8.1 Tides of Vengeance Announced

Well, we were wrong about a lot of things, though that's partially because Blizzard has clearly re-shuffled things for the expansion a bit.

8.1 will be called Tides of Vengeance, with a great deal of focus on the faction conflict.

We'll be getting two raids: one small raid with two bosses called Crucible of Storms in Stormsong Valley, and then the 9-boss Siege of Zuldazar, which will be rather unusual in that the boss order will depend on your faction - I'll explain when I go into more detail.

We'll be getting faction incursions - a sort of riff on Legion invasions that will take over the world quests for a given zone (and perhaps give alternate methods of leveling) in which we hold off the opposite faction's incursions into our territories.

Non-Allied Races will be getting Heritage armor! The requirements of this should be relatively easy to meet - you just need to be exalted with the race's home city and at max level. We're only getting two to start: Dwarves and Blood Elves, but I presume that they'll eventually get to everyone (really looking forward to Worgen...)

We're getting a new Warfront in Darkshore, which will be Forsaken versus Night Elf themed, with new buildings and presumably new forces (I imagine we'll see a lot of WCIII-inspired Night Elf and Scourge units.)

So:

Raids:

I suspect that Crucible of Storms is probably going to be the first of the two 8.1. raids to come out, fitting a similar role to Trial of Valor as a bit of an interlude before the main event. Crucible of Storms is going to be a Naga/Old God themed raid with hints at what Azshara is up to - it doesn't look like we'll be fighting her there, or at least we won't kill her there. But the one screenshot has a big old N'zoth eye, so I expect some Eldritch goodness.

The Siege of Zuldazar is going to be a very unconventional raid. The Alliance and Horde each will have three bosses that they face that are members of the opposite faction, and apparently there will be three that are faction-neutral. Each side then returns after the battle to hear stories about the other fights, allowing them to reenact them (presumably while looking like members of the opposite faction.) Thus, the Alliance is going to fight their way up through Dazar'alor in order to strike at Rastakhan, while the Horde battles down through Zuldazar to then fight Jaina Proudmoore at sea.

While I think Rastakhan - cool new character that he is - is in a position to die for the story (he does have an heir in Talanji,) I would feel a bit cheated if Jaina were to die here so soon after she emerged triumphant and reunited with her family. It'll also be weird doing those "reenactments" where we will have to fight our own friends, even if it is more of a memory/simulation in game terms.

What I assume this also means is that Azshara is being moved back to be the expansion's Kil'jaeden (er... Legion version) rather than its Gul'dan. I'm leaning more toward the idea of a Red vs Blue, Azshara, N'zoth trajectory for BFA now.

Allied Races:

So, it looks like you can already start working on the required reps for Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran humans - you'll need to be exalted with the Zandalari Empire and Proudmoore Admiralty respectively to unlock them.

Balance:

They're going to be looking at azerite traits (and some specs, like the two Shaman DPS specs) to balance things better, though this isn't what I'd call the most exciting stuff.

PTR When:

The PTR for 8.1 is supposed to drop by the end of the week, so we'll get a lot more details pretty soon.