Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Xilurm]

Denathrius kinda felt this way. Diabolically evil, yet incredible charming and calculated.

Denathrius gives me hope that they are willing to write characters like him and Azshara still.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I think it would be cool if blizzard did something like broken shore pre-patch scenario again, where horde and alliance are in the same instance but fighting on 2 other sides of the zone.

Like that one boss in broken shore scenario that was going from alliance to horde side and we killed it together, now it would be even more fitting, given that for now at least, horde and alliance have peace.

[pacotaco]

So, if I understand this correctly, the realm of life has little pockets called dreams, and there's a pocket for every planet? And if you enter the dream and travel enough you can go to the actual plane of life?

It would make sense. SL works like a funnel of all worlds, so Life would works the reverse.

[Wangming]

Blizz: "Okay, let's get back to the basics. STORM DWARVES on LIGHTNING GRYPHONS."

People speculating on MMO-Champion: "Okay, so how can we connect this to the worst parts of Warcraft lore, the Zereths and the First Ones, and just turn it all into poo? Is Elune dating Eonar? :3"

To be fair it doesn't matter either way. Shadowlands wasn't bad because it was cosmic stuff. It was bad because it was just written bad. And going back to the basics won't matter if it is written like the faction war in BfA.

Also the way I gather, nothing really points towards a simple expansion.

Earthen studying a weird fissure, caverns filled with the corrupted roots of an ancient world tree, a far away land covered by storm that dragons don't pass through, but night elf pirates do. Also, 5th old god stuff. This very likely won't be simple.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Denathrius gives me hope that they are willing to write characters like him and Azshara still.

I'd like to see more of both, though ideally not together. I have seen people propose pairing them, but I think they're too similar to have an interesting dynamic.

[Murlocos]

Blizz: "Okay, let's get back to the basics. STORM DWARVES on LIGHTNING GRYPHONS."

People speculating on MMO-Champion: "Okay, so how can we connect this to the worst parts of Warcraft lore, the Zereths and the First Ones, and just turn it all into poo? Is Elune dating Eonar? :3"

I think part of the problem is that we're being given so many hooks, teasers, and setups for what feels like increasingly disparate settings rather than one cohesive world. I mean, let's just take one questline in 10.1.7. How many people have been getting excited over one line from Hatuun implying the possibility of playable Broken, or broadly some focus on the Broken or Argus? What are the odds that we see that actually return in 11.0? In 2 years, or 4 years, or ever?

The more they toss out intrigue in every possible direction, the more that an increasingly large group of people will be disappointed when things inevitably only move in one of those directions. I'm not sure if they understand that they're not exactly riding a wave of goodwill that permits them to keep stringing people along as they are now. If the Jailer had gotten years more foreshadowing and buildup, it still wouldn't mean much if the end product was the same. If Avaloren or Khaz Algar or whatever is underwhelming and disappointing, nobody will care that some lore books name dropped them in Dragonflight.

[Izalla]

I go to sleep a few hours, I come back and now Eonar and Elune are dating wooooooooooooooooooooooh

Personally I think she needs even more lovers. What is more "possibilities and randomness and change" than a life diety banging anything and everything to see what happens?! Them pesky titans and their "order" would be all "why would you mate with a deer and a woman? Surely nothing will result from that." And yet Cenarius was born from that deer sex! Jury is still out on whether or not Elune and Eonar banging could result in an equally "impossible" creature.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I was just wondering why Malorne matters realy, we have seen him once in Cata and he wasnt perse interesting..

But what you said makes sense, but with that makes elune an elf? Other half. Idk if thats the origin.

Malorne doesn’t really matter it’s Cenarius and all the dryads who do and there Elune/wild gods lineage.

[Jingliu]

I think it would be cool if blizzard did something like broken shore pre-patch scenario again, where horde and alliance are in the same instance but fighting on 2 other sides of the zone.

Like that one boss in broken shore scenario that was going from alliance to horde side and we killed it together, now it would be even more fitting, given that for now at least, horde and alliance have peace.

Agreed. That was dope.

[Wangming]

Denathrius gives me hope that they are willing to write characters like him and Azshara still.

Well he isn't completely gone so there is hope he might come back. I have this half baked expansion idea in my head where Denathrius as a sword corrupts an alternate universe Genn Greymane and convinces him to turn the Gilneans into vampires instead. They use a portal of sorts to visit MU Azeroth to gather more converts, and shit happens.
In the end Denathrius escaoes the sword and takes the amassed vampire army for himself. In the ensuing struggle MU Genn jumps in front of an attack intended for AU Liam as a call back to the Gilneas starting experience.
D man of course does not die so that he can be the more visible and active main villain of the next expansion.

[Cheezits]

TBH, Magatha Grimtotem is probably the closest thing we have to a feeble chessmaster right now. And she's still on track (got access to the Maelstrom and Doomstone... SOMEHOW )

[Houle]

Because Cosmic doesn’t instantly mean bad expansion.
Legion was cosmic (by your definition) and is still hailed as one of the best expansions.

I dont really think you can really compare Legion to any "cosmic" stuff that followed.

The BL is different from all the other cosmic threats bc its the original big main villain (and has been for the majority of the franchises history) and was formerly presented as uniquely big and dangerous. It was the single enemy that operated at that scale, even when Warcrafts lore was far more grounded, way before they came up with the idea that its actually just one faction among many of comparable status. Its what made them so unique back then.

[Sondrelk]

It appears that some posters here are desperate for another disastrous cosmic expansion.

Why? I have no idea.

Havent you been championing K'aresh and it's void ravaged surface for months now?

[Wangming]

I think part of the problem is that we're being given so many hooks, teasers, and setups for what feels like increasingly disparate settings rather than one cohesive world. I mean, let's just take one questline in 10.1.7. How many people have been getting excited over one line from Hatuun implying the possibility of playable Broken, or broadly some focus on the Broken or Argus? What are the odds that we see that actually return in 11.0? In 2 years, or 4 years, or ever?

I mean to be fair every expansion since WoD has been "bunch of disparate shit barely tied together by a common thread" I mean Dragonflight is about literally anything that might have a connection to dragons. Underground void stuff, time travel and emerald dream in the same bloody expansion.

[Sondrelk]

I would agree, but I would point to a big reason Shadowlands existed at all: DnD

The Forgotten Realms has this elaborate Afterlife lore; that Shadowlands lore is very much in the spirit of. That lore itself doesn't create problems, but at the same time nobody DMing their campaigns spends much time there. It's this whole world of lore nobody actually wants to interact with. But at the same time it doesn't ruin anything.

The idea of going to Avernus or the Maw is dope as shit, but in practice its not that easy to make it engrossing. The main difference here is DnD had to make the bottom layer of their Hell a cool Mad Max world where everyone rode giant deathtanks.
Well, if Mists of Pandaria is any indication their "cosmic" expansions don't have to be literally cosmic. They can also be spiritual or even futuristic.

Mists wasnt Cosmic though. It was faction war with a sprinkling of Old God to give it some weight. If BfA had actually linked N'zoth to the Faction war the expansions would have effectively had the same plot.

[Wangming]

Personally I think she needs even more lovers. What is more "possibilities and randomness and change" than a life diety banging anything and everything to see what happens?! Them pesky titans and their "order" would be all "why would you mate with a deer and a woman? Surely nothing will result from that." And yet Cenarius was born from that deer sex! Jury is still out on whether or not Elune and Eonar banging could result in an equally "impossible" creature.

Well a Life deity would likely also be a fertility deity, no?

[Sondrelk]

It would make sense. SL works like a funnel of all worlds, so Life would works the reverse.

I suppose the problem here is that the Shadowlands were never truly shown to be a waiting room for life. In fact all we saw there seemed to imply that the Shadowlands was in fact the true end.

[Izalla]

Well a Life deity would likely also be a fertility deity, no?

Theoretically, yes

[Wangming]

Havent you been championing K'aresh and it's void ravaged surface for months now?

Yeah well see, HIS ideas are great. OUR ideas are disastrous.

[Teriz]

A few things being leaked before an announcement, and then more things being revealed at an announcement, in no way make a point that the few leaked things we know before an announcement exclude anything. That makes about as much sense as saying "the next expansion is surely about dragons, so I guess we still won't see ducks added to the game." Silly example but the point is we can't say what won't be in an expansion, until we know what that expansion even is. And even after the announcement we will still find out a crap load of new, unannounced info when data mining it begins. There could be a heavy void plotline before the end, a little void throughout, or no void at all. But we can't rule anything out right now.

Again, there is a chance that there will be some old god shenanigans next expansion. Heck, we might even run into a few void-based raid bosses.

However there is a gulf of difference between that and us traveling to a void world with eco domes, void lords, and playable Ethereals. That ship has (thankfully) sailed.