Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Ferlion]

Honestly, considering I'm all in for pretty much whatever expansion is announced, I'm still kinda more interested to see if we get anything else Warcraft related announced. The FPS Gnomish spec ops team traveling through Azeroth during the 4th war is pretty much my dream game that will never happen, but man it could be so fun.

[Teriz]

Are the leaked screenshots truly much worse than the stormheim and valsharah stills here though?

Like looking at the first pine forest one for example, they don't seem that far off in level of detail, no?

I will say that Suramar one is breathtaking though

To be fair to Stormheim, there's actual architecture there. No such architecture was in that Dwarf zone.

Also the first pine forest in those leaks looks disturbingly close to Azure Span.

Heck, look at this pick from Waking Shores in Dragonflight;



I dunno, those leaked screenshots just don't have the wide span that actual zone previews from WoW seem to have.

[NoTimeToDie5426]

Semantics, mental gymnastics, etc. aside, we can all agree that we just want a good expansion announcement in 184 hours from now.

Absolutely. I am still excited, and obviously heavily invested in the conversation happening here. Not sure why people are going so doomer about some possibly fake leaked screenshots.

[Vakir]

I always thought certain areas of the Dragon Isles looked like significant downgrades, frankly. That shot of the Waking Shores looks outright bad to me, albeit it's subjective and for the purposes of the thread, it's undeniable that at a glance you could tell it was all new.

With hindsight being 20/20, I'm mildly curious what it would look like if you presented it to a pre-DF crowd.

"Maybe some adjusted Thousand Needles spires? Definitely looks like they threw some older trees in there. The lava in the back and the structure near it looks new, but it's too blurry!"

[Dismayxz]

To be fair to Stormheim, there's actual architecture there. No such architecture was in that Dwarf zone.

Also the first pine forest in those leaks looks disturbingly close to Azure Span.

Heck, look at this pick from Waking Shores in Dragonflight;



I dunno, those leaked screenshots just don't have the wide span that actual zone previews from WoW seem to have.

They don't have to be, that's.. pretty cherry picked. If these are just Gallery images, guess what. The DF Gallery is still up and running and it's a pretty 50/50 mix of Wider Shots, closer shots, and then those fork out into the next layer, as shots of both kinds are more or less a 50/50 split between Landmarks of Zones or.. guess what: Literal boring shit like a close-up of Ohn'aran Wildlife, all of which are spot on when it comes to vibe with these 4 images.

Edit: And once in a while they have a cinematic still in there.

[Catastrophy349]

I'll be honest, when DF was announced (specifically, the zone preview), I was whelmed at best. However, after getting into the game and hearing the music, walking/flying around each zone, I am absolutely going to miss the Dragon Isles in 11.0. I love them so much.

[NoTimeToDie5426]

Honestly, considering I'm all in for pretty much whatever expansion is announced, I'm still kinda more interested to see if we get anything else Warcraft related announced. The FPS Gnomish spec ops team traveling through Azeroth during the 4th war is pretty much my dream game that will never happen, but man it could be so fun.

Sounds fun lol. One of many dream games I've imagined Blizz creating is a Souls-like set in the underground expanse of the nerubian empire and you play as a rugged ass blademaster orc making his merry way through.

[Teriz]

They don't have to be, that's.. pretty cherry picked. If these are just Gallery images, guess what. The DF Gallery is still up and running and it's a pretty 50/50 mix of Wider Shots, closer shots, and then those fork out into the next layer, as shots of both kinds are more or less a 50/50 split between Landmarks of Zones or.. guess what: Literal boring shit like a close-up of Ohn'aran Wildlife, all of which are spot on when it comes to vibe with these 4 images.

Edit: And once in a while they have a cinematic still in there.

That picture is from the zone preview. The same supposed preview those leaked screenshots are said to be from.

[Dismayxz]

I always thought certain areas of the Dragon Isles looked like significant downgrades, frankly. That shot of the Waking Shores looks outright bad to me, albeit it's subjective and for the purposes of the thread, it's undeniable that at a glance you could tell it was all new.

With hindsight being 20/20, I'm mildly curious what it would look like if you presented it to a pre-DF crowd.

"Maybe some adjusted Thousand Needles spires? Definitely looks like they threw some older trees in there. The lava in the back and the structure near it looks new, but it's too blurry!"

You don't have to go that deep, ironically. When Waking Shores was first shown, people were literally like "Looks kinda like Gorgrond", "Looks like WoD Zone"... to say that Waking Shores was universally accepted as good initially, despite how new everything was... the same criticism was already there. We all know how Azure Span went and Ohn'aran sometimes got compared to Nagrand, less negative, but.. people seem to unironically like things that can show relation to good Zones of good Expansions, not bad zones of either type of expansion.

[Vakir]

Honestly, considering I'm all in for pretty much whatever expansion is announced, I'm still kinda more interested to see if we get anything else Warcraft related announced.

This is the way, frankly. It's time for a 20 year game to stop dictating what the property is and to develop an identity and story independent of its limitations.

...Arclight Rumble doesn't count, of course.

You don't have to go that deep, ironically. When Waking Shores was first shown, people were literally like "Looks kinda like Gorgrond", "Looks like WoD Zone"... to say that Waking Shores was universally accepted as good initially, despite how new everything was... the same criticism was already there. We all know how Azure Span went and Ohn'aran sometimes got compared to Nagrand, less negative, but.. people seem to unironically like things that can show relation to good Zones of good Expansions, not bad zones of either type of expansion.

Yep, biomes have some homogeneity.

I'm just curious how hard people would be riding certain things as leaked if you shrank them by about 80% and removed their context.

[matijwow]

Honestly I can barely tell what they are pointing at regarding the rocks.

There aren't exact models of the rock formations in the game files already, I think. I don't know why that's an issue though. It's easy to just paste rock walls and cut them into shape, especially if they're in the background.

[Dismayxz]

That picture is from the zone preview. The same supposed preview those leaked screenshots are said to be from.

Did.. you even bother.. reading? Nevermind, I'll just let you sit with your one example, while you ignore the whole part where that Gallery isn't just wide shots and has the literal same boring close-up shots those 4 are supposedly from. You do you, my dude.

[GhostFish]

What makes me question these images is the lighting and shadows. It's all very washed out and flat. Loss of contrast is typical for image compression and blurry pictures, but it seems to be more than that. 2D compositing of unlit renders could be another explanation.

[ro9ue]

Honestly I can barely tell what they are pointing at regarding the rocks.

Also... if we were to assume this is a fake, the person would still need some semblance of digital art skills to add the new textures on an old dwarf model, understand how to compose the image with depth of field, recolor and paint over the direhorn... but nope they can't paint a rock? lol

[Izalla]

While I was a big fan of the RPG, they kind of.... Didn't provide all that much on Pandaria. Certianly wasn't "Whoops this is just a Wrath of the Lich King development document" like Lands of Mystery or the like

Pretty sure they were all considered non-canon until otherwise added officially added back to canon before MoP came out anyway.

[Dismayxz]

This is the way, frankly. It's time for a 20 year game to stop dictating what the property is and to develop an identity and story independent of its limitations.

...Arclight Rumble doesn't count, of course.



Yep, biomes have some homogeneity.

I'm just curious how hard people would be riding certain things as leaked if you shrank them by about 80% and removed their context.

They'd be reverse cowgirling that shit as Fake Leaks all night long. Because that's what usually happened.

[Mecheon]

Pretty sure they were all considered non-canon until otherwise added officially added back to canon before MoP came out anyway.

Oh, yeah

But if you ever just want an Interesting look at Wrath's development, boot up Lands of Mystery and remember we're not even at TBC when that book released. Just see how many places and plot-points you can pick up there that made it into Wrath

[matijwow]

Will we hit 2000 pages by tomorrow? Getting pretty close.

[Viridiel]

Is Argus the only time we've gotten more than two zones in a patch? I feel like it's really not possible that Avaloren is for patch 10.3. Obviously Blizzard can change how they do things at any moment, but it seems like a really strange decision to immediately use all of the lore introduced in an expansion. I think even Iridikron shouldn't be dealt with by the end of DF or even at the start of the next expac.

[Dismayxz]

Is Argus the only time we've gotten more than two zones in a patch? I feel like it's really not possible that Avaloren is for patch 10.3. Obviously Blizzard can change how they do things at any moment, but it seems like a really strange decision to immediately use all of the lore introduced in an expansion. I think even Iridikron shouldn't be dealt with by the end of DF or even at the start of the next expac.

Edit: Nvm, nvm, nvm. Misread.