Free-For-All Speculation on Warlords of Draenor

I'll admit there's a bit of a "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" wisdom to be considered when speculating on Warlords of Draenor, but as I said in a previous post, this does really feel like it could be an expansion name.

So what kind of features could we speculate about this expansion?

First off: there's a possibility that this could be a time-travel expansion, taking us back to the earliest days of the Horde, or perhaps going way back, to a period before Kil'jaeden ever found Draenor.

It would have to be post-Draenei arrival, given how the planet was named by them (I guess the Orcs and Ogres just called this land.... "this land.") There's a thousand years of history between the arrival of the Draenei and the birth of the Horde, so you could certainly work in plenty of stuff.

I guess the one thing that could be tricky in an Old Draenor expansion is that there wouldn't be a lot of non-Orc or non-Draenei lore to explore. In the latter case, we would at least be getting some stuff for one of the most neglected races, but in the former, we'd be getting yet more stuff focused on the most overused race (4/9 of the Hearthstone Heroes are Orcs - enough said.)

Even in Mists of Pandaria, we got some decent story development for Orcs, Pandaren, Trolls, and Blood Elves (and... Humans? Kinda?) I would hope that they'll try to include more races in the story going forward - within reason (I know we can't always be dealing with the Forsaken and the Worgen, as much as I wish we could.)

While I am totally into Time Travel as a story conceit, I think I'd actually like to see modern Draenor as well. We could, after all, be getting a Cataclysm-style revamp to Outland (I imagine redoing 10 levels is easier than 60,) but wherever we quest from 90 to 100 (or 95, if they change their minds) I would imagine would have to be new zones.

The time-travel conceit would make that doable. After all, you could do the Fields of Farahlon, which are, in the modern day, the ruined Netherstorm, but supposedly looked not unlike Westfall back in the day.

Alternatively, we could get just totally new zones on a different Outland fragment - essentially a new continent of that planet.

I do think that a Draenor expansion could work out for both playable Ogres (as a Horde race,) and Demon Hunters. While I do think that revamped vanilla races are likely on the docket, it does not strictly rule out new races as well. Alliance counterparts could include Arrakoa (meh,) Ethereals (cool! though they seem more like a neutral race,) or possibly High Elves (hopefully this would coincide with new models for Blood Elves, with eye color and voice being the main differences.)

Still, I am a little curious about the whole "Warlords" aspect. The most obvious interpretation is that it's about the founding members of the Horde, but I also wonder if we're actually talking about something totally different.

Consider, for example, that with Illidan gone, there's a bit of a power vacuum in Outland. Akama leads his Ashtongue Deathsworn and rules over the Black Temple. We know that Maiev tried to kill Malfurion and may have fled back to Outland, ironically following in the footsteps of Illidan.

Could this title refer instead to our getting involved in a struggle for power in modern Outland?

A whole lot of gasoline has been thrown on the speculation fire, but there remain big questions to ask. One week, guys. One week.