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http://2p.com/2957223_1/Chris-Metzen-Al ... rdsLin.htm

There's no WoD forum yet so I'll just post here...

Take this as you will. I never expected an Emerald Dream expansion, so this seems about right (I was thinking a major patch like with FL or something). Take this with a grain of salt.

Yes yes finally

I've been hearing opinions of ED being a theme for a patch/raid than a full expac for a while now. It's good to have a confirmed statement on it at last.

As for new Ally faction leader - didn't he mean Maraad? I know he's been specifically mentioned at B-con as an upcomming prominent lore figure in WoD, the "Warlord" of the Allies (so that it's not all-horde expac title, I guess )
Oh, and I can't wait t meet Yrel. Kinda reminds me of Iridi, and she was one bad donkey

I'm taking this with a HUGE grain of salt because as far as lore is concerned, Varian is still alive AND so is Anduin, whom would take Varian's place. A lot of people, including myself, would be insanely angry if they were killed off for some crappy reason and there's zero reason for Varian or Anduin to step down.(The way you worded it makes it seem like Maraad would be taking their place and there is already a draenei leader that is perfectly healthy so that position is already filled and killing off Velen rather than expanding his story would also cause great backlash from draenei lovers).

As much as I too would be miffed if they just killed them off, they can still remain their faction appropriate leaders and someone else might step up to lead the ally.

Yeah I saw them talk about the Emerald Dream in a similar way in another forum at Blizzcon. I forget which, sorry. I think it's a good idea for them to handle the Emerald Dream in a similar way to the Firelands. They can even visit different parts of it at different times, with different forms of play. Though I think even a single zone, encompassing part of the Dream (like Deepholm is for the plane of earth) would probably work OK.

I don't believe there's been any suggestion that such a thing will occur during WoD. But it wouldn't surprise me, given the fey drake model they released. Things like that often seem to be spillover art from expansion work. Even with Pierre (the cooking stove pet) I believe you can see Iron Horde art being repurposed.

They were definitely referring to Yrel:

The most surprising thing was that Warlords of Draenor will bring in a new and important character named Yrel. In the old Draenor, she would be a naive priest at the beginning. Along with the conflicts over the whole expansion, she would grow into a pivotal hero and become a new leader of Alliance finally, Chris Metzen said.

I'm not sure they really meant "faction leader" as much as major hero.

If they bring in Emerald Dream as a patch rather than its own expansion I will be severely disappointed and depressed. There is sooooooooooooo much they could do with it. They would be missing out on a huge opportunity for an expansion theme to keep the game going if they decided to make it a patch.

It needs so much more than its own teeny weeny instance, there's everything one could imagine and more in there, being the literal world of dreams and everything that was and could of been. There's already an established threat that is large enough to single handedly overtake both the Dream and Azeroth but with the help of several civilizations, dragons, and key lore figures, they managed to push it (but not defeat it) into a crack within the Dream that no one could access to keep it contained. Of course the intention was to destroy it but from what I remember of the book, they couldn't get at it from where it crawled down to so they reluctantly had to leave it at that

Not sure how I feel about the emerald dream. I don't think it should be a raid but I could be ok with them turning it into a series of zones like how they added island zones in mop. Maybe if those smaller zones get a good reaction they will add more ED stuff in other xpacks.
I don't agree with them when they say making an expansion revolving around a big forest would be boring. its supposed to be kind of like an untouched version of our world isn't it? so there could be swamps, mountains, oceans, ect, ect. Very few people have ever seen the real Emerald Dream and what we have seen tends to be corrupt reflections of the dream so there would be potential for dark, mysterious zones full of corruption. perhaps we go there to help cleanse the corruption seeping in/out of the dream? Or maybe we go there to take down the big bad guy who is trying to twist the dream's power for his/her own use. sounds expansion worthy to me. That's more or less what the Sha were.
/shrug I wont get too worked up over it, considering how little is written in stone right now.

The Emerald Dream is somewhere they could keep revisiting. Different parts of it at different times. One raid wouldn't have to be the end of it, hopefully!

Wain wrote:They were definitely referring to Yrel:

The most surprising thing was that Warlords of Draenor will bring in a new and important character named Yrel. In the old Draenor, she would be a naive priest at the beginning. Along with the conflicts over the whole expansion, she would grow into a pivotal hero and become a new leader of Alliance finally, Chris Metzen said.

I'm not sure they really meant "faction leader" as much as major hero.

Major hero is fine. The faction leader bit is what got me going "wait...WTF?"

I'm still iffy on Emerald Dream. Lore dictates thus far....only druids can enter(not counting Tyrande and that was only once with the help of Broll and I believe one of the sons of Cenarius). If everyone gets to go in all of a sudden, it kinda takes away from druid lore that I hold dear. It'd be like Blizz saying "All classes can tame pets now!" rather than keeping it to hunters, which is a special thing for hunters and something hunters know how to do via lore.

I'm sure they're just referring to an alliance faction leader on Draenor.

Junrei wrote:I'm still iffy on Emerald Dream. Lore dictates thus far....only druids can enter(not counting Tyrande and that was only once with the help of Broll and I believe one of the sons of Cenarius). If everyone gets to go in all of a sudden, it kinda takes away from druid lore that I hold dear. It'd be like Blizz saying "All classes can tame pets now!" rather than keeping it to hunters, which is a special thing for hunters and something hunters know how to do via lore.

Well, so far not even Druid players can enter normally, so it's not like they're taking away anything from a class

But... players of all classes have had at least two opportunities to enter the Dream now, perhaps more. In Hyjal in Cataclysm you escorted Archdruid Dickwad out of the barrows through the Dream. There was a quest that was part of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands chain that also took place in the Dream. In both cases they were just the same as the regular area, but with green haze effects, so nothing very exciting, but at least they're precedents.

Wain wrote:

Junrei wrote:I'm still iffy on Emerald Dream. Lore dictates thus far....only druids can enter(not counting Tyrande and that was only once with the help of Broll and I believe one of the sons of Cenarius). If everyone gets to go in all of a sudden, it kinda takes away from druid lore that I hold dear. It'd be like Blizz saying "All classes can tame pets now!" rather than keeping it to hunters, which is a special thing for hunters and something hunters know how to do via lore.

Well, so far not even Druid players can enter normally, so it's not like they're taking away anything from a class

But... players of all classes have had at least two opportunities to enter the Dream now, perhaps more. In Hyjal in Cataclysm you escorted Archdruid Dickwad out of the barrows through the Dream. There was a quest that was part of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands chain that also took place in the Dream. In both cases they were just the same as the regular area, but with green haze effects, so nothing very exciting, but at least they're precedents.

We actually used to. I point you to the old druid quests. If I recall, they put us into the emerald dream to speak with the spirits if but briefly(or atleast that was the idea behind them) and I also did mention lore as well, not just ingame So to me, that is taking away from Druids as a whole.

Since the green dragonflight are the actual caretakers (namely Ysera though cause of her former powers that gave her charge of caring for it in the first place), and at least in the quest in Hyjal was both condoned by Ysera and performed by a green dragon, the loss of the Aspect's powers could stir some major trouble in their respective areas since they no longer have that control.

They might need to call upon heroes to help with any threats that have now arisen. The threats could be Azeroth-dominant (maybe take a lot of the no-zones that are either completely blank and aesthetic or ones that we know exist but we can't get to because they don't exist in-game) and nearing the end of each zone we could be required to enter the Dream to destroy the source that's grown in that area.

Maybe, given Xavias was shaped by Sargeras, and it was Xavias' corruption that tainted Teldrassil, they could 'revive' the lore regarding the Tomb of Sargeras. The evils within are stated to be destroyed but it's been such a long time now since that event, they could potentially bring it back and have the evil there be (especially that the building itself has collapsed and in Warcraft 2, portrayed as a subterranean place while speculation for its concept states it might be based off a sunken city. Note, I've not played either Warcraft 2 or Frozen Throne so I don't know the true extent of the Tomb's time in the spotlight.) the main antagonist of an ED expac and say that it's this evil that is the evil still hiding in the ED

Junrei wrote:We actually used to. I point you to the old druid quests. If I recall, they put us into the emerald dream to speak with the spirits if but briefly(or atleast that was the idea behind them) and I also did mention lore as well, not just ingame

The old druid quests were fantastic! Those murky shapes hiding in the shadows of the dream were creeeepy!

Anyia wrote:

Junrei wrote:We actually used to. I point you to the old druid quests. If I recall, they put us into the emerald dream to speak with the spirits if but briefly(or atleast that was the idea behind them) and I also did mention lore as well, not just ingame

The old druid quests were fantastic! Those murky shapes hiding in the shadows of the dream were creeeepy!

God yes. They were my favorite quests!

Yeah I miss the Druid quests too but I agree with Blizz that an entire expansion about the ED would probably be boring and lacking in depth. I really have had no desire to see it myself. As far as leaders go, the leader of the Alliance should always be Varian or Anduin. Making a new Draenei character the leader of that race would be fine with me. Velen could assume a role similar to the one Thrall has now and that would also be fine with me.