Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Ersula]

I would say this is nothing....except without the armor it looks exactly like the Free Hearthstone card included with the next expansion, which the full animated trailer will undoubtably be revealed at blizzcon. This is also the color scheme I was imagining for the Algarian Stormrider since it was announced.



What a strange coincidence....unless the underlying theme is intentional. As much as I hate to say it, Teriz's elemental call was probably spot on: The people in a western continent probably embraced the elements, though not as severely as the Incarnates or the Primalists.

[Darkarath]

This version of Thal'Dranath has been retconned out of existence and the name has been repurposed to be the original name of the Broken Shore. Which makes it extremely unlikely (borderline impossible) that we would get the full Thal'Dranath as a zone in a later expansion.

Correct.

I think that I even remember Ion saying that It was just going to be another Night Elven ruined zone and that they already had Aszuna.

A pitty. When I first saw Legion's map, Thal'dranath was the zone that interested me the most.

The official name of the Broken Shore in the lore is Thal’dranath

Mmmm do not know about that. That they scrapped Thal'dranath and turned it into 7.2 or 7.3 is clear. That we have the same chance of seeing Thal'dranath in the game as Farahlon in Draenor is also clear. But I do not think that there is a single mention of Thal'dranath in the game.

The Broken Shore is the Broken Shore. If they ever want to bring Thal'dranath to the game, I am pretty sure that they would keep the name.

[Nymrohd]

Again, see the map that they initially showed at Blizzcon:

The original plan was that they were two different zones as you can see. Then they changed their mind, which again, I found extremely concerning at the time.

I mean let's face it, 7.2's world content in the Broken Shores was not exactly high quality. It was nowhere near as good as the launch content or the Argus content and that's probably why. Imo they should have developed the Broken Shores more and/or added some additional areas to it (maybe small incursions into Legion Worlds by using portals)

[Catastrophy349]

I also predict that @Santandame will say something controversial.

[Ersula]

I mean let's face it, 7.2's world content in the Broken Shores was not exactly high quality. It was nowhere near as good as the launch content or the Argus content and that's probably why. Imo they should have developed the Broken Shores more and/or added some additional areas to it (maybe small incursions into Legion Worlds by using portals)

I think you're forgetting their decision to do Argus at all was a spur of the moment thing, switching their plans a little while before Argus was teased at blizzcon. It wouldn't have been Thaldranath and Argus; we would have gotten Thaldranath OR Argus.

I prefer Argus.

[ercarp]

Correct.

I think that I even remember Ion saying that It was just going to be another Night Elven ruined zone and that they already had Aszuna.

A pitty. When I first saw Legion's map, Thal'dranath was the zone that interested me the most.

I remember being excited for it too, but I think Legion ended up giving us plenty of night elf stuff with Azsuna, Val'sharah, Suramar, and the Tomb of Sargeras. So I completely understand why they may have felt like it might have been a bit much.

[Reive]

Every blizzard game is getting a storm related update.


is heroes of the storm coming back?

[Nymrohd]

I think you're forgetting their decision to do Argus at all was a spur of the moment thing, switching their plans a little while before Argus was teased at blizzcon. It wouldn't have been Thaldranath and Argus; we would have gotten Thaldranath OR Argus.

I prefer Argus.

I mean I assume that then we would have gotten an Argus xpac.

[milkmustache]

Every blizzard game is getting a storm related update.


is heroes of the storm coming back?

Lol that'd be a crazy twist.

"The Algarian Stormrider is a promotional event with HotS's return!!! Xpac is Return to Shadowlands"

[Cheezits]

Topically, I have been thinking about horses recently. While Gryphons could use a redo, there are some horse models (armored SW horse, barded SW horse, crusade mounts, technically the skeleton horses) that have NEVER gotten a remodel.

It would make sense for there to be a lot of different horse mounts in a revamp expansion, and if the Algarian mount is an armored horse, that may play into it.

[Sondrelk]

I remember being excited for it too, but I think Legion ended up giving us plenty of night elf stuff with Azsuna, Val'sharah, Suramar, and the Tomb of Sargeras. So I completely understand why they may have felt like it might have been a bit much.

I think I was more excited about what could have been, more than I was excited for the actual concept.
In hindsight it definitely would have been too similar to Azsuna though, and even the Broken Shore we got seemed like it might have taken some of the concepts of what could have been, specifically a more fel infested variant of Nelf ruins.

[Reive]

Lol that'd be a crazy twist.

"The Algarian Stormrider is a promotional event with HotS's return!!! Xpac is Return to Shadowlands"

fixing wc3: reforged and bringing back hots would restore some faith in blizzard

[Sondrelk]

I mean I assume that then we would have gotten an Argus xpac.

It's possible, though I imagine the devs were smart enough to realize a full expansion on Argus wouldnt work.
Looking back that might even be why we have three subareas of Argus, rather than one big zone. They might have started work on the zones and realized that Antoran Wasted and Krokuun were far too similar, and that Eredath wasnt enough to offset the inevitable Fel fatigue given you would have to focus on Demons all the time anyways.

[milkmustache]

Topically, I have been thinking about horses recently. While Gryphons could use a redo, there are some horse models (armored SW horse, barded SW horse, crusade mounts, technically the skeleton horses) that have NEVER gotten a remodel.

It would make sense for there to be a lot of different horse mounts in a revamp expansion, and if the Algarian mount is an armored horse, that may play into it.

A strict 180 from dynamic flying being introduced to ground mount focus would be really interesting. Maybe the storms don't subside, and it's too dangerous to fly. Maybe the fissures/possible caves don't have enough headspace for us to fly consistently, so we need ground mounts.

If they remove the ability to use dynamic flying for a zone or a portion of time, they'd have to rework ground mounts for it to ease over I assume.

[Ersula]

Lol that'd be a crazy twist.

"The Algarian Stormrider is a promotional event with HotS's return!!! Xpac is Return to Shadowlands"

If that leak that said they're remaking W3 reforged in the Starcraft 2 engine & making a gmod-esque game with all the assets from W3, Starcraft 2 & HoTS, that would make me so happy.

[ercarp]

Every blizzard game is getting a storm related update.


is heroes of the storm coming back?

Ha, good one.

Jokes aside, if all these storm-related additions are really pointing to the next WoW expansion, then I have to ask... Why storms specifically?

It seems like the next expansion would have a very strong storm theme to warrant this many cross-game references, but why? Does it have something to do with Odyn?

[pacotaco]

They never developed it. We've seen cut content before, Thal'dranath was barely the outline of an island with no textures or anything. It was no Abyssal Maw. They realized they already had enough night elf ruins in the Broken Isles to add yet another zone of them.

Honestly, people need to realize that in any project, there will be plenty of cut content. And it is not always cut because there is no time to develop it. Some times the concept was just bad and they failed to realize that until they had already used resources on it so we all get to datamine and wonder what could be.

This. In all games I've worked there always was cut content that we discarded because it didn't fit, didn't work well or wasn't fun. Like you say, it's not always lack of time.

[ercarp]

Topically, I have been thinking about horses recently. While Gryphons could use a redo, there are some horse models (armored SW horse, barded SW horse, crusade mounts, technically the skeleton horses) that have NEVER gotten a remodel.

It would make sense for there to be a lot of different horse mounts in a revamp expansion, and if the Algarian mount is an armored horse, that may play into it.

Horses give me flashbacks to BfA. It feels like they gave us enough horse mounts to last 30 expansions.

I don't think they need to make too many new horse models tbh. They can just repurpose the ones from BfA.

[Kalontas]

Wait, the tinker fans and the bard fans are fighting? lol

Both classes are equally (un)likely. That is, I'd love to see both, and I do not expect either.

"But we have engineers." We also have blacksmiths, and no one in their right mind would claim we can't have warriors because we already have characters who can make weapons. Engineers make gadgets, tinkers make their whole playstyle around it. Mech suits, or mechanical arms, or turrets. You can easily build several classes around the theme of technology, without infringing on engineering territory at all. Besides the very reductive "uuh, tech?"

Bards are a common fantasy staple with very faint Warcraft precedent, much like monks before MoP. Yes, there were brewmasters, but until MoP popped up and made up the whole lore about chi and the fighting style that fit D&D monks more than the shamanic drunk brewmasters from prior lore, there were no monks. I'd have sooner expected runemasters, which were originally supposed to be the Warcraft monk.
And as for bards themselves - we already have characters who use music and magic (and magic music) to give you buffs and other effects. It really isn't hard to come up with something and make it fit into the lore without retconning anything. And with the current writing team's motto apparently being "there's no lore mistakes, we'll just pretend the mistake was always the lore"... it can definitely happen.

[Darkarath]

I remember being excited for it too, but I think Legion ended up giving us plenty of night elf stuff with Azsuna, Val'sharah, Suramar, and the Tomb of Sargeras. So I completely understand why they may have felt like it might have been a bit much.

Yes, that is fair. Still, Thal'dranath just sound so good... Is like Azjol-Nerub. If you have a zone with such a cool name you have to give it to us !! I am almost certain that we will get Azjol-Nerub at some point. Thal'dranath, sadly, will stay dead forever

Argus was awesome IMO. So the final result was not that bad.

This. In all games I've worked there always was cut content that we discarded because it didn't fit, didn't work well or wasn't fun. Like you say, it's not always lack of time.

I get that. I know that things change and that not everything works. Still, I would assume that if you make a big reveal about your new expansion and show a zone there, at a point in which the expansion was in full production, you should have a well-thought patch plan by then.

I was wrong, obviously.