Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Izalla]

If this is fake, it's either made by the same person who made that website image leak, or they are piggy backing off that one. The zone order in the screenshots matches the zone order in the website (Khaz Algar then the desert area, with another zone after the desert)

[Nibelheimy]

I mean considering the Khaz'Algarians are supposed to have set up a similar dwarven society would it not be expected to have similar architecture? I wouldn't use it as a reason for the leak being faked in this specific circumstance.

[Viridiel]

If this ends up being fake I'm going to need a detailed breakdown by the artist on how it was made, just like I still want a breakdown by the person who made the Stormwind Harbor ghosts and the Tel'Abim banana crate cutscene screenshots from previous leak seasons.

Same, and I'd like to see more art from the person who made the Stormbreaker logo.

[Marlamin]

I'm not sure asset reuse is a pro/con towards it being real or not, they've very clearly been updating and reusing existing kits throughout Dragonflight. They also added like ~200 unique tree models so trees from Dragonflight showing up in 11.0 wouldn't be something I'd think is weird either.

[Ferlion]

Def the eagle.

[Izalla]

When you Google search aerie peak the eagle from the 2nd pic appears


In the very exact orientation

Thoughts?

Aha, it was the Aerie Peak one I was thinking of then, not Ohn'ahran Plains

[matijwow]

If this is real, it means that back to back, we discover a lost island continent to explore which has 4 zones, some with similar biomes.

I'd be disappointed, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[Demonly]

Could be that they pulled it from there and reused it.

IF they did they must've gone out and retrieved the asset. It does kinda look off-center.

[Woggmer]

Blizzard has never hinted at underground stuff? You are kidding right? It lterally mentions Khaz Algar and the Earthen in the game in Uldaman Legacy of Tyr in a blue item. Here it is -

https://www.wowhead.com/item=201920/...report-earthen

Also, you are going to tell me Zaralek Caverns and its entire seamless tech was just created for the sole purpose of the zone never to be used ever again in a future underground zone or even possibly a whole continent? Yeah, ok.

Because Khaz Algar isn't the continent. It's Avaloren... Khaz Algar is just one of the zones.

The Titans were also trying to go after some heretics that ran away to the shores of Avaloren but couldn't reach them. Which was documented in another blue item in the same instance.

They might do something underground again, but with this mounting evidence, it's not an underground expansion.

[Hitei]

How the scenes are built/look between the zone reveal trailer and the zone reveal screenshots are very similar, though.

What I meant in specific is that the trailers are typically just in-game recorded footage. They construct the scenes in game, spawning mobs to do animations in game, because they're pretty much always moving camera shots showing off bits of the zones from different angles and stuff (and overlaying moving things on moving backdrops with moving cameras is a recipe for fake looking).

Here you have four nearly identical shots with mobs basically machinima'd on. By the look of the blur around the models, flat PNGs that were pasted over top of the picture of the landscape and then had to be blurred because they weren't alpha key'd into a scene, or cropped out of their model viewer image well.

Blizzard does some of that compositing in those still press shots, but this is pretending to be a trailer so it shouldn't have them, and if it did have them they should be higher quality without blurring, because Blizzard's trailer team has the software to just greenscreen the models directly on rather than photoshopping them into place.

It just looks fan made, like a lot of the past years' fake websites rather than a usual Blizzard thing.

[Pinksocking]

It looks good but.... off

[matijwow]

CRAZY. That is indeed near exact proportions & angle. If this is a fake this is extremely well done.

There's a somewhat similar statue in Ohn'ahran Plains.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ohn...Roost_peak.jpg

[Marlamin]

What I meant in specific is that the trailers are typically just in-game recorded footage. They construct the scenes in game, spawning mobs to do animations in game, because they're pretty much always moving camera shots showing off bits of the zones from different angles and stuff.

Here you have four nearly identical shots with mobs basically machinima'd on. By the look of the blur around the models, flat PNGs that were pasted over top of the picture of the landscape and then had to be blurred because they weren't alpha key'd into a scene, or cropped out of their model viewer image well.

Blizzard does some of that compositing in those still press shots, but this is pretending to be a trailer so it shouldn't have them, and if it did have them they should be higher quality without blurring, because Blizzard's trailer team has the software to just greenscreen the models directly on rather than photoshopping them into place.

I just don't think it's possible to conclude any of that with that kind of certainty at this resolution, just saying the scenes thematically match previous zone reveals very closely. It feels like more of a gut feeling that you're describing which is fair, but I'm not sharing a gut feeling about how they are composed towards either direction of it being real or not, they're just too low res.

[Beerplz]

If the leak is real i'm struggling to see where is the "underground" zone or whatever Towlliee was talking about

[Demonly]

Now.. This looks more aligned with how it looks in this image, doesn't appear HD imo anymore. This might be fake.

[Gloriandus]

If it's fake, it's an elaborate one, somehow Photoshopping elements perfectly using WoW's art style in heretofore unseen environments. Doubt it's AI, due to the nailed art style.

New island (zzzzz), 4 (?) zones, dinosaurs there for some reason (Sholazar 2.0?) seems about par for the course, so quite believable. The "New Continent: Avaloren" text looks like all the other feature trailers when the text appears announcing the new land, caught mid-appearance in that screenshot.

I'm hoping for something more ambitious being the 20th anniversary is coming, but Blizzard also is coasting in the comfort zone these days.

[Ashapls]

What I meant in specific is that the trailers are typically just in-game recorded footage. They construct the scenes in game, spawning mobs to do animations in game, because they're pretty much always moving camera shots showing off bits of the zones from different angles and stuff (and overlaying moving things on moving backdrops with moving cameras is a recipe for fake looking).

Here you have four nearly identical shots with mobs basically machinima'd on. By the look of the blur around the models, flat PNGs that were pasted over top of the picture of the landscape and then had to be blurred because they weren't alpha key'd into a scene, or cropped out of their model viewer image well.

Blizzard does some of that compositing in those still press shots, but this is pretending to be a trailer so it shouldn't have them, and if it did have them they should be higher quality without blurring, because Blizzard's trailer team has the software to just greenscreen the models directly on rather than photoshopping them into place.

To add on, blizzards still shots (for dragonflight and shadowlands at least) seem to have been less detail than are shown in these leaks.

Additionally, the cut together videos highlighting expansions areas do have this level of detail. However, the shots in previous expac videos are from varying angles, and maybe two at most shots head on at creatures like these are. The first image the only wide shot we have from this leak, where in previous expac video highlights you’d have the opposite with only one close up focus shot.

[leviathonlx]

I remember people saying the dwarves hands looked like AI because AI can't do hands. I'm going to LOL so hard if this is real and people dismissed it because the dwarves have weird hands. (The blue Dwarf in the lower picture)

Who had that picture of the weird trogg dwarves from the cataclysm collectors edition?

Didn't the person who made that image come out and admit he made it? If anything that shows this is even more fake.

[Hitei]

I just don't think it's possible to conclude any of that with that kind of certainty at this resolution, just saying the scenes thematically match previous zone reveals very closely. It feels like more of a gut feeling that you're describing which is fair, but I'm not sharing a gut feeling about how they are composed towards either direction of it being real or not, they're just too low res.

Yeah, I mean gut feelings are all we have. I didn't think Blizzard would put out an Overwatch 2 logo with visible basic errors like not managing to draw a circle cleanly, but they did. They're human. There's no 100%s. Just even at that low res, a lot of textures look AI wobbly and the dino especially looks slapped on.

[KyleEverett]

Remember one of the key things of the Algarian earthen is that developed an eerily similar culture to Dwarves. I'd expect the architecture to be similar to Wildhammer.