Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Izalla]

I've literally never heard anyone say that. Mmmaybe the Maldraxxus bit, but not on a level of "this makes me question the zone's validity altogether".

All the ones you listed have several unique highlights, all featured in promotional material. I see nothing like that here.

Just pointing out what I saw. Not as an argument against already announced zones being real... but right away people were comparing Waking Shores to Durotar, both as a negative and as a positive (from different people). Azure Span was talked about even more for the Grizzly Hills vibe. I myself was the one who said it also reminded me of Azshara and various people agreed at the time.

[Viridiel]

All of the zones in Dragonflight have at least two subzones with distinct biomes, so I expect we'll get the same which might surprise us. I'm not sure why they would show us only the boring parts of the zones in the reveal video if that's what these screenshots are from, but they've fumbled harder before.

[Izalla]

No, that doesn't make sense... One of the achievements that was discovered was named Algarian Stormrider [Heroic Edition] which seems to be the mount given to those who bought the Heroic edition for the next expansion. One of the assets someone found was a dark gryphon mount with a glow around its wings.

If we're not factoring the gryphon part, why would something called a Stormrider be underground? If there's heavy themes of Wildhammers involved, then surely it would be a place with big wide open spaces for gryphons to fly around in... Having the expansion be underground is something more fitting for the Dark Irons.

To me, Avaloren is the continent and Khaz Algar is one of the zones. What proof do we have that suggests Khaz Algar is underground?

Speaking of the Wildhammer and the skies, why the hell did they live in a place like Grim Batol? Never made sense to me.

[matijwow]

I'd take issue if Amitus is canonized. Her absence in the story up until now makes no sense. But I don't doubt Danuser will make her canon.

She'll show up locked in battle with Med'an.

[Chickat]

If it's real, it could just as easily be only three of the four-five zones. Or that there could be underground sections for each. Or any number of other possibilities.

Towillee is an obnoxious, cold-reading shyster, though. Even if there is an underground zone, or zones.

Incidentally, if it's real, and it's a standard 4-5 zone island on top of one of them being underground and thus not on the overworld, making the new mass even smaller, that would just tickle me.

Or its real and uninspired because they are also revamping Azeroth at the same time.

[Ferlion]

The fourth picture makes me think Troll. The bridge and gold on the Titan robits.

[matijwow]

The fourth picture makes me think Troll. The bridge and gold on the Titan robits.

It looks a lot like Zuldazar.

[Izalla]

Same, they just keep finding ways to use assets in multiple ways to lower how hard the revamp is going to hit them eventually and I think it's a really smart way to do it.

Why else would they add quilboar to Kul Tiras when they are a Kalimdor mob that doesn't exist in Eastern Kingdoms, or retcon a bunch of centaur lore so they could add them to the Dragon Isles? Neither mob really belonged in such a place, but hey, those were some of the last models that hadn't been updated yet. Even gnolls, also in desperate need of a model update, happened to appear in the Dragon Isles. Did Blizz really just want to reuse gnolls, or did they really want an excuse to update the gnoll models? And hey look! Now they have gnolls, quilboars, centaurs, and kobolds (from Legion) to replace the old vanilla models with! That was sure convenient.

[Chickat]

@22mage22

What do you have to say about this?

[Izalla]

It looks a lot like Zuldazar.

Especially with the dinosaurs. I want that dinosaur mount! As soon as I saw the pet in game I fell in love.

[D4NNYB0Y]

@22mage22

What do you have to say about this?

And @Scaleface

[Izalla]

And @Scaleface

Scaleface already let us know he has no info this time around. Gonna be interesting to watch the "leakers" who said anything other than Avaloren fight with those pictures though hahah.

[Ferlion]

Honestly, I almost dismissed the Harpy out of hand. She looks like she's got a lightning shield animation on, just slightly newer.

[Syphin33]

It's because it was probably AI generated and then they threw random models on top and added shadows manually. So the models are slightly off in perspective and lighting and the shadows don't look like the match. Gives a similar impression to the character creation screen (those are also flat with 3D models on top).

You're gonna be so wrong... this just smells of the "blue eye bolvar and the drac'thyr" debunking all over again. There were SO MANY post like yours just bending your brain and picking apart every little pixel explaining why it was a fake.

[arrantprac]

The image is an order of magnitude above any fake leak we've seen before. When have we ever seen a faked image that *actually* looks like an in-game screenshot?
It's 100% real.

[Hitei]

The image is an order of magnitude above any fake leak we've seen before. When have we ever seen a faked image that *actually* looks like an in-game screenshot?

Every time someone has tried to pass off private server shit as a leak, or any of the other composite fakes like the Shadowlands stormwind harbor leak, or the Awakening dungeon page/inn leak.

[Vakir]

Or its real and uninspired because they are also revamping Azeroth at the same time.

I mean, that's the only thing that would bring me back, but it feels like a distant dream.

Verbatim last announcement, they looked at Dragonflight's zone amount as "expected for a WoW expansion." The "1-2 sizzle features and 4 zones" feels like the standard expectation now that this has become an increasingly corporate boxed product. It's been a frog in the heating up pot thing for a while now in terms of how gradually the scaling back became.

I really wanna be wrong.

[Izalla]

I'm coming down on the side of "these are probably fake" but not for any particular thing wrong with them. I won't be shocked at all if they do turn out to be real though. It's way past bedtime for me now though so I must tear myself away from this thread and get a few hours of sleep... Hopefully you guys don't add 20+ more pages before I wake up.

[Hitei]

I mean, that's the only thing that would bring me back, but it feels like a distant dream.

Verbatim last announcement, they looked at Dragonflight's zone amount as "expected for a WoW expansion." The "1-2 sizzle features and 4 zones" feels like the standard expectation now that this has become an increasingly corporate boxed product. It's been a frog in the heating up pot thing for a while now in terms of how gradually the scaling back became.

I really wanna be wrong.

Do people really care about the number of zone divisons?

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

You're gonna be so wrong... this just smells of the "blue eye bolvar and the drac'thyr" debunking all over again. There were SO MANY post like yours just bending your brain and picking apart every little pixel explaining why it was a fake.

I'm leaning on fake because the screenshots are playing it very safe. They look *very* good, just like WoW's style, but all of the assets look like something that exists, and the environments ressemble places that we've already seen.

The Dracthyr leak was something completely new that people even said it didn't look like WoW. Everything in this leak looks like something that already exists in the game, just reconfigured.