>>714200175
They can even do something at that point like having the Lich King return to the surface and lock every single person who went into the shadowlands in, all lore characters who are down there, all player characters

Then do a 10 year timeskip while all the important people are trapped down there and you go back up and the world is in the midst of a massive existential war against the Lich King

Use it as a moment to update the world again Cata style, introduce new players or evolutions of old players
Then do 2 different intros to this new world, 1 being the new revamped starter zones for lv 1 characters, and the other being "Escape the Shadowlands" for returning characters

>>713283381
This. Killing Arthas was the last thing that truly mattered. Everything after has been Blizzard trying to one up itself and failing every time save for maybe Legion, which had the right idea but bad execution. The Lich King was made up the souls of Arthas, who fucked over the Alliance, and Ner'zhul, who fucked over the Horde. The Lich King actually felt like a villain that everyone in the story simultaneously agreed should be dead, it brought back some old heroes and quest givers to help out and felt like one big team effort. It wasn't executed as good as it could've, but it beats almost everything that came after.