9.X Patches & 10.0 Speculation Thread

[Sondrelk]

Quite the leak that. Though I am willing to cut it a little slack on account of the English presumably being horribly translated, leading to something that doesn't even sound remotely similar to the tone of WoW. It sounds more like it's the next FFXIV expansion in tone, and I cannot for the life of me figure out if this is intentional or not.
Only part that seemed even remotely plausible outside systems are the part where there is a society of various shipwrecked survivors.

[rainhard]

I have noticed that devourer mobs in Korthia play an animation when you get in the range where you can see them and when you get out of it, could the livingwold thing be related to that and the new ones added be for the devourers of Zereth Mortis?

[WheresT]

The Living World thing might be the file leak we get this time, like some texture names before, but it's so vague. It's the sort of thing that might seem super obvious in hindsight, but I don't know what to think of it right now. All I know is that it keeps making me think of Guild Wars 2, because Living World is what they call their between-expansion content drops.

I mean, I'd love for World of Warcraft to transition to a similar system (and Blizzard would probably be more consistent about it, too), because I think the smaller yet more regular story releases, and a dedicated plan to bridge the gap between expansions both time and story-wise would benefit Warcraft's story a lot (also, I prefer getting a more full story out of the box with the drip-fed story being the connecting pieces), but that's probably not what's happening here because I can't imagine how that would relate to animations. ;P

Would be nice if Living World is something to do with a revamp which makes the zones more “alive”. Maybe the “time” thing is a day and night cycle?

[Makabreska]

Holy crap. The leak flood is in full force, and each one dumber then the previous.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I've always wanted the Warcraft Team to have some sort of Live World Team that would spice up the World and add small things while keeping Azeroth feeling fresh and alive while the Main Team work on Content Patches.

But, you know that there isn't much Return of Investment in such an endeavour and as always it goes the same way as integrating the Lore into a "Lore" Tab on the Interface and putting the Books into it as purchaseables so you can read in-game or be activated with codes from your physical book purchases while also giving a outlet for the Writers to write more stuff into the game being easily accessable to everyone.

It just doesn't have the RoI in the eyes of the suits. But, yeah. I've always wanted stuff where there could just be less dead periods and Writing Team and the game itself just had even less frequent

Obviously, I am fascinated with this because if they are adding any Day/Night Cycle stuff that will be very pretty if they do that.

[Shadowlands-is-fake]

Oof, what a dreadfully boring concept. Too much like Shadowlands in the sense that there seems to be very little variety between zones, no mention of natural biomes, and just generally dark and uninspired.

It's like a blend between The Other Side of Azeroth and The Dragon Isles, but it makes neither of the two seem appealing.

Give me jungles, deserts, clouds, mountains, tropical waters, etc.

[Sondrelk]

The Living World thing might be the file leak we get this time, like some texture names before, but it's so vague. It's the sort of thing that might seem super obvious in hindsight, but I don't know what to think of it right now. All I know is that it keeps making me think of Guild Wars 2, because Living World is what they call their between-expansion content drops.

I mean, I'd love for World of Warcraft to transition to a similar system (and Blizzard would probably be more consistent about it, too), because I think the smaller yet more regular story releases, and a dedicated plan to bridge the gap between expansions both time and story-wise would benefit Warcraft's story a lot (also, I prefer getting a more complete story out of the box with the drip-fed story being the connecting pieces), but that's probably not what's happening here because I can't imagine how that would relate to animations. ;P

Wow Has long been hamstrung by the fact that each significant update has to include a little of everything. New instances, new story, new cosmetics, etc.
Ideally WoW might have had more specialized patches that focus on singular elements. One to give a big chunk of story, one patch to give a raid, one patch to update events.
Really what WoW should have done to begin with is to not have expansions at all, but rather meaty patches that iterate the game slowly over time, instead of in large chunks every two years with smaller iterations on that expansions flavor throughout.

- - - Updated - - -

Holy crap. The leak flood is in full force, and each one dumber then the previous.

That's how you know the leak season has truly begun. Now we just need a definite vague leak to base everything around. The Living World strings could be that, but they don't feel as substantive as the Suramar Cloak, or Kul Tiran cloth textures.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Holy crap. The leak flood is in full force, and each one dumber then the previous.

Eh it's about as dumb as it always is. Couple people with leaks good enough to seem true, then out comes the absolute Vietnamese Crystal-level crap.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Wow Has long been hamstrung by the fact that each significant update has to include a little of everything. New instances, new story, new cosmetics, etc.
Ideally WoW might have had more specialized patches that focus on singular elements. One to give a big chunk of story, one patch to give a raid, one patch to update events.
Really what WoW should have done to begin with is to not have expansions at all, but rather meaty patches that iterate the game slowly over time, instead of in large chunks every two years with smaller iterations on that expansions flavor throughout.

No thanks, I don't want itty bitty updates but often. The major content patches aren't the problem.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

That's how you know the leak season has truly begun. Now we just need a definite vague leak to base everything around. The Living World strings could be that, but they don't feel as substantive as the Suramar Cloak, or Kul Tiran cloth textures.

Still say the vague leak was the HD Elwynn buildings.

[Dracullus]

To be fair, I don't think the LivingWorld stuff has anything to do with the setting. I think its rather a hint at the way future content is going to be delivered.

It could be even completely made up stuff. I stand by my opinion that main point is to get people into speculation/fake leaks mode. Just look what is happening right now.

Which is great, it means expac reveal is not months (after Q1 I mean) away. Also they handle last few months pretty well with slowly rising up hype.

1. November - new patch with awaited catch ups that give people lot of stuff to do on alt covenants/alts.
2. December - full month of recycled content with really high quality (Legion M+ and Mage Tower).
3. January/February - new season/raid on TBC Classic (and likely soon SoM as well).
4. February/March - new big patch with 4 weeks of increased interest (launch, heroic/Anduin week, mythic/Jailer week, world first)

Notice how each month bring more important stuff. Expac reveal late March would be cherry on top and perfectly fit into this schedule.

[WheresT]

Still say the vague leak was the HD Elwynn buildings.

Gotta love how people don’t care/ignore the HD human buildings. Do people think it’s someone fucking around in the files or something?

[Jokubas]

Oof, what a dreadfully boring concept. Too much like Shadowlands in the sense that there seems to be very little variety between zones, no mention of natural biomes, and just generally dark and uninspired.

It's like a blend between The Other Side of Azeroth and The Dragon Isles, but it makes neither of the two seem appealing.

Give me jungles, deserts, clouds, mountains, tropical waters, etc.

Yeah, aside from giving me vibes of what my brother was doing in FFXIV, it reminded me too much of Shadowlands in the general sense of "we go to a new place that's relatively alien to us and spend almost all of our time with entirely new people and places". I was cool with that at the beginning of Shadowlands, but I kinda got sick of it before the first patch even hit. It made me realize how much I really liked the setting of Battle for Azeroth, even if the story was driving me nuts.

Though at the same time, I'll admit that it's going to be pretty hard for any expansion to really get me excited these days. I can't blame "leaks" for that because it could just as easily apply to the real thing. It used to be that the story of an expansion could still grab my attention even if the features didn't, but I kinda just don't trust the story anymore. I hate to sound cynical, especially since I don't think some things are as bad as often treated, but I feel like the loss of certain writers is really starting to be felt.

If an expansion doesn't have playable ogres, some sort of spellsword class, or cross-faction play, I probably just won't be excited for it. That doesn't mean I think the expansion will be bad if it doesn't, just being honest about what it'll take for me personally at this point.

[Marlamin]

Still say the vague leak was the HD Elwynn buildings.

I think there's multiple things that don't have a direct explanation that could be seen as a vague leak:
- Survivor class
- Galakrond's Fall map
- World Tree 2 map
- Hearthstone Tavern
- New human buildings
- 9.0 seamless teleporting experiments (between maps, not the Torghast stuff)
- Professions land map
- JasonTest Kalimdor map
- Emerald drake mount

Which of these ends up being nothing/something else/a dev experiment/an actual sign remains to be seen, but there's a lot of this stuff and likely even more we missed/discarded.

[WheresT]

I think there's multiple things that don't have a direct explanation that could be seen as a vague leak:
- Survivor class
- Galakrond's Fall map
- World Tree 2 map
- Hearthstone Tavern
- New human buildings
- 9.0 seamless teleporting experiments (between maps, not the Torghast stuff)
- Professions land map
- JasonTest Kalimdor map

Which of these ends up being nothing/a dev experiment/an actual sign remains to be seen, but there's a lot of this stuff and likely even more we missed/discarded.

You what?

Nelves regrowing a new tree would be groan worthy.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I think there's multiple things that don't have a direct explanation that could be seen as a vague leak:
- Survivor class
- Galakrond's Fall map
- World Tree 2 map
- Hearthstone Tavern
- New human buildings
- 9.0 seamless teleporting experiments (between maps, not the Torghast stuff)
- Professions land map
- JasonTest Kalimdor map
- Emerald drake mount

Which of these ends up being nothing/something else/a dev experiment/an actual sign remains to be seen, but there's a lot of this stuff and likely even more we missed/discarded.

Well I think I can safely say the next expansion won't be about Hearthstone.

Rest of those, good point.

[Sondrelk]

No thanks, I don't want itty bitty updates but often. The major content patches aren't the problem.

Not small updates, but rather specialized updates.
Instead of a major patch needing a zone, raid, cosmetics, story, etc. You could have one patch that is just a load of story stuff, then later a patch that is just a meaty raid, then another with a big zone filled with world quests and such.

I could be wrong, but I think this would have meant a smoother stream of content as each individual piece doesn't necessarily need to be combined with others. The team responsible for a new raid doesn't need to necessarily concern itself with whether a new zone is ready for instance.

Of course, with how WoW is currently structured this would probably just end up dividing a larger patch into smaller individual patches, but if WoW had managed to break away from the structures narrative and instead have smaller more localized threats then I think it would have been ideal.

But it's not like this would be likely to happen regardless, so it's kind of s moot point. It would require restructuring the entire dev team, both writers and coders.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I think there's multiple things that don't have a direct explanation that could be seen as a vague leak:
- Survivor class
- Galakrond's Fall map
- World Tree 2 map
- Hearthstone Tavern
- New human buildings
- 9.0 seamless teleporting experiments (between maps, not the Torghast stuff)
- Professions land map
- JasonTest Kalimdor map
- Emerald drake mount

Which of these ends up being nothing/something else/a dev experiment/an actual sign remains to be seen, but there's a lot of this stuff and likely even more we missed/discarded.

This might be related but I remember... was it Muffinus or someone else. Anyways, some wow dev mentioned something "Ambitious" in relation to Professions. Something to note

You what?

Nelves regrowing a new tree would be groan worthy.

As opposed to what....not having a home? They need to have a city of their own since they are without one since BFA.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think there's multiple things that don't have a direct explanation that could be seen as a vague leak:
- Survivor class
- Galakrond's Fall map
- World Tree 2 map
- Hearthstone Tavern
- New human buildings
- 9.0 seamless teleporting experiments (between maps, not the Torghast stuff)
- Professions land map
- JasonTest Kalimdor map
- Emerald drake mount

Which of these ends up being nothing/something else/a dev experiment/an actual sign remains to be seen, but there's a lot of this stuff and likely even more we missed/discarded.

What exactly is the Hearthstone Tavern? Never heard about that. Everything else I've heard about though and seeing a Professions Land Map is not strange considering it has become more and more pressing matter during the last few expansions.

[Marlamin]

You what?

Nelves regrowing a new tree would be groan worthy.

There was a "World Tree 2" map in the game's map database file until 9.2 which renamed it to the most inconspicuous word in the game: "UNUSED".

Well I think I can safely say the next expansion won't be about Hearthstone.

Rest of those, good point.

The Hearthstone Tavern will always have a place in my heart and I will keep bringing it up (as well as the scrapped buddy cop scenario) anywhere I can.

What exactly is the Hearthstone Tavern? Never heard about that. Everything else I've heard about though and seeing a Professions Land Map is not strange considering it has become more and more pressing matter during the last few expansions.

It is my favorite unused model in the game, super cozy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEcN-RnYnk It also has links to the new human buildings in sharing many of the textures.