How I would change World of Warcraft’s “Battle for Azeroth” expansion

Hello everyone! I play a game called World of Warcraft and lately the game’s been quite dull for me. However, I have my own ideas on how I’d change their Battle for Azeroth expansion. Most of the feedback I’ve seen for the game has been negative, and in my personal opinion, it’s warranted.

I wrote this on the forums a while back, but wanted to make my own blog post on this too. Therefore, without further ado, here’s how I’d change things.

LORE

The attack on Teldrassil was meant to be a way to drive the Night Elves away from the tree–Sylvanas knew, from visions she’d been getting via the one from beyond who granted her warchief, that Teldrassil was corrupted. She also knew that no one would listen to the Banshee Queen on this matter, especially not Genn.

So she devised a plan to get them out, conveniently making a true and solid point that the tentative peace between the Alliance and Horde wouldn’t last for long. She recalled how the forsaken were treated, and how they were seen as monsters. She knew, therefore, that the other reason behind this war would be important as well.

But she did not want to destroy civilians. By doing so, that would give the Alliance a reason to destroy Horde civilians, and as warchief, Sylvanas knew that she had a responsibility for her people, which now was the Horde. Something that she took more seriously now than ever.

She burned the tree. But… not for reasons anyone would think. Cornering a night elf… the Kaldorei smiled. To Sylvanas, she said, “Let go… your world will be consumed in the great nothing that exists here and beyond. The trapped king with a thousand eyes has broken from his prison. Won’t be long now…”

The night elf’s voice was morphed. Sylvanas had shouted out to the Horde to cease fire moments before–she wanted to give the night elves a chance to escape for reasons I mentioned before. But… now, when she looked upon the tree, she realized two things. One… it was too late. The tree was corrupted, and when she looked over her shoulder out to the sea?! She saw the corruption spreading to mainland Azeroth. Two… the night elves in the tree were corrupted. It was too late.

“Burn it.”

What?!

“BURN IT. NOW!”

The tree burned… and the Alliance retaliated.

But the king of lies didn’t bow, the seeds of doubt were already sown. Several night elves, seemingly innocent, were rescued from that fire. And the corruption spread. When Sylvanas finally attempted to explain to the boy King the situation via meeting at a neutral area? Her reasoning fell on deaf ears. Which led to the fight at Undercity.

Forsaken civilians were purged left and right by the Alliance. There was no mercy, and there was no mistake–Genn Greymane took particular pleasure in this. The Undercity fell with most of the forsaken there culled–and the worgen and night elf refugees took the city over.

…The corruption made it to mainland Azeroth as the city slowly shifted into a branch of Ny’alotha. Teldrassil’s corruption had been stopped, only to be continued in Undercity as the tendrils of corruption slowly began to creep about Tirisfal.

The Alliance, thirsty for vengeance, began attacking the Horde in every way possible. Anduin, advised by bloodthirsty Genn and Tyrnade (miraculously of who had escaped the corruption) agreed to this, though Andui was hesitant to embrace grisly war tactics. But his grasp on power in the Alliance was fading, and those hungry for vengeance were winning. And still… the corruption spread among the night elves, unknown to many.

That is, of course, until Umbric visited the city and noticed the anomalies. He realized the issue far, far too late, and brought it up to the others. He fell on deaf ears. The whispers were everywhere, you see. The king of lies had his minions rooted and tendrils spreading. The leadership of the Alliance had been chipped away just enough… that this effort was for naught. Umbric had to steel himself and start planning, lest he only spread the fire.

Meanwhile, in the Horde, Sylvanas explained her vision to Saurfang and the other leaders of the Horde in a committee. After hours of argument, an agreement had come to pass. Her snap decision, Saurfang reasoned, was unwise, but it was too late now. It’d been done for the good of Azeroth. And with azerite now leaking and being corrupted in some areas, creating anomalies this way and that, Teldrassill remaining unchecked would have been a huge problem.

But the tables had turned. Now the Alliance was bloodthirsty while the Horde banded together under a warchief that did actually rise up to the occasion. Now the Battle for Azeroth against the spreading void corruption had commenced, along with the fourth war. Sylvanas raised Horde members, yes, that had agreed to be brought back prior to being sent out to war. Such an agreement was made by the higher-ups, meaning the act of doing so was not against the will of the risen, and for the greater good indeed…

By the end of the expansion, the factions do end up teaming up and defeating N’zoth, but the void theme is apparent throughout the entire expansion from start to finish, leading to an ending that actually feels valid for taking down an old god. This also leads to the option of neutral guilds & x-faction PvE. Language barrier is removed.

Oh, and someone from the ALLIANCE rips the helm apart. Let them be evil for once. Which in turn leads to the Shadowlands being a thing, I don’t know, there’s many pathways to get there. Could even say killing N’zoth caused it because his anomalies/visions/corruptions ran so deep and it shook Azeroth to breaking the barrier.

ALLIED RACES
Allied races were brought in from all over Azeroth to help fight these wars:

Horde
-The Horde first brought in the Nightborne, promising a home and the ability to adapt after being shut out from the world and rejected by the Alliance for being ‘mana-crazed addicts’. They retained the ability to become druids, featuring manasabers for feral & scorpions for bear. Their customization was worked hard on, and many of the playerbase agreed it was among the best.
-Hightmountain tauren were brought into the Horde much in the same way they were in Legion.
-The Horde next brought in two races–the Ogres and Mah’gar. While they did return to the AU to discover that AU plotline (I wasn’t bothered by it), they also welcomed mainland ogres and Mah’gar from Outland’s Nagrand, meaning your character lore could be from either spot. Dragonmaw were included.
-The Horde next brought in the San’layn, who needed a home and were willing to, like Death Knights, fight for the good of Azeroth. Dreven, their faction leader, came to an agreement that their need to feed would be upon only the willing, or enemies they were destroying in battle. Customization for them included: Bat-like ears, fangs, claws, red/black eyes, wings, and a monster-bat form that would work similar to worgen, but as a toggle. (Worgen could also choose to toggle off their auto-form-being-forced in combat too.) I am an advocate for playable San’layn yet still!
-The Horde next brought in the Zandalari, much in the same way they were brought in BFA.
-Later, the Vulpera joined the Horde, again much in the same way.
-The final Allied Race for Battle for Azeroth was Kelfin, which received deep-sea neon coloring to their customization as well.

Neutral
-The Sethrak & Saurok were brought in as this expansion’s neutral races. This was helped by the pandaren.

Alliance
-The first race the Alliance brought in were void elves. They are not Silvermoon exiles, but in fact, High Elves converted into a void elf from various sources from the teachings of Umbric, the only ‘exile’ from Silvermoon. The void elves are just high elves, in this case, and can control their void powers to a high degree. They can choose extremely void-like customization, like extra-eyes, starry eyes, extra ears, claws, sharp teeth, splotches of void on their skin, random generated tendrils every so often on their hair, and such like that. Or, they can have their character look relatively normal(pretty much high elves. I’m not a high elf fan but knock yourself out with the idea.)
-Lightforged draenei join in much the same manner of Legion, EXCEPT they also bring a second allied race from Argus. The Broken!
-Dark Iron dwarves join in the same manner of BfA, relatively speaking.
-Kul’tirans join the Alliance with skinny and bulky options. The skinny humans can choose to not be hunched. It’s clarified that Drust is in fact the “death” form of magic, like void is to light. Therefore, talk of undead drust druids is on the table.
-The Alliance gain Blood Trolls–their campaign actually works, and this shows the darker side of the Alliance. An agreement is made with one of the few reasonable groups once their blood god is dead. They can continue their sacrifices and bloody acts… if invoked only on the enemies of the Alliance.
-Mechagnomes join in the same manner, however, they get far more customization–including the ability to look like the mechagnomes from Ulduar. They get the ability to change the type of metal, such as gold, titanium, bronze, etc. They can have various metal parts all over them, too. Mechagnomes have the ability to be druids, but in a different manner than life magic. They morph into machines and back again, like transformers. Mecha-versions of animals.
-The final BfA allied race has to be the Ankoan. They joined in the Nazjatar patch and are an androgynous race, like the Sethrak. They, too, have deep sea glow options and other fun things.

GAME MECHANICS
The necklace would work in a similar manner to artifact weapons. There WOULD BE NO AZERITE GEAR. The necklace would have special appearances to work for, including a mage-tower-like challenge. The rest of your gear would be regular gear, and tier sets would remain, including for transmog collectors.

Legendaries wouldn’t be tied to RNG. Each class would get a special questline, like mages/rogues in cata.

PvP vendors are back, same with PvP stats. You CANNOT walk into a rated BG or arena in raid gear and expect to get anywhere. Has to be PvP gear, and you have to work your way up for it.

No stupid cloak nonsense, no corruption, no new convoluted systems.

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So there you have it. That’s how I would do things. It’s fine if people disagree, but I’m not a fan of the faction war at all and think it’s far overdone. I really would like neutral guilds in World of Warcraft in the very least, so we have a choice for cross faction play. BfA has shown to me now more than ever that the Alliance v. Horde nonsense has to go. Again, this is just my opinion on it, of course.

Hope you enjoyed the read!