Next Expansion Speculations - Yes, Another One of Those Posts

   Right, well, time for some speculation. I do love speculation. Blizzcon is just about a week away. This isn't my speculation. My speculation comes from the new expansion. There is thread upon thread and post upon post of speculation about the new expansion, and we will doubtlessly get some info on it during Blizzcon.

   I've lost my source - great start to speculation, eh? - but Blizz said in a blue post that we will need the help of Turalyon and Alleria for "what's coming next". Now, this was said in 2012 so around the early days of the Legendary questline. We saw no trace of either of them in Pandaria, and why the hell would we? They were lost in Draenor. But look again at what Wrathion showed us. I never did the legendary questline beyond reaching honoured with the Black Prince, but I don't think that the vision was clarified. If I'm wrong feel free to leave now.

   He said that we all need to work together to fight against what's coming. The way I see it, that's Sargeras. He's not finished with us, not by a long shot, and neither is he dead. And even if he was, the Demons are still out there. Sargeras is the one thing that we all absolutely have to work together to defeat. Being divided will doom Azeroth completely.

   Thinking back to Turalyon and Alleria, they were lost on Draenor while Nur'zhul was creating the portals that destroyed the planet. My theory is that, because the portals were all focused in the Outland we know, that the damage was concentrated in that area. In theory, there could well still be fragments of Draenor the size of, if not bigger than, Outland, and it's also possible, given the small extent of Outland, that Turalyon and Alleria are, in fact, elsewhere. I'm not sure how that would be - I've forgotten just exactly what happened, so I don't know how big of a possibility there is for them to have somehow gotten onto another part of the land that ended up elsewhere, but I think it's possible that that is the case.

   There's also the fact that Draenei, Goblins and Gnomes could well build a rocket - it wouldn't necessarily work, but they could crash it somewhere, as they always seem to. The problem is for the Horde, however. The Alliance are guaranteed to crash if Draenei are involved, but Nazgrim is dead, so I don't really know how the Horde would be guaranteed to crash. I'm kidding.

   Now, The Burning Legion have more or less taken over Outland, but that doesn't mean we have to go to Outland to encounter them again. They're trying to get onto Azeroth constantly, and it's entirely possible that they could find another way in. The only reason I believe it would be on another fragment of Draenor is simply from the mention of Turalyon and Alleria, neither of whom could possibly have a hand in Pandaria (and indeed didn't), and because of their correlation to The Burning Legion.

   I'm only about 80% on this. I'm quite certain that Demons are involved, and Sargeras will not be far behind, but I'm not willing to put money on everything I've said. Speculation is speculation, afterall, and there are a lot of other thoughts flying around. But I don't see why we would have an Emerald Dream expansion. The Nightmare has not been dealt with, but given that both Ysera and Malfurion are back and hanging out like nothing's wrong kind of implies that the situation can't be that bad. If it was, at least one of them would still be there, and we'd have to go get them, most likely. The only way I see the Emerald Dream as being a part of the next expansion is if it's needed to combat the Burning Legion, which is possible, though not necessarily likely. I don't know much about the Emerald Dream except that it's supposed to be Azeroth before the hands of War and Industry touched it, or something like that, a prestine world with wildlife but no established civilisations, everything balanced and in harmony. But I'm not 100%. I have a Druid but I don't play her.

   Whether I'm right or wrong, I'm still excited to hear about the next expansion. MoP was amazing, a really incredible expansion - but it wasn't World of Warcraft. There was no sign of the Cataclysm, and only a brief mention of the Sundering. It was as if the continent had been completely untouched by anything happening beyond the Mists, which was, of course, the point of the Mists, but it didn't feel like Azeroth. Nothing was familiar, none of the enemies (minus Garrosh and the appearance of an Old God's heart), none of the locations, none of the lore. The only familiar name was that of Chen Stormstout, and even then only if you'd played Warcraft 3, really. I really enjoyed playing it, but it didn't feel like World of Warcraft anymore. Yes, there was the whole Horde vs Alliance edge to it but even that felt vague. Patch 5.1 was more or less the only hint towards that, that I could see. Afterwards Garrosh kind of went his own way and Horde players were forced to turn on him.

   Do you agree? Disagree? What do you expect from the next expansion? I'm hoping for it to feel more like World of Warcraft, and that, to me, is Demons and Undead. There's little likeliness of a WotLK revival, which is fine, but given that Sargeras is still a real threat, a BC revival is definitely on the cards at some point, if not now then later.