Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I for one wouldn't be on board with a year of 10.2, but who knows what they'll do.

They are not doing that because the Gamespot interview specifically mentions the 8 week cadence continuing, now you wait till 10.2 date is announced then add 8 weeks until you get to August/November window and see that it is just not possible what you're writing to occur.

[Sondrelk]

If you count Broken Shore for Legion, then you must Forbidden Reach as well. I count three Argus minizones same as 1 regular zone like Zaralek or Zereth Mortis, I think it's pretty fair.

Also no, adding void paint on Uldum/Vale and new rares is not equal to brand new zone. I think work put there is similar to 10.1.5 time rifts. Again, it's just swaping resources - while in BfA open world was reused in 8.3, DF does it with raids for S4.

Key thing is also length of each tier. BfA lasted 27 months. There will be 3 completely different ways to judge DF patches if:

1) S4 will be short one like bonus season in SL and 11.0 launch late Summer
2) S4 lasting 5-6 months as regular season and 11.0 launch late November
3) Some catastrophe and long content drought after 10.2.X.

BfA also had Mechagon, so again. Should all even out.

Besides. A new zone isn't being traded for a new raid. A new zone is being traded for a full X.1 patch. Which includes a raid, associated cosmetics, as well as new content with associated cosmetics.

Legion without the Nighthold patch would feel quite anemic for instance. Same with BfA without Siege of Dazar'alor.

- - - Updated - - -

I think it will come up in November to hit the 20 year anniversary.

That would be some next level player vitriol if 11.0 isn't the second coming of Jesus.
The expansion is already hamstring by the lack of 10.3, and if 11.0 is just Dragonflight 2.0 then the devs will have to work overtime just to make players accept that the expansion will almost certainly only have two major patches as well.

[Makorus]

Doesn't mean they should cut an entire raid tier because you guys will defend them to the ends of the earth to reduce value for consumers.

Also its not like its just a raid tier we're talking about here, it would be additional content on top of that.

How are they cutting an entire raid tier?

Likewise, how did we get "less content"?

It might sound like I am defending them but people genuinely have this chip on their shoulder about Blizzard "promising" stuff and autistic pattern recognization like "Oh, this expansion had 4 raid tiers, and this expansion had 4 raid tiers so this expansion will have 4 raid tiers even though that expansion didn't have 4 raid tiers".

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I don't know I feel skeptical that the Game Files aren't just a troll. The idea they would overhype this Blizzcon from Content Creators, Tweets from Company Employees and the President, the Gamespot Interview which indicates they are still utilizing the strategy of building back reputation and positivity just to go "LOL ENJOY THE BACKSTAB" is preposterous.

The idea that they would use Chris Metzen at Opening Ceremony to announce negative stuff or at the WoW Panel they go all-in on a 2024 Roadmap w/ other business oriented changes that cuts off at 10.2.7 it does not make logical sense to me.

But, again I mean the marketing and PR Team for Blizzard doing bizarre stuff is not uncommon and add suit oriented decision making overriding the Marketing and PR Teams protests.. It could be possible but I remain extremely doubtful that it would play out like this.

How are they cutting an entire raid tier?

Likewise, how did we get "less content"?

It might sound like I am defending them but people genuinely have this chip on their shoulder about Blizzard "promising" stuff and autistic pattern recognization like "Oh, this expansion had 4 raid tiers, and this expansion had 4 raid tiers so this expansion will have 4 raid tiers even though that expansion didn't have 4 raid tiers".

They don't communicate their plans because it is not tradition to have proper communication from the developers in the World of Warcraft community.

Traditions and structural analysis of the past is all we have to conclude what is going to happen in the future for the franchise.

I don't really want it to be like that, I'd prefer we had a more social development team and were able to communicate properly what their plans are instead though.

But, I always get bitten hard by people when I mention this because the historical analysis of this request is related to it never being the case in the past and then there's the player base are "sociopathic cannibal monsters which the development team need to be protected against" argument.

[Nymrohd]

How are they cutting an entire raid tier?

Likewise, how did we get "less content"?

It might sound like I am defending them but people genuinely have this chip on their shoulder about Blizzard "promising" stuff and autistic pattern recognization like "Oh, this expansion had 4 raid tiers, and this expansion had 4 raid tiers so this expansion will have 4 raid tiers even though that expansion didn't have 4 raid tiers".

True, plenty of expansions did only have three raid tiers.
They still had more encounters than this one. (yes, even Cata and WoD)

Did that go into creating more dungeons?
Nope, both legion and BfA delivered more dungeons and more raids and raid encounters and even SL delivered more raid encounters and an equal amount of dungeons. And they also conveniently removed seasonal affixes and replaced them with rotating in old dungeons to make the seasons feel different. Which, fair.

Maybe we got more PvP areas? HAHAHAHAHA
Or maybe we got an Arena? (We were supposed to but I don't think Nokhudon Proving Grounds was ever added was it?)

So we are trading the repeatable instanced content for world content. And I am unsure if this is a fair trade. We are getting 5 large zones, a medium sized one and a small one. BfA had seven large zones, a small one and four zone revamps and also had Island Expeditions and Warfronts as additional content. Legion had 5 large zones and 4 medium sized ones plus all the areas used for class and artifact campaigns.

So the additional world content isn't really areas or new types of mobs as much as it is events that reuse existing assets with little context to award catch up gear and mount/pet/mog recolors. ALso, 10.1 and 10.2 each does come with a solid mog for each armor type for world content, I will give them that.

What DF has done is simply parcel out the content it does have in regular small buckets. Which absolutely is a good idea for player retention. It also does have more than Shadowlands, sure. But Shadowlands was done with a pandemic and a major scandal so I assume that counts for something.

I will add that I don't think DF has a poor amount of content. It is serviceable. But plenty of people seem to think it has a lot of content and that is laughable. It is on the lower side of average at best.

[Pheraz]

It screams fake guys. The text makes it obvious. Is it Agg'orand or Agg'ora? Also Blizzard wouldn't use "defence" for defense, that's for the UK bros. The background for the dwarf is also from Gorgrond.

Woah puhhh thank goodness xD
Peed in my virtual Warcraft pans for a second

[ImTheMizAwesome]

So we are trading the repeatable instanced content for world content. And I am unsure if this is a fair trade.

I mean it would be awesome if that world content was something fresh and creative and not something that is just rehash of a rehash that dies really quickly.

But in 10.2 we might be getting another fill the bar almost like event ala invasion at least from previews thats how it sounds like, so..

[Dracullus]

BfA also had Mechagon, so again. Should all even out.

Wut? We were comparing DF and Legion at that moment. If we compare new zones for each expac patches - Legion: Broken Shore (small) + Argus (big), BfA: Mechagon (small) + Nazjatar (big), DF: Forbidden (small) + Zaralek (big) + Dream (big).

Besides. A new zone isn't being traded for a new raid. A new zone is being traded for a full X.1 patch. Which includes a raid, associated cosmetics, as well as new content with associated cosmetics.

But again, you are ignoring all DF stuff beside 10.1 and 10.2. If 10.0.7 had ONLY raid added, it would easily pass as old X.1 patch.

And btw, if we talk about raid cosmetics, Emerald Nightmare + Nighthold had same ones, same as Highmaul + Blackrock. BfA was only expansion with truly 4 tiers, but also we didn't have class sets there.

--

Btw, it's easy to forget, but whole discussion started from post "they charged people 10 more dollars only to deliver the lowest amount of content they've ever made" xD.

So we are trading the repeatable instanced content for world content. And I am unsure if this is a fair trade.

That's fair. And imo there is problem with giving us reason to reuse all this world content, it's often left to rot after patch is over.

Legion had 5 large zones and 4 medium sized ones plus all the areas used for class and artifact campaigns.

And this is not. Only Suramar matches any of 4 DF zones and Argus minizones/Broken Shore are smaller than Forbidden Reach. It's not only about size, but also amount of content there, I literally spend first whole week of DF for just doing all quests there.

[Holdodlig]

Dwarf looking ogres?

I wouldn't mind if it was the true leak. It seems to be well made. There are a few flaws tho.

First of all, I doubt we'll see ogre guardians in Azeroth as they seems to descent from elemental creatures from Draenor and not from titan creation. But this kind of thing might just be retconned into "Yeah the gronns on Draenor actually were titan creations made to control the Life influence".

Then, the mobile version seems to be flawed. I mean, the left arrow really looks like it was distorded or something like that.

Finally, as it was mentionned, the hands are really weird. Reminds me of some weird fan art that were a twitter trend back then on WoW where players would paint over their char to make them looks like what they wished they look like.

[Nymrohd]

Btw, it's easy to forget, but whole discussion started from post "they charged people 10 more dollars only to deliver the lowest amount of content they've ever made" xD.

I mean for the subgroup of people who are raid loggers, that's probably true.

[Sondrelk]

How are they cutting an entire raid tier?

Likewise, how did we get "less content"?

It might sound like I am defending them but people genuinely have this chip on their shoulder about Blizzard "promising" stuff and autistic pattern recognization like "Oh, this expansion had 4 raid tiers, and this expansion had 4 raid tiers so this expansion will have 4 raid tiers even though that expansion didn't have 4 raid tiers".

It's pattern recognition, but it's hardly any unjustified one. So far every expansion since at least WotLK has either had 4 major raid tiers, or been dropped in some way like WoD and SL.
In both the case of WoD and SL there were also a clear candidate for missing raid, zone, or other artifacts of a missing patch. WoD had Shattrath and Farahlon, and SL had the Drust and the weird way Sepulcher was divided to have effectively two final bosses.

This is far from a pattern like every other expansion being good/bad. Or themes repeating in predictable fashion. This is a very obvious way in which DF will be compared to WoD and SL as a failed expansion, solely based on what number it ends on, and how many raids it has.

This is a question of optics, not one of details on what precisely constitutes a full expansion.

[Nymrohd]

It's pattern recognition, but it's hardly any unjustified one. So far every expansion since at least WotLK has either had 4 major raid tiers, or been dropped in some way like WoD and SL.
In both the case of WoD and SL there were also a clear candidate for missing raid, zone, or other artifacts of a missing patch. WoD had Shattrath and Farahlon, and SL had the Drust and the weird way Sepulcher was divided to have effectively two final bosses.

This is far from a pattern like every other expansion being good/bad. Or themes repeating in predictable fashion. This is a very obvious way in which DF will be compared to WoD and SL as a failed expansion, solely based on what number it ends on, and how many raids it has.

This is a question of optics, not one of details on what precisely constitutes a full expansion.

And again, for raids, the size of raids also counts. If Amirdrassil is the last raid, then DF has the lowest number of raid encounters out of any expansion in WoW. We had no massive raid. Just 3 medium sized ones.

For me, I reserve judgment on how successful 10.2 is. I have a very low opinion of Zereth Mortis personally. I've flied around the ED zone in the PTR and I cannot say I was amazed but it is OK. Dragonriding makes everything feel so small. Seriously, I enjoy it so much but if flying limited their design and how we experienced the game, Dragonriding has done the same on steroids by making massive areas feel small.

[Nibelheimy]

Fake or not, Agg'orand and Agg'ora are clearly a location and race living in that location respectively.

[Pheraz]

And again, for raids, the size of raids also counts. If Amirdrassil is the last raid, then DF has the lowest number of raid encounters out of any expansion in WoW.

Plus tbh raids were also kind of mehhh so far at least from the visuals and encounter design in ultra tourist mode lfr xD
IMO even Shadowlands had very nice raids visually and from the encounter, even in lfr
(Yes I know that lfr can't really be used as measurements)

[Nymrohd]

Plus tbh raids were also kind of mehhh so far at least from the visuals and encounter design in ultra tourist mode lfr xD
IMO even Shadowlands had very nice raids visually and from the encounter, even in lfr
(Yes I know that lfr can't really be used as measurements)

For me, DF lacks a standout raid. The two we got so far were average. I hope Amirdrassil can be it. Every other expac had at least one standout raid, many had two.

[Dismayxz]

Dwarf looking ogres?

Alright, couple of thoughts on this one. Acknowledging all the like referencing done with the actual Homepage and all, but just wanna spotlight some things about this Fake, simply because we've seen so much AI, something with a bit more effort put into it is a refreshing thing to come across. Just skip to 3.) for the actual important shit nobody has pointed out so far, it seems.

1.) Completely ignoring the texts somehow feeling like a wishlist. Living World isn't mentioned as a Feature, it is literally just used in the Text to refer to the World itself. Nothing else. Bit of a stretch. If this was real (which is the point of making a Leak with effort put into it, since you're tryna make people believe it could be real), nothing in the actual Text somehow has a reason to NOT be there. If we were on the right track, chances are things are simply gonna be there, that we expect to be there. That still rings true beyond this Fake. There's been clear signaling and foreshadowing in certain directions and that will come with payoffs, it's not a stretch for any of the Text's contents to be included, per se. (I would be willing to die on this leak's hill for my own reasons, but meh. We've seemingly already reached a conclusion).

2.) The Dwarf on the Khaz Algar phone screen looks so weird. The fingers are missing (Ai Art, yeah I know, blah blah blah) on one hand, the other is just obfuscated by cloth hanging from the Bracers. Everything about it screams AI, yet there's also plausible explanations for why some parts look weird. The one thing that kills it, is actually just the Head as somebody pointed out. The Face and Beard look a whole lot like ingame assets at this size, whereas the body actually does not. This is the weakest link at least as far as the supposed 'Content' shown goes.

3.) The Best part of the Fake. The Earthen Dwarf Ogre (or Goliath for short)? That's not AI Art or Artwork at all. That's a physical ingame space with a physical in game Model. And no, it is not Gorgrond. Whether the two are photoshopped together (Model/Front and Background) from two separate pieces? No clue. But there's effort in there.

Let's break it down:
- The only similarity after giving Gorgrond a good look-over from top to bottom for roundabout a good 45 Minutes+ now, as somebody with an eye for these little Zone and Model details (usually), is in fact, that both are desert-y/canyon esque Zones, yet it lacks everything that distinctly signals Gorgrond, even if you were to empty the Zone out. No topography used for the background Zone is anywhere to be found in Gorgrond at all. Gorgrond exists, if it was used to fake this, you can look at the picture, take in Details and reference them with the existing Zone. Most of the more flat surface areas of gorgrond have water, skeletons or are part of a smaller canyon type surface, not open space with a more mountainous backdrop.

- The mountains in Gorgrond don't fog up like that, in fact they steam and smoke from very distinct places and angles.

- To the left of the hand of the "Goliath", you will find a small patch of 'Ground Texture' (something somebody brought up to me) that looks off. It's not Ground Texture, which is why it looks off. It's a Rock. A literal Rock 'object' or 'doodad' as you'd call it. Two, side-by-side, in fact. The right hand ground clutter grass is not reminiscent of the usual clutter used on WoW Zones and is brighter than anything green in Gorgrond will ever be. Colors matter. The only place this could've been staged at in Gorgrond, besides having completely different topography and spacing, would have you see, no matter where you look, either Blackrock Foundry, the Everbloom portions of Botani green, or the steam vent area with the water elementals, all either partially or fully in view, which NONE of them are.

- I checked the Gorgrond Rock objects, and they also do not look anything like the two seen on the left. Gorgrond Rocks are lower definition, with entirely different or sometimes lacking crack patterns on the rock's texture. Waking Shores came to mind and while the coloration is similar, the pattern, again, does not match a single one to the T from any angle. Best case scenario, it's from an entirely differently themed, recent zone and got recolored. Which is a lot of work on it's own for a fake like this.

So for the narrative of the Fake, the background is entirely custom. It's no existing zone in the Game at the moment, unless somebody literally went and drastically changed an existing Zone on the "Place that shall not be named" (private server), using their specific tools. And even then, nothing would probably fit right in and the level of detail is above what that place can do.

Now, the 'Goliath' itself. Reminiscent visuals of Ogres, Dwarven-esque Beard. Earthen Body.

- The Earthen Body, with that pose first reminded me of the Mogu, with their very defined elaborate rocky chest layers. The pose would loosely fit the Draenei Idle, which is basically the Skeleton the Mogu use, except somebody brought to my attention that it would only loosely fit the new idle, if frozen. Mogu apparently still use the old Draenei skeleton? (Confirm/Deny, please?). This lead the guy to the Rexxar Model from BFA (aka the Kul'tiran base Skeleton). I asked for a side by side.

Courtesy of "Pepper", on the place that shall not be named.

While the base model seems a bit tighter, especially the distance between the side of the Torso and the Arms, this is the Rexxar/Kul'tiran Skelly being used here. Which would then have to be fitted with an ogre/dwarf mixture-esque Head and a Beard that does not seem to exist at all. On top of being retextured, made slightly bulkier AND on top of that, be given Gear that once again, does not actually exist, as reminiscent as it might loosely be of dwarven heritage.

Edit: I also just got done checking all the existing Race customizations that include those lower jaw, full beards or could have options to mesh together as a custom. None of them even remotely fit, even if you were to try and mesh them together in your head across or within the race options, across Kul'tiran, Dwarves, Dark Iron Dwarves and I checked Gnomes for good measure. Both on Retail AND the private server that shall not be named. This is a custom beard.

Thanks for not reading my Goliath TED Talk.

[Raetary]

I'm like 95% confident that the background is just the DI concept art.
The site is almost identical to Dragonflights, and on top of that the slides don't even do what they are supposed to do.

The preview images would be showing an image or art piece of the actual zone, not its inhabitants.
If those get showcased, they would get their own slideshow.

[Nize]

I wouldn't mind if it was the true leak. It seems to be well made. There are a few flaws tho.

First of all, I doubt we'll see ogre guardians in Azeroth as they seems to descent from elemental creatures from Draenor and not from titan creation. But this kind of thing might just be retconned into "Yeah the gronns on Draenor actually were titan creations made to control the Life influence".

Then, the mobile version seems to be flawed. I mean, the left arrow really looks like it was distorded or something like that.

Finally, as it was mentionned, the hands are really weird. Reminds me of some weird fan art that were a twitter trend back then on WoW where players would paint over their char to make them looks like what they wished they look like.

Honestly, this one looks pretty damn good. I'll give them credit. One of my favorite touches is that they have a description scrolled off the mobile screen. Most fake leakers are way too into their own story to let some of their fake descriptions be purposely missed.

[Lady Atia]

I am not exaggerating when I say you are the only person I ve seen since the launch of D4 that has actually called the D4 battlepass cool. It's one of the worst battlepasses I have ever seen.

Tbf I barely played it but I like the cosmetics I saw. Keep in mind I play games for the cosmetics (that's also why I raid mythic and play solo shuffle), so having great cosmetics that are FOMO but available to everyone is a good concept for me personally. Which may sound weird, but I would rather have that than FOMO stuff that's tied to "hard/elite" content since that's stressing me out far more than just the idea of having to play the game in order to get that stuff.

[Nymrohd]

@Dismayxz I think you are underestimating what AI can do. This is just low effort on their part with the dwarf, if I fool around with prompts I can get your a decent dwarf whose hands look just fine. Look at the DALL-E thread and you'll see tons of examples with fairly decent hands