Would They Ever Do Another Cataclysm?

Cataclysm was... different from the previous expansions. And to a large extent, it was different from what came after as well. Each expansion has brought with it a large new continent for us to explore, but Cataclysm was largely about finally revealing certain zones we'd always wondered about - Uldum, Mount Hyjal, Grim Batol (which to be fair was just the dungeon capping Twilight Highlands.)

But Cataclysm's endgame, which is what sustains a WoW expansion for most of its lifetime, was anemic.

I think the disappointment with Cataclysm has been a bit overshadowed by the disappointment over Warlords of Draenor (while I wasn't crazy about its initial patch, I think the jury is still out on BFA,) but its endgame was a letdown after Wrath of the Lich King. For one, Blizzard responded to worries that Wrath had been too easy by blasting the difficulty way higher, which crippled a lot of the more casual raiding guilds that had sprung up during Wrath. But there also just wasn't a lot there, in comparison to what came before.

However, Cataclysm was nonetheless a monumental effort in design. Initially using Deathwing's rampage across the world as an excuse to rebuild the old world for flight, Blizzard also decided to revamp a few quests here and there, which snowballed into a massive redesign of the entire vanilla leveling experience, and one that now, hilariously, creates an odd world in which we're stuck in this strange state where it seems like the Cataclysm is the most pressing matter only for players to then travel to Outland and Northrend, before any of that happened. (And for your Void Elf, it's pretty odd considering your race didn't even exist yet.)

So there's a rumor going around that 9.0 will see a profound change to the game world - the end of the faction conflict. I've written before about what form that might take, but one thing I hadn't even really considered was that, if they were to really do that for real, it might require an alteration more profound than simply flipping a few switches on who can interact with whom.

Might we instead see another revamp to the game world, only this time it would not simply be to allow flight (though maybe adding Quel'thalas and the 'Myst Isles to the existing continents?) but to allow players of either faction to travel lands that were once forbidden to them?

I mean, my Undead Rogue has been back to Stormwind since he died (see the Legion Rogue class campaign and mount quest) but, while I don't RP in-game, I think he'd be profoundly moved if he were able to walk the streets of Stormwind freely once again.

But this raises a few questions:

First, what does this mean for endgame? Cataclysm's suffered for it. Blizzard keeps talking about how the team is bigger than it used to be, but will that be enough? Legion, to be fair, felt pretty huge as expansions go. BFA... is big in some ways and disappointingly thin in others.

Second, one of the big appeals of WoW Classic is that they're restoring the version of WoW that existed prior to Cataclysm (and yes, also Wrath and BC - so no Blood Elves, Draenei, or Death Knights.) Cataclysm came out in 2010, which means that 9.0 will be coming out about ten years later - almost twice the 6-year period between Vanilla and its revamp. Might people not have developed a nostalgia for the Cataclysm version of the world? Granted, this might not be a problem if they just use Bronze Dragon characters to allow both versions to exist in-game.

Third, after all the work done developing war mode, how will world PvP work? Will you opt in to a group of separatists who aren't into this whole lovey-dovey "oh well, I guess the War in Warcraft will have to refer to the wars against the Old Gods, Legion, Scourge, Sha, or other thousand threats this world faces" cooperation brigade. (Side note: I hate it when people say that ending the faction conflict would mean it's not War-craft anymore. Ahem.)

Obviously we won't know for certain what comes after BFA until Blizzcon on November 1st. But they've surprised us in the past, and while my initial reaction to these rumors was strong skepticism, I could be wrong.