Under the influence of the cataclysm, post-Arthas Northrend thaws. The climatic change turns Northrend unexpectedly to something very different, very exciting as the continent emerges with a new face.
What do we find?
How have the Zones changes?
>worldbuilding threat
Sorry Metzen, not gonna do this one for you.
>>44083361
Sorry Metz you've hurt me too much, you can dig your way out your own hole
>>44083361
Well, if we're assuming the breath of the red dragons has given Bolvar'Zhul fire magic, we can expect icecrown to be the most affected by the climate change. I would hesitate to make it volcanic, but it could definitely be changing from an arctic desert to an arid one. The few remaining undead that are still shackled to this gestalt creature may even have been called back to cultivate it into a beautiful plain more befitting the design of the titans, putting the bony hands of the undead to work creating new life.
Of course, renegade scourge forces who are not quite so enthused about this constructive use of the powers of death ma have fractured away from his command and be scattered throughout, trying to thwart the new lich king's efforts to make Icecrown into a paradise. The overarching plot of the area would be about tracking down a lich/warlock who was summoning demons in an attempt to do to Bolvar'Zhul what Arthas did to himself, namely remove his heart and thus his compassion, etc. This could culminate in their success or failure, success making revisiting Icecrown (Firecrown? Meh.) a viable option for dungeons or raids.
Sholazar would probably become more marshy from flooding, maybe even becoming an area awash with lakes. There being no obvious drainage out of there, the vast amount of melting snow and ice would collect in the basin, ruining one of the last holdouts of Titanic design on Azeroth. This would be almost the exact mirror of what is happening in Icecrown.
In order to save the Basin and its resources, both the alliance and the horde could be using their engineers to create some kind of drainage system.
The alliance (gnomes) would have a questline where they repurpose old Titanic tunnels or structures or something as a sort of runoff flood defence system, while the horde (goblins) could be planning to blow a massive hole in the muntains around the basin to let it all flow into the sea. Both would face Titanic pushback.
>>44084104
I could probably go through the other zones one by one, but eh. Nothing really jumps out at me. Changing stuff just for the sake of changing stuff to abuse nostalia seems a bit cheap.
>>44083361
>Howling Fjord
Have a volcano erupt from some of the northern mountains, the snow melting, the low ground has had numerous area's flooded forcing a mass Valkryal relocation and they start battling for resources.
>Borean Tundra
The ground is falling out from under everyones feet, the great caverns beneath the surface are finally being exposed revealing more of an ancient long lost kingdom.
>Dragonblight
Not alot has changed really, but the snow is thawing and lush life beginning to thrive, yet something seems off, somthinf beneth the surface seems to be reaching out whispering in the now mortal Dragons ears...
>Grizzly Hills
Now the Grizzly Swamp, the south mountains have magma spewing down and all the snow melting has formed an even thicker fog, obscuring much vision, many Valkryal have fled to here only to find life no better.
>Zul'Drak
The giant pyramid is now jutting at an angle out the ocean as the land beneath crumples away. But the ancient wall stand triumphant, little has truly changed the Trolls still do their thing, yet life is beginning to flourish from the Crater of Mam'toth, untainted elemental s are beginning to push the trolls back in fierce waves.
>Sholazar Basin
A great quake has broken it into numerous pillar like islands with rapids from the vast melting snow dividing them.
>The Storm Peaks
Though the natural landscape has changed, much of it redused to rubble and pit of magma appearing in the ground, the great titan constructs remain unmoved, rather more have been revealed, yet despite all this the Trolls of Zul have invaded looking for weapons to use against the rampaging Elementals back in Zul..will they find something
>Crystalsong Forest
Fuck that place.
>>44085471
Same Anon here. The kinda idea is on the East side of thing Elementals are beginning to take a hold and pushing their advantage in all this madness.
To the west the nerubians are beginning to appear in greater numbers and are swarming all over the place, a new Swarm Lord has risen and seeks to become the new new Lichking to once again control their own peoples destiny
The Lichking however is having all the undead he can construct great dams to hold back all this damn water from either flooding other regions or flooding his own one. ICC is slowly falling apart as the ice it was apart of rapidly fades away
>>44085555
Nice Quads, also in regards to the neurbians didn't they wind up having a faction that was still alive techinically and was wanting to kick the Scrourge forces the fuck out of the kingdoms?
With the recent upheavel and flooding segments that would lead to either portions of their kingdom being rediscovered and thrust into the day light. Or their tunnels to become flooded with the water forcing most of the populations out and into the surface. Expect heavy prescence of Old Ones as well since they deep places will be the first to fill.
Also Wouldn't the Zul Drak place be the relativly most stable section since it's a manmade structure that is dominating the western side and be far more likely to either fall off the damn cliff it's built on or become it's own island with a few land bridges to connect the two from the Cataclysm?
What's with all the WoW hate anyway? Aside from the dimension shark jumping.
>>44086226
Well the hate comes from people believing that Lore is been ignored, retconed or is just plain silly. But I think MOST of the hate comes from inconsistencies in mechanics, valor appears and vanishes, as do scenarios, Garrisons seem like a lazy design element because people never leave them, the casualisation of raiding is another. For me personally what bugs me most is that despite having a larger team then ever, better technology than ever they are infact giving less content, fewer raids, zones and character options, the sheer lack of content patches that have dropped every expo. Blizzard make great and fun game play but they are sacrificing the story far to much, people are sick of the lore drought and butchery (to some).
Those whom still play wow are dwindling because there is only so far nostalgia and hope can take them. I still play going around Ulduar and the likes, visiting the old sites with a few friends, but little by little the Guild is fading, people are moving to greener pastures as now they believe all Blizzard see them as is gullible fools, which i suppose we are. But soon enough this marvel of a world will be empty a victim of its own creators greed (see yearly releases).
Me I adore lore and map making and stuff so ill do it till the game is cold and dead and likely after
>>44086483
I can see what you mean, I've been going through the Dreanor expansion myself and I can see what you mean by the Garrison thing. Spend like half my time in there trying to maximize my garrison for this or that, that I wind up never really leaving. What would have been amazing to have done would be to allow you to use your base to actually accompany your soldiers out into the feild with their missions. I get the whole sitting behind the desk while you be the quest giver bit, it's neat. But either increase the amount of soliders you can command or something I keep drowning in missions.
I enjoy the lore as well to be honest, but I somewhat feel like they need to do a hard reset. start fresh and renew themselves somehow. I mean they have already retconned so much already why not take all that tech, experiance and ideas and put it into a new game?
Shit I'd take a Starcraft mmo at this point just to mix it up really. Change it from being a shooter type mmo instead of that freaking Overwatch bullshit they are trying to shove down our throats. I mean really? Overwatch? I get that you want to make your own team fortress but why not do it as a freaking franchise you have locked under the barrel?
>>44083730
Okay, how does this sound: in the first raid of the next expansion Ysera gets corrupted by fel magics and you have to kill her.
>>44086932
Nobody would really be fazed because Ysera isn't even a character, she does nothing memorable and not much is really known about her other than some stuff about an Aquamarine Hallucination.
>>44087043
You mean the Peridot Sleepytime, right?
>>44087206
Yeah, the Aquamarine REM Cycle. (Yes, this is actually happening)
>>44087318
Wait what happened in the seafoam bedtime?
>>44087430
The whole turquoise slumber plot was resolved in a book.
It sucked.
>>44086932
Im >>44086832, Nah if she does anything it should be in the last raid of an expo where she assists the players in killing the Old God whom is corrupting the dream or something like that, keep her around for a bit longer
>>44087520
WHOOPS TOO LATE
>>44087542
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B4udClyQx4
>>44083361
>Borean Forest
Formerly the Borean Tundra, after the ice melted, a bunch of trees grew. These trees didn't know their fathers, and thus grew up to be bad trees that punch people.
>Crystalsung
Crystalsong become Crystalsung because all the crystals have been sung and now they're gone and it's just a blank zone.
>Dragonnice
The dragons of the Dragonblight really tidied the place up during all that Sundering and now the Dragonnice is a family-oriented theme park for adventurers of all levels.
>Drizzle Hill
Storm Peaks becomes Drizzle Hill, a flat land that gets a reasonable amount of rain. This attracts a lot of level 1 human farmers, which then attracts a gang known as Defias Sisterhood, a gender-swapped version of the Defias Brotherhood.
>Grizzly Reserve
Grizzly Hills was turned into a nature reserve to help save the nearly extinct Grizzles.
>Howling Fjord
Exactly the same but with more references to that one Monty Python sketch because fuck you ugly.
>Murloc Bowl
Icecrown becomes a large lake surrounded by a mountain range. Murlocs develop an intricate city there, full of wonder and danger.
>Sholazar Islands
Formerly the Sholazar Basin, this is a group of one hundred islands, each ruled by an orc king. These orc kings are not friendly to other orcs unless those orcs are also orc kings (also Thrall cannot be an orc king).
>Summerhold
Wintergrasp became Summerhold, a collection of nice pensions at a reasonable rate.
>Zul'Drak
Exactly the same except the trolls have been replaced with pandaren in cheaply-made troll disguises.
>>44087542
Is corruption Metzen's fetish senpai?
>>44088285
I wonder what it's like at the Warcraft writer's meetings when they need to plan a story.
>New expansion in the works, all the major department heads and writers called in for a big brainstorming session.
>Everyone files into the big conference room with their paper and reference materials and sits down
>Metzen gets up
>"So, corruption? Ok, great. Good meeting everyone."
>>44088326
God that must be irritating maybe thats why they are hiring on their website?
>>44085555
I like the Elemental approach.
It raises the question how Elementals act generally in such a situation, if Old God agenda is absent. Does the previously dominant element just give way to the new elements?
Ice would naturally decrease in power, giving rise to earth, maybe fire, maybe wind. Do they fight for this, or do they just shuffle into their new slots?
Also it raises the question how the decrease of Ice influences the Scourge, since that Element was always very central to their theme. Does the Scourge change under Bovar'Zhul's influence into something different, or is it better to keep the influence, and let Icecrown remain last remaining, supernatural stronghold of cold?
The shifting of Nerubian presence could also be central. The living Nerubian would repopulate their people with hidden egg-vaults. They could turn large parts of Northrend into a new Ahn'Qiraj.
Amongst the surviving undead spiderfolk, a new Scarab Lord fighting to become the next Lich King sounds actually cool.
Dragonblight could bloom into a lush, green Zone. Now mortal dragons see their kin acclimatizing both to the new environment (creating surrealistic dream jungles, Chrono-marshes with wierd time-effects, etc.), and to being mortal. Mortality gives spawn to new kinds of dragons within the flights, many of them vulnerable to outside influence.
Dakkari seperatists try to get their shit together, and use the new environment to reinstall some new Loa-Gods, fixing their atrocious mistakes during Wrath-times.
The Titan protectors have their hands full making Ulduar safe again, but are undermined by Nerubians assaulting the Storm Peaks from below.
So while Icecrown and Storm Peaks could be relatively untouched, vast regions of Spiderkingdom lying deeply below are now accessable, and many assault tunnels have opened up, riddling the surface with entrances.
I think the living spiderpeople should become the new major bad guys.
>>44090991
>I think the living spiderpeople should become the new major bad guys.
Yeah I could see this, they were naturally depicted as being a part of some old god insect race that split off and did their own thing last I recalled. So them wanting to reforge their global wide empire would be good, could also have the Elves and Trolls remember them through very old and secretive tablets or bark writings when they had fought.
