Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Woggmer]

The Dwarf Druid is clearly greenscreen'd in via the wowhead Wardrobe with a combat animation. Also if you intend to show off your Druid why would you use a set from the new tier that most people haven't even (and still wont have t the time of Blizzcon) seen yet?

People have seen it. It's been since late September that we've known about this set design.

There have been people doing their absolute damnedest to disprove the 4 screenshots, and yet they won't do the same for the 3 recent ones and easily dismiss it as AI.

Like I said, I'll happily accept being wrong... but I am all but convinced that the 3 new ones we got are the real deal.

Till then, we'll just have to wait and see.

[kavikor]

It isn't about letting it go. I honestly do not (and have not since the end of Legion) had a respect for the current teams ability to respect in universe rules that they themselves set. That is a major issue. If I just assume the developers are (because they do) going to retcon or outright ignore things that do not make sense with a quest or story they are currently telling I lose a large amount of interest as a player because I know it won't matter.

I owned Chronicle 1 & 2. I have not bought a single Lore Book since because in 5 years they could just say 'lmao it was a Legion slanted text just ignor pls and gib 35-45 dollars for the book too'.

This is actually a concept people like in Elder Scrolls lore lol

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People have seen it. It's been since late September that we've known about this set design.

There have been people doing their absolute damnedest to disprove the 4 screenshots, and yet they won't do the same for the 3 recent ones and easily dismiss it as AI.

Like I said, I'll happily accept being wrong... but I am all but convinced that the 3 new ones we got are the real deal.

Till then, we'll just have to wait and see.

I dont think most people think its real thus no real effort to disprove it. The backgrounds alone besides the second image look more like concept art, and the third one has a dwarf thrown right over top of it. He's not in the environment at all. I could be wrong, but thats how it looks to me.

[Nerdslime]

Based on the Traveler's Log, it appears we get a new pet Lil Frostwing for the WoW Anniversary this month.

[Paula Deen]

This is actually a concept people like in Elder Scrolls lore lol

Explain. I have like a casual understanding of Elder Scrolls Lore and other than the kerfuffle with Cyrodil not being a jungle in either ESO or TESIV I wasn't aware there was any seriously deranged stuff in Elder Scrolls Lore....which is like a billion times more Cohesive than WoWs is nowadays.

[Colonel Sandor]

This is actually a concept people like in Elder Scrolls lore lol

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I dont think most people think its real thus no real effort to disprove it. The backgrounds alone besides the second image look more like concept art, and the third one has a dwarf thrown right over top of it. He's not in the environment at all.

As a huge Elder Scrolls lore nerd, the most frustrating part is the sudden retconning (cyrodill is now europe, skyrim has now abandoned their original gods and culture). Unreliable narrator and Dragon Breaks are fine and apart of the lore, but retconning the cool stuff away is not welcome.

[Ferlion]

This is actually a concept people like in Elder Scrolls lore lol

It's a concept people like about TES lore, but it's very much handled better than WoW does.
It's also generally told from the text and opinions of cultures, not the gods.
It's also willing to do the crazy and say "Yeah, all those endings happened because dragonbreak".

TES is so steeped in it's own settings myth that it can get away with what WoW tries.
It's tacked on in WoW's case, and it's tacked on through the view of gods.

The funny thing is, Warcraft used to be much closer to TES when it came to this. The RPG books, the quests in vanilla through cata, the novels. You had stuff that showed cultural differences and viewpoints.

The issue, and what caused the Lore spiral is doing that from the perspective of god beings.

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Explain. I have like a casual understanding of Elder Scrolls Lore and other than the kerfuffle with Cyrodil not being a jungle in either ESO or TESIV I wasn't aware there was any seriously deranged stuff in Elder Scrolls Lore....which is like a billion times more Cohesive than WoWs is nowadays.

lol. TES is filled with deranged stuff.

[Woggmer]

The person who said it isn't even there anymore and it's never come up again even a single time. It's time to let it go

To clarify, the person who originally said that was Afrasiabi (aka, the whole reason why Blizz had all those lawsuits and allegations) and the only time it was ever brought up again was in the Illidan book prior to Legion's announcement.

And he didn't just say it, he tweeted it.... This is the same guy who said that "Me'dan is 'totally going to make a comeback and is still relevant'."

[kavikor]

Explain. I have like a casual understanding of Elder Scrolls Lore and other than the kerfuffle with Cyrodil not being a jungle in either ESO or TESIV I wasn't aware there was any seriously deranged stuff in Elder Scrolls Lore....which is like a billion times more Cohesive than WoWs is nowadays.

Elder Scrolls lore runs on the unreliable narrator trope. So every document and piece of lore is always told from a "biased" perspective of the character writing so no real piece of information is actually 100% accurate in-universe. They also have a concept called a "Dragon Break" to completely dismiss any issues regarding diverging player choice, basically in crucial moments of history if a major choice is made, the timeline re-alters itself to make all possible outcomes of that choice a possibility.

So basically if something is retconned, its actually just canon that it got retconned. Like Cyrodiil was actually once a Jungle in-universe, until Tiber Septim retconned it in-universe with his god powers to be a beautiful European countryside and now no one even remembers it was a jungle full of nightmare monsters.

[Paula Deen]

Elder Scrolls lore runs on the unreliable narrator trope. So every document and piece of lore is always told from a "biased" perspective of the character writing so no real piece of information is actually 100% accurate in-universe. They also have a concept called a "Dragon Break" to completely dismiss any issues regarding diverging player choice, basically in crucial moments of history if a major choice is made, the timeline re-alters itself to make all possible outcomes of that choice a possibility.

So basically if something is retconned, its actually just canon that it got retconned. Like Cyrodiil was actually once a Jungle in-universe, until Tiber Septim retconned it in-universe with his god powers to be a beautiful European countryside and now no one even remembers it was a jungle full of nightmare monsters.

Yeah gotcha following. I am cool with WoW if it wants to start doing that, but it really needs to start also embracing the documentation that Elder Scrolls uses. Forbidden Reach did that but so far everything else has kind of abandoned that. Ingame books being unreliable is fun. IRL books being unreliable is not.

[Chickat]

I'll probably just watch the opening ceremony and be done.

It feels kinda hollow without Starcraft there. SC2 WCS was always a great watch.

I dont give a flying duck about esports, but im said its not there for your sake.

[Ereb]

That Twitter guy is just bat shit insane at this point. He thinks his being some holy scientist with his "amazing" so-called "analysis" The Dude prolly never gotten laid in his life.

Nerds calling nerds nerds never gets old

[Colonel Sandor]

"But it says in that timeline, Sargeras won"

Yeah, so? The Illidan novel makes it clear that there's 1 Legion across all of time, and that throughout the timeways, they've not only destroyed/conquered countless Azeroths, but they conquered/destroyed countless Dark Beyond's as well.

Retcons exist.

[Revamp Man]

Vyranoth is gonna betray us
Idk how
Idk when
But it's coming
The book confirms that she has more reasons to be against us than with us

[bdna]

"But it says in that timeline, Sargeras won"

Yeah, so? The Illidan novel makes it clear that there's 1 Legion across all of time, and that throughout the timeways, they've not only destroyed/conquered countless Azeroths, but they conquered/destroyed countless Dark Beyond's as well.

They really shot themselves on the f... everything with this comment huh. It was the start of "nothing makes sense anymore" on the Warcraft universe.

[Ferlion]

I really don't think it's as simple as "only one legion" either.

Time is a construct of order. This doesn't really mean that there is one or multiple legions for every timeline. It means that, from the viewpoint of the other cosmic forces, time just doesn't exist.

[Magistrate]

Ingame books being unreliable is fun. IRL books being unreliable is not.

This so many times over.

[Paula Deen]

Vyranoth is gonna betray us
Idk how
Idk when
But it's coming
The book confirms that she has more reasons to be against us than with us

I hope she gets her aspect powers in 10.2 and then uses some Shadowflame to burn the tree. The Elf Tears will be delicious.

[eojsmada]

Vyranoth is gonna betray us
Idk how
Idk when
But it's coming
The book confirms that she has more reasons to be against us than with us

That assumes that anything in a wow book ever comes to pass. I'm still waiting for my Calia Menethil/Leader of the Horde storyline from 6 years ago.

[Foolicious]

Based on the Traveler's Log, it appears we get a new pet Lil Frostwing for the WoW Anniversary this month.

Probably means nothing. But a bit suspicious that we get "frozen" recolours of the previous anniversary rewards when the ticket mount for blizzcon was a frozen elemental. I know its Blizzard. We often get some ice themend stuff, but maybe nordend will play a role soon? One can dream...

[D4NNYB0Y]

Yeah, I don't consider those legitimate anymore... They look too clean and staged... and even the shadows look off.

After seeing the recent 3 sceenshots with the Dwarf Druid in them, I'm convinced that one is the actual leaked expansions.

but I'm open to being wrong.

Not even factoring in the screenshots, you feel this is real?

Member of the Blizzcon event realization team. We are more than 100 people.

World of Warcraft: Oath Breaking.

I think the leak itself is why most folks haven't analyzed these 3 screenshots in the same detail as the 4 that were previously leaked.

I don't think any of the screenshots are real at this point. They all piggybacked off of this leak from 10/18 which the leaker came out and admitted was fake.

World of Warcraft: Storms of Avaloren
lvl cap raised to 80
New neutral race: Algaren. tall dwarves made of stone but have colored hair.
New continent: Avaloren.
4 zones. Art looked like jungle, desert, snowy peaks and rocky peaks.
Khaz algar capital city partially underground. Like IF if half of it was above ground.
No new specs. Some specs turned into support specs.
lightbound titan keepers
storm dreadlords
fancy dragon/moth hybrid things
Saw what looked to be a boat piloted by a player character.
Image of Silvermoon with a harbor and a lot of nightborne asthetics around as well.
gilneas repaired with night elf asthetics around and a harbor where the worgen starting zone is.

This leak and many of the subsequent SoA leaks came out 1 day after this Diablo IV leak on 10/17

New Expansion: Nahantu

Next WoW expansion is old world revamp title is SoA.

Enjoy see you at blizzcon!

And this leak came after the website leak from mogturmen (who has since been banned) on 10/11.

i.imgur.com/VromJYz.jpeg

All of these leaks are playing on existing players' confirmation bias that Avaloren is next because it is hinted in DF. Avaloren does not have the name recognition to bring in new or former players to the game, and it's too similar in themes to DF. I definitely don't think Avaloren is going to be in the title.

I think underground with Old God void influence is most likely at this point. Possibly with Khaz Algar being both an Earthen city and a prison for a new Old God. @Scaleface, who accurately leaked DF, alludes to this in his post on 9/23.

As I wrote to few ppl before in private - all I have this time is just a pack of screens, nothing more (and based on the screens themselves there is no point in guessing like with DF where I had much more information).
It is too risky to upload them in higher quality, as they may be sent intentionally (they may be, for example, generated by AI) to target people who post information during the NDA. Also, as I also mentioned - don't take it too seriously but: most of them have locations with purple skies and models that look very much like dreadlords.
That's why this time I'm refraining from posting anything, even in the same form as in DF - although it was very funny when you discovered the next clues one by one I simply don't have much information (only a handful of screenshots), and I don't want to cause confusion.

Personally, without looking at any screenshots, I bet that the expansion may be focused on voids, because many things in the game would indicate this - but this is just my personal opinion. Before shadowlands, there were 4 things planned: shadowlands, dragons (dragonflight), light vs void (???) but also undergrounds.
In the case of the underground, it may also be different - because, as you yourself have noticed, there was mention of undermined somewhere, so Towellie's recent posts may point towards this - but whether it will be added to the game as an add-on or as a patch - it's hard to say.

I participate in speculations by reading, day after day

I think Azerite and Sargeras' sword is going to play a part as well. And the Council of Three Hammers + Gallywix and Gazlowe. Maybe Muradin will finally be a central character.