreasonable to say we wiped out the Burning Legion and a few Pit Lords survived. Wiping out the Burning Legion is going to be like wiping out any group of races. You’re going to have a few who always manage to get away.
As far as corruptors go, sure, the old gods and the Sargeras are the big ones, but don’t forget Ner’Zhul (more on him in a sec) and plenty of other bosses, right down to Hakkar. Remember that most of the stuff we’re seeing now was added in WC3. It wouldn’t be hard for them to add more stuff once again in WC4.
I definitely think Sargeras and all of the Old Gods are goners. You’re right though that they should leave Sargeras capable of being reborn, and you make a good point with Sauron. Sargerus is too good a villain to completely let die. Sure you could bring in something else, but to have it be in the same league as Sargeras (and unknown up until this time) would feel a bit contrived. You already know what I think about Ki’Jaeden; Illidan needs to wipe the floor with him.
I’m trying to remember what it was, but Metzen said something at Blizzcon that made me all but certain that Ner’zhul will survive WOTLK.
At the end of the day I really do think that Azeroth will implode after the events of WoW. I understand your point with epic fights and I agree, but I think that applies more to MMO’s than a strategy game. What I think the Warcraft franchise needs is WoW, then WC4 which will deal with the implosion and the immediate aftermath, and then WoW2 taking place a few years after WC4. One facet of WC4 would be setting up these massive, epic bosses for WoW2.
And yeah… Naaru exist in cycles. Look at M’uru. What do you think A’dal is going to be like when he goes bad?
May 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Before you say that the wow will stop consider this
blizard have millions active acounts (i think it had 8 million worldwide) for each acount blizard takes 13€ per month or 156€ per years this mean for 8 million it takes 1,248 billion € per year! if the next expansionas proved successful blizard will not stop release more and more! if blizzard run out of bosses from warcraft 3 it will introduce or invent new bosses! It may introduce a warcraft 4 or 5! be realist wow is just a product and go for wow2 is like try introduce a new product! if blizard do it will have the risk
that a lot of players jump to other games or stop games alone! which of the blizards manager will take this risk? the answer is simple noone ! the only way blizzard stop realese new expantions is just people stop playing wow! now the profits of wow is huge and the bosses just come from the brains of the creative team of blizard! now blizard is the bigest company on onlines games so it can have the best creative team ! this will quaranty a lot of future expansions for our pleasure! personally i believe that on future the wow will be something like football today ! all we will play but there will be organized pvp/pve teams that will go on on stadiums to see like the nihilum live raids but in bigger rage
May 26th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Possibly, but remember that history is circular. Eventually people will leave wow just as they did UO, and EQ. Many jumped to AoC over the past week. The trick for Blizzard then is for when WoW finally does go the way of EQ, that they have another MMO for their fan-base to jump to. Fortunately, we all already know for fact that Blizzard is currently making an entirely new MMO.
Not that I think WoW is going anywhere soon. Even my own guess has WoW expanding up through 2013. For 2008 though, we saw people just leave for AoC, I think we’ll see more leave for Warhammer this fall. Then this winter I think we’ll see some of those come back for WOTLK.
Not that any of this leaving is bad. Blizzard would be the first to admit (maybe not on the record) that their numbers are bloated simply because up until AoC there really was no competition. Even with an unbloated number though, I think WoW will be the most popular MMO on the market for a long time to come.
Your idea of spectator raiding is definitely cool. Blizzard should invite some of the top guilds to come do that at BlizzCon 2008.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
ok really all thats left too kill after WotLK is Sargeras, real Kil’Jaden, and Medivh he could like pop up out of no were and hes all evil and shit…..or hell we could go fight mograine again but hes alive like a CoT event or something and its all like fucking epic….really blizz is running out of people to kill and when we kill everyone we are just gonna be sitting around playing checkers after that….
June 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Seine - Like it says in the post, don’t forget about the 3 remaining old gods and Azshara. Eventually though, yes, they’re going to run out and have to start creating stuff from scratch.
I’m sure Warcraft 4 will repopulate our roster of bosses for World of Warcraft 2.
As far as Medivh goes, the story of how he was actually resurrected was revealed in the novels “Cycle of Hatred” and a little bit in “The Last Guardian”. He’s definitely an MIA good guy right now unless they pull some sort of weird 180 with him (and that wouldn’t be surprising).
July 10th, 2008 at 12:19 am
What about this?
-The end of World of Warcraft: The Torn Cosmos (The final expansion pack.)
All of the Epic bosses have been slain, the Legion is conquered, Sargeras isn’t dead but he won’t be assaulting Azeroth anytime soon. The heroes of both the Horde and the Alliance return home and seal The Dark Portal and the Portal to Sargeras’ homeworld. They sink the Maelstrom, issue formal peace agreements (Leaving open the ‘for sport’ grounds like Eye of the Storm and Warsong Gulch) and the world is at peace,
-Fade Out-
*Drums of War*
-Fade in-
Zoom in on Orgrimmar, Thrall is returning to his throne room, his age is obvious as he heaves off his armor in exchange for a leather jerkin. As he slides it on, his head jerks and a line of blood runs between his eyes. His body falls to the floor, and a shadowy figure comes out, there is no face but an outline of a man in a black robe.
-Medivh’s Voice- Good Night, Thrall. The world is in good hands…
*End of World of Warcraft*
July 10th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Oh, explanation: Once Sargeras’ mortal body is slain, his spirit lives on (obviously) now i haven’t read any of the books, but i was thinking if we slay Sargeras, maybe he’ll go back into Medivh and use a different tactic this time: The Horde.
He tried to fell the Alliance once by using the Horde, why not again? Except this time there’s no control, its just that they think he is Thrall and so they follow his instructions. Then, once Medivh has rid himself of all the Alliance, he creates a civil war within the Horde. Then, after the war, he re-opens the Dark Portal (again, geez poor guy) and sends the Orcs back to Draenor where they belong.
Then, once he is the only living inhabitant aside from the few rogue humans.elves.trolls.and Tauren that still are wandering around, he goes to Quel’danas and taps the power of the Sunwell, becoming almost as powerful as a titan again. Then, with this amazing power, he kills all life on Azeroth, everything dies.
Finally, he reopens the portal to Sargeras’ homeworld and constructs a new body out of the old one, a body to rival all other beings, then brings it back to life using the Sunwell. He re-enters Azeroth as a titan (Waaay bigger in size than anything on the world, he uses Teldrassil as a chair is how big he is.) And harnesses the power of The Emerald Dream into his newfound body.
Sargeras is now reborn, more powerful than ever and finally sets his sights on a different world to conquer.
(It would be funny if that world turns out to be Sanctuary, which is the world of Diablo of course, and it turns out he is the one who created the Prime Evils and Warcraft was set hundreds of years before Diablo.)
Anyway, that would be the plan.
Sargeras Owns All.
-Peace
August 15th, 2008 at 3:52 am
OR, we would find out that Diablo, like outlands, is just another world in WoW. The expansion will be called Worlds Collide adding tons of new factions, bosses and conflicts. =D
August 24th, 2008 at 2:08 am
It could be that Starcraft II is setting up the universe for World of Starcraft, in the same way WC3 paved the way for WoW.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
That’s an interesting though. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Starcraft MMO was done at some point.