What I Want in 9.0

Tomorrow is the first day of September, and thus we come to a point where it's basically two months until Blizzcon, when - almost certainly - we'll get the next World of Warcraft expansion announcement.

Now, we're also at a place where we might be finding out more about 8.3 - the release schedule of BFA has been a little more old-school, and frankly I would not be shocked if we get a few basic details about the next expansion while the presentation focuses more on 8.3. Indeed, given how it's really not clear how BFA is going to end (I'm still assuming Ny'alotha and N'zoth as the endgame, but that does potentially leave the Alliance/Horde conflict seriously unresolved, so I'm not 100% on that theory) I think it's possible that they'll need to give us a breakdown of what goes down in 8.3 for the expansion to make sense.

The most recent purported "leak" I've seen does have a somewhat convincing screenshot of a cinematic, but has a very dark (and questionably earned) outcome for BFA that nevertheless sends us to the Shadowlands after a bloodbath of a raid set in Stormwind. Given that this supposed leak has basically everyone dying and then uniting as an army of the dead to fight N'zoth in the next expansion, it's the kind of plot development that will need some careful selling.

But let's talk about what I want in 9.0. This isn't about predictions - it's more of a wishlist. Some of these will be more reasonable than others, but I don't think anything will be totally off the table.

1. A way for Alliance and Horde characters to group together and cooperate.

I don't think we'll see the total abolition of the factions entirely - there's far too much branding for the game tied up in the Alliance and the Horde. And indeed, the existence of PvP (especially the recently-revamped World PvP system) means there ought to be some place for characters who want to keep fighting. In fact, given the atrocities of the current conflict, it'd be hard to imagine things going 100% peaceful between the factions. But for a lot of players as well as characters in-game, the conflict doesn't feel compelling anymore. Even Genn was able to see the humanity in the Forsaken in Before the Storm, so the constance of conflict between the factions feels less fun and exciting as much as it now just feels depressing. Surely if Jaina and Thrall could team up to rescue Baine, why can't my Human Paladin team up with my friend's Orc Hunter to fight the Old Gods?

2. With that, Alliance and Horde stories that aren't about fighting one another.

I actually love that the Alliance and Horde have basically entirely different leveling experiences in BFA - something that hasn't happened since roughly levels 1-30 in vanilla WoW. And another thing I really like about it is that the stories aren't really about the other faction. Sure, the Horde utterly massacres the main town in Stormsong Valley (seriously, there civilians who are like, nailed to walls. It's messed up.) But you get cool, separate stories focusing on other villains (I'm disappointed the Coven and the Drust weren't a bigger part of the expansion, but maybe they'll get a Stormheim-like sequel zone some time in the future.)

3. No artifact power grind.

Artifact weapons were fantastic, but the thing that made them great was the flavor. Azerite armor took everything that was kind of annoying mechanically about artifact weapons and left behind the flavor. Yes, they tried to make things better in 8.2, but at this point I'd actually be pretty happy to just have the standard old gearing, gems and enchants as the major power progression in 9.0.

4. A Suramar-style max-level experience.

Suramar was one of the coolest things WoW has ever done, and I was very disappointed to see that the max-level content in BFA wasn't nearly as sophisticated. Yes, you got world quests and a short campaign in the other continent, but I'd have loved to see true zone-wide quest lines (even repeating more leveling quests the other faction got if necessary) that would have given max-level players more story to play through and, frankly, would have helped establish stakes for places like Uldir - which was absolutely central to the Horde leveling experience but was just "a place" for the Alliance.

5. A new class (that wears Mail armor.)

Yes, I know that it's getting harder to stretch for classes now - Demon Hunters stole the core of the Demonology Warlock spec, forcing a radical redesign. But new classes mean I get to make a new character that doesn't feel redundant. Just please make the next one open to more than two races - I get why you did it for Demon Hunters, but please let me make a Worgen character I'm more excited to play than a Warrior.

6. A More Cosmic Story

Admittedly, with Nazjatar we've started to get more otherworldly locales (though again, I wish that we had some Suramar-level plot to go through in such a storied location rather than just a bunch of world quests) but given that, in D&D terms, we've been at tier 4 for about 13 years, I want us to go to some really weird places. It's strange to me that, having fought an infinite legion of space demons on a broken planet, we're back to helping farmers collect onions and stuff like that. Sure, sometimes you have to bring the stakes down a bit, but I want to see more visually stunning stuff (again, the massive ocean walls around Nazjatar are very cool.)

It remains to be seen what we'll see in 9.0. It's probably too early to get a lot of really solid leaks (unless the one I mentioned early was legit.) Since scoffing at the Chinese leak that spoke of Demon Hunters, the Broken Isles, and Warchief Sylvanas, I don't really trust my instincts when it comes to whether these things are true or not.

But we'll see. And before too long.