OK! to start! spoilers spoilers spoilers! especially for big things from 6.2 as well as draenor as a whole. also conjecture and wild mass guessing ahead! Read on at your own risk!
ok...! so here we go.
So.. some interesting 6.2 info seems to have leaked out. The final cut scene for Hellfire Citadel being the most curious thing and it feels very much like we are all wrapped up and cleared with Draenor! neat and huzzahs all around commanders and heroes except.. where does that leave the story overall? Lets step back and look it over for a moment.
Alright with the launch we know Garrosh Hellscream ran off with the help of the crazy bronze dragon guy from Timeless isle and hopped back in time to what we can assume was Pre Warcraft 1 Draenor. BSed his dad with half a prophecy and talked the entire horde into not drinking demon blood and start building explosives and siege weapons. In the process kidnapped gul'dan and his friends wire him to their home brewed dark portal and use it to attack Post Pandaria Azeroth. This bit of time hopping is part of what makes the whole run kind of curious. We go from normal timeline to alternate history timeline in the past. this is important for later.
Anyway from their if you played through you know the main bits that happen along the way. Heroes cross over with Thrall and Khadgar. Garrisons are built and most importantly a bunch of orcs and a handful of Draenai die. (Nerzul, Kargath, Ogrim, Blackhand, Garrosh, Velen, Maraad) all leading up to the mid point story twist. Surprise Guldan's really the main bad guy! (anyone surprised?) He drops that Garrosh was Groms kid from the future oh and he got murdered. The blood offers come up but Grom surprisingly stays with no. They fight, Grom loses. Guldan hijacks the Iron Horde and everyone except Grom drinks demon blood and goes Fel orc. (including the last standing warlord Kilrogg who was MIA all game after the starting sequence.)
Anyway it seems somewhere along the way everyone ends up saving Grom and it all leads to the big nasty final fight at the Hellfire Citadel. Heroes along with all the major living players in the story raid the building fight through demons and nasty orcs including Kilrogg, Teron Gorefiend, the undead body of Mannoroth and then finally the final smack down with... Archimonde? Freshly summoned by Gul'dan straight from the Twisting Nether itself.. This is where it gets weird...
So as you can imagine with raid bosses Archimonde goes down loots dropped and the big finish cut scene rolls. Pretty much Archimonde decides he's not going down alone. Blasts Gul'dan for screwing up the invasion of Azeroth and seems to shoot him straight into the Twisting Nether... then dies himself. Except maybe not really? (Eradar don't seem to die for good when not killed in the twisting nether itself.. at least without the aid of a few thousand suicide wisps and the power of the world tree. neither preset for this fight.) So 2 main bad guys maybe sorta not dead but at least either not sitting in draenor causing problems so the native draenor heroes call it a win and celebrate. Khadgar turns into a bird and flies away. Something about in the light we are all the same.. roll credits.
So... great! Draenor is saved. No more invasion of angry future tech orcs for present Azeroth (we're down to like 1 1/2 clans of orcs and a bunch of Draenai left anyway) but where does this leave the overall plot? It only really seems to leave to routes far as i've been able to map out.
1. we all go home to present (Post Pandaria) Azeroth in which case nothing changed which sorta makes the whole story sorta pointless no? We went on a massive time and space adventure and made it back in time for Detention. The other timeline is out of sight and mind, but what did it accomplish aside from killing garrosh finally. We aren't needed to do stuff in Draenor aside from cleanup and the natives got that so we pack up our castles and go home. Bit of a letdown no?
2. We all go on through this current post Draenor timeline.. which is going to be a giant mess due to the all the Orcs we murdered throughout the story. which leaves alot of room for new story but goes full DC new 52 retconning the entirety of the history of all the games back to Warcraft orcs vs humans. which seems totally crazy but a bloody mess for a lot of reasons...
This is a universe with no orc invasion so no burning of stormwind, no outland, no Lich king because nerzuls already dead so no undead. No death knight arthas so no sacking of Silvermoon so no Banshee Queen and with it no Forsaken. Also that means no Archimonde invasion of Azeroth so no need to ever leave eastern kingdoms to kalimdor, Night elves stay shut in isolationists but immortal, Tauren get maybe wiped out by Centaurs and Quillboars. Darkspears sink with their island because thrall never trips over them on his boat trip. Draenai never crash land the Exodar. (they never needed to leave without elves and demons) Illidan never gets let out of his cage. Kael'thas never gets drunk of demon powers. The Alt timeline azeroth would be kind of weird to try and walk into as anyone that's not a human, dwarf, gnome and maybe blood elf or goblin..
So unless this is going to be the last Wow Xpac and we are going to roll into Warcraft 4 or WoW2 I dunno what they can roll into next without doing about 40 backflips to even handwave whichever route they wanna take with this. I'll give them a point that i'm very curious to see how they wanna make it work though.
Ok I rambled along way to much on this.. but it's a weird bit of lore jumping and I wanted to see where ya'll might be on it. As said at the start. This is a lot of guessing on my part and I might just be missing something big and stupid that writes off all my questions but that's why I'm asking about it. If it exists I'de love to know what kills my questions or maybe adds new ones.. Anyway! share your thoughts and theories! which route would you prefer if either or do you have a whole other take on the idea that works even better than my ramblings above?
ok...! so here we go.
So.. some interesting 6.2 info seems to have leaked out. The final cut scene for Hellfire Citadel being the most curious thing and it feels very much like we are all wrapped up and cleared with Draenor! neat and huzzahs all around commanders and heroes except.. where does that leave the story overall? Lets step back and look it over for a moment.
Alright with the launch we know Garrosh Hellscream ran off with the help of the crazy bronze dragon guy from Timeless isle and hopped back in time to what we can assume was Pre Warcraft 1 Draenor. BSed his dad with half a prophecy and talked the entire horde into not drinking demon blood and start building explosives and siege weapons. In the process kidnapped gul'dan and his friends wire him to their home brewed dark portal and use it to attack Post Pandaria Azeroth. This bit of time hopping is part of what makes the whole run kind of curious. We go from normal timeline to alternate history timeline in the past. this is important for later.
Anyway from their if you played through you know the main bits that happen along the way. Heroes cross over with Thrall and Khadgar. Garrisons are built and most importantly a bunch of orcs and a handful of Draenai die. (Nerzul, Kargath, Ogrim, Blackhand, Garrosh, Velen, Maraad) all leading up to the mid point story twist. Surprise Guldan's really the main bad guy! (anyone surprised?) He drops that Garrosh was Groms kid from the future oh and he got murdered. The blood offers come up but Grom surprisingly stays with no. They fight, Grom loses. Guldan hijacks the Iron Horde and everyone except Grom drinks demon blood and goes Fel orc. (including the last standing warlord Kilrogg who was MIA all game after the starting sequence.)
Anyway it seems somewhere along the way everyone ends up saving Grom and it all leads to the big nasty final fight at the Hellfire Citadel. Heroes along with all the major living players in the story raid the building fight through demons and nasty orcs including Kilrogg, Teron Gorefiend, the undead body of Mannoroth and then finally the final smack down with... Archimonde? Freshly summoned by Gul'dan straight from the Twisting Nether itself.. This is where it gets weird...
So as you can imagine with raid bosses Archimonde goes down loots dropped and the big finish cut scene rolls. Pretty much Archimonde decides he's not going down alone. Blasts Gul'dan for screwing up the invasion of Azeroth and seems to shoot him straight into the Twisting Nether... then dies himself. Except maybe not really? (Eradar don't seem to die for good when not killed in the twisting nether itself.. at least without the aid of a few thousand suicide wisps and the power of the world tree. neither preset for this fight.) So 2 main bad guys maybe sorta not dead but at least either not sitting in draenor causing problems so the native draenor heroes call it a win and celebrate. Khadgar turns into a bird and flies away. Something about in the light we are all the same.. roll credits.
So... great! Draenor is saved. No more invasion of angry future tech orcs for present Azeroth (we're down to like 1 1/2 clans of orcs and a bunch of Draenai left anyway) but where does this leave the overall plot? It only really seems to leave to routes far as i've been able to map out.
1. we all go home to present (Post Pandaria) Azeroth in which case nothing changed which sorta makes the whole story sorta pointless no? We went on a massive time and space adventure and made it back in time for Detention. The other timeline is out of sight and mind, but what did it accomplish aside from killing garrosh finally. We aren't needed to do stuff in Draenor aside from cleanup and the natives got that so we pack up our castles and go home. Bit of a letdown no?
2. We all go on through this current post Draenor timeline.. which is going to be a giant mess due to the all the Orcs we murdered throughout the story. which leaves alot of room for new story but goes full DC new 52 retconning the entirety of the history of all the games back to Warcraft orcs vs humans. which seems totally crazy but a bloody mess for a lot of reasons...
This is a universe with no orc invasion so no burning of stormwind, no outland, no Lich king because nerzuls already dead so no undead. No death knight arthas so no sacking of Silvermoon so no Banshee Queen and with it no Forsaken. Also that means no Archimonde invasion of Azeroth so no need to ever leave eastern kingdoms to kalimdor, Night elves stay shut in isolationists but immortal, Tauren get maybe wiped out by Centaurs and Quillboars. Darkspears sink with their island because thrall never trips over them on his boat trip. Draenai never crash land the Exodar. (they never needed to leave without elves and demons) Illidan never gets let out of his cage. Kael'thas never gets drunk of demon powers. The Alt timeline azeroth would be kind of weird to try and walk into as anyone that's not a human, dwarf, gnome and maybe blood elf or goblin..
So unless this is going to be the last Wow Xpac and we are going to roll into Warcraft 4 or WoW2 I dunno what they can roll into next without doing about 40 backflips to even handwave whichever route they wanna take with this. I'll give them a point that i'm very curious to see how they wanna make it work though.
Ok I rambled along way to much on this.. but it's a weird bit of lore jumping and I wanted to see where ya'll might be on it. As said at the start. This is a lot of guessing on my part and I might just be missing something big and stupid that writes off all my questions but that's why I'm asking about it. If it exists I'de love to know what kills my questions or maybe adds new ones.. Anyway! share your thoughts and theories! which route would you prefer if either or do you have a whole other take on the idea that works even better than my ramblings above?