Expansion themes I: General

A few ideas not about game mechanics and how to improve them or about how to make the game more appealing/addictive, but simply about possible sorts of content: Even though I assume that there are plenty of other possible expansion themes going around, I wanted to suggest a few other ideas.

• Steampunk: A steampunk-themed expansion would pick up on several elements the game has already touched upon in the past, but this time it would be central to the player effort. The Legion, the Titans and the Iron Horde all used retro- and retrofuturistic-looking machinery, but the Alliance and Horde war effort was generally carried by high fantasy (with the medieval-looking Alliance) and sword & sorcery (with the  barbaric Horde) themes. A steampunk expansion would put the more technically and less magically oriented factions in the center, like Gnomes, Dwarves, Goblins and (Iron Horde-like) Orcs; and the world should also reflect that theme: war-torn areas that look a lot like Northern Gorgrond, naval battles with advanced ships like in late WoD, Gnomish clockwork cities and Goblin factory towns, Dwarven mountains and secluded Titan fortresses, Legion robots instead of dragons and demons.

 

Steampunk, Orc-style.

• Timegate: While the WoD expansion was less than optimal when it came to storyline coherence (for example: when Garrosh travelled back in time in a parallel timeline, why did he attack today's Azeroth and not his contemporary Azeroth from 35 years ago?), and was obviously mostly done to capitalize on the popularity of the Horde-related Warcraft lore, an actual timegate expansion would put the time travel aspect present in the game into its center instead of just using it as an excuse to enable the players to see Draenor in all its former glory. This of course would also mean that the Bronze Dragonflight as well as the infinite Dragonflight would play a central role this time. The timegate expansion would put the Caverns of Time into its center and would allow the player to visit various places from Azeroth’s past. It would be less a “continent expansion” (like all expansions except Cataclysm), but one of several “islands in the sea of time” where players are enabled to visit defining moments of history and have to come up with various ways on how to save the world. Think of Chrono Trigger and you have an idea of how it might look like. 
•  Gothic: In that scenario, the world would have a vaguely Victorian flair, not unlike Gilneas; and the center would be the Worgen and Undead factions. People running around with a wardrobe similar to that of the time (expect to see a lot more monocless, glasses, coats and firearms), cities are gloomy and convoluted, magic comes more in the form of witchcraft and sinister covens than of glamorous Elven sorcery. The enemies are likewise: Lovecraftian horrors would make the Void Lords a fitting villain for that story. 

Gothic, Worgen-style.

• Race-themed: Delving deep into the lore of a specific race and making this the background of the expansion. This has already been done in BC (Draenei, Orcs, Blood Elves), WotLK (Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes to a lesser extent, Undead), Mists of Pandaria (Pandaren), Warlords of Draeneor (Orcs, Draenei), Legion (Elves in general, Draenei), but a considerable amount of races have been ignored so far.