Any thoughts on 10.x being Dragon Isles? With Ysera having all this new lore, and Wrathion scheming with regards to some Dragon Isles mystery, it seems like the most compelling guess about the setting of the next expansion.
Do you think it will be a place on Azeroth - or perhaps a pocket dimension, where the Dragon Sanctums are located? I think it would be dope if the Obsidian and Ruby Sanctums appeared in the open world someplace, along with Bronze, Green and Blue themed zones.
I think 10.0 will be Legion on steroids, just like BfA was MoP on steroids and SL WoD on steroids. Dragon Isles are perfect as continent for expansion like this, mostly because it's last hinted big place in lore (on Azeroth) - I doubt Tel'Abim or Undermine would fit.
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So what you think about Sepulcher? All these finding for keys make it pretty obvious next goal for Jailer and place for 9.2 zone and raid. Same way it was obvious closing Legion portal was next step after collecting keys for that, but this time villain is doing whole collecting part.
Last edited by Dracullus; 2021-06-28 at 08:08 PM.
Dragon Isles would be far more preferable to what’s going on in this expansion. However, regardless of what the next expansion theme is, WoW really needs a new class. By the time we play 10.0, it would have been 6 years since Demon Hunters. That’s far too large a gap.
Fingers crossed that WoW: Undermine was a clever Blizzard leak and not just an April Fool’s gag.
Last edited by Teriz; 2021-06-29 at 02:50 PM.
I think from their recent interviews it's pretty clear what 9.1 really is.
This part here is very telling:
We had the sense that players would be contending with Sylvanas for a while now, that they would be delving into and learning more about the nature of the Maw, and the Jailer’s power in this first major content update. But, the specific details of the twists and turns the story is going to take, who the bosses in the raid are, even some of the major narrative moments that we’re going to see play out in the coming weeks are things that came together at the end of last year, and the beginning of this year.
Pretty sure they conceptually tacked 9.1 together in a short amount of time, the same time they made the decision to merge 9.1 and 9.2 (or to leave out 9.1 completely and make 9.2 the patch we're getting now) and end this expansion on 9.2(.5) and not 9.3. Sure, right now this is guesswork, but we'll know in 3-4 months. It just shows how much their development for Shadowlands and its content patches has been hit by COVID. The massive brain drain doesn't help either, but that's another story.
It's funny how they're already spreading the seeds for Sylvanas' redemption arc and how she'll be part of the game / franchise in the future. This is no coincidence and the delay of the Sylvanas novel isn't a coincidence either. Getting out of that storytelling corner they maneuvered themselves in is hard, isn't it?
Last edited by Nyel; 2021-06-29 at 03:03 PM.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
Classic Nyel, already spreading shade cause you don't understand quote.
Dude, most bosses in every raid are no names. It's obvious they started doing this raid and patch this year. Only boss that matter from plot perspective is Sylvanas, even Kelthuzad is not important at all in whole story, his purpose is just to draw some nostalgia, he could be replaced with random lich and nothing would happen.
But it doesn't mean Maw wasn't planned as season 2. Hell, it was even very easy to predict, in modern expansions (WoD onward) second raids always resolves initial plot (Iron Horde, gathering pillars, war on Kul Tiras/Zandalar) and always happen on existing land. Korthia and megadungeon probably wouldn't happen.
(Btw, legendary/future raid sets were called "Maw_raid" in Alpha/Beta for a reason.)
It also doesn't mean 9.1/9.2 are merged, 10.0 will have Tinker or tomorrow will be alien invasion. Stop treating every single piece of info as confirmation of your predictions. I told you people months ago that pushing so hard pro 9.3 or against 9.3 will just make you look like clown in the future. Cause we literally has no info.
If anything, the bolded parts strongly indicate that what 9.1 is what they've always planned, not some amalgamation of it and 9.2.
In terms of story development, that's what always happens - first you decide the overall direction of the main story and then you flesh it out by adding details or even changing stuff, based on internal and player feedback, at the early stages of development, which 9.1 just so happened to be at at the end of last year. That's not "telling" or surprising, it's normal.
And as for raid bosses, I think in WoD they had a blog on how they design raid bosses and the takeaway was that they start with the overall concept of the theme and story, i.e. who the main villain is, what the players are meant to achieve, what is the raid themed about, and then they populate the instance with bosses that match.
And it's not surprising that a lot of the bosses for Sanctum of Domination might have been thrown there based on what they were deciding to do with other suff, like after 9.0 they got a lot of feedback that people don't really enjoy the Eye of the Jailer or Torghast death limitation, so when they chose to change them, that's likely when the idea of having the Eye and Tarragrue as raid bosses came in, because a) it makes sense for the raid, b) people already know the names (which is important, because each raid needs a couple of reckognizeable bosses), c) a lot of folks will enjoy having a little payback and d) it helps explain why these mechanics are gone. I don't see anything strange in that.
Pretty sure you're trying way too hard to find confirmation for your theory, resulting in you seeing things that just aren't there - so far there's nothing in 9.1 that points towards 9.3 being cut (or being a thing). Like, we don't even know what will happen at the end of the raid, which is going to be the strongest indication. I mean, if it's just the Jailer winning and getting free then yeah, it will seem likely that we beat him in 9.2 and that's it, though - it's also entirely possible that the raid's ending will set up some other threat that we'll have to deal with before or after the Jailer or that their plans have changed and the Jailer is no longer meant to be the finall boss.
Thus I can agree with you on one thing - we'll see in a couple of weeks or even months. If there's nothing in 9.1 that points towards a major lore twist and they show us 9.2 with the Jailer as the raid boss then I can agree that no 9.3 is likely, but until then there's really no way to tell.
Last edited by Sarethion; 2021-06-29 at 11:27 PM.
When can we start expecting news on 10.0, blizzcon 2022?
We should be into 9.2 by then, no?
I guess we'll wrap up big blue man in 9.3 in about a year.
You guys better not be on some weird assumption that Zovaal isn’t the last boss…
bro
tyrande the archer strangling sylvanas...while she has daggers at her side
strangling her
not using the daggers
love plot armor
this is like the last jedi with the guard that was fighting rey and only used one knife while the other hand with a knife was just chilling
Assumption? No. Possibility? Definetely.
Look at WoD - it seemed like Grom Hellscream was going to be the final boss and yet we got Archimonde. Legion? Kil'jaeden or Sargeras were natural picks, but we got Argus. Battle for Azeroth? Half way through shifted to focus on the void with N'zoth as the main villain. It's entirely possible that they pull something like this again with Shadowlands, resulting in us beating the Jailer in 9.2 and having to deal with something else in 9.3.
I'm gonna be perfectly honest: I'm very surprised WoW "2.0"/Reboot/Whatever you call it hasn't happened yet because it makes perfect sense. The newer audiences find it extremely daunting to enter any game with a kazillion expansions. It doesn't even have to be such a big reboot since only a soft reboot that gets rid of the expansions and keeps the achievements of old players as feats of strength (so they don't complain about "muh thingies") sounds it would be enough or at least much better than the current situation of "here is a game with 150 expansions".