The last WoW expansion: sad note to go out on?

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Spoiler

As far as Wrathion and Kairoz... I'm kinda suspecting this was a 'do bad to do good' in the short story Hellscream Kairoz talks about having more than just the iron horde, he wanted infinite hordes. We know how much trouble one horde on Azeroth gave the burning legion, an infinite supply of hordes could defeat the legion pretty easy if you could handle the logistics. Garrosh fucked that up by killing Kairoz but once this war is settled we could have the resources and troops of two worlds to stand against the legion at least and it shores up the horde after their civil war losses.

 

[Volothos]

My bet is the alternate Burning Legion being the final boss of WoD, either Kil'jaeden or Sargeras. Probably the former.

The shadow council is still around, and Gul'dan is still following the legion. We may see Kil'jaeden in all his tendrily glory since the Sunwell.

Captcha: Join the millions.

Damnit Captcha, I kind of want to.

Edit: Wait, below me. Grom now, hm? Interesting!

 

[irishda]

Blizzard has announced they have plans for something like 10 expansions on the docket. Naturally they won't use them all, but they've got concepts galore.

OP has been eating the mushrooms that grow under the porch again.

I also highly doubt the Iron Horde will emerge as the penultimate baddie by the time Warlords of Draenor is over.

Grom has been confirmed as the final boss for WoD, however, based on datamined models, it would appear Grom gives in and drinks demon blood at some point (possibly during the final fight), whether or not there's a boss after him in heroic mode (or challenge mode, whatever they're calling it now) remains to be seen. Ra-den was kept as a pretty good secret for most of Isle of Thunder, if I recall.

 

[Mike Fang]

That sounds like some sloppy games criticism to me. There should be some kind of consumer movement to speak out against this sort of thing.

Eeehhh, well criticism, or certain forms of it at least, is largely based on opinion, which everyone's entitled to and entitled to express. I also can't entirely disagree with the critics who've said "just end the thing already." As the rest of my original post said, to me it seems like the overarching plot for WoW's been floundering a tad since post Cata. Maybe my input doesn't count for much, since I gave up WoW for good early into Cata, but Blizzard seems to have begun really grabbing at straws for main threats, like they're trying to pad things out before they have to introduce what they intend to be their grand finale for WoW's plot. That said, in hindsight this expansion, by all descriptions, doesn't feel like "final showdown" material. There's a whole helluva lot of dangling threads to be tied up; as someone mentioned, Jania's starting down the same road as her father, there's the whole Titans-are-coming-back-soon angle the dwrves uncovered, the Old Gods in Northrend (I again admit I never got as far as that content before I took a hiatus from WoW for awhile), the ultimate fate of Gilneas, and Sylvanas's increasingly sinister nature.

On that last thread, I have to wonder quite a bit how they'd handle it, since the Forsaken have been characterized as fanatically devoted to Sylvanas. If she goes rogue like Garoosh and turns against everyone, Blizzard's going to have a hell of a time coming up with a reason why the vast majority of the Forsaken don't go with her and why the undead should remain numerous enough to be an entire race in the Horde, not to mention they'll need to find a new racial leader for them. That is, of course, if they don't just eliminate the Forsaken as a playable race entirely, but if they did that they'd be pissing off a ton of players, I'd think.

 

[Random Gamer]

I heard indeed that they plan several more expansions.

That said, this new one definitely doesn't look like it's following a Master plan tailored a decade ago. More like improvisation after Cataclysm, and how to retcon some things, now that they've killed so many major characters, that they've butchered the plot, and actually butchered Azeroth itself.

But then, as far as I'm concerned, Pandaria should've been the first expansion - without the stupid Garrosh thing at the end obviously -, and Draenor should've come second.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Oh, and BloatedGuppy? "Original Poster has been eating the mushrooms under the porch again?" Two words: bite me.

Dude! Now come on man, that shit was actually pretty damn funny. I've got some amazing images in my head because of it.

 

[funksobeefy]

a slow ending means that Warcraft 4 can still happen!

 

[Jandau]

Not only has there been no indication that it's the last expansion, but plans are already being made for the next one. WoW isn't going anywhere any time soon. And if you think it's too old at this point and should just die, I suggest you take it up with far far older games such as Everquest, which are still going strong. WoW is middle-aged for an MMO.

That being said, from a lot of what I've heard, seen and read, the next expansion is shaping up to be a return to form for WoW after the overall "Meh" late Cata and all of Pandaria. Better zone design, better 5 man content, more involved encounter design, more developed storyline. Hell, even the Garrosh & Co. this is just the setup, the first villain of the expansion.

Personally, I don't have a stake in this, as I've moved to Final Fantasy 14 for my MMO fix, but WoD is shaping up fairly well, despite some hiccups and I wish it the very best.

 

[Loop Stricken]

So it's no secret that Blizzard's announced the next expansion for WoW is going to be the last one.

... sorry, what now? When did they say this?

 

[thetoddo]

So it's no secret that Blizzard's announced the next expansion for WoW is going to be the last one.

... sorry, what now? When did they say this?

They didn't. We'll know when we're seeing the last one cause the title is probably going to be something like "Flames of Sargeras,"
"The Fourth War," or "Here Come the Zerg!"

Then after you beat the last boss the final cinematic an autistic Thrall is looking at a snowglobe of the Cathedral of Light. Cut to black.

 

[Silverbane7]

i allways assumed that they were going to stop expacs at lvl 120
because its exactly twice as powerfull as the max level for vanilla was.

thanks the madman, for posting the vid. my only worry now is...that one should allways totaly destroy the bodies in warcraft, after all, we have death knights and forsaken. who is to say any corpse cannot become a walking NPC again. any npc lol.

 

[Charli]

So it's no secret that Blizzard's announced the next expansion for WoW is going to be the last one.

Clearly it's been kept as a secret from me, because this is literally the first I've heard of it and I consume quite the share of WoW-related media. I've found nothing about this on google. In fact, it's talk about what the expansion after WoD might be. Citation please.

Seriously, as a die hard WoW player this is utterly contary to what impressions I'be been given.

 

[thetoddo]

i allways assumed that they were going to stop expacs at lvl 120
because its exactly twice as powerfull as the max level for vanilla was.

thanks the madman, for posting the vid. my only worry now is...that one should allways totaly destroy the bodies in warcraft, after all, we have death knights and forsaken. who is to say any corpse cannot become a walking NPC again. any npc lol.

I'd be intrigued indeed if they built a storyline around Sylvanas raising people like Uther, or heck Archimonde as super-forsaken.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Eeehhh, well criticism, or certain forms of it at least, is largely based on opinion, which everyone's entitled to and entitled to express.

I know. I was joking. I was having a go at our friends the GamerGaters. Wave to them in the Off-Topic Forum!

Personally, I don't have a stake in this, as I've moved to Final Fantasy 14 for my MMO fix, but WoD is shaping up fairly well, despite some hiccups and I wish it the very best.

Nice to see not every MMO player ascribes to the bizarre tribalism that insists "there can be only one". The level of competitiveness towards and hared of rival products among MMO fanbases is absolutely ludicrous. You can like more than one game, dudes. It's okay.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Why would Acti-Blizz kill WoW off voluntarily while it still has millions of subscribers? They're making 10s of millions of dollars a month? It's preposterous. There will be a final expansion when subscriber numbers have fallen to the 1m mark.

 

[happyninja42]

Garrosh won't be the final boss of WoD. They already said this, after someone asked, if Garrosh will be the final encounter again. I guess, it will be something much more powerful than Orcs.
Also, this won't be the final addon. There were rumors that that they'll shut down WoW with the release of Titan, but seems like this won't happen.

From what a friend of mine tells me, it seems that the implication is Garrosh is possessed by the urge of Pride. Whatever those spirit thingies in Pandaria are called. I stopped playing WoW back before WoTLK, but he still plays, and he said that the storyline in Pandaria has you fight and defeat all of the other Urges, but the one of Pride is mysteriously absent, suggesting that Garrosh's prideful drive to make the Horde mighty, could be because of this possession.

Not sure if there is any in-game verification of this, but it's his opinion, which would support the idea of the final boss not being "just an orc".

 

[thetoddo]

The Sha of Pride was definitely a thing but Garrosh was harnessing the residual power of a dead Old God, which made him all huge and gross. Blizzard has said that Grom will be the final boss, but that may be misdirection.

 

[LetalisK]

Garrosh won't be the final boss of WoD. They already said this, after someone asked, if Garrosh will be the final encounter again. I guess, it will be something much more powerful than Orcs.
Also, this won't be the final addon. There were rumors that that they'll shut down WoW with the release of Titan, but seems like this won't happen.

From what a friend of mine tells me, it seems that the implication is Garrosh is possessed by the urge of Pride. Whatever those spirit thingies in Pandaria are called. I stopped playing WoW back before WoTLK, but he still plays, and he said that the storyline in Pandaria has you fight and defeat all of the other Urges, but the one of Pride is mysteriously absent, suggesting that Garrosh's prideful drive to make the Horde mighty, could be because of this possession.

Not sure if there is any in-game verification of this, but it's his opinion, which would support the idea of the final boss not being "just an orc".

Yeah, the end-expansion boss is not Garrosh. Blizzard put out their end-of-zone cinematics and Garrosh is definitely not going to be the last boss in the expansion. He's not even going to be A boss.

Yep, that's the one. Deathwings kid. Garrosh escape was apparently all orchestrated by Wrathion, who had his henchpeople break Garrosh out of prison and put him in contact with Kairoz. Beyond that however we don't know yet. Wrathion shows up again in Warlords, but as far as I'm aware his motives haven't been revealed yet only that he's in some way involved in a lot of what's going on.

I don't think he's going to end up being the big baddie of this expac, not with the Burning Legion poking their noses over the horizon and Gul'Dan on the loose, but I'd say it's really only a matter of time before he joins Sylvanas on the list of future raid bosses.

Actually, it's because the Burning Legion is poking their nose around the corner that I wouldn't be surprised if the last boss was Wrathion. Wrathion is the only uncorrupted Black Dragon so he still has some sense of protecting Azeroth. All during Pandaria he would allude to the return of the Legion and supposedly during the book War Crimes(I haven't read it, but know those who have), it's pretty much revealed that Wrathion let Garrosh loose because he believes the Horde and Alliance are too crippled by petty squabbling to resist the Legion the next time around. So, he sent Garrosh back to found a unified force, take over Azeroth, and prepare for the Legion. The irony being that the Iron Horde invasion is turned back and instead Draenor is being invaded.

 

[leberkaese]

snip

Of course it's not 'just an Orc'. (from what I've seen I always thought that Garrosh's possesion is something like 'Blood of Mannoroth 2.0')
I meant it this way: Garrosh isn't that great and strong enemy after Kil'Jaeden/Illidan, Arthas and Deathwing. Of course the heroes defeating those encounters had help from other mighty allies, but Garrosh doesn't feel like a great and awesome final boss compared to those others.

Edit: I expect something to happen like: Garrosh tries to get some demons through the dark portal to control them (this time it's the Orcs controlling the Burning Crusade). But something goes wrong and someone like Kil'Jaeden enters through the gate and he's gonna be the real enemy.
I don't know if this fits somehow into Warcraft lore. Has been a long time that I was up-to-date when it comes to that.