Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Ebonn]

• Dynamic weather is back, has impact on zones. Some areas become hazardous enough to force evac till clear. Mobs change w/ this. Many safe zones via large caverns. Plenty of light and civilization below, feels expansive.
• Account-wide progression system, much like D3 Paragon but more lateral / quality-of-life territory (reputations, crafting, spell customizations/skins, etc.). Can toggle off for “fresh” replay on alts.
• Flight limited initially due to treacherous weather above, spiderwebs below. Can unlock a trait to overcome these obstacles. UI for these is like Legion order hall unlocks.
• 3 new specs at launch, 2 more in development. Several support.
• Old assets refreshed in some zones, world Qs available there.
• Renown tracks with legendary lore figures which offer relevant transmogs, titles, etc.
• Variants of the Sha appear.
• Most of the underground is Nerubian, some “dwarven” bits. They are clashing in one region.
• Ethereals have notable presence. Seem unfettered by overwhelming weather. Many unlocks come from them.

This is… actually kinda believable and some of it very desirable. Account wide progression with the ability to toggle off for fresh alts, damn… I’d love that.

[Ferlion]

But didnt the land originate as troll land? Humans may have taken it hundreds or thousands of years ago, but it was troll land first right?

Another good name would be the Gurubashi Wilds.

It certainly didn't originate as Troll land. We just don't know what was there before the Gurubashi left the Zandalar.

[Porcos Voadores]

yeah, thats my bigest light of hope for ogres, and i do think that we could have same vrykull and ogre tribes fighting the storms in avaloren if thats what the expansion will really be.

[Merryck]

I'm tired of these new accounts posting blurbs about the next expansion. There've been so many this cycle.

[Chickat]

No, because the Draon isles existed in name for the last 18 years before it got made into an expansion, and received fanfare during that entire period.
It was a widely known piece of cut vanilla content.

Avaloren doesn't have 18 years of content creators and fans speculating about its existence and concept, it has a mention in a book from just 3/4 patches ago that just started to enter the communities collective consciousness.

Why does it matter? We knew nothing about the Dragon Isles other than it was home of the Dragons. Thats literally it. We know more about Avaloren than we did the Dragon isles. Who cares how long we have known about it.

Also you guys need to touch grass. 95% of the playerbase doesnt care where we go. They just want to play in cool looking areas, kill, cool looking dudes, and get cool looking loot.

Avaloren with cool looking zones, a cool looking villain and a killer box feature would do well. Even if we lore heads havent heard much about it, or known about it for long.

Most players didnt know about any zone or continent we went to before we went there.

[Paula Deen]

• Dynamic weather is back, has impact on zones. Some areas become hazardous enough to force evac till clear. Mobs change w/ this. Many safe zones via large caverns. Plenty of light and civilization below, feels expansive.
• Account-wide progression system, much like D3 Paragon but more lateral / quality-of-life territory (reputations, crafting, spell customizations/skins, etc.). Can toggle off for “fresh” replay on alts.
• Flight limited initially due to treacherous weather above, spiderwebs below. Can unlock a trait to overcome these obstacles. UI for these is like Legion order hall unlocks.
• 3 new specs at launch, 2 more in development. Several support.
• Old assets refreshed in some zones, world Qs available there.
• Renown tracks with legendary lore figures which offer relevant transmogs, titles, etc.
• Variants of the Sha appear.
• Most of the underground is Nerubian, some “dwarven” bits. They are clashing in one region.
• Ethereals have notable presence. Seem unfettered by overwhelming weather. Many unlocks come from them.

This is fun. Lots of neat ideas, doesn't feel written by AI, some bits make no sense without context, the Sha, which is a good sign.

I rate it an 8/10. If you faked this good job. Do more so we can read them.

[Foolicious]

But didnt the land originate as troll land? Humans may have taken it hundreds or thousands of years ago, but it was troll land first right?

Another good name would be the Gurubashi Wilds.

Basically everything originated as troll land so yes. The humans also came south and established stormwind a few hundred years after the gurubashi empire has fallen. So while we don't have real information its safe to assume that humans took it from trolls or it was simply not occupied by the trolls when they arrived.

[Chickat]

Right, so if Avaloren was namedropped in some random dialogue in TBC, without anything else about it, it would be okay?
What we knew about the Dragon Isles was 1.) there's probably dragons there and 2.) Wrathion is looking for it.

That's it lmao.

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Why does the story of a place need to be fleshed out before we are at the place? Once again, why do we need to know exactly everything about a place before we even go to a place? What the fuck is that logic.

And who cares what we knew about the Broken Isles or Pandaria before we went there. Most players knew nothing about either, and those expansions still did fine to vaarying degrees.

WoD sold well because of metal shirtless orc bros fighting with big weapons. Thats it. Dragonflight would have sold better if it was marketed as more hardcore. Warcaft audience wants badass looking stuff. Not frolicking dragons in a flowery meadow. I like the dragon stuff, but most players dont give a shit about Chromie or Nozdormus feelings.

[Ebonn]

Why does it matter? We knew nothing about the Dragon Isles other than it was home of the Dragons. Thats literally it. We know more about Avaloren than we did the Dragon isles. Who cares how long we have known about it.

Also you guys need to touch grass. 95% of the playerbase doesnt care where we go. They just want to play in cool looking areas, kill, cool looking dudes, and get cool looking loot.

Avaloren with cool looking zones, a cool looking villain and a killer box feature would do well. Even if we lore heads havent heard much about it, or known about it for long.

Most players didnt know about any zone or continent we went to before we went there.

BIG agreeeeeee.

[Chickat]

That’s not at all what I said. Avaloren being a completely unknown and (as of now) irrelevant location is just one of the reasons, there are more and I already listed them. Not going to do it again because this discussion leads nowhere.

By the way, new Reddit leak just dropped.

What did it say btw? It was removed.

[Ebonn]

It certainly didn't originate as Troll land. We just don't know what was there before the Gurubashi left the Zandalar.

What else would it be then? Lol. Most land started as Troll lands haha

[bruxx]

• Dynamic weather is back, has impact on zones. Some areas become hazardous enough to force evac till clear. Mobs change w/ this. Many safe zones via large caverns. Plenty of light and civilization below, feels expansive.
• Account-wide progression system, much like D3 Paragon but more lateral / quality-of-life territory (reputations, crafting, spell customizations/skins, etc.). Can toggle off for “fresh” replay on alts.
• Flight limited initially due to treacherous weather above, spiderwebs below. Can unlock a trait to overcome these obstacles. UI for these is like Legion order hall unlocks.
• 3 new specs at launch, 2 more in development. Several support.
• Old assets refreshed in some zones, world Qs available there.
• Renown tracks with legendary lore figures which offer relevant transmogs, titles, etc.
• Variants of the Sha appear.
• Most of the underground is Nerubian, some “dwarven” bits. They are clashing in one region.
• Ethereals have notable presence. Seem unfettered by overwhelming weather. Many unlocks come from them.

Why is this person with their one post banned? IP ban from another account? This calls for an investigation by someone less lazy than me

[Chickat]

Yes.
Quite literally yes.

If the name and concept had an actual time to simmer in the background, become part of the collective consciousness of the community, receive fanfare in form of speculation and content creation and maybe even furter world building on Blizzards part (though, not entirely necessary as we saw with DF), then it absolutely would be better.

I'm honestly baffled that we have to argue about this.

Im baffled that you think the average gamer bro even knows what any continent is until they played them. MAYBE Northrend because the Lich King was hyped by everyone, but no one even knew who Deathwing was when Cata came except for the Warcraft 3 lore heads and they werent the majority of players.

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Tbf, atleast it's not like the Jailer who literally was invented for Shadowlands, had no former buildup/teases/hints and was killed within 3 seasons without even giving him any propper lore just because they wanted him to be "mysterious".

N'Zoth and Nyalotha/Nazjatar are on the other side of the spectrum - seeded early, with years of speculation and all of that was just wasted on some shitty side patch instead of an expansion.

Atleast Argus kinda worked, but it still would have been a better expansion than a final patch imo. Just the timing would have been a problem, as Argus would have been the third legion expansion in a row.

And yes, I will die on this hill ... making something into an expansion will always turn out to be better than just wasting it on a patch, especially if the game wants to survive another 20 years.

To the average player the Jailer was probably pretty cool tbh. Shadowlands sold incredibly well on its Death theme alone. The reason subs dropped like a sack of bricks is because of gameplay issues and lack of content.

[Paula Deen]

Why does it matter? We knew nothing about the Dragon Isles other than it was home of the Dragons. Thats literally it. We know more about Avaloren than we did the Dragon isles. Who cares how long we have known about it.

Also you guys need to touch grass. 95% of the playerbase doesnt care where we go. They just want to play in cool looking areas, kill, cool looking dudes, and get cool looking loot.

Avaloren with cool looking zones, a cool looking villain and a killer box feature would do well. Even if we lore heads havent heard much about it, or known about it for long.

Most players didnt know about any zone or continent we went to before we went there.

Based. Truly Chickat, wielder of the two day old quote is making statements so spicy I think MMOC may implode.

But FR, so many people here should consider becoming homeless so they can reside on the grass for a bit. Gotta ground themselves with all the stupid shit they say.

[Chickat]

I will be very curious to see the audience reaction to "New Continent: Avaloren".

The vast majority of players and streamers don't read codex entries, they will have never heard of "Avaloren".

I remember that people were so hyped when Kul Tiras and Zandalar were revealed, because these were major kingdoms that had been hyped up since at least Cataclysm. Same thing for when the Tomb of Sargeras or the Shadowlands were shown.

Even Gilneas, a minor human kingdom, generated a lot of hype when it was revealed, because people wanted to see what was behind that famous wall from Vanilla Silverpine.

The Dragon Isles were a major secret from Vanilla WOW. The average player is interested in secrets of the videogame, so they knew that the Dragon Isles were a cut island with an Old God-inspired temple. There was definitely a lot of hype for the Dragon Isles because people had already heard of it one way or another.

Avaloren? The average player has never heard of it. I will eagerly await to see the crowd reaction if Avaloren really is next continent.

The average internet WoW forum frequenter? Sure. The average player just wants loot and has never read a quest.

[Ebonn]

Im baffled that you think the average gamer bro even knows what any continent is until they played them. MAYBE Northrend because the Lich King was hyped by everyone, but no one even knew who Deathwing was when Cata came except for the Warcraft 3 lore heads and they werent the majority of players.

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To the average player the Jailer was probably pretty cool tbh. Shadowlands sold incredibly well on its Death theme alone. The reason subs dropped like a sack of bricks is because of gameplay issues and lack of content.

I think people like this tend to think themselves and other lore obsessed people are the majority. I am also a lore fiend and want to know more and more about everywhere we go, but most people just don’t care lol.

[Paula Deen]

Why is this person with their one post banned? IP ban from another account? This calls for an investigation by someone less lazy than me

Anytime you see a one poster account banned its because they deleted the account. The immediate assumption is they got banned because Daddy Metzen is working with the French and Curse to conspire against the forums themselves....but lets be real that is too complicated.

He made the post then deleted his account to give himself the appearance of getting banned so that people think the leak is more legit. Its being going on for....10 years now?

Now it is also possible he had the same IP as another account and got banned for alt'ing but either way. Whoever he was, he gone.

[Chickat]

Basically everything originated as troll land so yes. The humans also came south and established stormwind a few hundred years after the gurubashi empire has fallen. So while we don't have real information its safe to assume that humans took it from trolls or it was simply not occupied by the trolls when they arrived.

Even so it doesnt make much sense to include it as the kingdom of Stormwind for gameplay purposes imo.

[bruxx]

Anytime you see a one poster account banned its because they deleted the account. The immediate assumption is they got banned because Daddy Metzen is working with the French and Curse to conspire against the forums themselves....but lets be real that is too complicated.

He made the post then deleted his account to give himself the appearance of getting banned so that people think the leak is more legit. Its being going on for....10 years now?

Now it is also possible he had the same IP as another account and got banned for alt'ing but either way. Whoever he was, he gone.

Oh neat, didn't know that self-deletion looked the same as banned. Yeah, I didn't figure that some MMO-C admin in the know spotted his post at like 10:30pm EST and felt the need to panic ban him, while not bothering to edit his post so we can still read it.

[Woggmer]

I just hate when Blizzard attempts to do multiple timelines including in DF

and I also feel like if there's ever a light v void expansion or "evil light" expansion the characters are gonna be pretty one dimensional

evil, authoritarian, almost all paladins or lightforged X or Y character, and a lot of yellow

i realize legion had a lot of just objectively evil villains but it was also longstanding in the lore

There is the Scarlet Crusade, who are probably the only faction the entire game that are built around using the Light as a means to an end. Besides, the authoritarian bit is the Titan's schtick now.

Even if we're not going to Draenor, there's the chance Yrel will come to us instead... because I mentioned this a while back, those Draenei spaceships like the Geredar and the Exodar are capable of traveling through both Space and Time. The only reason it's taking Yrel this long is probably because she's trying to find the other Ata'mal Crystal shards to create another ship (like Velen did back on Argus) to where she can travel to Azeroth.