Editing World of Warcraft (section)

===Battle for Azeroth=== 
[[File:Battle for azeroth diorama.jpg|thumb|right|500px|As a celebration for their next [[Games Workshop|money grabbing expansion]], Blizzard construct a massive diorama of countless miniature to portray the battle between the Horde and the Alliance. You know you want them. And for more pics, here. [[https://web.archive.org/web/20181008173847/https://www.wowhead.com/gallery=689/diorama]]]]

Surprise! The next expansion <del>isn't</del> is eventually Old God-centered. We're going back to the faction war. Each major faction tries to claim their continent.  As the Horde move to claim the Night Elf lands in what will be called the War of Thorns, the shitstorm is in full swing.  The Horde sneak around the mountains and defeat the Night Elves army, whose forces are spread thin across Azeroth.  Their druid leader Malfurion tried to solo Sylvanas but after nearly killing her, he was downed by an axe in the back from SAURFANG of all people.  It was an accident, though, as he couldn't see clearly through the smoke and all.  When he realized the dishonorable blow he'd dealt, Saurfang had a BSOD and did not resist Tyrande when she arrived, but Tyrande chose to spare him in favor of getting Malfurion out.  Originally planning to occupy the giant tree Teldrassil, Sylvanas went and ordered it burnt down [[Grimdark|even though the Horde had won the War and there were only non-combatants in Teldrassil at the time]] due to various reasons that kept getting retconned.  The first two were to demoralize the Alliance and spite the dying Night Elf commander who said Sylvanas can't kill hope.  Of course, there's also the practical fact that occupying a giant druidic tree from a druidic people who created the damn thing is pretty much guaranteed suicide (though this is never indicated in-universe).  A handful of people are evacuated from Teldrassil but the majority die (well, sort of, it's completely unclear how many died because they had escape plans, but the fire spread quickly due to the magical ammunition the Horde used, and in the Alliance rescue mission even the best players can only save 50/1000 NPCs max ''from Darnassus'', never mind the rest of Teldrassil).  After Sylvanas went full terrorist on Teldrassil, the displaced Night Elves are forced out of Kalimdor and head to the Eastern Kingdoms, reminding Night Elf players what their place is in case any had the scandalous notion that the Night Elves are anything more than exposition or the Horde's punching bag.  Azuremyst Isle Draenei become the last Alliance holdout in Kalimdor, and the humans welcome the Night Elves into their homes, reminding all the players of who the big good is supposed to be in case anyone had the blasphemous idea that their own faction/race was in any way special or good if they aren't Alliance humans. 
[[File:WoW_New_Mount.jpg|right|300px]]
However, Anduin evolved into MANduin!  The Alliance bands together to retaliate, attacking Lorderaen to deal with the Forsaken once and for all.  Strangely, the faction leaders most effected by the Horde's actions are absent, since even though one got an axe in the back, both he his wife have healing magic plus the latter's also the champion of a literal goddess.  The Horde forces lose and are forced to retreat.  However, in a show of plot armor, none of the Horde leaders turn on Sylvanas, not even dishonor-hating Saurfang (who was so disillusioned with the Horde he nearly committed suicide by Alliance army).  Sylvanas heads further into villain territory when she flooded the battlefield with the Blight and Horde soldiers were caught as collateral damage... but then JAINA made a comeback on an arcane-empowered ship (which could now fly), dispersed the Blight and breached the walls.  When Anduin, Genn, Jaina and Alleria confronted Sylvanas, Sylvanas flooded Lorderaen with the Blight which would've killed them if Jaina didn't teleport them out.  The end result is that the Blood Elves are the last Horde holdout in the Eastern Kingdoms and hilariously they don't even have a reason to be the Alliance's enemy but a lot of genocidal reasons to be the Horde's enemy along with having been cleansed of their fel-magic induced insanity - with Alliance help, no less - back in the first expansion.

Seeking to gain more allies, Jaina and the player characters head to Kul'Tiras, but Jaina's on bad terms with her mother Katherine for letting the Horde's army kill Daelin, Katherine's husband/Jaina's father, because Jaina believed the new Horde back when it was forming would be different from the one controlled by demons and so helped them defeat her father who was trying to purge said Horde.  Good thing it only took a few world-wars and near apocalypse events to convince Jaina that the Horde was beyond saving as a whole... then she spared them like, twice or something.  So Katherine disowned Jaina and sentenced her to death, refused Anduin's request and imprisoned the Alliance PCs.  After being broken out of jail, Alliance players have to get Kul'trias' allegiance by solving problems in Kul'Tiras and helping fix the Proudmoore family's issues.  After ousting the traitor, Lady Ashvane, Jaina is now in charge of Kul'Tiras, but Ashvane later gets sprung from jail by Sylvanas to help her.  Meanwhile, the Night Elves mobilize the majority of their army under their faction leaders to try and take Kalimdor home back from the Horde's forces, retaking enough to establish a base and are starting to push the Horde occupiers out, but both sides get bogged down in a guerilla war.  Sylvanas responds by going full Arthas and raising the dead against their will to serve as commanders and reinforcements - including the aforementioned Night Elf commander - while the Tyrande becomes an avatar of her goddess Elune's wrath.   

The Horde travels to Zandalar, to met god-king Rakastan of the Zandalari trolls and help him fight a rebellion against his rule. The Horde learns about G'huun, a blood god trapped in an abandoned Titan facility; the Titans used the facility to experiment on the Old Gods to learn about them and accidentally created a new Old God-like being, at which point they promptly closed the facility and buried their mistake.  During this, King Rastakhan's advisor Zul is revealed to be a traitor and kills Rastakhan's Loa, so he made a deal-with-the-devil type arrangement with the loa of death Bwonsamdi, [[Ungrim Ironfist|which will also follow his bloodline forever]].  After Jaina took control of Kul Tiras, she led an attack on Zandalar which resulted in the death of King Rastakhan, shoving the Zandalari into the arms of the Horde.  Princess Talanji became queen and also inherited her dad's pact with Bwonsamdi.  Meanwhile Sylvanas continues to raise dead Alliance soldiers and heroes into undeath, some of them against their will, which is provoking resentment if not outright dissent among Baine when this is done to Derek Proudmoore - despite the fact that Sylvanas has done this many times before and that Baine didn't dissent nor lift even a finger about the slaughtering of Night Elves and raising tauren despite these crimes being far worse. 

New races join both factions: the Horde gets the Highmountain Tauren and Nightborne from Legion as well as Zandalar trolls (the Horde being more familiar than the Alliance with how a few bad seeds can make the whole faction look bad, yet that doesn't always mean that's the case) and Mag'har orcs (unaltered Orcs from alt-Draenor seeking refuge as their world has become a desolate wasteland and the Draenei formed an army of Light extremists seeking to settle old scores with the Orcs or convert them).  The Alliance gets Void Elves (a "small number" of elves Alleria trains to use void powers, which sounds more like a class than a race but whatever), Dark Iron Dwarves (who have been working with the Alliance since Cataclysm), and Lightforged Draenei (an army of Light-infused Draenei who joined the Alliance because Illidan jobbed their CO and the second-in-command is Alliance) and Kul'Tirans (burly or chubby humans with an affinity for sailing and the ocean).  Major gameplay features include Warfronts, which are <s>nostalgia bait for fans of the actual Warcraft RTS games</s> focused around building bases and units and gathering resources in enemy territory to fight back against the incursions that both factions have made, and some randomly generated islands that players will <s>figure out the optimal way to clear in a week</s> enjoy for the entire expansion.  

You might be wondering why the Nightborne would join the faction that has a tendency to start wars of annihilation, has multiple attempted genocides under their belt for at least three member factions, is just plain ugly to contrast the Nightborne valuing beauty and largely disdains magic.  The reason the fans were fed is that the Nightborne feel kinship with the Blood Elves even though the Blood Elves are the antithesis of everything the Nightborne pride themselves on (self-control, not being highborne, hating the Burning Legion, no demonic bullshit allowed, not really all that big on the Holy Light, etc.) and Tyrande's distrust of the Nightborne because they sided with the Burning Legion twice (even though the Blood Elves are recovering fel addicts whose entire civilization proved Tyrande's point).

Queen Azshara stepped back into the spotlight as a major villain with a new and tentacled form. She might have married N'Zoth, who looks like [[/d/|an octopus with more tentacles and a head made of mouths and eyes]].  Azshara uses arcane magic and one of the Pillars of Creation - which she somehow stole - to raise her homebase of the past ten millennia, Najzatar, from the seabed (a story element mostly used for gameplay reasons, since Vash'jir from Cataclsym had underwater mechanics which proved complex and unpopular).  This involved a move from Sylvanas which implies she knew what was coming and led the Alliance fleet there to decimate it at the cost of her flagship (either [[Just As Planned]] or Sylvanas is being used since Xal'atath's blade is involved).  The players explore this realm while finding allies from the locals and learning that Ashvane had ultimately allied with Azshara.  In the raid the player fight alongside Jaina, Shandris, Thalyssra and Lor'themar (Tyrande and Furion are busy retaking Kalimdor for the Night Elves, thus don't show up despite some fans hopes) to clear Azshara's palace (including killing Ashvane who, big surprise, gets double-crossed by Azshara and killed by the players).  Then we face Azshara herself and learn her master plan during the fight; she wanted the players to come to her so she could co-opt the power from the Heart of Azeroth necklaces to break the chains of N'Zoth's prison.  Though Azshara is beaten into submission by the players, her plan succeeded and N'Zoth is freed, [[Waifu|grabbing Azshara with his tentacles before disappearing to parts unknown]] and leaving the characters with an vague but ominous warning.

N'Zoth proceeded to raise the city of Nyalotha from the depths and spread his corruption across Azeroth.  The adventurers go there, with a link to channel all the power the Titan Azeroth can muster through them and the Titan defences to kill N'Zoth (and according to the story, this is Hail Mary pass - or a desperate last shot to those who don't know U.S football - and if it fails, N'Zoth wins).  In Nyalotha, a lot of thing are learned about Azshara.  For one, she's still alive.  Two, she was planning to betray N'Zoth and take his power for herself.  Three, N'Zoth knew of her treachery, so Azshara is found imprisoned and being tortured by N'Zoth's servants to punish her treachery and mind break her into being loyal to N'Zoth.  After N'Zoth's servants are killed, Azshara is freed and offers Xal'atath, saying it's vital to killing N'Zoth before saying she seeks the true throne of power and teleporting out (with neither Wrathion nor the player characters trying to stop or kill her for some weird reason).  Then N'Zoth nearly mind-controls the players and wins before getting hit with lazers channelled through the necklaces and has a defeat cinematic which in no way resembles Sauron's defeat from the Peter Jackson version of "Return of the King'.  

Patch 8.3 brought two new allied races.  On the Horde's side, the Alliance warfront campaign in Vul'dun had a nasty habit of treating the Vulpera as Horde collaborators, which drove the fox people to go full mujahideen and join the Horde out of spite.  Meanwhile, because allied races are traditionally added in pairs, the gnomes discovered an isolated island of gnomes fighting a civil war over what degree of turning gnomes into cybermen is going too far, but was really just a mount and xmog grindfest with rayguns and chainswords.