My guess is a slighty smaller Velious Part 2 expansion but possibly a GMM-type bonus zone (Loruella - water djinn homeland) in mid-late 2021.
Second half of ToV or finish what was started in TBL. Clearly TBL would need some revamp to allow bypassing the trials to make that work but all those portals, blank entrances and bricked up doorways were put there for a reason. Mearatas and Ash both contain obvious clues. Besides, a second TBL would be a nice change from looking at 'white ice' and undead mobs everywhere. ToV feels unfinished to me, much like EoK did before RoS but in truth feels very much like a toss up. Either way I look forward to filling out the casters a bit in the second half of either expansion. On a side note ToV's announcement was released in September of last year if I recall. This year with the staffing changes I would say early October if we are lucky. Plenty of time to finish the expansion for those of us who aren't as flexible with our schedules as I have come to realize. - Coag the long winded.
I'm really not wanting another re-hash. Yes, I imagine its simpler to take pre-existing zones and code them into new mobs, quests, content, raids. Insert new collectibles, chase items, and voila ... a new expansion... But at the bare minimum I'd like to see some customized content. If they are going to do a Velious 2.0 and will be releasing DN, SG, Icewell, CS, or whatever - I hope they were wise enough to also make a couple customized zones and merge them into the story. Just show me some marginal effort towards not being a complete re-hash of older content and I will gladly go into the corner and lick the wall. There is a large boat of people who will play the game no matter what, but there is also a large group of people who want something new and unique. Not trying to downplay anything, hope you give us something great. Looking forward to the release.
I don't see epics happening alongside an expansion for a long time myself, team/game/studio/franchise needs to rebuild into a much better/bigger state before that will happen. The closest we will get to new Epics will be something akin to the class weapons in Rain of Fear, so much work went into Epic 1.0 & 2.0 that the current team would need to not do an expansion in any year they did new epics.
ROS didn't really finish EOK kunark is so big there is a lot left that they didn't address. TOV 2 is probably the answer though.
I don't think it's really hard for anyone on the team. I assume though that a lot of expansion delay isn't on the code side I think it's on design: Quests, Zones, Spells, Gear, Raids and all the associated bug fixes.
The last 4 expansion were all 6-7 zones, so this would fit nicely with the remaining Velious zones Wakening Lands Skyshrine Cobalt Scar Sirens Grotto (just skip this zone and say its frozen solid and blocked) Western Wastes Dragon Necropolis Temple of Veeshan Sleepers Tomb and also skipping Plane of Growth probably would make 7 zones total Now we have seen enough orcs, giants and coldains. Its time for drakes and dragons Although personally, I would like a split progression like they did in The Serpents Spine with Frostcrypt / Ashengate where some guilds went one side and others went the other way But thats not really easy to do in the existing ToV zones since factions isnt a big issue like the old Velious expansion I do think it would be awesome to bring back Temple of Veeshan and Sleepers. Make a big roadblock in veeshan like Aaryonar was back then and a keyed Sleepers. Still one of my favorite zones. It just has a special atmosphere
i know the past few expacs have been 7-8 zones, with 8 raids ... but weve been in quarantine, all people have been doing is sitting around staring at a PCs. ive personally picked up a new hobby (blacksmithing) and have started learning a new language ... is it too much to hope for a expac that has maybe 10 zones? lol We will see soon enough if the devs used their quarantine time wisely =)
Please not ToV, that zone has been revamped for raids before. Don't really see Sleepers being included as that is the wrong side of Velious for the expansion as we are looking Wakening lands onwards. I'd really love them to put at least 1 new zone in, really tired of revamps, TBL was great it only had 1 zone we had been to before and that was only for 3 instances!