I have... always have the impression that Forsaken actually reside on the Undercity, nothing has ever made me think they didn't lmao. They have shops, they have guilds, they have inns. Like HOW would they not live there?!?
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I hate the idea of the lifelands so much, I'm really not on board with the idea that every cosmic power needs their own dimensional plane, less so that we need to visit them all as expansion settings.
I don't know if it has something to do with Ion or just with their business approach in general. I just don't expect them to put more than the required effort into an expansion. The sales will cover the costs anyway and what happens in the next year(s) until the new expansion approaches really doesn't matter much. So give the players the bare minimum and they still will buy it.
On topic: tol y'all there's a reason why Ysera is in Shadowlands and was brought back. She'll be the bridge towards the next expansion (with Wrathion, maybe). To bring her back just for Shadowlands alone never made any sense.
Last edited by Nyel; 2022-01-17 at 08:31 AM.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
Dragon Isles confirmed?
https://www.wowhead.com/news/datamin...edition-325627
What else can be associated with a green dragon other than an emerald dream related xpac, I guess?
Maybe they are so behind because of pumping every available resource into 10.0. They would not say that but Shadowlands was basically abandoned early in 2021 even if we get a good 9.2.
I dont think 10.0 will be Lifelands related. They basically said next xpac will be back on Azeroth.
Everything related to Dragon Isles? A green dragon is as good as every other dragon for a Dragon Isles expac and they eventually have to choose one Dragonflight.
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Absolutely. They knew way back in early 2021 that 9.3 wasn't a thing. The Ion interview in March made this already pretty clear, but most people where doubting it back then. But the writing was on the wall that 9.3 was never about to happen.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
Actually, World Revamp and Dragon Isles are not mutually exclusive. They can easily make new expansion events happen in (revamped) old world, while making Dragon Isles themselves into new msx-level zone Suramar-style.
And I have serious doubts about Lifelands. What would we even do there? Another Old God expansion? It also contradicts hints about "going back to basics".
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.
In the spirit of rampant and baseless speculation, I've been looking at which models received new LOD files since the beginning of Shadowlands. Granted, this is likely to simply be part of a gradual update to the game as time allows to improve level of detail options, and nothing to read into with any hype.
They've been adding in LODs 1-3 for various models, spell effects and doodads since the 9.0 beta, but with seemingly no rhyme or reason to which models they opt for. There are a lot of wildlife (tigers, murlocs galore, yak, shoveltusk, eagle & many more), as well as seemingly random choices like protodrake mounts, the Heart of the Aspects mount, Teron Gorefiend (BT version), the legion female spider demon things, Invincible, stormforged vrykul, and for some reason a 'leytree' doodad from Legion (Azure dragonflight, anyone?). There are quite a lot more.
There's also the Taerar_q one which was noticed ages ago in this thread. I thought there was nothing to this (probably isn't!), but the Taerar_q updates also include new BLP files and 'updated' anim/skin files. Even if the updates are only caused by an accidental save, somebody has really been making an effort to check out Taerar behind the curtains. A little curious given we have much more solid evidence to be worked up around green dragons now. Heart of the Aspects is worth raising an eyebrow at too, like why would you prioritise such an underused model?
While these don't have any apparent connection, it would make sense if they were prioritising 'LOD-ing' models they intended to use again for the next expansion. The wildlife focus in particular was what made me start speculating this - new or revamped zones on Azeroth would likely use a lot of recolours of existing flora and fauna rather than whole new types of creatures. If I understand anything about LOD files (and I sure don't), they seem to apply to all skins that can be used with a given model. This would mean that if they were reusing these models, the corresponding new mobs etc could only be reskins rather than having drastic changes (my first thought seeing the spiderdemon model included was that it would make a decent skeleton for a female drakonid... alas, that would probably need a separate .m2 file).
Anyhow, food for thought or instant dismissal. Really this is just the result of me being weirded out that they made a conscious effort to improve the leytree model of all things.
I still don't think we get a world revamp ever. Too much effort for the benefit. I can only see them doing what they did with Arathi and Dark Shore. Two or three areas per expac but not whole continents. But that's just my personal guess.
Realm of life sounds a bit...let's say redundant after being in the realm of death. Also there is Ion (was it Ion?) saying that the next expac will be more grounded. On the other hand even "grounded" or "back to basics" leaves A LOT of room. Legion started quite grounded and ended in space. But (again personal guess) I don't think we will tackle the next cosmic force realm so soon. Though I can see Elune become relevant somehow after the build-up we had for her so far.
In the end we might get a Dragon Isle/Lifelands mash-up.
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Not sure if I remember correctly, but weren't the shadowlands where we went after ingame death in the beginning? So Azeroth just black and white? And that got retconned somehwere along the way? I mean, one of the DK spells (Wraith Walk) read something like "Sidestep into the Shadowlands, breaking Root effects and increasing your movement speed by 70% for until canceled". I don't think it was a sidestep into Bastion or Revendreth, just something like a phase change.
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.
9.2.5 will probably have some loose ends being tied up and bring us some QoL improvements like the removal of the dreaded covenant system (the abilities being treated as talents you can change by talking with a new NPC in Oribos) and timewalking rework (weekly rotation instead of a horror we have now)
10.0 is either Dragon Isles (with either 5 new zones dedicated to each known dragonflight or better yet, 5 new zones dedicated to NEW wacky dragonflights) or Light vs Void expansion with Yrel invading Azeroth.
That's my take of it anyway.