If WoW Expansion Were Done Pokemon Style

Ideas that come unbidden in the night when you’ve been thinking about Pokemon and World of Warcraft too much.

What if Blizzard did World of Warcraft expansions the way Nintendo and Game Freak do new Pokemon titles or was simply influenced more by Pokemon than EverQuest?

This is where this ends up…

• Each expansion would be a complete 1-100 experience, but would require you to start at back as a new player each time.
• You get to create exactly one avatar per expansion copy.
• There would be two versions of each expansion, each with rewards not in the other, and the only way to obtain them would be through trading across expansions.
• Occasionally there would be a single expansion that was just the previous two merged together, slightly altered, and with a few more rewards.
• Every once in a while the two different versions would have completely different groups to fight, though the story and quest line would be essentially the same.
• Interaction with quest givers initiated solely by making eye contact.
• It would be a solo experience, where you created parties for dungeons and raids from the NPCs you captured while battling along the way.
• Party size is now six.
• You don’t level up, only the followers in your party do as they fight for you.
• Your followers can be different classes, which have a rock/paper/scissors dynamic to them.  There is no holy trinity.
• Draenor garrison-like need to collect all possible followers emphasized in the game.
• Only mounts: Roller skates and a bicycle.
• Flight points unlocked only after defeating a dungeon half way into the game.
• Dance contests!
• Geography of each expansion loosely based on a real world location.
• Blizzard offices cleverly hidden in each expansion, allowing you do rage at the devs through your avatar.
• At some point each expansion would require you to wake up a sleeping ogre that is blocking your progress.
• Defeating the story antagonists just lets you move on to your real goal; Defeating the final four and then the Azeroth League Champion.
• We still end up waiting at least two years between expansions

What other Pokemon tropes would likely infect Blizzard were this true?

And would any of this necessarily be a bad thing?