Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Sondrelk]

The dream lives on my friend, maybe 12.0...

Also this thread is now giving the exact same vibes as when we've got the dracthyr anagram, the whole "we've cracked it!" thing that ACTUALLY makes sense. I don't know if we'll be having a full on dwarf expansion or if it will just be one central zone themed around that, but it sure has this "unexpected twist" to it we've had with expansions like WoD, Legion, or BfA, so yeah I very much think it's the direction we're headed in.

The new boat models were probably related to that as well, if we are to sail on the other side of the continent. And the new IF guards will probably be our escort into Khaz Algar?

It will certainly be interesting to see how the leaks will look now that we know Khaz'algar is a definite.

Will we get a 10.3 leak? Will Khaz'algar be a name for somewhere we already know? What will the big defining feature be? How will Blizzard tie 11.0 into the 20th anniversary?

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I like how everyone is just jumping to the conclusion that it'll be a dwarf expansion.

The Earthen of Khaz Algar are not dwarves. They are titan-forged who became affected by the same fundamental forces which were behind the Curse of Flesh, but evidently not to the same degree. So they're still Earthen, but they're breaking out from the Titans' fold to form cultures and cities of their own.

It's also not a given that they're the main theme of the expansion, but rather part of the main theme. We don't know if their contributions to that is "dwarf stuff" or "storm stuff". It may well be the case, for example, that Khaz Algar represents the element of Wind, while there will also be other new zones that represent the other elements.

That in turn could just be how Blizzard mirrors the new zones of Cataclysm, while a world revamp of sorts is also in the cards.

Like Keyboardturner on Twitter pointed out, Blizzard moved Kalimdor to make room for something. Khaz Algar might be there.

She's supposed to return to rule over the land, sea, and air. Not the cave, the dwarven inn, and the gryphon roost.

The lore tidbits we already have on Khaz'algar specifically states that the inhabitants are the same as the Dwarves who emerged from Uldaman. Would be very weird if they were not dwarves at all, especially when Gryphons are already a Dwarf staple, and we have found some Dwarf assets.

[Raetary]

I'm on team revamp, but even then I don't fully believe the whole Dwarf expansion possibility... if at most... All I can see is a possible raid for them. People are only looking at the mount and not the rest of the achievements that were uncovered which includes S.A.F.E, murloc Ysera, Lil'Maggz... all this stuff on top of the Algarian Stormrider... It doesn't scream Elemental theme or Dwarf theme if we look at all of them.

I mentioned this before but... what if the Stormrider stuff is meant to promote Active Flying (Dragonriding) coming to EK and Kalimdor and for all flying mounts? Who else in those continents are the masters of flying aside from the Flightmasters? ...Wildhammer Dwarves, the Dragonmaw Clan, and the Wind Riders.

S.A.F.E is the name of the Rumble mascot, Ysera has focus in 10.2 (which will inevitable recapped at Blizzcon)
Who knows who maggz is supposed to be, but a single pet hardly matters.

The actual meat is the heroic edition achievement, which is named after Khaz Algar.
As well as the Gryphon texture, that does not visually align with any currently known Dwarf clan.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Yeah sadly i think at this point 11.0 for revamp is not happening and i won't lie, even with my 0,01% hopium that it will happen, the hype died a little in me.

Like i mentioned before, dwarves are my second most played race and i think it would be cool to have a zone around them plus maybe some raid, but there are questions about just next expansion like

If it will be heavily elemental themed, how different will they make it to feel as something fresh and not just another patch of elemental themes we have around us in DF.

If it will actually end up as whole undeground expansion at least in the beginning which i think would be a huge mistake for highlighting completely new land, even if they somehow tailored it in a way to the zones having actual sky, but undeground(which to me would feel kinda caverns of time and even there i still feel pretty much that im underground or in a cave).

Will it just feel like another island with 5 zones and main factions having very little involvement again.

High chance for no new races until maybe 12.0(pure speculation but rip ogre or vrykul or mok'nathal dream for me again) so hopefully, they at least will give another batch of customizations for all races beyond Blood elves getting constant updates.

[PaladinBash]

Seems pretty reasonable to expect these Dwarfs to be a faction of some kind in the new zone. Who or what they are is open to speculation but I imagine it's some kind of Titan facility or area with shenanigans going on. I don't think you can spin that into an entire expansion though. Maybe the Void will get the upper hand and Medivh will open a portal to Yrel's army to come cleanse them at the end. Maybe Iridikron will get shitcanned right off the bat and accomplish nothing and we get caught up in conflict with Xal or some other local evil that's woken up. I don't think it's going to be Dwarfs all the way down. I don't think it's gonna just be elementals everywhere. I mean fuck what are we gonna do? Resurrect Ragnaros and help him go on a redemption arc to become the Firelord again? All kinds of whacky things can happen.

[Alithia]

There is enought space in the old (revamped) world to put some dungeons in raid in there, e.g. stuff that was runoured to be in Classic+, like the Scarlet Cathedral.

[Woggmer]

S.A.F.E is the name of the Rumble mascot, Ysera has focus in 10.2 (which will inevitable recapped at Blizzcon)
Who knows who maggz is supposed to be, but a single pet hardly matters.

The actual meat is the heroic edition achievement, which is named after Khaz Algar.
As well as the Gryphon texture, that does not visually align with any currently known Dwarf clan.

S.A.F.E. is also the name for the Gnome group in Cata that was charged with pulling people out of Gnomergan when it was irradiated. There's also the Survey Bot.
And we don't know how big of a role Khaz Algar would be, if it's a continent, a zone, or a dungeon/raid... For all we know the Algarian Stormrider can just as easily be linked to promoting Active Riding coming to all mounts... (What I'm saying is this, we could get Khaz Algar early in the expansion or get it later on. We know it's coming in the next expansion, but we don't know what form it'll take.)

[Auxis]

I suppose it's possible that the Algarian dwarves could be the heretics on Avaloren, still bit unclear on how that would work though.

My main question is what was in that fissure that caused them to change? An unknown old god/faceless? Is the Curse of Flesh exclusively a void/old god thing? Is it a Life magic thing, given how Life on Draenor was responsible for the Breakers gradually evolving into their fleshy descendants?

[pacotaco]

Even now, the Harbinger gathers the children of the first flesh to reclaim what was lost. They must remember their vows and serve those to whom they owe fealty.

While they toil in the deep places, we will journey to the shores of dragon lands, to the blessed isle where the Worldbreaker first embraced the whispers.

Xal'atath, the Harbinger, has returned to force the earthen of Khaz Algar back into servitude. They are currently working to reclaim something lost below the earth, aeons ago. While they're kept busy, the Naga make for the Forbidden Reach where Deathwing once succumbed to the whispers of the Old Gods.

My interpretation is that the children of the first flesh are the Djaradin
Probably titan-forged Nal ks'kol that were changed into fleshy-lava giants by whatever was in the Void portal in Zaralek. Then Neltharion went there, found it all upside-down and though "well, I can use this", constructed his laboratory on top of the Void portal, and captured Djaradin to experiment on them.

Now, Iridikron needs them to recover some Void related McGuffin, and that's why they're helping Fyrakk to get the components for what I suspect is the axe he has in the raid. We still don't know what they would get in exchange.

The second part refers to them being in Zaralek, while the naga go the Forbidden Reach.

[Holdodlig]

If we have a whole expansion based around a titan facility, then we should start looking for hints in the Hearthstone artworks to see what kind of stuff we could expect, like Norgannon's multocolor spells. Maybe we'll even see Amitus in game ?

[vintage79]

If we have a whole expansion based around a titan facility, then we should start looking for hints in the Hearthstone artworks to see what kind of stuff we could expect, like Norgannon's multocolor spells. Maybe we'll even see Amitus in game ?

this new 'titan' = HERESY

[AOL Instant Messenger]

It is absurd how much magic in WoW uses different shades of green.
Lime Green = Fel
Seafoam Green = Maldraxxus
Emerald Green = Nature magic
Olive/Pickle Green = Decay

but the Griffin aura asset we found uses a Teal Blue color. So it isn't anything that we're used to.

Spoiler: 

I think this is pretty similar to saronite. It's not a precise match, but it looks consistent to me. The color scheme overall brings to mind Northrend for me.

[Raetary]

snip
I think this is pretty similar to saronite. It's not a precise match, but it looks consistent to me. The color scheme overall brings to mind Northrend for me.

Oh boy, more Yogg shenanigans.

Praise be!

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Saronite does spring to mind. But I think it's more likely Yogg-Saron drew his powers from whatever was below Khaz Algar. Potentially the 5th Old God, who is depicted with bones and leaves in Chronicles.

Retroactively ascribing the qualities of something people like that exists to another being made from whole cloth is wholly consistent with the current trends of the writing team.

[Nymrohd]

The dream lives on my friend, maybe 12.0...

Also this thread is now giving the exact same vibes as when we've got the dracthyr anagram, the whole "we've cracked it!" thing that ACTUALLY makes sense. I don't know if we'll be having a full on dwarf expansion or if it will just be one central zone themed around that, but it sure has this "unexpected twist" to it we've had with expansions like WoD, Legion, or BfA, so yeah I very much think it's the direction we're headed in.

The new boat models were probably related to that as well, if we are to sail on the other side of the continent. And the new IF guards will probably be our escort into Khaz Algar?

All we can reasonably say is that we will be heading to Khaz Algar in the next expac. We don't know if it is in Avaloren or anywhere else and we don't know why we are going there and what else is there. We absolutely know that there is a series of events we can expect in the next few expansions with the Harbinger (presumably Xal) somehow seizing the World Soul, Iridikron trying to bait the Titans and Azshara taking advantage of any opportunity presented. And it does make sense that we will visit Avaloren eventually. But we have no guarantees whatsoever that this will happen in the immediate next expansion. Heck we cannot even tell with any certainty that 10.2 is the last non-Fated season of Dragonflight.

And the idea that because we know about dwarves, all that the next expac will have is dwarves, is beyond laughable.

[Santandame]

Well as I said before; Just because the mount is based on Khaz Algar doesn't mean the expansion is based on Khaz Algar. The Dragonflight mount was based on the Emerald Dream and we're almost a year into Dragonflight and we still haven't gone to the Emerald Dream.

We will in 10.2, but that's over a year after 10.0.

I wonder how much time we spent in Kul Tiras, Zandalar and Shadowlands.

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Just pointing out:
Mop -Imperial Quilen , was a Mogu expansion?
WoD - Dread Raven , was a Arakkoa expansion?
Legion-Reins of the Illidari Felstalker - was a Illidan expasion?
SL-Ensorcelled Everwyrm - was a Sperm Expansion?
DF-Tangled Dreamweaver - was a Emerald Dream expansion?

- Quillen were a companion race to the most prominent Pandarian enemy.
- Arakkoa and Dread Ravens were featured pretty prominently in WoD.
- Well yes, it kind of was an Illidan expansion. That aside, the felstalker were demons in an expansion featuring demons as the main enemy.
- The Everwyrms were used as the main method of transportation throughout the Shadowlands.
- It’s a dragon mount; for a dragon expansion.

You also missed out the Zandalari and Kul Tiran mounts, conveniently.

I’m not sure what point you were trying to make but I don’t think it went down the way you were expecting.

[Grimbold21]

It's about time the game has an expansion focused on the best race

[Santandame]

With that said, Khaz Algar likely won't even be the focus of the expansion. It'll likely be a part of it, but the central focus of the expansion simply hasn't been revealed yet. Think about it; If all we had prior to DF's announcement was "Tangled Dreamweaver" as a clue we'd all think we're getting an Emerald Dream expansion next.

And you'd be flat wrong.

The focus will probably be Undermine, right?

Right?

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Also i hope this character won't appear in next expansion if it's dwarven themed.. Or at least until the VA is changed.

Dragon riders, I gotta race em.

[Harbour]

Idk, imo elemental and titan stuff was very heavy already in DF, with Primalists and Protodragons, and also Tyr's quest line and Tyrhold, that another round of Elemental and Titans story in 11.0 would look to me completely out of picture if not for that leaked stuff.
Its copium but i almost want that API leaked stuff to be a red herring thrown by Blizzard themselves to troll players and then roll out the full blown LvsV expansion on Blizzcon panel.

[TeamWorldRevamp]

that's right. we assumed that Khaz Alagar was on Avaloren, but nowhere does it mention that it's there specifically
maybe...
maybe the world revamp is still a possibility after all...

It's the only possible way to revive the hype for retail...

[Harbour]

Plot twist - Avaloren and Khaz Algar are on K'aresh.