Friday, May 22, 2015

On the Plus Side: More to Draenor after 6.2

In the same interview given by lead game designer Ion Hazzikostas that shattered our hopes for the ability to use our prized flying mounts once more (the way that they were intended to work, as opposed to galumphing along the ground,) we got a bit of bright news: Blizzard has "plenty more story to tell" in Draenor after 6.2.

Now, that's certainly some squirmy word choice, but it looks like a confirmation that there is another content patch to follow 6.2. Given that 6.1 didn't even have enough content to warrant a name, it's a nice step back from "huge disappointment town" that we'll be getting more development after Tanaan Jungle opens up.

Does this guarantee a new raid tier? I think that's really up in the air, though I'd hope so. Given that neither Grommash nor Gul'dan are present as bosses in Hellfire Citadel, many have been scratching their heads about the upcoming raid. It seems like a pretty major set of bad guys - after all, we are fighting Mannoroth and Archimonde, along with several other established characters (Teron Gorefiend, Socrethar, Kilrogg Deadeye.) But Grommash was the headliner for the expansion, and Gul'dan very quickly established himself as the major threat.

I suspect that Blizzard intended to give themselves some wiggle-room. If they had expansion six essentially ready to release this year in the fall or winter, they might make HFC the final raid tier, but I'd guess that isn't the case (given that no expansion has every come out that quickly.) So you could have ended the expansion with the Legion taking over the Iron Horde only to be defeated anyway by our combined might, with Grommash repenting for his actions and Gul'dan either dying for failing the Legion or scampering off to be a persistent, expansion-straddling threat (now that Garrosh is gone.)

Still, I've really got to wonder just what that third raid would consist of. Hellfire Citadel is going to be the Legion proper - something we really haven't faced since Sunwell Plateau. With the Old Gods pretty much benched for the expansion, who the hell can we fight that's more of a threat than the Burning Legion?

That's not meant as a build-up to my reveal of who I think it would be, it's an honest question.

I think bringing the Infinite Dragonflight into the mix would be interesting, but I also know that there are a lot of people who just want to plug their ears and hum loudly any time someone tries to introduce time travel elements (admittedly, what's satisfying to some - like the movie 12 Monkeys for me - can be infuriatingly frustrating for others when it comes to time travel stories.) Yet even with the, you sort of have to wonder about what the actual venue to fight them would be. The Infinites don't really have a headquarters that we know of, and if they do, it's probably on Azeroth (in fact, it's probably in the Caverns of Time in an alternate universe.)

Other that Farahlon, another big player-speculated area would be the alternate Azeroth. The Draenor we're coming from doesn't seem to be some small, bubble-universe, but seems to be a part of a cosmos just as large and complex as the one our characters are from. With the Iron Horde directing its assault on Azeroth A, that leaves Azeroth B relatively safe... sort of.

If we can assume that, while certain small details are different (like Rulkhan being alive or Grommash having no son,) most of the changes on Draenor are due to Garrosh's interference, then we can assume that there's still a Medivh on Azeroth B who is possessed by Sargeras. And this is an incredibly powerful being possessing an also incredibly powerful being who, we can assume, is really pissed off that the invasion he called for hasn't arrived yet.

Because while Gul'dan has been in contact with Kil'jaeden and Archimonde and the Legion Proper, he has also presumably been in touch with the boss-man himself. Without the Orcish Horde marching through the Swamp of Sorrows, what had Medivh/Sargeras B resorted to in order to further his goal of conquering Azeroth B?

Granted, that's the kind of thing you might need a whole expansion to address, but it could be really cool to see what the Kingdom of Stormwind was like before the First War (consider, for instance, that pretty much all of Stormwind City had to be rebuilt.)

Anyway - there's a lot of speculation to be had, but the short version is: more to come between 6.2 and 7.0.

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