Dragonflight 10.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't think we should even think about the other Zereths for now. It should be a long while before a Zereth is visited upon. Also I am sympathetic to the "Well we're eventually gonna go to all the Zereths and its predictable".

I don’t think any one should ever think of Zereths ever again the writers should drop that crap completely.

[Gurahk]

I don’t think any one should ever think of Zereths ever again the writers should drop that crap completely.

Seconding this.

[Hitei]

I don’t think any one should ever think of Zereths ever again the writers should drop that crap completely.

Zereths are perfectly fine, the other ones just don't need to be visited.

[Berkilak]

Let's not get bogged down with relitigating the quality of Shadowlands lore, unless it's directly relevant to the future.

[Cheezits]

Not really speculation but I do wonder if Emberthal and Sarkareth's general aesthetics should've been switched. It would've made more sense if the "Neltharion Wannabe" looked really similar to him, and Emberthal being Ebyssian's right hand would have more of an impact of she didn't look like a black dragon IMO.

[Le Conceptuel]

I know retcons aren't ideal. But I genuinely hope they retcon the crap out of all that additional cosmic lore they invented for Shadowlands.

Just hearing the word "Zereth" makes me nauseous.

Bred from flesh-pools of lingering trite,
Danuser's drivel did take flight
And cast a dreadful blight:
Zereth, Zereth, Zereth...
Lingered o'er banks of fair Lethe,
Which spanned the way of sare death.
'twas Death which drew great guffaws
From groans grown from scarce applause;
Once-evident the precedent of once-forgotten laws,
Such cheap turgid swill makes one take pause.

[Le Conceptuel]

I'm a fan of perpetual mystery in fiction. The fate of the Blue Wizards and Ent-wives in Lord of the Rings. The driving force for the return of Honored Matres in Dune. Akavir and the Dwemer in Elder Scrolls. The answer to all of these questions is always going to be less satisfying than the mystery itself, and the presence of these mysteries creates the illusion than the fictional setting is more expansive than it actually is.

In connection to the Dwemer, there is actually an answer to what happened to them,—I'll elaborate if you're unfamiliar, but I'll leave it spoilered in case you ever want to read C0DA or the like yourself,—but it's esoteric enough that it feels like a mystery in itself: what is alleged to have happened (at least in Kirkbride lore) is that the Dwemer soul-stacked in the subgradient (though it's unclear if all individuals involved consented or not) to form Anumidium, which served as the embodiment of their philosophy of refutation. Similarly, although this is far more dubious, some have asserted that Akavair is probably the Kalpa succeeding the one in which the Nirn we're familiar with exists (Akavir being a product of the events of C0DA), rather than another continent.

[Worldshaper]

Zereths are perfectly fine, the other ones just don't need to be visited.

Disagree on this one.

- They spoil the magic. Suddenly, the Emerald Dream isn't just this cool and ultimate expression or nature and life. It now plays second fiddle to "Zereth Vitae", lol.
- They become too formulaic for creation myth lore, given how there are supposedly six of them, and we know how at least one of them looks and operates. Future expansions will feel like an Excel sheet waiting to be filled.
- Their names are arguably worse than the Norse stuff in WoW. Vitae? Lumen? I'm not sure if these sound more like the ideas of a 12 year old aspiring author who just read Harry Potter for the first time and decided to give writing a shot, or a new line of smart home products found on Amazon. Either way, it's too damn on the nose to use well known Latin words for location names.

[Le Conceptuel]

Their names are arguably worse than the Norse stuff in WoW. Vitae? Lumen? I'm not sure if these sound more like the ideas of a 12 year old aspiring author who just read Harry Potter for the first time and decided to give writing a shot, or a new line of smart home products found on Amazon. Either way, it's too damn on the nose to use well known Latin words for location names.

Latin is a tongue
Of beauty e'er profound.
But beware of overuse,
For such overuse abounds!
"Seek obscurer phrases, please!"
I'll say upon my knees,
For variety is key
To use it well, at least for me.

And though to say such things
May make me sound a geek,
Would it do you such great harm
To give a try to Greek?

- - - Updated - - -

- They spoil the magic. Suddenly, the Emerald Dream isn't just this cool and ultimate expression or nature and life. It now plays second fiddle to "Zereth Vitae", lol.
- They become too formulaic for creation myth lore, given how there are supposedly six of them, and we know how at least one of them looks and operates. Future expansions will feel like an Excel sheet waiting to be filled.

It doesn't help that the Cosmic Forces are ill-defined in scope and yet simultaneously too narrow and limited in their prospects. There's not much done to distinguish them or give them any metaphysical weight; this is bad enough when they're reduced to categories of Pokémon, but it also much means that any expansions cognate to them them will invariably be a jaunt through throngs of deliberately one-dimensional morons whose entire personalities are limited to their respective one-note subsections of the Cosmic Force in question.

As a further point of agreement, it's hardly riveting worldbuilding when everything is categorized so easily to begin with. It preempts much in the way of variety or unique exploration of the manifold facets of the universe when each of those facets are slotted comfortably into their respective Cosmic Forces.

[Berkilak]

In connection to the Dwemer, there is actually an answer to what happened to them,—I'll elaborate if you're unfamiliar, but I'll leave it spoilered in case you ever want to read C0DA or the like yourself,—but it's esoteric enough that it feels like a mystery in itself: what is alleged to have happened (at least in Kirkbride lore) is that the Dwemer soul-stacked in the subgradient (though it's unclear if all individuals involved consented or not) to form Anumidium, which served as the embodiment of their philosophy of refutation. Similarly, although this is far more dubious, some have asserted that Akavair is probably the Kalpa succeeding the one in which the Nirn we're familiar with exists (Akavir being a product of the events of C0DA), rather than another continent.

I'm familiar. The difference being that there are crumbs provided in Elder Scrolls for us to piece together what happened ourselves, and even then, there are still competing theories with varying degrees of legitimacy. There's a huge difference between that and simply picking up a quest and having the NPC spout the entire lore bible at you, not relevant to the current narrative. World building can be done as an exercise unto itself (Elden Ring and Dragonflight being great examples, in their own ways), but it cannot be relied upon to substitute for an actual narrative when delivering a narrative is the primary goal.

[Telogrus]

I hope we get a Vakthros megadungon in 10.2.5.

Vakthros is still a bit of a mystery, and iirc some people were speculating that it serves as a prison for enemies of the Blues. Would be cool if we fight Chromatus in there. Vakthros seems a bit too well designed for how criminally under used it is in DF. Why give it such a cool and imposing design if it's only relevant for like 3 story quests while leveling in Azure Span?

[Worldshaper]

On the topic of a potential world revamp, can anyone think of a zone which is basically a modern version of Elwynn? I'm struggling.

Because if there isn't one, that's pretty crazy. Elwynn represents the quintessential fantasy experience. Human players who are drawn to that setting basically have nowhere to go, heh.

[Hugo88]

Next Patch 10.1.5 "Fractures in Time" is going to be Huge

There is an evil Chromie (oh Noes), & a lot of old characters come back through time travel with Chromie's help

There is Dragon riding in Kalimdor & new dungeons

Anyway Bellular explains more in this video

[Berkilak]

A little late to the party - that's been 90% of the discussion for the past 24 hours.

[Scyth]

A little late to the party - that's been 90% of the discussion for the past 24 hours.

It's a very obvious attempt to make people watch belular's video lol

Has blizzard said when the megadungeon will be available for testing btw? Can't see anything on the PTR (or maybe im daft and can't find it)

[Berkilak]

Why would someone do that? Is Blizzard giving YouTubers exclusive information these days?

[Le Conceptuel]

I'm familiar. The difference being that there are crumbs provided in Elder Scrolls for us to piece together what happened ourselves, and even then, there are still competing theories with varying degrees of legitimacy. There's a huge difference between that and simply picking up a quest and having the NPC spout the entire lore bible at you, not relevant to the current narrative. World building can be done as an exercise unto itself (Elden Ring and Dragonflight being great examples, in their own ways), but it cannot be relied upon to substitute for an actual narrative when delivering a narrative is the primary goal.

That's a strong point. I definitely agree that Blizzard could benefit from imitating Elder Scrolls, though I do feel the lack of mystery now may preclude that; an excess of information constructed around a highly constricted, specifically-categorized cosmological system is not conducive to speculation. The main issue with WoW's cosmology is that it is extremely limited in its prospects in spite of the nominal scale and weight that we're working with, and this has sort of put the cosmological worldbuilding into a precarious situation for which there seems to be no recourse.

[huth]

Next Patch 10.1.5 "Fractures in Time" is going to be Huge

There is an evil Chromie (oh Noes), & a lot of old characters come back through time travel with Chromie's help

There is Dragon riding in Kalimdor & new dungeons

And a good morning to you too. I hope your sleep went well, long as it was.

[Hitei]

Disagree on this one.

- They spoil the magic. Suddenly, the Emerald Dream isn't just this cool and ultimate expression or nature and life. It now plays second fiddle to "Zereth Vitae", lol.

I don't know what people's obsession with Zereth Vitae - Emerald Dream is. Hell, I don't understand people's obsession with the Dream to begin with. Not only are these two entirely different things, one being the the architect system for a hypothetical lifelands (this would be the actual Emerald Dream supplanter--which I feel like speaks to the quality of lore understanding typical to the out of hand dismissal of Zereths as a concept), the other being a back-up blueprint of Azeroth formed from shaped dreams of the world soul. But also the Dream was never anything cosmically important to begin with. It's role in lore was always being a glorified Titan experiment on Azeroth that fell to Old God corruption, the parallel to the elemental planes associated with the planet.

It doesn't have a place in the greater cosmic heirarchy to be replaced by a hypothetical lifelands, let alone any direct competition with a universe-rewriting, reality-crafting installation.

- They become too formulaic for creation myth lore, given how there are supposedly six of them, and we know how at least one of them looks and operates. Future expansions will feel like an Excel sheet waiting to be filled.

The nature of magic in wow has always been formulaic, so I don't understand how this complaint works. Are you also annoyed that each element has an elemental plane that is the most straightforward and obvious use of its elemental structure? The air one is in the air, and the water one is in the water, and the earth one is in the earth and the fire one is full of fire and lava. Are you annoyed that every great/world tree has some sort of portal to the Emerald Dream? Were you already annoyed to begin with that, before the Pattern was introduced, every one of the six cosmic forces had an associated <Pantheon> structure, and an associated school of magic? That, before the cosmic forces were outlined, the Titans themselves followed a straightforward checklist of each Titan corresponding to a specific domain?

This seems like such a completely arbitrary line to draw. Patterns are a fundamental of narrative structure. You're talking about an IP that, at it's most fundamental, original level, was formulaic <Orcs> vs <Humans>. Every step of the entire Warcraft universe has been developed as formulaic counter-balances and shared power structed; the Alliance and Horde, the Void and Light, the five Dragon Aspects each with their own color and domain and powers/elements, the four elemental schools each with their own Elemental Lord and Plane and split properties, etc. The seven Titans of the Pantheon, the ""four"" Old Gods contained in their own titan facilities with their own brand of bug-monsters, the six Cosmic Forces.

Why is the six cosmic realms and their associated Zereth installations the point where suddenly you're drawing a line?

- Their names are arguably worse than the Norse stuff in WoW. Vitae? Lumen? I'm not sure if these sound more like the ideas of a 12 year old aspiring author who just read Harry Potter for the first time and decided to give writing a shot, or a new line of smart home products found on Amazon. Either way, it's too damn on the nose to use well known Latin words for location names

Seems pretty nitpicky for a game that all but copy-pasted Lovecraft's cosmic entity names for its Lovecraftian cosmic entities. Named the group that rules over the Void, "Void Lords", calls death-magic using knights "Death Knights", people who dedicate themselves to hunting demons "Demon Hunters", dark-skinned nocturnal elves, "Night Elves", and the big bad killer dragon... "Deathwing".

But sure, yes, the names are just simple Latin words for the associated cosmic force.

-

Personally I find the First Ones and their installations and the Pattern to be a nice piece of bounding lore, and the natural extrapolation of the six sided cosmic forces structure--and it represents a strong reservoir to drip feed lore tidbits from and four additional planes to pull in encroaching threats from for future expansions.

I think people just like dogpiling whatever talking point is the big one at any given point in the game's lifespan without really putting much thought in it, and for Shadowlands it was "oh muh god, da lore is ruined!" (even though most of the people complaining about it were the sort to never give a shit about lore to begin with). It was pretty obvious this was what was happening when you had a whole bunch of people suddenly insisting that "death doesn't matter anymore!" as if it ever had in this IP.

[huth]

Can we not call the Zereth's "installafions"? They're far more than simply that. They're the origin point of the Cosmic Domains.

It's a pretty accurate description of what they are. Installations and factories. They're important factories, sure, but they're still just factories.


Exactly what the Deam is has never fully been clarified. We don't even know for certain if the Titans made it or simply co-opted it. We don't know for sure how closely they are tied to the Gardens of Life, either.