Dragonflight 10.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Schwert]

Soft reboot of lore right now is troublesome.
I don't want "new" lore with entirely made up concepts. I want expansions on the things I'm already playing and invested in.

We keep getting NPC races with more world building than playable races.
I don't want more stuff like these new Centaur when Vulpera and Void Elves are sitting there having to make up a million headcanons just to have a basic roleplaying game experience.

Other side of the world?
Can't care.
I want updates on what's happening with what's already there.

[RahEndymion]

Taliesin had an interesting idea, that going to the other side of Azeroth might be the start of several new expansions. Basically, a whole new side of Azeroth with multiple continents to be released over the next few years, which would allow Blizzard to do a soft reboot of the lore and offer new lands similar to EK and KA without having to revamp those.

Pretty sure Tali is just following this thread. I say that, because this is from May:

Rather than unlock the whole continent in 11.0, I think it would make a shit ton more sense to set up a EK/Kali sized continent, and have that be the basis for multiple expansions where the lore is built and expanded upon and it slowly gets unlocked over time. I know the usual characters will say this would be 'too samey' or something like that but honestly, there is absolutely no reason why you couldn't have more cosmically influenced zones / areas within such a large space. It would give them more room to fully flesh things out too rather than just a spontaneous 'LOOK NEW ISLAND'.

I know this isn't going to happen because it would make me far too happy.

Which I still think would be the best possible outcome. There is nothing I would like more than to be able to see the zones of the next xpac on the map, have been working towards getting them unlocked and finding out what's inside and then to finally get a prepatch where a wall comes down or a barrier is breached and so on. That sort of long term thinking is really missing in current wow.

[Hitei]

Pretty sure Tali is just following this thread. I say that, because this is from May:



Which I still think would be the best possible outcome. There is nothing I would like more than to be able to see the zones of the next xpac on the map, have been working towards getting them unlocked and finding out what's inside and then to finally get a prepatch where a wall comes down or a barrier is breached and so on. That sort of long term thinking is really missing in current wow.

Having a map full of places that do not exist and can't be accessed because there's just some magic wall or fog in the way sounds awful.

[RahEndymion]

Having a map full of places that do not exist and can't be accessed because there's just some magic wall or fog in the way sounds awful.

Why? It's the same amount of zones and same size as any other expansion? What is it you find that is worse than 'here's an island that didn't exist for the last 15 years of flying/sailing over this patch of ocean' ?

[Berkilak]

MI don't want more stuff like these new Centaur when Vulpera and Void Elves are sitting there having to make up a million headcanons just to have a basic roleplaying game experience.

More to the point, I don’t want new Centaur when we already have existing Centaur that necessitate the use of the word “new” to differentiate from.

If you want to dig deeper into Centaur culture? Revisit the Centaur. Want to give us softer Centaur? Show us the Centaur getting to that point.

I don’t mind new additions. What gets on my nerves is replacing and reinventing.

[Worldshaper]

Soft reboot of lore right now is troublesome.
I don't want "new" lore with entirely made up concepts. I want expansions on the things I'm already playing and invested in.

We keep getting NPC races with more world building than playable races.
I don't want more stuff like these new Centaur when Vulpera and Void Elves are sitting there having to make up a million headcanons just to have a basic roleplaying game experience.

Other side of the world?
Can't care.
I want updates on what's happening with what's already there.

I think there's room for a nice middle ground. Think of a family tree. Two people alive today who are third cousins probably don't know each other, and have very little in common. But a couple hundred years ago, the branches came from two shared great-great (etc) grandparents.

If we went to a new place, there can still be traces of old lore which unites new with old.

There can be Titan relics.

There can be shipwrecked sailors who, over hundreds of years, formed colonies and started to spread (think of America, except if Europe had no knowledge of what's going on).

There can be Naga, Murlocs, and Gnolls. The fundamental pieces of what makes Azeroth into what it is could be in place.

BUT.

What we wouldn't necessarily have to deal with:

- Anduin
- Sylvanas
- Outdated cities
- Horde v Alliance
- The Dark Portal opening for the umpteenth time
- The Lich King's legacy being mishandled again
- Etc

It would be a way to write new stories and adventures I'm a familiar setting.

[Kiivar86]

Having a map full of places that do not exist and can't be accessed because there's just some magic wall or fog in the way sounds awful.

Isn't that basically what already happens? Suddenly new islands or whatever appear out of the fog or ether or what have you.

[Hitei]

Why? It's the same amount of zones and same size as any other expansion? What is it you find that is worse than 'here's an island that didn't exist for the last 15 years of flying/sailing over this patch of ocean' ?

You kill a boss. It drops a pair of item level scaling gloves, which you loot and equip.

You kill a boss, it drops two items gloves and boots. You loot the gloves like normal, but when you go to mouse over the boots, instead of displaying the regular gear tooltip, you get a message that says "unlocks in two years". It's still just a regular pair of boots, but it only exists as a placeholder, non-viewable item for the next two years.

In both these situations "you get the same amount". One is a significantly less enjoyable experience.

It's the same as playing an early access game, walking down a path, finding a fork and when you try to go left you get an "Area to be added in future update" message. All it does is break immersion and create a hypothetical thing that you want to interact with, but can't because it isn't actually in the game, it's just a placeholder. Better to just have the single path and then when you want to add another area, make the path split than have the player running into artificial walls.

I would rather have a single continent map that expands into a two continent map, and then a three continent map, than have a three continent map knowing that 2/3 of that it's gonna be half a decade before one of those three places is even accessible. Especially when it means that there's no surprise about what is coming next because it's going to be that second place you already have on your map, and the third (or those are getting delayed a couple years).

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Isn't that basically what already happens? Suddenly new islands or whatever appear out of the fog or ether or what have you.

Pressing 1 for Lightning Bolt and having a cast bar come up, and pressing 1 for sinister strike and then waiting for energy and GCD are, in distilled essence, the exact same action of pressing the same button every second or two to attack an enemy. Their presentation is everything.

There is a large difference in experience between a map full of invisible walls and areas that aren't actually there, and a map that is fully explorable to which additional things are added, even if the distilled essence is that both involve a similar size of landmass and more places later.

[RahEndymion]

You kill a boss. It drops a pair of item level scaling gloves, which you loot and equip.

You kill a boss, it drops two items gloves and boots. You loot the gloves like normal, but when you go to mouse over the boots, instead of displaying the regular gear tooltip, you get a message that says "unlocks in two years". It's still just a regular pair of boots, but it only exists as a placeholder, non-viewable item for the next two years.

In both these situations "you get the same amount". One is a significantly less enjoyable experience.

It's the same as playing an early access game, walking down a path, finding a fork and when you try to go left you get an "Area to be added in future update" message. All it does is break immersion and create a hypothetical thing that you want to interact with, but can't because it isn't actually in the game, it's just a placeholder. Better to just have the single path and then when you want to add another area, make the path split than have the player running into artificial walls.

I would rather have a single continent map that expands into a two continent map, and then a three continent map, than have a three continent map knowing that 2/3 of that it's gonna be half a decade before one of those three places is even accessible. Especially when it means that there's no surprise about what is coming next because it's going to be that second place you already have on your map, and the third (or those are getting delayed a couple years).

Okay, but that's not actually analogous at all. In the scenario I described you would will get two usable items and the third would be outside of your level range. You're getting the same and more that is withheld, rather than half and half like you suppose.

In the scenario I described, you can literally have a mountain that is unscalable, a lake that you cannot cross due to fatigue or a desert that does likewise. You don't even have to have it shown on the minimap. The whole point is that you are getting one single coherent landmass with a single coherent narrative set much like you do in vanilla.

Do you really just want random mini contents of 4-5 zones that appear one day forever all because the idea of having to work towards or wait for something triggers you?

That sounds truly absurd. You've had a lot of L takes in this thread lol.

[Alanar]

Hardmode drops hero track gear and aspect crests

Let's goooooo

If I would be running these modes because X, I would be pretty darn dissapointed with these rewards lol.

I understand excitement over gorehowl etc, but tracker set...or some weird wooden shite on my back.. Who the f cares?

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There are better ways to show infinite motivations than with having the player help keep Alexstraza trapped, given how messed up that bit of lore is it's better not to be involved.

What was so messed up, that you are spefically mention it?

[Skytotem]

What was so messed up, that you are spefically mention it?

Basically the Dragonmaw used the demon soul to keep Alexstraza imprisoned and forced her and her consorts to make more eggs, which basically means both were raped, this is an exceptionally messy and fucked up concept that I'm not a fan of in general, the lore from WC2 to WC3 and day of the dragon went through a lot of clunky retcons that blizz didn't really handle well to explain the change in direction, and while I am a huge fan of orcs having nuance, the way they went about the parts of keeping the dragons imprisoned are... bad.

[Hitei]

Okay, but that's not actually analogous at all. In the scenario I described you would will get two usable items and the third would be outside of your level range. You're getting the same and more that is withheld, rather than half and half like you suppose.

What? In the first version you got one item off a boss.
In the second version you get one item off a boss (and one placeholder).

The same + a "withheld" hypothetical future item.

In the scenario I described, you can literally have a mountain that is unscalable, a lake that you cannot cross due to fatigue or a desert that does likewise. You don't even have to have it shown on the minimap. The whole point is that you are getting one single coherent landmass with a single coherent narrative set much like you do in vanilla.

That isn't what happened in Vanilla at all though. Putting aside "a single coherent narrative" (which... lmao, it's harder to get farther from what Vanilla actually was than that), what Vanilla actually ended up doing was having dozens of complete dead end and half-formed hooks that they simply hadn't fleshed out, based around things that just didn't exist. "There's something under the ground here" where "something" meant "we didn't write anything, maybe one day a story will use that hook"; "There's rocks in the way (because there's not actually anything on the other side of these hills yet)". "This person went missing, maybe one day a future quest will address what actually happened."

Do you really just want random mini contents of 4-5 zones that appear one day forever all because the idea of having to work towards or wait for something triggers you?

That sounds truly absurd. You've had a lot of L takes in this thread lol.

No, if you stopped trying to deflect with bad strawman arguments and ad hominems, and bothered to actually read, you'd pretty easily see that what I want is an unfettered cohesive explorable world, not a piecemeal collection of timegated zones where there's some innane reason for not being able to just step into the next place that's so contrived it makes "unexplored island no one's bothered to go to yet" look deep and thoughtful.

The fact that you're having to justify barring exploration and dividing up the world into off-limit areas with shit like "lol you can't go around this lake, to the completely visible far shore that is even noted on your map as a known place... because um, you'd get tired if you tried to swim it?" should make it self-evident how much shittier an approach releasing sections of a larger continent is.

[Kiivar86]

Pressing 1 for Lightning Bolt and having a cast bar come up, and pressing 1 for sinister strike and then waiting for energy and GCD are, in distilled essence, the exact same action of pressing the same button every second or two to attack an enemy. Their presentation is everything.

There is a large difference in experience between a map full of invisible walls and areas that aren't actually there, and a map that is fully explorable to which additional things are added, even if the distilled essence is that both involve a similar size of landmass and more places later.

I don't really see the difference, honestly. We've had areas with invisible walls, with domes, with fog, islands just over yonder that we can't reach for XYZ. So I don't see why it is suddenly a concern.

[huth]

Basically the Dragonmaw used the demon soul to keep Alexstraza imprisoned and forced her and her consorts to make more eggs, which basically means both were raped, this is an exceptionally messy and fucked up concept that I'm not a fan of in general, the lore from WC2 to WC3 and day of the dragon went through a lot of clunky retcons that blizz didn't really handle well to explain the change in direction, and while I am a huge fan of orcs having nuance, the way they went about the parts of keeping the dragons imprisoned are... bad.

It being messy and fucked up was kinda the point there. The Dragonmaw of the time were messy and fucked up. That does not make the lore itself messed up, however.
It seems you're more concerned with the story being "tidy" than what is actually being portrayed. War is always messy. WarCraft having messy events in its lore is inevitable.

[Worldshaper]

They could also do other Cosmic Domains.

God, I hope not.

[Skytotem]

It being messy and fucked up was kinda the point there. The Dragonmaw of the time were messy and fucked up. That does not make the lore itself messed up, however.
It seems you're more concerned with the story being "tidy" than what is actually being portrayed. War is always messy. WarCraft having messy events in its lore is inevitable.

If you're going to write a story about the horror of war, or the tragedy of rape, you'd need to give it more attention to detail and gravity than WoW's writers have been capable of.

Just including edgy fucked up things doesn't make a story 'good' or give it some intrinsic value.

The sexual assault parts of the dragonmaw plotline are a square peg in a round hole, the tone of warcraft doesn't fit with them anymore and arguably never did.

[Alanar]

Basically the Dragonmaw used the demon soul to keep Alexstraza imprisoned and forced her and her consorts to make more eggs, which basically means both were raped, this is an exceptionally messy and fucked up concept that I'm not a fan of in general, the lore from WC2 to WC3 and day of the dragon went through a lot of clunky retcons that blizz didn't really handle well to explain the change in direction, and while I am a huge fan of orcs having nuance, the way they went about the parts of keeping the dragons imprisoned are... bad.

Uhm, I really thought you meant something else entirely, not really about the story itself.

Frankly I am huge supporter for freedom of story and also freedon for comedians etc. I mean its just a story..so idk how I feel about this. I heard about the story, but again to me its just a story. It probably has something to do with that is a kids game 12+.

[Le Conceptuel]

They could also do other Cosmic Domains.

Oh, surely we must enjoy the presence of the ineffable First Ones. I mean, they're like the Titans, but Danuser says they're cooler. Ergo, they must be cooler.

Frankly I am huge supporter for freedom of story and also freedon for comedians etc. I mean its just a story..so idk how I feel about this. I heard about the story, but again to me its just a story.

The issue is a profound risk of tonal overcorrection moving forward. Dragonflight is a microcosm of this, and it's all very unpleasant. In spite of generally having a better and more sensible story than the main plotline in BfA and the entirety of Shadowlands, Dragonflight has been tonally-insufferable. It's very good in every other respect, which makes the tone even more frustrating. Hopefully, 11.0 will go ahead and take a darker turn to put everything back on course. Unfortunately, I do fear that daring to touch a sufficiently-dark topic in the future will set Twitter frothing. Although I'm still very uncertain about the original variant of the Alexstrasza quest making the protagonist a retroactive quasi-accessory in Alexstrasza's rape, I am very certain in my opposition to overcorrection leading to the scrubbing of all content of that stripe. I fear that they'll start scrubbing even where it doesn't feel reflective of Blizzard's real-world history, and we know full well that the execs will take any opportunity to placate privileged Twitter users who value surface-level acknowledgments of their feelings over any signal of valuable alteration in their conduct.

In regards to how I would like to see things work going forward, I think the ideal tone is something closer to BfA. I think it was one of the better expansions in its general tone, but it was made very awkward by the Teletubbies philosophy the protagonists expounded and the one-dimensional portrayal of the forces of both good and evil. If Blizzard elevates the nuance of the moral frameworks the characters employ, I could see an expansion with a similar tone turning out to be the most appealing vision of WarCraft, at least to me.

[huth]

Uhm, I really thought you meant something else entirely, not really about the story itself.

Frankly I am huge supporter for freedom of story and also freedon for comedians etc. I mean its just a story..so idk how I feel about this. I heard about the story, but again to me its just a story. It probably has something to do with that is a kids game 12+.

Yeah, that's a better reason to keep it out. The subject matter is a bit much for a T/12+ rated game.

[Alanar]

Yeah, that's a better reason to keep it out. The subject matter is a bit much for a T/12+ rated game.

Thats the only reason i could come up with.
Like I said to me this is part of storytelling and it should hit with the reader, but not this topic in a 12+ game.