Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Eeram]

So, here's an idea: instead of us going off into 15 different tangents for what we would "like" Blizzard to do for 11.0, how about we discuss a singular, specific "possibility" to gather everyone's thoughts?

For example, if we go to Avaloren in 11.0, what should it look like, how large should it be, how should we get there, etc.?

Boat, The storm is too strong to pass we thought Thrall could control the elements to help us get through we were wrong Boat capsizes We lose our equipment all of our bags an gear. we wash up on the beach our mounts cant hear out calls anymore(much like the maw) so we are stuck walking around we have no transmog no weapons no powerful gear or trinkets. Reason people never came back from Avaloran is because there is a Mysteries mystery that makes it so our powers cant be fully used. Boom there you go Wow 10 year Anniversary Avaloran is as big as EK We are restarting from the ground up. You can also Start your adventure in Avaloran as a brand new player if you have never played the game befor once you hit max level we find out we can swim again an we find out loot at the bottom of the ocean so we have access to it again

[Xilurm]

Locking characters out of their stuff for 10 entire levels would piss so many people off lmao.

[Eeram]

actually it would be 70 levels you start over from level "1" theoretically. LMAO listen i just work here

[Nibelheimy]

ill repost this from myself about 40 pages ago that got buried by the pages of you know whats...

Ok I'm yet to sleep but I have some Ideas and have to wonder if peoples speculations on Avaloren to be an Arthurian inspired Fae paradise to be correct. If Avaloren and Khaz Algar are to be in the same area/same continent. It could be a plausible expansion setting to have. Could it be a possibility that instead of the world soul eating all of the Elemental Spirit, its instead the broken world tree Elun'ahir.

Avaloren could be a continent with a massive fissure through the centre. Inside the fissure is the roots of the world tree Elun'ahir, the roots of the world tree reach deep into the planet and have been absorbing the elemental force of spirit from the rest of the planet in an attempt to heal and regrow. At a point in time, a group of Earthern emerged to protect the roots. These have been influenced by the spirit elements from inside of the fissure and built Khaz'Algar into the sides of the fissure reaching deep down following the roots. The spirit energy and lack of any decay from old god influence has made them partly immune the curse of the flesh, allowing them to retain their earthen bodies. But glow green with the spirit element. Surrounding Avaloren are intense storms. The Khaz'Algarians have tamed/built earthen styled Gryphons that are also infused with the Spirit element. Dubbed stormriders, the spirit element they are being empowered by helps calm the storms around them as they fly through essentially protecting them. ( based on how our own elements are more chaotic without the spirit element).

Iridikon and Xal'Atath have arrived in Avaloren. Their destination is the base of the roots of the fissure. Iridikron uses the void soul to empower Xal'atath into her original old god form. (As shown in the chronicle old god border thingy) She expands and begins to wrap her way amongst the roots with her tentacles, instead of absorbing spirit energies the roots are now absorbing Galakrond decay energy. Or possibly even Old God void energies. Xal'Atath plans to absorb the spirit energy herself. Growing at an exelarated rate in order to burrow deep into the world soul and realise the old gods original wishes.

Although the continent of Avaloren is vast, the fissure of Khaz'Algar runs deep. The lack of Spirit energies could by causing any biomes surrounding the fissure problems, and at the tallest point of Khaz'Algar (Our new capital) There are reports from the deep places of the fissure that things have changed. The spirit is fading. Madness is falling the deeper you go down. The Algarians either send stormriders for help to the lands beyond the storms for the east, or I see Nightsquall taking us there. Thrall goes because as a shaman, he has some knowledge on the element of spirit.

I have written this off the top of my head at 6 am, so there may be some obvious lore inconsistencies with what we have recently learnt as I am half awake. Go easy on me. But I see this as a feasible expansion zone. There can be beautiful lands around the city and fissure, and terrifying dark zones the deeper we go. We can get beautiful Arthurian Forests, Moon mountains, Celtic styled highlands with windy cliffs and stormy seas. We also get a Dwarven city built into the sides of the fissure. That get deeper and deeper until it starts resembling an old god infused Mines of Moria. 11.0 may yet be an elemental expansion, just not the element anybody expected. Props to Dismayxz for getting my imagination ticking with the Gryphon texture Chi connection.

I imagine Uldaz could be a 10.2.5 /10.3 zone. A facility Iridkond and Xal'Atath use to locate the deepest part of the planet they can access. Leading us to this new expansion.

[Reive]

That's because there's a lot of people that like different things.

it's a bit more complicated this time lol. people are pushing for different versions of the game.

[Myrrh]

What should it look like? Avaloren itself should resemble camelot
how large? larger than the dragon isles tbh. dragonriding should be usable there, but only after reaching max lvl.
how should we get there? scenario where we through a huge storm

Another storm-into-shipwrecked scenario or cinematic is honestly the most likely, but gosh I'd like it if they did something a bit more inspired.

A suggestion that was discussed a few days back would have us dodge the storm by going underground and then make progress towards the surface, either in a single zone or gradually across the levelling process. Would be a nice way to add a sense of progress and exploration as we venture into this new land, rather than having immediate access to yolo all over it at 830% mount speed.

The addition of patch zones could then be a bit more natural as well. As an example, the initial max level zone could be a staging camp of sorts, with players beginning to venture out into new zones and build more distant encampments in 11.1, 11.2 etc instead of pocket dimension #173 suddenly blipping into existence.

[Ferlion]

So, here's an idea: instead of us going off into 15 different tangents for what we would "like" Blizzard to do for 11.0, how about we discuss a singular, specific "possibility" to gather everyone's thoughts?

For example, if we go to Avaloren in 11.0, what should it look like, how large should it be, how should we get there, etc.?

I think a Celtic influence is a must. I'd love to have the races and creatures there kind of give off a Fae vibe. Like, big on the "We'll make deals, but you probably shouldn't", a creepy whimsy that seems never quite right. I think an underground zone that you enter through the ruins of a castle of some sort, ruled over by the King and Queen Faerie analogy.

I'd love an analogy to the Church of Elune, with human flair. Different, but echos of similarity as one of the factions.



I want cities and strongholds inspired by this.

I'd love a zone with a faction of Ogres. You can use the excuse of "This group of Ogres got separated from the Horde and ended up in the Forbidden Sea".

You could make this an entire Roman themed city and set up a conflict between Rome/Celts.

This is something that is iffy. It ties specifically into some of the artwork we see in the Titans facilities, and also ties into the Celtic mythology. We need a Mermaid city/faction. Maybe have them fighting Naga

[flan1337]

cinematic:
dragon isles, massive energy release
slow zoom out to azeroth in space, continents lighting up
elemental planes encroaching into azeroth
destruction scenes
elemental energies coalescing, massive damage
thousands of shaman/earthen ring
kalimdor split in 2
back out to azeroth in space
globe rotating past known lands. camera zooming in, then black
title

What if...
In the emerald dream we release some life energy to heal our already broken world.
Everything is pieced together and we dont have lava coming out of every single zone.

[Dracullus]

All we need is just all old school textures to be made into HD versions and that's it.

Speak for yourself. For me that would be complete waste of resources. And who the hell would even play Cata again just for hd textures...

From revamp I expect:
- completely remade zones, preferably bigger and more detailed
- story progression in old world
- expansion content focused completely on this region.

And "not repeating Cata mistake" would be simply not deleting Cata continents, another "serious" problem solved. Even more, I think they should bring back 1.12 world and all deleted questlines like legendary from MoP and WoD.

But of course you are right that revamp is not needed like Cata one, especially after 9.0 changes. We want revamp for different reasons and it has huge potential to be most hyped expansion since Legion, so it's kinda obvious Blizzard will use this card.

[Well Done Steak]

Speak for yourself. For me that would be complete waste of resources. And who the hell would even play Cata again just for hd textures...

From revamp I expect:
- completely remade zones, preferably bigger and more detailed
- story progression in old world
- expansion content focused completely on this region.

And "not repeating Cata mistake" would be simply not deleting Cata continents, another "serious" problem solved. Even more, I think they should bring back 1.12 world and all deleted questlines like legendary from MoP and WoD.

But of course you are right that revamp is not needed like Cata one, especially after 9.0 changes. We want revamp for different reasons and it has huge potential to be most hyped expansion since Legion, so it's kinda obvious Blizzard will use this card.

Between Kal and EK, there's nearly 50 zones...

I seriously don't think you guys grasp why you're asking for.

[Paula Deen]

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

I would love a Dark Moon Faire quest chain though. Like exploring the Origins, helping Carnies. Could be a blast if done right.

[Trazzle]

Not sure what you mean by mention. By whom? Teriz? or Blizzard?

By 'leakers', last few leak seasons Tinker was commonly mentioned.

People argue there isn't enough interest in the theme/class concept, I'd argue, if Blizzard can release Monk and continue to support it, they can do anything.

There's simply been a lot of auspicious additions to the game that would make for needed foundations/frameworks for the inclusion of a crafter/creator class.

[Baraden]

A proper revamp; every zone would need the arathi treatment; you'd need to fix azuremyst and eversong to work seamlessly with the rest of EK (basically remaking from scratch as they exist in outlands and not azeroth)

Every quest in EK and Kalimdor updated to post dragonflight, this is the best time to do so because for most; by the time DF ends we've had like 5-10 years of peace now, the perfect justifaction for old cataclysm storylines to be wrapped up and new storylines to begin

Because of scaling, this won't be wasted effort; so you could say every Azeroth zone is 1-70; and select a few that are 70-80 for the end game storylines - you could expand M+ to involve all of the classic dungeons, and revamp all the classic raids; fuck you don't even have to try that hard with tier sets, just do 202X versions of tiers 1/2/3 for each raid tier

The next expansion is likely the first expansion they've been working on right from the start after releasing classic; since they've said before they're two expansions ahead so they would have been working on DF in late BFA, when classic hit - so whatever 11.0 is, is going to be made with the knowledge of how massively successful classic was - if Blizzard is smart they will capitalise on that

Not to mention a revamp is future proofing the game for another 10-15 years like cataclysm did

[Dracullus]

Between Kal and EK, there's nearly 50 zones...

I seriously don't think you guys grasp why you're asking for.

I didn't say I need this in single expansion. I don't even care if it would be full Kalimdor/EK or just part of it, as long as it's big/detailed as Dragon Isles.

And as you said, it's not needed ASAP, so Blizzard could even cook it longer to really make it impressive.

[Baraden]

By 'leakers', last few leak seasons Tinker was commonly mentioned.

People argue there isn't enough interest in the theme/class concept, I'd argue, if Blizzard can release Monk and continue to support it, they can do anything.

There's simply been a lot of auspicious additions to the game that would make for needed foundations/frameworks for the inclusion of a crafter/creator class.

I still think additional specs for certain classes is less work for blizz and also would appeal to more people; you could add a gladiator spec for warrior rather easily, just tweak the protection tree to work as a DPS tree - and you'd have a massive amount of warriors who were happy. More often than not people either don't bother with a new class or never play it much past capping one, unless they're objectively overpowered

[Paula Deen]

A proper revamp; every zone would need the arathi treatment; you'd need to fix azuremyst and eversong to work seamlessly with the rest of EK (basically remaking from scratch as they exist in outlands and not azeroth)

With the new loading screen tech I am honestly not even sure they would need to fix that anymore. Just put a big ass storm between the zones and when you reach the otherside wow your in Ghostlands.

[Baraden]

Between Kal and EK, there's nearly 50 zones...

I seriously don't think you guys grasp why you're asking for.

Yeah and most of the Azeroth zones are a fraction the size of typical expansion zones - a zone from DF or SL is the size of 3 or 4 azeroth zones, plus no one is saying this has to all be done in one patch

[Ferlion]

So...you want old school Arathi Highlands? Or do you want something like Diremaul?

I mean like Exiles Reach and the Gorian Empire from Dreanor.
As for castles and the like, different architecture and thematics.

Stormgarde (and Stormwind, mind) are both more French than Celtic.

[Izalla]

Between Kal and EK, there's nearly 50 zones...

I seriously don't think you guys grasp why you're asking for.

Tiny zones. You'd have to merge 3 or 4 of them together to be a modern sized zone in most cases.

[Myrrh]

Had a quick look back over the last few hours and didn't spot this; https://twitter.com/TripdWyr/status/1710768187468640731

Normally wouldn't post a dev social media post but this one is explicitly indicating in black and white that something interesting will be in the next PTR build.

Based on their role, assuming something systems-y - readding the dynamic flight toggle perhaps? Or something entirely unexpected.