BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[Makabreska]

Some fun facts about that: the ethereal’s boss, Shadreen (mentioned in the looted letter), appears randomly watching the void elves in Telogrus. He also appears in the Trial of Style, in a event that triggers if you stay a while after the competition. In the former, he pays the blood elves that host the event and thanks them for the gathered intel.

It all reminds me of Marvels Secret Invasion, with their shapeshifting infiltration skills. And they don't necessarily have to imply full Void xpac, they might simply be a one of the factions opposing us.

[Gangreflamme]

Sooooo... Virtual ticket info and In-game bonus tomorrow?

[FlubberPuddy]

It's late already. I'm hoping we get a Q&A announcement for Friday.

How can it be late when they said they'd reveal it in October? o_O

It's Sept 30th here in the US currently.

[TheFirstOnes]

Some fun facts about that: the ethereal’s boss, Shadreen (mentioned in the looted letter), appears randomly watching the void elves in Telogrus. He also appears in the Trial of Style, in a event that triggers if you stay a while after the competition. In the former, he pays the blood elves that host the event and thanks them for the gathered intel.

Ethereals: These guys will be good for the battle to come in 10.0.

[Madkat124]

Let's be real here, allowing cross faction gameplay is probably the high of what we can expect. Dissolving the factions completely is nonsense, that much should be obvious.

I feel like, at least some, of the races will be moved to neutral like Pandaren. Seems like they're setting up forsaken to be both sides, goblins would make sense too. Void/Blood elves as well (Honestly just make VEs a skin)

[Holdodlig]

I had something crazy in mind, but seeing those symbols on the main menu, I was thinking : What if the Horde and Alliance logo were here just to vanish ? I mean, in the next patch, we'll probably face N'zoth. And we already know that most of us are "gifted". So maybe the next patch will keep factions, but will allow us to group with Azeroth's protectors / N'zoth's followers ? And the logo would change depending of which faction you serve.

[Blayze]

Ethereals: These guys will be good for the battle to come in 10.0.

"Turns out we can pay them in fashion."

[Cosmic Janitor]

I feel like, at least some, of the races will be moved to neutral like Pandaren. Seems like they're setting up forsaken to be both sides, goblins would make sense too. Void/Blood elves as well (Honestly just make VEs a skin)

If they were to shuffle around the strict allegances (which I still doubt), then it would maybe make sense to merge some of the races, I could see that happening in such a case. Something like the three dwarven clans or belf/velf/helf should be a heritage/origin story option during character creation and nothing more imho. Again though, I doubt Blizzard will fuck with the system they shackled themselves too, there are probably too many fringe cases to throw the the strict allegances out of the window now. Even just making some of them neutral would mean going back and changing a fair bit of quests and dialogue, that is just unlikely at this point. Just letting you join the group of your battle net list is way easier.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

They aren't really splitting factions. Just two allied nations working together

Allied Forces vs N'zoth is pretty much the take I'm seeing(Like the Ashen Verdict from Wrath).

[Cosmic Janitor]

The one thing I can NEVER see happening is something that forces apart guilds. Moving people to different factions because of their race when they might have been grouping with friends for over a decade would be a catastrophe.

I think we can all agree that whatever they do, it will not come to the detriment of the players in such a way that prevents us from grouping with the people we've played with before. That would simply be financial suicide. The question here is more how far are they willing to go, because some changes will be permanent, because of the aforementioned reason they will never be able to reverse them.

[FlubberPuddy]

Late as in, I think we usually have them a bit earlier. I mean I just checked wowpedia and it was released in September for Blizzcon 2018

There were other Blizzcon's where VT wasn't shown till 1 month before. I thought the same for you earlier "it seems late?" but then Blizzcon 2018 just had it early in a sense.

[EbaumsTipster]

Factions aren't going away, stop with this meme.

[Nathanyel]

Browsed Twitter again, I'm following @handclaw who often posts WoW fan concept art, and recently did some pieces on the Broken:

...and now, again, I kinda want playable Broken/Krokul, using the Allied Race system - they're already using the Tauren skeleton. The possibility of Vulpera shows that an Allied Race doesn't have to be a sub/cousin race of the "base race" whose rig it uses. And the Alliance needs an "ugly" race.
Story-wise, the Broken are already part of the Alliance via the Draenei. Numbers might be low, so we might recruit clans still in Outland. Broken were often outcasts, or cut off from larger Draenei populations after the genocide campaign anyway. Trying to survive in a land filled with Fel Orcs and Demons, they would still have a fresh hatred for Orcs. Feel free to interpret that in whatever way you expect the story of the faction divide to continue.

For Horde counterparts, I'm happy to bring up Mogu (Draenei skeleton) again - the Island Expeditions show there are still several clans out there, not bound to Pandaria. They would be brought into the Horde via the Zandalari.
Alternatively, the Saberon (Worgen skeleton) that were seen arriving in Durotar after the Mag'har recruitment scenario. You might say they're too savage and bestial, but Azerite could easily offset that. This evolution also being the reason for the time between their arrival and them approaching the Horde again. They might also be in conflict with the Botani that also arrived, and thus ally with the enemy of their enemy.

Neither race really has female models, but that's the case for so many NPC races, I kinda tend to ignore it, they'd have to redo so many details of the male models anyway (see Zandalari makeover) so creating females as well is only another step in that process (also, again, see Zandalari, the models in ToT were only males)
At least one Mogu woman exists, albeit either not curse-of-fleshed or another construct like the Twin Consorts, and the non-canon Hearthstone has non-named female Mogu Cultists, implying it's not a single person.
More Mogu, male or female, could also awaken in the vaults on Pandaria, freshly curse-of-fleshed.

- - - Updated - - -

PS: hearing talks of a PTR update

[Valysar]

PS: hearing talks of a PTR update

Just a 8.2.5 update it seems

[ChairmanKaga]

I had something crazy in mind, but seeing those symbols on the main menu, I was thinking : What if the Horde and Alliance logo were here just to vanish ? I mean, in the next patch, we'll probably face N'zoth. And we already know that most of us are "gifted". So maybe the next patch will keep factions, but will allow us to group with Azeroth's protectors / N'zoth's followers ? And the logo would change depending of which faction you serve.

I would love to be an N'zothian.

[Nathanyel]

Yeah, got it on the Launcher now for Live.... aaaand it failed. Yay. Wanted to start playing now. Starting the .exe should work, though.

[Blayze]

I would love to be an N'zothian.

Same. Give me a faction that's pure Evil, so the Horde doesn't have to juggle all the non-Lawful Good balls.

[TheFirstOnes]

Same. Give me a faction that's pure Evil, so the Horde doesn't have to juggle all the non-Lawful Good balls.

The Legion would be pure evil. The Void is just insanity and lovecraft BS.

[Vynestra]

Tbh I hope they remove faction sided things, leave the factions for gameplay reasons, but when you make a char it should let you select any race, then choose a faction.

Part of my hope for it, is A) playerbase isn't split anymore in an aging game and B) they won't need to make two separate main storylines for each faction, everyone can experience the EXACT SAME content. Add some player agency, sure, but this way it'll essentially double the amount of content people who only play one faction experience, it would be so nice, imagine how much longer storyline quests could be, or how much more content in general they can fit in.

[derpkitteh]

The Legion would be pure evil. The Void is just insanity and lovecraft BS.

the legion wasn't evil, it was horribly misguided. sargeras' goal was born out of mercy.

but yes, i would like an evil 3rd faction. one that's actually flat out evil, so they quit dragging the horde through the mud every other expansion.