With Blizzcon only two weeks away (technically 13 days, as it's past midnight when I write this!) and the announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion practically guaranteed, I thought it would be fun to go over hints that we've seen recently of what might be coming. Consider, for example, that Deathwing's interest in Netherdrakes (which led to the creation of his Twilight flight) was teased two expansions ahead of time, and that Blizzard has only gotten more ambitious in setting things up that there are almost certainly in-game hints at what is not come not only next year, but also probably the expansion after that (and maybe even the next.)
I'd like to write another post speculating on mechanics, but if you read this blog, you'll probably notice that I'm more of a lore junkie than a virtual gearhead.
What I want to do here is not talk about what I think is coming, but instead look back at threads that have been spun, as it were. A lot of threads have been paid off pretty well - especially in Legion - and to be certain, not every thread is going to pay off - sometimes people change their minds on which direction the story is going.
Now, I'm also going to limit this to Wrath and later, as nothing big really springs to mind from earlier WoW that hasn't been addressed or doesn't seem like a dead end. Of course, there are reverberations of events from as early as vanilla that would still fall in my valid territory. Also, I'm only human, so I might miss some things, and it's also possible that some things I think are unimportant are actually a big deal.
Let's begin:
"There Must Always Be a Lich King"
The big question here is why. We're led to believe that the Scourge would run rampant as a full on zombie apocalypse if it weren't for the Lich King holding the reins. But doesn't that seem like it would be fine? I mean, if we had defeated the Scourge as an organized force with a command structure and strategic thinking, shouldn't it be a cakewalk to mop up some zombies? If the implication here is that Arthas was holding the Scourge back, we also have to ask: why? Now, maybe some small fragment of his soul was left, or perhaps there was some practical reason (keeping the living around to make fresher corpses,) but these don't feel totally satisfying. If it was just a lie, well, I guess we bought it, though it would have been nice to have a chance to roll the old WIS (Insight) check on that.
Plot-wise, though, this device allows for the Scourge as an entity and the Lich King as an figure to continue to exist even after our victory. That may have simply been a way for Blizzard to keep the Scourge in their back pocket if they wanted to bring them back, which the Death Knight campaign definitely hints at. We'll get to that further down the line.
"The So-Called Grand Admiral"
While Varimathras' coup d'etat in the Undercity during Wrath is clearly getting paid off in Antorus, another Warcraft III-era Dreadlord made an appearance in Wrath but then literally walked through a portal and was never seen again. Mal'ganis was the dreadlord that tormented Arthas, but even with the soul-stealing Frostmourne, the demon escaped to corrupt the Scarlet Onslaught. But we didn't see him later in Wrath and we haven't seen him in Legion. What is that guy up to? Is he just on some other front in the war right now?
"They do not live. They do not die. They are outside the cycle."
Herald Volazj says this as he dies in Ahn-Kahet, but it's not obvious who he is talking about. Who? And what cycle? (See below when I get to the "Circle" and the "Rings.")
"Um... no clever thing here, but N'zoth and Deathwing"
While it never showed up personally in Cataclysm, N'zoth had its fingerprints (tentacle-prints?) all over the expansion. Sending its own forces to back up the Destroyer (they're pretty good at giving everyone a unique epithet, but Deathwing and Sargeras both get the same,) the only time we may have actually physically been in N'zoth's presence was when L'ghorek was being corrupted in Vashj'ir. While we didn't get too many specifics about N'zoth then, we've gotten far more info on him since. Actually, the Cataclysm-era toy, the Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron, makes plenty of references to N'zoth and its apparent home of Nyalotha, which will, well, come up later.
"Kaja'mite and Kezan"
Ok, I'm grouping these together even if they're not totally the same thread. But they're both goblin stuff. First off, we found out that the goblins had apparently begun as small and unintelligent creatures who were enslaved by trolls, who then became super-intelligent thanks to a material called Kaja'mite, which allowed them to build a super-advanced civilization. At some point, this intelligence faded and they declined into their current hyper-capitalistic, ingenious-but-insane culture. So here's my big question: what the fel is Kaja'mite? Are we talking Old God blood like Saronite? Is it something infused with the blood of Azeroth like the Well of Eternity? Is it some other thing, amybe not blood?
Then, we have Kezan. Goblins from levels 1 to about 5 quest through part of the island, but it's clear that there's a lot more there, including the fabled goblin city of Undermine. There is a volcanic eruption that necessitates your departure from Kezan, but it's unclear if the whole island is destroyed. What's going on there now?
"We Shall Return"
With the Draenei finally getting to return (albeit probably temporarily) to their homeland, I would imagine the people of Gilneas don't want to have to wait 25,000 years as well. The end of the Gilneas and Silverpine questing leaves things a bit ambiguous - I've interpreted it that the Alliance holds Gilneas but that the Horde has full control of Silverpine, but we haven't heard anything about that since.
"How dead are the Old Gods?"
Cho'gall seemed to commune with and be possessed by C'thun - so just how dead was C'thun at the end of AQ40 (and Yogg-Saron at the end of Ulduar?) Maybe it's simplest if all we have left is N'zoth, but something tells me that even if you take out the most important part of a continent-sized goo-and-tentacle monster, it's not going to be totally dead.
"Where the hell is Kul Tiras?"
After getting Gilneas and Tol Barad in Cataclysm, it seemed odd that we wouldn't get the island nation that was supposed to be just off the coast of Dun Morogh (roughly where Vashj'ir is.) This is also Jaina's homeland, so... well, let's just say there's been a lot of rumors about this location lately.
"How does killing an ancient time-traveling dragon in a future that never happened help us?"
Murozond might be dead, but technically he hasn't even happened yet. Nozdormu is still (I think?) fated to fall to this bizarre corruption, and even if his death in End Time counts, we have no idea what kind of stuff he got up to, or from our perspective, will get up to, before that moment.
"How fares Zandalar?"
According to info we got on the Isle of Thunder, the island of Zandalar was slowly sinking beneath the waves, which is what prompted the Zandalari to begin this wild crusade to reunite the trolls and conquer the world. We don't know how King Rakastahn is doing, or who the hell the Prophet Zul is.
"Horde leadership issues"
At the moment, the Orcs only kind of have a leader in good old Varok Saurfang, and the Darkspear Trolls went from having their leader as Warchief to having no leadership, seemingly, at all. Thrall is clearly in retirement (much as his voice actor/former VP of the Creative department at Blizzard Chris Metzen is) and so there are some positions to be filled.
"Where is Wrathion?"
Given that the little scamp was all about preparing us for this invasion (which he actually inadvertently helped cause,) Wrathion's absence from Legion has been a pretty big surprise. What is he up to?
"Who is 'The Master?'"
In Warlords of Draenor, we find that Admiral Taylor's garrison was betrayed by a necromancer hiding among his officers. This necromancer killed basically everyone there at the bidding of his "master." Who is that master? I've had theories ranging from Ner'zhul to Kel'thuzad to Bolvar, but we haven't heard anything else on the matter since.
"So does anything from Draenor matter?"
I liked Y'rel, and there's a version of Thrall's dad who we can, with some relative ease, go and talk to. But it was an unpopular expansion. So other than having Gul'dan 2.0 there to set off Legion, is there going to be any longterm consequence of Warlords (ok, also Maraad's death, which made me very sad. And they set up Draenei Vigilants! How the hell did we not come back from Draenor with Vigilant Maraad?)
"Just about everything Ilgynoth and Xal'atath say"
Holy crap, these are each probably worth a post (in fact I think I've at least done an Ilgynoth post.) There's a huge amount to go through, but let's narrow it down to a few factoids:
Xal'atath seems to imply that there was a fifth Old God on Azeroth that was consumed by the others (possibly Xal'atath is a remnant of that one. Also could explain why Y'shaarj was the most powerful if it was the one to consume the fifth.)
It's also implied that by ending the Emerald Nightmare, we actually woke up N'zoth.
We hear more about this Nyalotha place, which definitely seems like Warcraft's equivalent of Rl'yeh to me (consider the lines "In his house in Rl'yeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming" compared with the line "In his house in Nyalotha, he lies dreaming." Also, was it "emerald dreaming?" (see above. Also sorry.)
"The Circle"
Holy crap, guys. The circle. Everyone talks about The Circle or The Rings. We first hear the echo of Medivh mention it in the pre-Broken Isles quests in Karazhan, and then we've got Ilgynoth talking about it. I think we hear Sargeras talking about it at some point. What the hell is the thing? What does it mean?
"Alleria, the Void and the Light"
With Alleria doing Void stuff and the audio drama really putting forth some more nuanced and morally complicated portrayals of both Light and Void, you've got to imagine they're going somewhere with this.
"Who did Odyn give his eye to?"
This is cheating a little, as it's something more from Chronicle than the game, but we know Odyn gave his eye to some power in the Shadowlands that allowed him to create the Val'kyr. What power was it?
Probably tons more threads:
This is what I've been able to think of, relatively free of concrete speculation. With the story of demons and also Titans save Azeroth herself being put to bed this expansion (obviously leaving just enough room for a return if they want) I'm definitely seeing a ton of Void-themed ideas there, though also a decent number of Scourge-related (or at least undead-related) ideas as well.
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