Okay, for people who play WoW this may be fairly interesting. But please remember I am not serious about this in any way or form, this is just a place to hypothesize the last expansion.
While each expansion would focus on 1 to 2 things (Illidan and Burning Legion in TBC, the Old Gods and Arthas in WotLK), the last one could be a multitude: Bolvar corrupted (unlikely). The rest of the Emerald Nightmare (learning something from Deathwing and the "Realms and you! Chapter 1: Escape". The planet of Argus. Burning Legion conquered worlds. Other Old Gods and the Titans (I really see a "you are an exception planet" thing here :P ) Nerubians (they were not exactly finished off, and if they are anything like their Silithus counterparts, they're after you...) Syndicate (lol).
Now with all these pushing at once it adds much more features that could be used, I imagine it something like an "Overpower" (not the ability) mechanic, if you hit the enemy with any rank level spell, it can either stun, pushback, throw or outright kill them straight away (higher ranks). Thing is you often face off against much more opponents, never do you face off against 1, 2, or 3. Their levels can be lower than yours but will still boast a threat if you don't pay attention to the toughest hitting one and other that may heal them (also tanking abilities, possibly, such as the tank taunting u and you need to push him back to be able to attack, say, the healer).
This adds more of an "epic" feel to players and is especially useful in a war and heroic atmosphere, imagine having a skirmish in tight woods located in Xoroth (Warlocks should know this) and you push them back into a burning tree, initiating a Burn DoT and hitting them for more if they hit something. This could also allow a much more variety of situations with everywhere being a valuble quest hub: Infiltration and Finding - Syndicate. Hold the Line - Emerald Nightmare. Encroaching (attacking) - Argus. Vary - Burning Legion Worlds Vehicles in... space? Anywhere really - Titan vs Old God, this also boasts good for infiltration quests. Another vary - Bolvar
The reason lower rank spells should be able to do pushbacks etc is so you can simply cast quicker and may actually be required to defeat enemies without sustaining too much damage (albeit they are being removed in Catalysm, so they'll need to find a turnaround). Also there would have to be varying pushbacks, throws and stuns for each enemy with special animations for all of them I hope (due to the fact that models won't be such a big problem giving everything they will already have - already used in the previous expansions, since this one is finishing off the remainder of each one) Also :P this could open up various guardian mechanics for people, Warlocks summoning multiple (temporary) imps that are designed to kite enemies around, you picking them off or pushing them away from your slow Imps, it would allow more specialty during a supposedly "normal" fight. Or (in Cataclysm), you could summon an Infernal to bash 3 of them at once (which is something a player should be able to do :P ) and see them be incinerated. Or a hunter with its snake trap choking enemies giving you time to line them all up, frost traps making them slip over, burning traps making them run around burning and running into eachother. More variety and Area of Effect abilities which boast more effects and not damage would be much better for skill and fun given actual tactics.
Whilst you would be fighting remaining Scourge they would be melee warriors whom will need to be hit back as much as you can hit them back, whilst Syndicates would be stealthy and would require more burst-damage terms for each one, before they damage you seriously. Or if you're fighting say, the Burning Legion it would spark more reversed roles - instead of you and 4 people fulfilling roles to be able to beat the enemies - why not the otehr way round where you need a way to fend off enemy tanks which will try to react as much as possible against your crowd control effects, forcing you to either extend hit back abilities or some serious burst damage so you can break out of the rage against him he will put you in, and then you can kill the person who'd been aiding his Health. Hell, even better, you need to burst out and kill the tank, sustaining that rythym against the damage dealers because it's simply how hard they hit.
Maybe you fight against a group of enemies which keep vanishing and you need to hit them back, exploiting how fragile they are as much as possible whilst they shread you in and out, whilst their passive abilities grant them near-immunity to Area of Effects but also suffer much more damage due to the unexpected instant attack dealt to them (instant attacks = will hurt more, able to 1-hit essentially, for the point of a cool feeling).
Remember - I am not serious, but it opens up new gameplay mechanics in which I'd like to see Blizzard input. Which reminds me: Making spells instant could be done with a third resource for all classes, you basically burn mana as you can this resource (but fades instantly if you stop) that allows instant casting of specific spells (with cooldown, so variety is much more needed, imagine it in a movie, a mage throwing out fireballs and arcane blades to instantly kill an enemy efficiently and effectively), giving different animations for both target and caster (target: cowers, caster: hand on fire about to punch the guy, :P )
Anyway, this is a little vague and with proper balancing it could actually be REALLY good, in my opinion, it would spark much more awesomeness to people, and groups would have to fight much more enemies which will again take more skill and teamwork to do it, but raids - that's a whole other story lol, I can't imagine 25 people fighting 125 or something, then again, it would be like a more strategic attack too, which brings another aspect to WoW
I think most of the abils you listed could be easily implemented into weapons (putting a proc on em that says Knocks enemy back, stuns for 2 secs and ect). But the environment debuffs would be easily abused because of this. Get a elite and ping pong him between you and some fire. The fire debuff damage would need to be huge, because otherwise you may question why you would even put it into the game. And you'd like to see another mana bar? Maybe something like that could work, but maybe as a combo point like system(which some casters already have, but most of them work as a damage boost/cast time reduce).
I'd like to see more quest cutscenes and phasing, just so that you can feel that you're actually contributing to the story. In wotlk, which questlines did you feel pulled you in the most? Ans: Battle of undercity(bolvar "dying" due to traitors in the horde and sending Wrynn into a rage) and The Bronzebeard questline (finding the disk and reuniting the brothers). I havent played the game in a few months so I can't say anything over the ICC quest chain.............Saaaaadface.
Hmmmm, but last expansion of wow? That's gonna be a toughie. Where should they end it? What if they are planning to make wow 2? Would they make us kill Sargeras and bring a new threat in Wow 2? Maybe when cata comes out we will begin to see how the end of Wow 1 will play out.
Or just release another warcraft that begins after WOW or is in another universe so we can make a setting for the next mmorpg.
I'd like to see more quest cutscenes and phasing, just so that you can feel that you're actually contributing to the story
xD They change that alot in Dungeons and the new starting zones, it's really good
I doubt it could ever really be implemented, it'd take way too much time and really wouldn't be a warm welcome to people who been playing it for years, it would be an entirely different game to them, normally thats a good thing but when you fight every single threat out there at once, it should spark more similarity than difference.
lol, Yeah, but that's not what this topic is about
I really want to see more variety in quests, I know it's hard but it is painful to have to do the same thing. It would be quite nice if there were more elites out in the open (aka Non-instance / Raid), and they are soloable, just takes actual skill instead of "1, 2, 3" on your keyboard
