Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Dragon ANX]

https://x.com/Qwik/status/1710463602186953098?s=20



dwarves confirmed again

They are using purple = VoidStorm Confirmed!

[Chickat]

Old flying feels awful compared to dragon riding and I can't wait to never have to "static fly" ever again. Giving me a mount that can't use the better flying (dynamic/dragonriding) is useless and a waste of the mount model.

I do think they should buff old flying speed some to help people that dislike dynamic flight. Maybe 550% would be a good middle ground.

[Dragon ANX]

https://x.com/Qwik/status/1710463602186953098?s=20



dwarves confirmed again

They are using purple => Void => VoidStorm Confirmed!

Qwikscope => Quick Scope => SpyGlass => Used by Sailors => Ships => Exploration => Regalia Skin from shop that resemble old world explorators => Azeroth Other Side => Avaloren Expansion Confirmed!

PopHunt =>Population Hunting => Heretics are a type of population that are hunted => Beyond the waves there is a place were heretics have fought against titan agenda => This place is not part of Old Kalimdor => Azeroth other side => Beyond the Storm/Avaloren Exp Confirmed!

[Ebonn]

They are using purple => Void => VoidStorm Confirmed!

Qwikscope => Quick Scope => SpyGlass => Used by Sailors => Sailores => Exploration => Regalia Skin from shop that resemble old world explorators => Azerothe Other Side => Avaloren Expansion Confirmed!

PopHunt =>Population Hunting => Heretics are a type of population that are hunted => Beyond the waves there is a place were heretics have fought against titan agenda => This place is not part of Old Kalimdor => Azeroth other side => Beyond the Storm/Avaloren Exp Confirmed!

Nailed it, my guy! SOMEONE is going to be so upset when they find out you have all the facts now!

[Selorian]

We have an AOTC mount, we have the "buy past PvP sets".

This is almost certainly the last raid.

There's no infinite use augment rune

[Trad skeleton]

There's no infinite use augment rune

The PvP ensembles are also just the bloody coin ones from PvP world quests and not actual conquest sets which always come at the start of the next expansion. He's using that as a point when it really isn't one. Sure, I'll give you the AoTC mount.

Edit: The bloody coin sets haven't existed before Dragonflight so it's not really indicative of anything.

[huth]

https://x.com/Qwik/status/1710463602186953098?s=20



dwarves confirmed again

They look like clowns, so clearly the next expansion is about the secret of the Darkmoon Faire.

[Marlamin]

They look like clowns, so clearly the next expansion is about the secret of the Darkmoon Faire.

That explains those revamped Darkmoon Faire tents.... it's all coming together!

[huth]

The PvP ensembles are also just the bloody coin ones from PvP world quests and not actual conquest sets which always come at the start of the next expansion. He's using that as a point when it really isn't one. Sure, I'll give you the AoTC mount.

Edit: The bloody coin sets haven't existed before Dragonflight so it's not really indicative of anything.

As said before, the AotC "mount" is really just a skin for the Protodrake. And it's a recolour of the drop one to boot. The whole thing is kinda on the lines on just about everything.

[flan1337]

They look like clowns, so clearly the next expansion is about the secret of the Darkmoon Faire.

We dont know where the darkmoon fair is located right? what if....

Edit:

" Where the Darkmoon Faire is when it isn't in either of these places, Brann was not able to discern, nor did he know how it gets from one place to another. The closest thing to a real answer he got was that the Faire spends a substantial amount of time in “parts unknown,” supposedly meaning that they have no idea where the Faire is (instead of meaning that the Faire is in an area of Azeroth that we have yet to discover).

Brann's personal theory is that the Darkmoon Faire wanders certain areas in the wilds of Azeroth, gathering secrets "

Avalorn confirmed

[Ferlion]

That explains those revamped Darkmoon Faire tents.... it's all coming together!

I'd 100% be down for an expansion that's set on a giant amusement park continent.

First raid is a giant circus tent, with killer clowns.

Final boss is the Fortune Teller, and marked players need to run onto tarot cards she throws down, and if people are on the wrong card they die when the floor falls away.

[Marlamin]

Summer release is possible, honestly. But hard to say until we see how far along the expansion is, what's planned, etc.

Warning, bit of a tangent maybe, but it feels like Dragonflight zones including the Dragon Isles itself are pretty much finished environment art wise when they go into public testing with only minor tweaks being done. This change started happening in Shadowlands and has seemingly only accelerated with Dragonflight so it appears the exterior zone design team is rather far ahead.

Side, side-tangent, this is of course a great thing, but I'd be lying I didn't say I was sad to see this as someone who likes to see zones being developed from the ground up, but that is arguably a very very small usecase and definitely not worth changing up development for. More dev/early map leaks please, anyways...

What remains to be seen is how far along the rest of the team is, gameplay, systems, UI, balance, rewards/itemization and such seem to be very much in flux still when things go on PTR, which I'm sure is largely intentional to keep a tight feedback loop with the community. Dragonflight had a very focus-test oriented Beta so in some ways that was hard to get a good impression of very early on, so that'll be something I look out for the most in whatever BlizzCon coverage there is and any recordings of hopefully a demo provided there is one, something we didn't get for Dragonflight due to it's un(Blizz)conventional announcement.

I'd 100% be down for an expansion that's set on a giant amusement park continent.

First raid is a giant circus tent, with killer clowns.

Final boss is the Fortune Teller, and marked players need to run onto tarot cards she throws down, and if people are on the wrong card they die when the floor falls away.

Now we're cooking speculating with gas.

[Bsirk]

If there is a demo I'll video it for you.

[Marlamin]

If there is a demo I'll video it for you.

They allowed streaming the demo for Shadowlands so I'm hopeful they'll do the same this time around, but that would still be very welcome, the more footage the better.

[Hitei]

We dont know where the darkmoon fair is located right? what if....

Edit:

" Where the Darkmoon Faire is when it isn't in either of these places, Brann was not able to discern, nor did he know how it gets from one place to another. The closest thing to a real answer he got was that the Faire spends a substantial amount of time in “parts unknown,” supposedly meaning that they have no idea where the Faire is (instead of meaning that the Faire is in an area of Azeroth that we have yet to discover).

Brann's personal theory is that the Darkmoon Faire wanders certain areas in the wilds of Azeroth, gathering secrets "

Avalorn confirmed

I'd be real down for a huge subzone that is just permanent Darkmoon installation.

- - - Updated - - -

What remains to be seen is how far along the rest of the team is, gameplay, systems, UI, balance, rewards/itemization and such seem to be very much in flux still when things go on PTR, which I'm sure is largely intentional to keep a tight feedback loop with the community. Dragonflight had a very focus-test oriented Beta so in some ways that was hard to get a good impression of very early on, so that'll be something I look out for the most in whatever BlizzCon coverage there is and any recordings of hopefully a demo provided there is one, something we didn't get for Dragonflight due to it's un(Blizz)conventional announcement.

SL seemed typically slow about content features. I seem to recall Torghast was pretty slow to get implemented and the powers for both it and soulbind effects were kind of trickled in. Historically demos don't really show much on the feature/system/gameplay end though, do they? They're classically a new class/race's start zone, or an intro experience and some of the first questing zone.

Actually have we ever really seen big systems or features shown in detail in an announcement? Besides I guess classes.

[ChairmanKaga]

They allowed streaming the demo for Shadowlands so I'm hopeful they'll do the same this time around, but that would still be very welcome, the more footage the better.

Wasn't the Shadowlands demo the Maw intro? Baffling they used that considering how obnoxious it was.

[Marlamin]

SL seemed typically slow about content features. I seem to recall Torghast was pretty slow to get implemented and the powers for both it and soulbind effects were kind of trickled in. Historically demos don't really show much on the feature/system/gameplay end though, do they? They're classically a new class/race's start zone, or an intro experience and some of the first questing zone.

Actually have we ever really seen big systems or features shown in detail in an announcement? Besides I guess classes.

Yeah, as far as I can recall there's not usually that much available in the demo and any features they show off in panels are usually in an early stage still, either a mockup or rough implementation. Hell, the DF talent system was still largely mockups pretty close to the Beta starting, which is why I'm curious to see how far along stuff this is this time.

- - - Updated - - -

Wasn't the Shadowlands demo the Maw intro? Baffling they used that considering how obnoxious it was.

I believe it was Bastion.

[Hitei]

I believe it was Bastion.

It was. I recall the map getting passed around a lot because it was unusual for us to have an actual zone map so early.

[RahEndymion]

Okay so I've recently moved back to Canada from UK and for the last 2 weeks I have had very limited time to spend on mmoc.

I saw the achi finds and the gryphon textures etc, but can anyone summarize what has changed and where we're at in the last 400-500 pages? What are the key speculations / evidences etc?

Much appreciation for anyone who shoulders this burden.

[PotHockets]

It seems the entire point of the Roadmap format was to avoid a content drought. I've said this before but if the next expansion comes out in August, sure. But I think they'll be playing up the November Anniversary in relation to the new release date.

The biggest reason I'm expecting an entirely new raid tier is because Shadowlands had 31 raid encounters, but Dragonflight including the Emerald Dream only has had 26. Shadowlands had Covid to deal with, so what's the excuse that Dragonflight ultimately has significantly less raid content?

Not if Classic+ or Classic HD are a real thing. Those could easily take that anniversary slot if they're a thing and leave 11.0 open to take the summer spot.

That said I'm hopeful that 10.3 exists because if not it's gonna take Dragonflight from a solid 9 to a 7 or so cause 10.2 feels like a whimper of an ending.