Pretty much inspired by HalfElfDragon's Race-storming thread, I bring you the Expansion theorycrafting thread.

Like Race-Storming, this is a collaborative process. We vote a main expansion theme, and then we start to build stuff around it.

Things like new playable races or classes are secondary. Our main theme should focus around the high level experience correspondent to the expansion. Only most relevant plots should be mentioned, to link them with the high level storyline.

Some content ideas:

-Underground Azeroth and the Old Gods
-Emerald Dream and the Nightmare
-South Seas and the Naga
-Pantheon and the Titans
-Twisting Nether and the Burning Legion
-Pandaria and whatever

The ideal progression, in my opinion, is that of Cataclysm: 5 levels for 5 zones, each for one level, except the lowest 2 ones, which serve as entry zones and have the same 2 levels. I leave the Cataclysm chart here as an example:

-Z1A: Mount Hyjal: 80-82
-Z1B: Vashj'ir: 80-82
-Z2: Deepholm: 82-83
-Z3: Uldum: 83-84
-Z4: Twilight Highlands: 84-85
-ZC: Tol Barad: PvP
-ZD: Tol Barad Peninsula: Daily

To make things easier, you can vote up to 3 each round. Give 1/2/3 point to each of them, sorting them by relevance. If you have any new content ideas, post them and I'll update this first post with them.

Let the votes start!!


Index of all the expansion theorycrafting:

• South Seas and the Naga
• Emerald Dream and the Nightmare
• Old Gods and/or Infinite dragonflight

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

Emerald dream expansion
Azshara expansion
New Planet expansion

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Azshara/Naga/South Seas with a Emerald Dream patch

Zones: Zin-Azshari, Nazjatar, Kul Tiras, Undermine, Zandalar, Tomb of Sargeras, Emerald Dream, South Seas islands with pirate theme.

Villians: Azshara, Xavius, Old God who corrupted Naga (Cthulu-themed)

New hero class: Pandaren brewmaster, mixture of the buffs provided by shaman, and martial combat of a rogue, much like a monk. This would be the only Pandaren class available, starting area is on one of the South Seas islands, obiviously phased. you would be able to choose Horde or Alliance in a quest near the end of the starting area. Start at level 65.

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I used to say "sex, drugs, and rock and roll." As long as there's sex and drugs, I can do without rock and roll.

Twisting nether 1 / South seas 2 / Pandaria (lost continent) 3

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

Can we add new professions to this also?

South seas and Azsharra.

Zones: Nazjatar, Ruins of Undermine, Ruins of Kul Tiras, Zandalar, Plunder Isle, Broken Isle

Horde and Alliance big town : They will not have big town but a naval, air and sub fleet, which will moved with phasing, to an isle from another.
Alliance will try to make deal with the south seas pirates, while Horde will negociate with Zandalar Troll, each faction trying to improve relationship with two faction which are not likely to accept them.

I'm not telling that South Seas Pirates will be part of the Alliance, and Zandalar will be part of the Horde, they will just be neutral faction for one, and hostile for the other.

New races :

- Naga for the Horde, Azsharra and her people or a separate faction of rebel Naga trying to free themselves from the Old God by making alliance with the Blood elves and Forsaken. A naval race for the Horde. They could have a little home quarter, the hidden city of Atlantiss, on the large of Silvermoon.

- Vrykul for the Alliance, a small island could be discovered by the explorer league, with an ancient Vrykul tribe living on it, exiled from Northrend for their refuse to sacrifice their anormal children.. They will be the ancestor of humans, and could use the Asgard and Mitgard mythology.
It will be a naval race, hostile to Naga and Kvaldir, with link to the Dwarf and Human.

New class if no new races : Bard
Mix between mage and rogue for fighting style, with more charm, illusion magical knowledge, and less stealth style, and more combat ability like feint, jump, acrobat person. They could have a connexion with South Seas Pirates for the Alliance, and Zandalar Trolls for Horde, having a lot of stories to tell !

Expansion IV

Villain - Azshara

Will encompass the remaining South Sea Islands and Nazjatar, along with the Rift of Aln where N'Zoth will be dealt with.

Zones
-------

Kul Tiras (85-87)
Kezan (85-87)
Zandalar (87-88)
Broken Isles (88-89)
Zin-Azshari/Nazjatar (89-90)

* - Plunder Island will be a subzone of Kezan in much the same way Coldara was to Borean Tundra.

* - The Rift of Aln and The City of Ny'alotha will both be raid zones, dealing with Xavius and N'Zoth respectively.

I vote that for my choice. My other choices are below...


Expansion V will take place on Argus, with KJ being the main villain of the expansion. Turalyon will return as an important npc and Velen will have something to do finally. The Naru will help us defeat the legion threat once and for all. Mal'Ganis will also be featured and finally defeated.

Expansion VI will feature the return of Sargeras as the main villain. We will learn that the Old Gods were the ones to turn him mad and the expansion will focus on the return of the Titans to deal with a combined threat of Sargeras and the Old Gods. Sargeras will align himself with the Old Gods with the legion having been mostly defeated the previous expansion. It will take place on a yet to be discovered Southern Continent. The expansion will be heavily Titan and Old God themed.

1 - Emerald Dream/Nightmare
2 - Expansion with new zones placed in old continents a la Cataclysm
3 - Underseas Maelstrom/South Seas

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I'ld like to theorycraft more about Pantheon, just because it is probably one that has the most potential to theorycraft about, there is hardly anything set in stone for this one.

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1. Time-themed Expansion
2. South Seas/Azshara
3. Twisting Nether/Sargeras/Pantheon etc.

I'm thinking they're gonna combine the supposed Emerald Dream and Azshara expansion into one. I'm thinking there's gonna be some kind of connection with the Rift of Aln and the Maelstrom's Rift.

I'll probably go into more detail tomorrow, feeling tired tonight.

Possible Raid Zones for an Azshara/Nightmare Expansion.

- Zuldazar (Hakkar)
- Tomb of Sargeras (???)

- Rift of Aln (Xavius)
- City of Ny'alotha (N'Zoth)

- Eternal Palace (Azshara)

-Emerald Dream and the Nightmare with some Infinite dragonflight.

Ok first two zones will be smaller than the ones in Cata and you will pick one and level through it, ofc you can do both but there is a set path depending on the zone you pick (Kul Tiras/Kezan), the Horde is trying to get a foothold in Kul Tiras and the Alliance is helping the Humans of Kul Tiras while on Kezan the Goblins are trying to salvage some of their inventions and drive whatever has taken over the island, the Alliance on the hand see Kezan has a perfect place to set up base and get into some of that Goblin technology.

When you get to level 86 you get word that the trolls on Zandalar need your help and you help them fight off Naga invasion force, a few faceless ones, minions of Hakkar but he has joined the Old Gods or is just attacking for the fun of it and some nightmare creatures that you are seeing for the first time there, Emerald Nightmare 2.0. upgrades.

King Rastakhan (the guy will be the most uber Troll ever and have a personality that gets everyone around him to stand with him) then tells you of the legend of the Broken Isles and that they might hold the key to understanding what is going on or hold untold powers that could help you fight off what is happening. After you have searched the islands it seen some of the Naga and old god minions are trying to get inside the Tomb of Sargeras you hear some bold plan Azshara has in store and the Old God that is helping her (Azshara trying to get to the Avatar of the only man she fits to be her lover, yes another woman with man issues but the people at Blizzard love it).

You get to choose between two zons these two zones are ofc the Eye inside the Maelstrom and the Rift of Aln inside the Emerald Dream. Ok so you choose either one of those zones and you do a questline that gets you halfway to level 84 as you finish that questline it leads you to the other zone and you finish the questline there, meaning when you have finished those you are at level 84 and can now pretty much just choose which zone you wanna do, Rift of Aln and Emerald Dream will get you 1 and 1/3 of a level through quests so getting to level 85 will not mean you run out of quests with just 1/4 of a level to go.

Plunder Isle will be the Tol Barad/Wintergrasp of the expansion with the Alliance and Horde fighting over the Pirate stronghold and their tresure in a ship vs ship type battle in the waters around it, yaaaarrr. The island then itself will be the daily quest hub. I like the lore that the leaders of the Bloodsail Buccaneers have so i am gonna say they will be the bosses inside Bloodsail Hold that opens one room every eason/patch.
Patch 5.0 Quentin Bandor (architect type fight beware of the mighty architect and his defence systems that are all around the room, in short a guy that has filled his rooms with defence systems, cannons shooting from all sides)
Patch 5.1 Annetta Crank and Wallace Boltscrew (tinker type fight and i think it is time for another two man fight against lovers Romulo and Julianne was a fun fight, still it most be short and with so many abilites so they will only have 1-2 abilites each dynamite being thrown at you stuff like that)
Patch 5.2 Lester Zank (warlock/mage type fight will only use firespells)
Patch 5.3 Duke Falrevere and Jessi Falrevere (father and daughter, buccaneers all the way with pistols and swords 1-2 abilites each with one of those being something like the pistol barrage Lord Godfrey uses.

Zones

-85-86: Kul Tiras
-85-86: Kezan
-86-87: Zandalar
-87-88: Broken Isles
-88-90: Rift of Aln
-88-90: Eye (Maelstrom)
-90: Plunder Isle (pvp/daily quests)

Will be shipped with 3 raids.
- Tomb of Sargeras raid on the Broken Isles with ONLY one Naga boss, undead, ghosts, a few demons and ofc the Avatar of Sargeras and will be medium sized.
- A medium sized raid with Xavius and the nightmare in the Rift of Aln.
- In Zandalar a 1-2 boss encounter raid where you fight Hakkar who it turns out has always been a minion of the Old Gods or just insane Loa that has a fetish for killing Trolls and saw joining the Old Gods as a way to do just that.

Three patched raids.
Patch 5.1 not sure but it would be nice to have the final raid against the Infinite dragonflight and their Master the entrance will be in Caverns of Time or they could finally make use of the Bronze Sanctum entrance in The Chamber of Aspects either way i am hoping for the final chapter here.

Patch 5.2 raid is against Queen Azshara in her palace, Nagas and water creatures all the way.

Patch 5.3 and the last raid will be against N'Zoth (himself/herself/itself) you either start the fight in the Emerald Dream and have hurt it inside the dream enough so it has to wake up and fight it in the Rift below the Maelstrom or you fight it first in the Rift below the Maelstrom before going into the Emerald Dream and fighting it there. So the fight will be either a switch between dream phase and an aweke phase or it will be split so you fight it first in dreamworld and then in the Rift below the Maelstrom or the other way around.

The new hero class will come later...

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The net is vast and infinite

So, uh, are we actually going to go through with the collaborative effort via voting like Lon planned or are we just going to all ignore that and post our expansion ideas no matter what the current vote leader is?

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Yeah... well, seems they didn't take part on any collaborative thread before xDDD.

The meaning of collaborative is that we chose an expansion theme, and we all talk about it until we don't have more ideas. The we switch to another one. That way, the group mentality helps us build something cool.

Also, mixing expansion contents? Gentlemen, I believed you had enough imagination to make an expansion for each one, without needing to mix various to get the minimum requirements .

Finally, I don't know if you guys are posting 1/2/3 as first favorite is 1. I intended to be 3, just because of the "point" system.

My votes:

3p: Infinite dragonflight
2p: Emerald Nightmare
1p: Azshara

Current votes (I'll suppose your "1" means my "3p", if not, tell me and I'll fix)

-Time expansion: 3+3 = 6
-South Seas: 1+2+1+2+3 = 9
-Emerald Dream: 3+2+3+1 = 9
-Pantheon/Space: 3+1+1 = 5
-Pandaria: 2 = 2

I choose this point system because, when there's a draw, we would just look at how many people voted and choose the more popular one.

Professions, races and classes are secondary. Mention them only to show their relationship with the expansion, but don't go into too much details.

Again, votes should go like this. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but there's no point if we don't stick with a general theme and each one speaks about a different content :S.

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

I wonder if and how it would collide with the race-storming - for new races are an important feature of an expansion.

However, if I am to vote, it would be South Seas (because I'm curious what side-villains would there be with Azshara - Naga are not enough for a whole expansion), then oriental expansion with Pandaria (though haven't much of that been covered in that other thread?), and then Emerald Dream.

Updated with your votes, Holy Cow.

And yeah, I wouldn't like this to collide with Race-storming. If you have any race in mind, mention it, its zone and less more, only the basic to link it with the expansion. There's a lot of factors that don't have anything to do with the final high level experience result, like what comes: class or race, so I think it's better to ignore them as much as possible.

There's a draw between South Seas and Emerald Dream, but more people voted on South Seas, so that's the winner for now.

I'll wait a bit more and if the result doesn't change, the theorycrafting can start .

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

-South Seas
-Outland "Cataclysm"
-Pandaria/Forgoten Kingdoms

KND, your "Outland revamp" isn't exactly an expansion, and could be included in any other one :S.

Current votes:

-Time expansion: 3+3 = 6
-South Seas: 1+2+1+2+3+3 = 12
-Emerald Dream: 3+2+3+1 = 9
-Pantheon/Space: 3+1+1 = 5
-Pandaria: 2+1 = 3
-Outland revamp: 2 = 2

One or two more and we're done .

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

I always like going my own way and just pour in ideas before the flow comes i personally like reading your theory and thought on what will happen although you can get a big over the top sometimes but that can be said about most people in the world and a person with a good imagination is a healthy person, i have written some info about a new hero class and the backround behind it but i will keep it for myself untill we disguss the expansion later on.

Anyway here is my vote.
3p: South Seas/Azshara expansion
2p: Emerald Dream
1p: Infinite dragonflight

I like many others think that Blizzard will mix South Seas and the Emerald Dream expansion into one and that the rift below the Maelstrom and the Rift of Aln are connected, so it would be nice that after we talk about each expansion by itself that we try to fit in together 2-3 of them into one.

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The net is vast and infinite

Well, South Seas and the Naga wins this first round.

Feel free to start posting your ideas, and try to stay loyal to the original models. As for the level range, it should be of 5, but without caring about if this is the 4th or the 6th expansion.

I'll post my ideas soon .

Yeah, but collaborative threads work like this. Check Race-storming, it's like this, too.

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

South Seas

Zones:

Kul'Tiras (85-87)
Zandalar (85-87)
Ruins of Kezan (87-88)
Broken Isles (88-89)
The Maelstrom (89-90)
Tel'Abim (PVP zone)

Plunder Isle would be a subsection of Kezan.

Undermine would be split into two new cities, a horde city controlled by the Bilgewater Cartel and an alliance city controlled by the gnomes. The other goblin cartels would be between them and act as a sort of "buffer".

More later.

For South Seas certainly some islands, like Kul Tiras, Tel Abim or Zandalar, but I think a few more underwater zones would be necessary. At least make it Nazjatar ("Icecrown" of the expansion) and another area, dominated with a sub-villain. Perhaps - completely original idea - area where the last sane Makrura tribe fights over Mak'aru with the Faceless Ones and the maddened Makrura you've seen out in the world so far. Call it something like "the Dark Reef", and it would house a raid for the expansion's Old God.
For other dungeons, I would like to see a hub on the Broken Isles - a Naga wing, undead orc wing and at least Tomb of Sargeras raid/5-man.

As for other features, more aquatic mounts (sharks, mantas, snap dragons, some fantastic creatures), usable outside the underwater zones as long as you're swimming. And - since the expansion covers space between Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, remove the fatigue between those continents. When you fly or swim too far away from the continent, you're ported to the ocean one, then to the other continent. Fatigue would still work east of EK and west of Kalimdor.

Ok have updated my idea/speculation to focus only on the South Seas and the Naga.

Kul Tiras and Kezan as zones in a South Sea expansion was pretty much confirmed at Blizzcon so they will be the two opening zones, Zandalar will be the Deepholm of the expansion since no Troll zone was added in this expansion and they want to make up for it and seeing the heart of Troll civilazation is just one of those things that needs to be seen, Broken Isles will shed some light on the Tomb of Sargeras and the ancient city of Suramar, Eye (Maelstrom) the Icecrown of the expansion the zone where the big bad rules supreme in an endless struggle over the domination over the sea.
And again i say Plunder Isle is the perfect location for the pvp/daily quest zone in this expansion, you have pirates that everyone love, hidden treasure, ship battles where you swing between ships fighting over domination, manning the cannons and shooting at the enemy trying to sink their ship.
I am not talking about just having just 1 ship per side but 3-5 ships on each side (even more) and each of them manned by 3-6 players, one maybe controlling the ship 2-4 cannons and robes to swing over to the next ship.
They could also go even further and add gunship, zeppelin or new types of airships fighting in the air.

-Z1A: Kul Tiras
-Z1B: Kezan
-Z2: Zandalar
-Z3: Broken Isles
-Z4: Eye (Maelstrom)
-ZC: Plunder Isle PvP

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The net is vast and infinite

I've had an idea for a tauren sea-town for ages.

It's a "cliff dweller" architecture type settlement built on this chunk of rock jutting out of the ocean that's near Zandalar or Kezan or something.


It's where the tauren from Huln eaglespears (War of the Ancients book) tribe used to live and it's full of Sun rocs and it's where the tauren used to do Sun worship and it's the loss of THIS place during the sundering that caused them to lose most of the Semi-druidism cenarius taught them.


Quests center around shaman tugging a bit more of the land out of the ocean to stabilize the place (since the cataclysm yanked it up and it's slowly sinking back down), fighting naga in the caves since they're leaching power out of the cave paintings and graves there, and perhaps riding on a sun roc to kill some of the naga couatl before sending players off to kezan or wherever.

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/