With the last content patch of Cataclysm landing soon, I’ve spent some time pondering the next expansion. Unlike a lot of others, I’m not predicting what it will be. I don’t think there’s enough evidence at all to accurately predict anything. That doesn’t stop me from imagining what I’d like to do or where I’d like to visit though!
I think it would be fun to leave Azeroth again. We could go back to Outlands in a couple different ways. First, Blizzard could revamp Outland like they did Azeroth. They could revise some zones to be “low level zones” designed for players between 60 and 70 while revamping the remaining and adding additional zones for players who are over level 85. Even without revamping any of the previous zones, Draenor was likely much larger than Outland, so I’m sure there are more places for us to play there.
We could also travel to new planet altogether. Maybe there were more portals still operational in Outland somewhere. Perhaps we’ll make our own portals to new locations. The naaru might direct us somewhere to help another race or planet. Wouldn’t that be cool? We also know that the draenei have settled on many planets before Draenor. There could be a reason to return to one of those planets. Velen seems very open to helping and working with the Horde, so it would seem plausible that if there was somewhere the draenei has been that needed our help, Velen would direct the Horde there as well.
There’s another race that isn’t native to Azeroth or Outland yet is friendly with us – the consortium’s ethereals. Because they travel to many different worlds in search of profits, it’s conceivable that they could get involved somewhere and want help. Their homeworld of K’aresh is now under control of void lord Dimensius. Time to liberate it?
While most of these topics have regarded leaving Azeroth, I’d also love to deal with the Infinite Dragonflight. What the expansion only features one new zone? No, wait, hear me out! Right now we have portals to all of the level 80-85 zones. What if the portals we used weren’t just jumps through space but through time also? The expansion features one physical location, but in terms of game mechanics there could be five zones, each a different time period of the exact same physical location. Maybe you don’t even complete one of these zones in whole before moving on to the next. You could jump around as the quests dictate. What bosses could we fight? Anything we’ve already fought could be fair game!
Chances are the next expansion will have nothing to do with anything I’ve mentioned. I’m sure I’ll be excited about whatever Blizzard reveals!