Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Nymrohd]

Not gonna lie, it would be epic if they could pull something like this off, and honestly I think they could. Of course in game its never gonna look as epic and grands as on drawings, but the general idea of the expac capital town being on top of a cliff overlooking a rapid river, "oasis" terraced area midway down with greenery and waterfalls and a HUGE entrance to either a massive underground area, a raid, or both (and with airlock tech that is quite doable).
Whenever I see ideas like that, or work on my own worldbuilding, It saddens me that we no longer get wings of dungeons and such (for example have a raid and 1-3 dungeons with similar assets related to the raid). Besides boss encounter it seems to be mostly just reusing assets.
With how DF S1 started with us having only half the dungeons in the rotation, I hoped that would mean we would also get more dungeons through the expansion besides the 1 mega dungeon, so that like each season can have 4 DF dungeons + 4 other, and then final season maybe all 12 DF. But alas seems like at lest for DF it isn't the case.

For me, dwarves in a fissure with gryphons just reads FR Great Rift so that's how I will visualize it until we actually get it. Ofc in a much smaller scale since FR's Great Rift would be at least the size of the Dragon Isles.

I will say, I am not sure how much time goes into simply generating a zone and populating it with basic mobs and critters. I would wish they had even bigger zones, especially if they plan to keep with this concept of a new invasion every minor patch. It gives them more space to place their different events because honestly from what I've seen most of the time spent grinding the Dreamsurge events happens in the Primal Storm areas (because that's where the vast majority of rares spawn). They need multiple areas in every zone for world pvp and future events.

- - - Updated - - -

Absolutely agree.
On the other hand I can see how fan-fic AI generated images are somewhat stretching the idea of "speculation", but it's still a thousand times better than just whining about nomenclature, which doesn't point in any direction, as Blizzard could change their naming convention for things just like that at least I hope for some nice ideas to flourish on this forum so that people how something of essence to talk about until the true leak appears (or hopefully until the announcement with surprise).

I understand they did meet with streamers for Rumble but unsure if they showed them anything for the next xpac; if they had, we might have had a press kit leak. Now I think we are in the final stretch and we will have to wait for the days before Blizzcon for someone to leak something while they are setting up the convention

[Teriz]

I don’t believe you are spamming the wrong thread. Admittedly discussion with you can be quite frustrating at times because you haven’t been budging this speculation season but I’ll be the first to admit that the past few pages you have been a lot more amenable.

I honestly do struggle to follow your logic regarding the Stormrider mount with what’s been presented to you as well as why you think introducing a new pre-order mount that will undoubtedly have dynamic flying incorporated but will look silly when doing so because of the rig won’t be an issue.

Well keep in mind, I'm far from the only person who thinks the Stormrider is an elemental. Wowhead had similar thoughts, as did a few YT streamers.

I’ll concede to you that I do think the elements will play a role next expansion in some form. But I don’t think those elements will be along the core four which we typically deal with; fire, air, earth and water. I think spirit and decay will play a huge role. I also don’t think that the Storms aspect as of the expansion will be heavily related to the element of air as a theme. Merely as a plot device to explain why Avaloren(?) is so inaccessible. I think past the initial launch the storm theme will be downplayed too. I’m also of the opinion that the storm side of things could be something as simple as Xal’atath conjuring a storm via dark magic or Iridikron unleashing a storm of decay using Galakrond’s essence. I don’t think the mention of a storm automatically means elemental expansion inbound.

There’s every possibility I’m wrong. But in my opinion, and several others, we’ve just had our elemental expansion with fire, air, wind and water playing huge roles within it. It would feel redundant to continue that on in a major way. We have however not dealt with the element of spirit, or that of decay (in a meaningful way outside of Brackenhide and Galakrond’s essence which are both undeniably being continued over). All hints point towards Life being a major theme, and decay is the foil to that. That’s simply where I believe the elemental connection will extend to.

TBH, while some may view us battling the elements after we dealt with the primals to be "redundant", I could imagine far more players viewing us finding yet another lost dragon/titan-influenced continent hidden by storms or mists and a little offshore one of the major continents, to also be quite redundant after we just did the Dragon Isles in the previous expansion.

If not moreso.

[Nebron]

Not gonna lie, it would be epic if they could pull something like this off, and honestly I think they could. Of course in game its never gonna look as epic and grands as on drawings, but the general idea of the expac capital town being on top of a cliff overlooking a rapid river, "oasis" terraced area midway down with greenery and waterfalls and a HUGE entrance to either a massive underground area, a raid, or both (and with airlock tech that is quite doable).
Whenever I see ideas like that, or work on my own worldbuilding, It saddens me that we no longer get wings of dungeons and such (for example have a raid and 1-3 dungeons with similar assets related to the raid). Besides boss encounter it seems to be mostly just reusing assets.
With how DF S1 started with us having only half the dungeons in the rotation, I hoped that would mean we would also get more dungeons through the expansion besides the 1 mega dungeon, so that like each season can have 4 DF dungeons + 4 other, and then final season maybe all 12 DF. But alas seems like at lest for DF it isn't the case.

Yeah, I loved how back in the day, they used the assets and places they've built to the fullest:
- Icecrown Citadel and it's dungeons;
- Trial of the Champion / Crusader (Argent Crusade stadium);
- Auchindoun;


it was obviously done to cut down the costs, so you can re-use the assets multiple times, but at the same time, you got much more content which could tell the story in parts. I loved it.

I the idea of more raids, but smaller in scale. I loved the concept of 2-3 starting raids like in MoP or Cataclysm. I love mini-raids with 2-3 bosses in mid-tier as a filler.

Btw, may I ask what kind of worldbuilding you're talking about? Got me pretty intrigued

- - - Updated - - -

I understand they did meet with streamers for Rumble but unsure if they showed them anything for the next xpac; if they had, we might have had a press kit leak. Now I think we are in the final stretch and we will have to wait for the days before Blizzcon for someone to leak something while they are setting up the convention

Streamers shouldn't be a problem, it's usually the people/companies to which Blizzard out-source the marketing stuff I think. That's the weak link in the process.

[Woggmer]

so it's the opposite
just because you don't like season passes doesn't mean it would kill the game

and it works well in other MMOs

It's not a matter of liking it or not, Blizz won't do it because it will tank their revenue... and considering that Overwatch 2 is flopping and Hearthstone is stagnating, I don't see a point in which WoW is swapped to Free 2 Play.

[Auxis]

This is my version of Khaz Algar
[-snip-]

Not enough I should try the prompt again and tell it to rain lightning.
OK this time it actually made the architecture look very much like warcraft dwarf, I could see this for a fake leak.
[-snip-]

Gods, I'd kill to have some more grandiose, epic fantasy stuff like that.

[JMitchy96]

I am describing how I'd see the zone in a picture. If THIS is your issue and not the constant derailment, damn.

Lol. I can have a problem with more than one thing, you know.

Nymrohd has stated it’s AI and that it is how they envision Khaz Algar. They haven’t attempted to deceive anyone.

This is an extremely odd complaint. Would you be fine if they had painted it instead?

It’s promoting discussion surrounding a zone we are almost definitely going to visit in the upcoming expansion.

Except it's not? It's what an AI thinks it will look like. By that logic, you could post an AI-generated image of almost anything and it would still be valid for the discussion. Plus I never said anyone was trying to deceive anybody, don't put words in my mouth. I simply think there's a place for this sort of stuff and this thread isn't it, imo.

[Shadochi]

Yeah, I loved how back in the day, they used the assets and places they've built to the fullest:
- Icecrown Citadel and it's dungeons;
- Trial of the Champion / Crusader (Argent Crusade stadium);
- Auchindoun;


it was obviously done to cut down the costs, so you can re-use the assets multiple times, but at the same time, you got much more content which could tell the story in parts. I loved it.

I the idea of more raids, but smaller in scale. I loved the concept of 2-3 starting raids like in MoP or Cataclysm. I love mini-raids with 2-3 bosses in mid-tier as a filler.

Btw, may I ask what kind of worldbuilding you're talking about? Got me pretty intrigued

Yeah, it is just an asset flip, but in this case I don't think anyone would mind the asset flip. Its not that we don't want the to flip assets at all, just depends what for.

As for my worldbuilding. I've been doing worldbuilding and writing for like 15ish years (tho never finished anything but hopefully changing that in the near-to-moderate future). But outside of that I'm currently using the world (and universe) I created to run various D&D and Pathfinder campaigns and oneshots (think so far I had 4-5 campaigns, 3 currently ongoing), and a bunch of oneshots or short stories that last a couple sessions. So come November (NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month) I plan on finally writing something however bad the first draft may be from start to finish). As for the theme of the worldbuilding, on a cosmic scale it has both fantasy and scifi, but for the world where the campaigns take place its mostly high and dark fantasy with some scifi sometimes seeping in (wasn't originally the plan but happened based on player choices).

[Nebron]

Yeah, it is just an asset flip, but in this case I don't think anyone would mind the asset flip. Its not that we don't want the to flip assets at all, just depends what for.

As for my worldbuilding. I've been doing worldbuilding and writing for like 15ish years (tho never finished anything but hopefully changing that in the near-to-moderate future). But outside of that I'm currently using the world (and universe) I created to run various D&D and Pathfinder campaigns and oneshots (think so far I had 4-5 campaigns, 3 currently ongoing), and a bunch of oneshots or short stories that last a couple sessions. So come November (NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month) I plan on finally writing something however bad the first draft may be from start to finish). As for the theme of the worldbuilding, on a cosmic scale it has both fantasy and scifi, but for the world where the campaigns take place its mostly high and dark fantasy with some scifi sometimes seeping in (wasn't originally the plan but happened based on player choices).

Ohhhh, that's awesome, just starting my first ever RPG game (Warhammer) as a player next week
Do you incorporate some WoW stuff into your world as well? writing a novel? that's even more impressive...

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I wonder what will be this promotion on thursday, now that they revealed blizzcon stuff.

[Sondrelk]

I don't understand the concept of Classic+ on the scale some people suggest. Are they going to force the artists to create visuals at the level classic has for it?

There are tons of issues that would come from it. Would they expect Retail players to migrate for the content?
Will there be rewards across both? And if not, what would you do about the players that want the Feralas raid to be available inside Retail?
Will the cosmetics be skipped, or will you create new ones in the old style? Will you upscale everything to HD, and if you are what about the players that prefer the old variant?
How will you integrate it within the Classic framework without just making TBC? Will the new content start at an arbitrary lower level, forcing players to make new characters to experience it? Or will the new content start at max level, rendering the old max level content trivial. Will there be level scaling to solve these issues?

So many of those problems are more easily solved if you just go full hog and make the entirety of Classic available within Retail somehow. And the likelihood of that is quite low.

[milkmustache]

I wonder what will be this promotion on thursday, now that they revealed blizzcon stuff.

I'd imagine something to promote ICC opening in Wrath.

[Sondrelk]

Not enough I should try the prompt again and tell it to rain lightning.
OK this time it actually made the architecture look very much like warcraft dwarf, I could see this for a fake leak.

Clean that up a bit and place some Wildhammer style buildings around the perimeter and I think you could fool some players with that. The feeling of scale is very bad with this one though, so mght have to remove the gryphons.

[xputurnameherex]

I'd imagine something to promote ICC opening in Wrath.

im hoping the ghostly charger mount

[Sondrelk]

Not gonna lie, it would be epic if they could pull something like this off, and honestly I think they could. Of course in game its never gonna look as epic and grands as on drawings, but the general idea of the expac capital town being on top of a cliff overlooking a rapid river, "oasis" terraced area midway down with greenery and waterfalls and a HUGE entrance to either a massive underground area, a raid, or both (and with airlock tech that is quite doable).
Whenever I see ideas like that, or work on my own worldbuilding, It saddens me that we no longer get wings of dungeons and such (for example have a raid and 1-3 dungeons with similar assets related to the raid). Besides boss encounter it seems to be mostly just reusing assets.
With how DF S1 started with us having only half the dungeons in the rotation, I hoped that would mean we would also get more dungeons through the expansion besides the 1 mega dungeon, so that like each season can have 4 DF dungeons + 4 other, and then final season maybe all 12 DF. But alas seems like at lest for DF it isn't the case.

Would be cool for sure. My fear would just be that we run into the Dragon Soul issue of having all the best ideas inside the dungeon, and making the raid hot garbage.

[milkmustache]

What would be you guys' somewhat realistic predictions for the Warcraft franchise as a whole at BlizzCon?

For me, it would have to be:

• World of Warcraft: 11.0 is announced. An expansion taking us to the lost kingdom of Khaz Algar, bordering the "other side of Azeroth" west of Kalimdor, beyond the storms. The main antagonist is Xal'atath, the 5th Old God, with Queen Azshara as her collaborator. Uldaz is a titan facility over there, where Innaria once ruled. We'll get lots of teasers about even more continents further to the west in this expansion. It's both the end of something old, and the start of something new. This is not necessarily where the Nightsquall sailed, or where the green dragon Erinethria flew, but it's nearby.
• HD update. Both retail and Classic get HD models for Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. (Optional toggle in Classic.) They'll also tease future updates to the two continents, where the landmasses and questlines will change in a major way to reflect the passage of time. We'll see some of this already in 2024, but the rest will happen over the course of a couple of years. For example, a patch might contain the "Liberation of Gilneas" scenario which is set in a revamped Gilneas.
• "Classic +" (with a different name). The ultimate "what if" scenario. Wake up 20-30 years ago in an Azeroth ravaged by war between the Horde and Alliance, but before the timeline of regular WoW. All the locations and characters you know and love, now in glorious HD. New stories waiting to be told on Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
• Netflix Series for 2024. We'll see a teaser and get the general outline of what the show is about.
• Hearthstone expansion and major changes. Not much to add.
• Rumble DLCs. Probably lots of MTX etc.

I support the enthusiasm, but I think realistic looks more like 11.0, Harthstone updates and Rumble updates. And this is coming from a #teamworldrevamp believer. I think their "Warcraft will have the most" comment is both for the addition of Rumble, but also referencing the scale of what it means for Azeroth to have a backside.

[Sondrelk]

Streamers shouldn't be a problem, it's usually the people/companies to which Blizzard out-source the marketing stuff I think. That's the weak link in the process.

The absolute weakest link is definitely the convention hall itself. Tons of temp workers easily tempted to break an NDA by stealing press materials, or leaking what they saw or heard from rehearsals.

- - - Updated - - -

Well keep in mind, I'm far from the only person who thinks the Stormrider is an elemental. Wowhead had similar thoughts, as did a few YT streamers.



TBH, while some may view us battling the elements after we dealt with the primals to be "redundant", I could imagine far more players viewing us finding yet another lost dragon/titan-influenced continent hidden by storms or mists and a little offshore one of the major continents, to also be quite redundant after we just did the Dragon Isles in the previous expansion.

If not moreso.

Khaz Algar is already seeming like it will be Dwarfflight in terms of being a vague island with Titan stuff. No need to also have the heavy Elemental presence.

- - - Updated - - -

What would be you guys' somewhat realistic predictions for the Warcraft franchise as a whole at BlizzCon?

For me, it would have to be:

• World of Warcraft: 11.0 is announced. An expansion taking us to the lost kingdom of Khaz Algar, bordering the "other side of Azeroth" west of Kalimdor, beyond the storms. The main antagonist is Xal'atath, the 5th Old God, with Queen Azshara as her collaborator. Uldaz is a titan facility over there, where Innaria once ruled. We'll get lots of teasers about even more continents further to the west in this expansion. It's both the end of something old, and the start of something new. This is not necessarily where the Nightsquall sailed, or where the green dragon Erinethria flew, but it's nearby.
• HD update. Both retail and Classic get HD models for Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. (Optional toggle in Classic.) They'll also tease future updates to the two continents, where the landmasses and questlines will change in a major way to reflect the passage of time. We'll see some of this already in 2024, but the rest will happen over the course of a couple of years. For example, a patch might contain the "Liberation of Gilneas" scenario which is set in a revamped Gilneas.
• "Classic +" (with a different name). The ultimate "what if" scenario. Wake up 20-30 years ago in an Azeroth ravaged by war between the Horde and Alliance, but before the timeline of regular WoW. All the locations and characters you know and love, now in glorious HD. New stories waiting to be told on Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
• Netflix Series for 2024. We'll see a teaser and get the general outline of what the show is about.
• Hearthstone expansion and major changes. Not much to add.
• Rumble DLCs. Probably lots of MTX etc.

I am still not at all convinced by Classic+ in any form. At best I can see an HD toggle.

I also cannot see an HD revamp of old zones without actually having content inside them. That would be like creating a new boss in ICC for the benefit of people doing twink runs.
The old zones are not so bad that you cannot have content inside them. And if the idea is to have a large chunk of content in the HD zones then I would similarly question the logic of having a new continent at all.

[Dracullus]

I wonder what will be this promotion on thursday, now that they revealed blizzcon stuff.

Amazon Prime stuff done, monthly "bonus" tender done (in form of pet), I guess it has to be something connected to Wrath Classic ICC. It may be even some incentive to play Wrath for retail players since not only ICC comes, but also quality of life changes like modern quest helper and LFD.

[Alanar]

What would be you guys' somewhat realistic predictions for the Warcraft franchise as a whole at BlizzCon?

For me, it would have to be:

• World of Warcraft: 11.0 is announced. An expansion taking us to the lost kingdom of Khaz Algar, bordering the "other side of Azeroth" west of Kalimdor, beyond the storms. The main antagonist is Xal'atath, the 5th Old God, with Queen Azshara as her collaborator. Uldaz is a titan facility over there, where Innaria once ruled. We'll get lots of teasers about even more continents further to the west in this expansion. It's both the end of something old, and the start of something new. This is not necessarily where the Nightsquall sailed, or where the green dragon Erinethria flew, but it's nearby.
• HD update. Both retail and Classic get HD models for Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. (Optional toggle in Classic.) They'll also tease future updates to the two continents, where the landmasses and questlines will change in a major way to reflect the passage of time. We'll see some of this already in 2024, but the rest will happen over the course of a couple of years. For example, a patch might contain the "Liberation of Gilneas" scenario which is set in a revamped Gilneas.
• "Classic +" (with a different name). The ultimate "what if" scenario. Wake up 20-30 years ago in an Azeroth ravaged by war between the Horde and Alliance, but before the timeline of regular WoW. All the locations and characters you know and love, now in glorious HD. New stories waiting to be told on Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
• Netflix Series for 2024. We'll see a teaser and get the general outline of what the show is about.
• Hearthstone expansion and major changes. Not much to add.
• Rumble DLCs. Probably lots of MTX etc.

And what of features?

[Wangming]

But my question is, if they have to create more content for classic, they need zones, instance areas and gear that is at Classic's definition and resolution. Sure they have some things around from cut content but none of that is anywhere close to finished from what we've seen. All the tools they use currently are updated to work for the current level of resolution, I am not sure how easy it is to backtrack there. And they obviously cannot mix and match cause it will look horrid.

Classic+ realms would use the current level of graphics. It is just called Classic+ because it branches off from retail and the point of divergence is the current state of Classic. At least this is my understanding.

Soooo for example.

Classic is at Wrath
Retail is at...Tempest(or whatever)
Classic+ is: Word of Warcraft: Wangming's stupid Wishfulfillment Expansion
Instead of Cataclysm something else happens. Something that is up to current standards in terms of systems, gameplay and visuals.

[Alanar]

Someone in Twitter (I think it was a WoW dev) pointed to more customization next PTR build.

I saw one tweet, it was unsure if this was about costumizations. Which one are you talking about?