There are some rumors floating around - non-substantiated and vague (and awkwardly translated from the Chinese) that the next expansion will be a time-themed one, dealing with a parallel timeline, or perhaps multiple ones.
First off: this is totally rumor mill stuff: DO NOT take this as a guarantee or anything.
However, I've often thought that we're due for a time-travel-themed expansion.
After the events of the End Time dungeon, one might think that the issue is resolved. Murozond is dead. Yet Nozdormu still lives, and while Murozond could have been an alternate-unvierse version of the Aspect of Time, it may be that all of his actions have not yet even taken place. Indeed, Murozond could feel emboldened by the fact that he already knows when he's going to die - and until then, he can act with impunity.
The Timeless Isle is a weird fluke of a location, locked as it is in time. Things never change there, and a Bronze Dragon named Kairoz asks for your help in researching it. In the process, though, you see a few odd things, many dealing with the ongoing Siege of Orgrimmar.
However, apart from the events revolving around Garrosh, we also discover that Kairoz himself is showing up in odd places, including the meeting of Horde and Alliance leaders following Garrosh's fall. More ominously, when you find yourself in the Caverns of Time, the vision provided shows Soridormi, Nozdormu's consort, dying, while Kairoz looks on.
Did Kairoz kill her? He certainly seems disturbed by the vision, claiming that it must be from an alternate timeline, or may simply be false. Yet I wonder...
We've been talking Burning Legion and Azshara a lot, but you know what? I'm beginning to feel more and more convinced that the next expansion will be a time-travel-themed one.
Beyond these rumors (which may, after all, simply be fabricated by someone like me who likes to speculate,) there's a fairly big, glaring reason to suspect that we're going in this direction, which is the introduction of the Timeless Isle and the Timewalkers.
If we're about to see the Bronze Dragons corrupted (Not Chromie!) we're going to need a benevolent faction to help us protect the timeline. The Timewalkers would fit that pretty darn well.
The rumors suggest that we'll be dealing with some kind of alternate history. This could have huge implications, because in just the last few decades, we've seen Draenor destroyed, the kingdoms of humanity ravaged, the birth of the Forsaken, the desolation of Quel'thalas and the subsequent Blood Elf revolution, the loss of the Night Elves' immortality, the arrival of Orcs, Ogres, and Draenei on Azeroth, the reunification of the Dwarves, the introduction of the Worgen curse, the CATACLYSM, the growing of Teldrassil, the founding of Durotar, the building of Thunder Bluff...
The world has gone through insane changes over the last 30 years, and even more of them in the last 15. Little changes could mean huge differences. Just think, if Arthas had stayed to fight the Scourge in Lordaeron instead of going to Northrend, there might be no Forsaken, and Lordaeron might be thriving. The Blood Elves would have never renamed themselves, and Kael'thas might still be a beloved king. Without the Scourge, the Legion may have never summoned Archimonde to Dalaran, and the Third War might have been stopped in its tracks.
So here's an odd notion: What if we're in the wrong timeline?
From our perspective, we've been protecting the timeline as it is meant to happen whenever we do a favor for the Bronze Dragons. But what if they've got it wrong? After all, if the timeline was changed, our memory of events would be different. How many times have we stopped the Infinites, despite their protestations that they are trying to prevent pain and suffering?
I really don't know how a time-travel expansion would work. Part of the rumor suggests that the upcoming item-squish is actually going to be part of the canon story to it. Would the zones there simply be old zones that were refreshed?
Certainly, you wouldn't do another Cataclysm-level revamp of the Old World, but I could imagine a kind of "new continent" made up of time-shifted versions of older zones. In fact, to make the squish easier on old-world content, you could simply receive a debuff that lowered damage, healing and health in the new zones only.
I'd hope that we'd get to go to multiple times - perhaps passing through a time warp each time we cross the border of a zone. I know it's a lot easier to have us go to the past, but seeing the future is even more exciting. Mixing it up, I think, would be best.
Anyway, this is all rumors and lots of speculation on my part. For all I know, it's just going to be the Azshara expansions, or the Burning Legion expansion, or something.
But in the past, we have sometimes gotten unbelievable rumors that turned out to be true. I remember reading about an expansion that would "totally re-do the Vanilla continents," with "no new continent, just new zones in the old ones," and "only five new levels." It sounded like BS then, but when Blizzcon came about, I had to eat my words.
Anyway, if this proves to be true, my time-travel post that I made at the beginning of this month (that you won't see until after the first day of Blizzcon) will be surprisingly apropos.
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