Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Schwert]

The "Do you play the good guys or the bad guys?" question I got from mouth-breathers who never even picked up the game is so 2004.

Literally nobody asks this.
Not even bothering reading the rest of your insult laden dribble after attempting the first paragraph.

Horde vs Alliance is a core component of the Warcraft IP.
We are literally getting a new battleground.
It is not going anywhere, and should have a slightly bigger focus because it's what makes the IP unique.

And catering to people who froth at the mouth over the mere idea that people enjoy it and start throwing out insults left and right like its somehow makes them superior to people who enjoy a game as it was is just brand suicide. WoW feels overtly generic now. Wonder why?

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Thr first thing people ask me when they find out I play WoW is what class I play.
I can do this too you see

Someone else already made the same comment but faction wars are boring and have been done more than enough already. Not to mention it’s always the same thing. I’m not quite sure WoW’s subscriber count would go up if we had the same faction war every single xpac.

Why are you playing a game about faction wars if you find them boring?
Like, sincerely, stop consuming product that was not made for you if you don't like it instead of crying to people who enjoy core aspects of it.

I cannot wait to see how hard people whine about the new battleground existing. Like, it's not. going. anywhere. They literally just added more of it.

You know what's boring?
Everything being a-ok between groups that hated each other. How the everloving crap can somebody say faction stuff is overdone too, when it only had a core focus in MoP and BFA? You're telling me stuff like Wrathgate sucked too? Lmao.

[Nymrohd]

Everything being a-ok between groups that hated each other. How the everloving crap can somebody say faction stuff is overdone too, when it only had a core focus in MoP and BFA? You're telling me stuff like Wrathgate sucked too? Lmao.

Really the one thing that has been overdone in WoW is the Void.

[Raetary]

No wonder you anti-faction people get so upset. You actually think your opinion is the overwhelming majority and it's just 5 people holding you up.

If it wasn't a majority opinion, Blizzard would've never even considered the possibility to open up faction barriers.
CFP was across the board a highly popular systemic change as *newsflash* people fucking love it when their game experience isn't dumbed down by arbitrary restrictions from 20 years ago.

People actually enjoy getting to play with their friends and have an actual array of options when they open up the groupfinder.

And now we even have cross-faction guilds because of it.

Horde vs Alliance is a core component of the Warcraft IP.

Yes.
As a narrative component.

It stopped being a popular gameplay component ages ago.

[KyleEverett]

Cross faction isn't going anywhere. They won't remove features after they are added.

If you paid attention, the battleground is presented as a small skirmish over some resources. It's certainly no big battle sanctioned by the leaders.

[Nymrohd]

Cross faction isn't going anywhere. They won't remove features after they are added.

If you paid attention, the battleground is presented as a small skirmish over some resources. It's certainly no big battle sanctioned by the leaders.

See, I never saw a reason why cross faction and faction pvp cannot coexist. Guilds can be supranational organizations. The factions can be skirmishing constantly without that affecting the players. If it was up to me, we would have had cross faction from day one. Then maybe paladins could have stayed with the Alliance and Shaman with the Horde etc.

[ChronoSul]

Why are you playing a game about faction wars if you find them boring?
Like, sincerely, stop consuming product that was not made for you if you don't like it instead of crying to people who enjoy core aspects of it.

I cannot wait to see how hard people whine about the new battleground existing. Like, it's not. going. anywhere. They literally just added more of it.

You know what's boring?
Everything being a-ok between groups that hated each other. How the everloving crap can somebody say faction stuff is overdone too, when it only had a core focus in MoP and BFA? You're telling me stuff like Wrathgate sucked too? Lmao.

First off Cata also had the faction war core to it atleast in the revamp. BUT either way I think u have your answer if u only consider bfa. Bfa burnt a lot of people on the concept because yet again one faction played second fiddle to the other in order to progress its story. But this time with a genocide Attached that went unpunished leading a lot of people to realize that the war is just going to be a cycle of horde does x bad thing -> horde has civil war -> Alliance helps rebels -> Horde gets away scot free. Its happen in BOTH expansions that u listed with the faction war as its CORE IDENTITY. Thats why its so boring to a lot of people.

Put a twist on the faction war so it isnt literally the same story 2 expansion that it was core then people would find it more interesting. BUT given the general Alliance Leadership that wont happen. Because if it did the Alliance fans would scream how out of character that it is for the faction as many play the alliance to be "the good guys". In short in the MMO setting a 2 faction system doesnt work because u can never do anything completely drastic to one side with doing it to the other. The closest we got was the burning of the tree but blizz also had Sylvanas bomb her own city to keep the city count equal.

[Nymrohd]

First off Cata also had the faction war core to it atleast in the revamp. BUT either way I think u have your answer if u only consider bfa. Bfa burnt a lot of people on the concept because yet again one faction played second fiddle to the other in order to progress its story. But this time with a genocide Attached that went unpunished leading a lot of people to realize that the war is just going to be a cycle of horde does x bad thing -> horde has civil war -> Alliance helps rebels -> Horde gets away scot free. Its happen in BOTH expansions that u listed with the faction war as its CORE IDENTITY. Thats why its so boring to a lot of people.

Put a twist on the faction war so it isnt literally the same story 2 expansion that it was core then people would find it more interesting. BUT given the general Alliance Leadership that wont happen. Because if it did the Alliance fans would scream how out of character that it is for the faction as many play the alliance to be "the good guys". In short in the MMO setting a 2 faction system doesnt work because u can never do anything completely drastic to one side with doing it to the other. The closest we got was the burning of the tree but blizz also had Sylvanas bomb her own city to keep the city count equal.

Honestly BfA just took the significant part of the Horde playerbase that wanted the WC3 honorable savages Horde to the back and shot them dead. Can't really recover from that.

[ChronoSul]

Honestly BfA just took the significant part of the Horde playerbase that wanted the WC3 honorable savages Horde to the back and shot them dead. Can't really recover from that.

Still alive compared to the savage night elves of WC3. In fact U could say that Honorable Savages is more live then ever all it took was to do one of the least honorable things they could to get there

[Nymrohd]

Still alive compared to the savage night elves of WC3. In fact U could say that Honorable Savages is more live then ever all it took was to do one of the least honorable things they could to get there

Savage Night Elves got killed in Cata And when they tried to come out of the grave Blizz told them "Hush Tyrande"

[huth]

Honestly BfA just took the significant part of the Horde playerbase that wanted the WC3 honorable savages Horde to the back and shot them dead. Can't really recover from that.

What are you talking about? If anything, they lined up and shot the other half and called it worthless.

[KyleEverett]

My theory is the crystal in Hallowsfall is a Naaru heart. Yes it's massive but still. Xal wants old god blood to make crystals to make her own void lord. Succeed or fail whatever she does allows her to corrupt the Sunwell.

[CasualFilth]

Do you guys think we may get a mini 1 or 2 boss raid before 11.0? (ala FFXIV trial style)

Maybe fighting Tyr or Iridikron?

[Ersula]

My theory is the crystal in Hallowsfall is a Naaru heart. Yes it's massive but still. Xal wants old god blood to make crystals to make her own void lord. Succeed or fail whatever she does allows her to corrupt the Sunwell.

I think it's a Naaru Ship, assuming ones designed for just Naaru are slightly different from the Draenei ones we saw on Argus. And there's probably been a Naaru trapped inside for a hundred thousand years. The part that is embedded in the crust is simply pinning the doors closed.

The worldsoul is inherently a benevolent being, forged in the dawn of the universe by its fundamental building blocks: Light and Shadow, but shaped and moulded over the many thousands of years by the other forces. Her spark was kindled when the Shard crashed into Hallowfall. Each force seeks to claim her for their own.

The Thrall/Alleria interactions better be super awkward: She completely forsook her homeland because she refused to be associated with orcs.

[Nymrohd]

My theory is the crystal in Hallowsfall is a Naaru heart. Yes it's massive but still. Xal wants old god blood to make crystals to make her own void lord. Succeed or fail whatever she does allows her to corrupt the Sunwell.

Does it really look different than Oshugun? It looks like a crashed dimensional ship.

[Viridiel]

It feels like she's collecting essences from other Old Gods, needed to carry out the awakening. Is is the awakening of her own former body, or of Azeroth's worldsoul?

This is the part I'm struggling with. I can think of a million things she might want to do with the Old Gods' blood, but I can't decide which makes the most sense:

• To corrupt the worldsoul
• To corrupt the Hallowfall crystal
• To empower/resurrect her old body
• To empower her current body
• To corrupt the Sunwell
• To corrupt the Sword of Sargeras
• To feed to the vessel of Galakrond's essence

Any number of them could serve the purpose of either empowering Xal'atath herself, creating a vessel for another being (Dimensius, Galakrond, the Old Gods, a new Old God, another Void Lord, some other character who "knows our true power" or whatever the quote was), or opening a portal for someone.

I have a feeling it's not the crystal in Hallowfall just because that's going to be central to the zone story in Hallowfall proper, and those sorts of things usually don't then play into the larger narrative, but who knows. I WANT the crystal in Hallowfall to be the core of a sun and to be used as a vessel for Dimensius to enter reality without his body dissolving.

The most likely to me is that she's going to pour the blood into the Sunwell to re-darken M'uru's heart and create a vessel/portal for Dimensius to enter ("a dark heart left broken awaits the taking"). They seem to want the stories of the expansions to connect, and that makes the most sense for me based on the information we have.

[Xilurm]

I really hope Xal lasts for more than one expansion. She's already better than the Jailer due to being all the way from Legion but now that we have her as an actual important character I hope it remains that way until Midnight at least.

[RahEndymion]

I really hope Xal lasts for more than one expansion. She's already better than the Jailer due to being all the way from Legion but now that we have her as an actual important character I hope it remains that way until Midnight at least.

As the 'harbinger' she is definitely not the final threat but I agree it would be nice to have her as a talking head, antagonistic or otherwise, over the next few expansions.

The whispers and her attitude were quite refreshing in Legion.

[Varodoc]

The Old God Blood is the key to Xal'atath and the Nerubian's plans as they are mining it.

Much like it was in MoP, the Old Gods will continue to haunt Azeroth through their Blood, their legacy, and their whispers.

I expect a C'Thun return as a posthumous villain in TWW, especially since the Sword is returning and C'Thun's body was literally underneath it.

Regardless, as Blizzard stated at Blizzcon, the Old God Blood will be the key.

[Ersula]

As the 'harbinger' she is definitely not the final threat but I agree it would be nice to have her as a talking head, antagonistic or otherwise, over the next few expansions.

The whispers and her attitude were quite refreshing in Legion.

I hope she is either the main antagonist or she's not really an antagonist at all. Giving Iridikron some depth & him have to deal with him doing all this horribly destructive stuff to get the Harbinger, all for the expressed purpose of having some sort of brawl with the titans, only the Titans never come because they're busy, would be infinitely more interesting than his plan going as intended.

Also I'm assuming Azeroth is the titular "last" Titan. Right?

In retrospect, how does Iridikron's plan make sense? And by that I mean, how does it exist? He got it from Neltharian's research...but why would he need Galkarond's essence to summon Xalatath....if Xalatath was disempowered & already on Azeroth when Neltharian was doing that research?

Factions could be interesting if they weren't so binary, with the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other.

Make it a third where each faction is neither good nor bad, and each has its own interests that may or may not conflict in certain situations.

Like Cersei in Game of Thrones, I thought what would have been more interesting is if Azshara took the lawful evil route, and started dealing with the other nations rationally: Like, everyone wants to kill her but they can't because as a popular queen they're forced to deal with her politically instead of with violence. Imagine the Alliance & Horde having to discuss trade deals with Azshara & the Naga.

Is that compelling to anyone else or am I just old?

[Dracullus]

Considering that we know theme of next 3 expansions and world tree is blooming 'near', looks like it's pretty certain it will happen post raid. Maybe that's why whole zone is behind loading screen and not part of open world now.