Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Sondrelk]

Lordaeron doesn't cover all the human zones north of the Span. Arathi Highlands and Alterac for instance weren't part of Lordaeron. Pre-First War, it'd look something like this,

[IMG]

Would make decent "megazones", but of course if we used those borders, the Hinterlands, Alterac, and Arathi Highlands would still be individual zones the same size they are today. Likewise Twilight Highlands. Quel'thalas would just merge Eversong with the Ghostlands, which, granted, I definitely think should be done.

The way I always pitched this idea is that it is less about strictly making every zone part of a large zone, but rather pointing out that you dont need seven different dwarf zones with individual questlines.
One Ironforge Dwarf questline. One Dark Iron Dwarf questline. And one Wildhammer side quest in Hinterlands if needed.
To make this easier you treat the zones as amalgamations of adjacent zones and then treat those amalgamated zones as you would one modern zone. You have one main questline, a smattering of side quests, and one set of endgame reputations.

[Izalla]

One immediate thought on megazones though - what would you call them? As someone mentioned earlier, you could bunch up a few of the ones up north and call it Lordaeron, and Duskwood+Elwynn+Westfall+Redridge could be The Kingdom of Stormwind, but for the rest?

Ashenvale, Hyjal, Darkshore and Moonglade could work as an elven bundle, but what would you call it? And there are big chunks of the map where it's hard to find a coherent cluster. Stranglethorn for instance doesn't pair well with any of the zones it borders

Stranglethorn is fairly big on its own if you include the raid area that is open to the world now. It's one of the zones they split in Cata for being too large back then. Ashenvale, Darkshore, and Felwood can just be Ashenvale Forest. Hyjal and Moonglade and Winterspring can probably all be Mount Hyjal since Hyjal is already pretty big and Winterspring doesn't make much sense by itself as a totally different mountain when it is clearly part of the Hyjal Mountain range.

[PotHockets]

The way I always pitched this idea is that it is less about strictly making every zone part of a large zone, but rather pointing out that you dont need seven different dwarf zones with individual questlines.
One Ironforge Dwarf questline. One Dark Iron Dwarf questline. And one Wildhammer side quest in Hinterlands if needed.
To make this easier you treat the zones as amalgamations of adjacent zones and then treat those amalgamated zones as you would one modern zone. You have one main questline, a smattering of side quests, and one set of endgame reputations.

You could even easily incorporate Renown as a system into that. Have Renown for each of the major regions one for humans, one for dwarves, etc.

[Teriz]

Playerbase speculation & rumors are thankfully not canon.

Yet Blizzard made them canon.

Still incorrect. There’s no reference to really anything in SL except the name “shadowlands”. Everything was merely retroactive if anything.

There were multiple references to the Shadowlands in Legion and BFA.

As I said, only the name “Pandaria” existed, there was never any REAL lore to it. Therefore it’s not a “major lore location”

There was lore attached to it via the TTRPGs which were canon at the time, and it was known as the place where Chen and the Pandaren came from. Also again it was a highly requested location among WoW players in early WoW.

It’s like saying Balor is a “major lore location” as a human kingdom bc it was name dropped & used in WC1/2(?) and popped up on the vanilla map… but it’s not because it hasn’t ever popped up anywhere in-game even in references nor has it had any REAL significant lore to it.

If people are constantly asking Blizzard to take players to Balor, then it's a major lore location.

[Izalla]

You could also mash Stranglethorn in with Blasted Lands and Swamp of Sorrows with the swamp starting to creep back into the Blasted Lands form the North and the Jungle creeping in from the South.

[Ersula]

Well starting from the north in EK you have Quel'danas, Eastweald, Lordaeron, Strom, Khaz Modan, Stormwind Kingdom, and Gurubashi.
Then you could make up names for areas that don't have one. Like Khaz Thaurissan for the area around Blackrock Mountain.

You could even amalgamate them further if you want.

I do like fantasizing about how a modern Eastern Kingdoms would look, but I also remembered an understated part of Titan Lore: Halls of Valor, Helheim, Thros & The Elemental Planes were locked away, impossible to travel to conventionally, the same way the Dragon Isles were. If, say the Harbinger, or even Vyranoth, were to smash the locks keeping these places in their individual pocket planes, it would change the planet completely: We don't know what the "original" Azeroth looked like, the pre-sundering supercontinent was after they separated them these ways. In fact why the Dragon Isles were itself an island before the Sundering throws the idea of a pre-sundering supercontinent into question.

[Woke it Up]

Lordaeron doesn't cover all the human zones north of the Span. Arathi Highlands and Alterac for instance weren't part of Lordaeron. Pre-First War, it'd look something like this,



Would make decent "megazones", but of course if we used those borders, the Hinterlands, Alterac, and Arathi Highlands would still be individual zones the same size they are today. Likewise Twilight Highlands. Quel'thalas would just merge Eversong with the Ghostlands, which, granted, I definitely think should be done.



I'd be more worried about Kalimdor. Eastern Kingdoms had decently defined kingdoms, but where would you guys draw your Kalimdor megazones?

[pacotaco]

Moon owl bear 12 month mount thing got decrypted

Whas that the mount B not sharing FX with the pet as I predicted?

[Raetary]

You guys are vastly overthinking the megazones man.

It's really just lumping a bunch of adjacent zones together and make them contain a connected narrative.

[Rathwell]

"babe, wake up new leak just dropped"

[22mage22]

You guys are vastly overthinking the megazones man.

It's really just lumping a bunch of adjacent zones together and make them contain a connected narrative.

this is correct

[Azalar]

You guys are vastly overthinking the megazones man.

It's really just lumping a bunch of adjacent zones together and make them contain a connected narrative.

I can see this happening tbh

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They even have different racials.

so you do in fact think that a gnome with robotic arms and legs or a brown and green orc are different races?

Lol and you called me dishonest.

Isn't the point that in both cases the Night Elves and the Humans brought the destruction of Dire Maul and Stratholme on themselves?

the night elfs stayed alive for ten thousand years feeding off said demons and then joined the alliance,the humans died in a day.

No they didn’t both case there destruction.

Well no. Grim Batol was designed from the ground up to be a Cataclysm WoW dungeon location. As was BRD, as was Zul'aman.

Undermine was not.

undermine isn’t in game it hasn’t been designed to be any thing yet and could easily be a dungeon or raid as again all of these places existed before they were in wow jsut like undermine.

You must have missed the part where they state a playable Goblin race, and Undermine was going to be the homeland of that playable race.

I didn’t miss it because it’s literally not in that quote.

What it does say is that they wanted undermine and playable goblins, that doesn’t mean it was going to be there homeland just like we got dark spear playable but both the echo isle and Zul’gurab were both hostile or the gnomes and gnomeregon.

Where's the links?

I really need to link you to WC3 or the trilogy on Amazon? I’m sure you can find them your self.

The only "Dwarf hint"

out number the goblin ones endlessly as they don’t exist.

In addition, a Dwarven expansion is doubtful since an expansion focused on Dwarves on Azeroth would alienate Horde players.

like a expan all about a horde race wouldn’t do the same, lol.

[Sondrelk]

You guys are vastly overthinking the megazones man.

It's really just lumping a bunch of adjacent zones together and make them contain a connected narrative.

Honestly, not that different from how modern zones work with their often incongrous narratives. Azure Span with Primalists on one side and Decayed Gnolls on the other doesnt exactly mesh well. Or Thaldrazsus having to contain Bronze Dragonflight shenanigans, rebel insurgence, and wacky dragon high school in one large area.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

I really hope they don't do what you guys want with these megazones. And you don't need to connect to just one zone just to tell a cohesive story. This is one of the reasons vanilla zones were so great - especially the human zones Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood; they felt cohesive and told a great story.

[Nymrohd]

Lordaeron doesn't cover all the human zones north of the Span. Arathi Highlands and Alterac for instance weren't part of Lordaeron.

Lordaeron is also the name of the subcontinent north of the Thandol Span with Quel'thalas being the northern peninsula. Personally I would hope that a revamp of Lordaeron would slightly alter the shape, adding a much larger Hills of Maisara area where Zul'aman is and pronouncing the Stratholme Bay.
That said, I'd be splitting the world in quite a few more zone groupings than just 4 for EK and 3 for Kalimdor which is what many suggest.

[Raetary]

I really hope they don't do what you guys want with these megazones. And you don't need to connect to just one zone just to tell a cohesive story. This is one of the reasons vanilla zones were so great - especially the human zones Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood; they felt cohesive and told a great story.

It's not necessary, but it would visually tie them all together.

And i can imagine it'd be vastly easier for Blizzard to design content and UI elements for one big cohesive map than have to constantly swap between 40-something tiny ones.

[Nightshade711]

I really hope they don't do what you guys want with these megazones. And you don't need to connect to just one zone just to tell a cohesive story. This is one of the reasons vanilla zones were so great - especially the human zones Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood; they felt cohesive and told a great story.

I think they’ll merge zones into mega zones mainly because of dragonriding basically forcing more expansive zones.
And it’s less developmental work if they make the storylines work over 4-5 large zones versus 11-12 smaller ones. (Which makes sense if players are only going up 10 levels and not 60-70)

[matijwow]

Moon owl bear 12 month mount thing got decrypted

There's so much moon and owl iconography in 10.2. I want to take it as a hint that Elune is going to do something but I really doubt it will happen.

[lanerios]

You wanted a source, I gave you a source.



Refer to the 2010 statement from the then creative director of WoW. Then refer to BFA where Goblins return to Kezan and indicate that Undermine is still there.



Uh, that's always been how Undermine has been portrayed. It's a hallmark of the Goblin race, and it's a hallmark of the lore behind the location. It's silly to blatantly ignore those facts simply to be argumentative.



Uh you're the one who brought this up in the first place.

Please provide any current expansion lore claiming that Undermine is all fine and amazing. You do realize that quite a lot happened in the game right? Also stuff that hits "underground capital cities". Something about a sword, something with Deathwing ripping the world apart. Something with Azerite, etc.

But we are supposed to believe that according to you nothing of that had any effect at all on the Undermine? Then again, please prove it.

Common sense (which means following logic of events happening ingame) dictates that this has affected Undermine, we simply have no idea how. Claiming it can only be a happy city that will accept us with open arms is just delusional. It can be a lot of things, a happy city is one of the many options.


Also huge lol to the "They are not playable races, therefor they are monsters" Using that logic:

Goblin, Worgen, Draenei, Blood Elves, etc etc were all monsters until they became races. Then they suddenly became non-monster? ok..