Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Woggmer]

But yeah, seeing Mueh'zala and Bwonsamdi again is cool ngl. Hopefully the heritage questline is worth it.

Some people are hoping that the troll heritage questline could reunite all the troll empires (Gurubashi, Zandalari, Darkspear, Farraki, Amani, Drakkari [what's left of it at least])... but I doubt that.

Zandalari and Darkspear for sure, Gurubashi maybe, and Farraki as well... Amani not so much. I have a distinct feeling that the Amani will have some big role when Midnight rolls around since Quel'thalas is also their territory.

Draenei, I'm actually curious about since it'll be one of the few stories they'll do that doesn't involve the Burning Legion, but I really hope that it isn't another Paladin-style Plate Armor set.

[Varodoc]

Some people are hoping that the troll heritage questline could reunite all the troll empires (Gurubashi, Zandalari, Darkspear, Farraki, Amani, Drakkari [what's left of it at least])... but I doubt that.

Zandalari and Darkspear for sure, Gurubashi maybe, and Farraki as well... Amani not so much. I have a distinct feeling that the Amani will have some big role when Midnight rolls around since Quel'thalas is also their territory.

Draenei, I'm actually curious about since it'll be one of the few stories they'll do that doesn't involve the Burning Legion, but I really hope that it isn't another Paladin-style Plate Armor set.

I thought that that heritage questline was meant to show why someone should be "proud" of having chosen a "Darkspear troll".

But if they have to neuter and cannibalize literally every other Troll tribe to bring them into the fold, would that not be tacit admission that there's nothing to be proud of about being a Darkspear and you should just go support another tribe? That would be a hilarious questline.

Are the Darkspear trolls so irrelevant nobodies that they can't carry their own questline, without having to involve every other tribe? They did back in 2010, but maybe the original writers who worked on WC3 simply understood them better.

Either way, I'm sure the folks on X will only have good things to say about that storyline.

[Cherry123]

I wonder when to expect alpha TWW... The alpha picture is in the middle of winter-spring, but wowhead says it's only spring.

[Cherry123]

Beta is spring. I imagine TWW Alpha will occur either late February or early/mid March.

I hope for February. Short alpha-beta cycle, can bring a lot of bugs on release. If you look at the image, the pre-patch will be in early summer. And the TWW release is for mid-summer. Beta is very short

[Lady Atia]

Beta is spring. I imagine TWW Alpha will occur either late February or early/mid March.

Yeah, we should get 10.2.6 reveal with PTR this week, so they will have 1-2 months to focus on that before going into the Alpha.

[Woggmer]

I hope for February. Short alpha-beta cycle, can bring a lot of bugs on release. If you look at the image, the pre-patch will be in early summer. And the TWW release is for mid-summer. Beta is very short

This is the first time they've had a second developer studio work on an expansion as a support, up until DF all the expansions were done by the same team in the same studio every time. But with Proletariate as support, expansions will be made a lot quicker than they used to be.
(An example of something like this happened when one of the CoD games was getting delayed (due to Covid more likely), but they had to pull another studio, aka Toys for Bob, to be supporting this CoD game's development to meet the deadline release.)

I imagine that the Alpha will start right after or during the Hearthstone Anniversary Event.

[Dracullus]

I hope for February. Short alpha-beta cycle, can bring a lot of bugs on release. If you look at the image, the pre-patch will be in early summer. And the TWW release is for mid-summer. Beta is very short

Don't treat seasons on this picture religiously and measure every pixel, some things had to be moved for the sake of layout. Mid-summer release makes no sense for 1 simple reason - there is only 1 patch after launch in 2024 and they want patch every ~2 months.

My bet is on 24th September release - on Fall like they announced on Blizzcon, but early access still falls on last days of Summer, so it fit roadmap.

[Villager720]

Titans have always been bad. How many times do people need to be reminded of Algalon?

He came to glass our world and stated he had done so countless times before to countless other worlds. All because the Titans’ mechanisms told him to.
That’s not the act of benevolent sky daddies. That’s the act of people looking out for their interests first and foremost. Been there since Wrath. Accept it and move on or at least stop feigning outrage that this is someone a new direction.

[Xilurm]

Titans have always been bad. How many times do people need to be reminded of Algalon?

He came to glass our world and stated he had done so countless times before to countless other worlds. All because the Titans’ mechanisms told him to.
That’s not the act of benevolent sky daddies. That’s the act of people looking out for their interests first and foremost. Been there since Wrath. Accept it and move on or at least stop feigning outrage that this is someone a new direction.

That's not at all how he's portrayed. He's portrayed as a being devoid of empathy that slowly starts gaining it during the fight and starts realizing the people that are fighting him have the will to live and then wonders if all the inhabitants of the other worlds also felt the same.

He isn't portrayed as "bad" or "evil" at all.

[Makorus]

Titans are bad in that they don't give a shit about humanity.

Simple as that.

In a game where you play as "humanity", that's bad. No sane person is going to be like "oh yeah, you are right, just snuff out mine and everyone else's life out because of some cosmological war!"

[Woggmer]

Titans have always been bad. How many times do people need to be reminded of Algalon?

He came to glass our world and stated he had done so countless times before to countless other worlds. All because the Titans’ mechanisms told him to.
That’s not the act of benevolent sky daddies. That’s the act of people looking out for their interests first and foremost. Been there since Wrath. Accept it and move on or at least stop feigning outrage that this is someone a new direction.

I would mostly agree, though I'm of the opinion that there's more to it than just ALL the titans being bad and that this is what "order" dictates.

[Ersula]

Titans are bad in that they don't give a shit about humanity.

Simple as that.

In a game where you play as "humanity", that's bad. No sane person is going to be like "oh yeah, you are right, just snuff out mine and everyone else's life out because of some cosmological war!"

You don't play as humanity. I mean, I don't.

Why is that your criteria for good & evil? Algalon exists to protect the rest of the universe from the things living on Azeroth. If the people on Azeroth decided to conquer the rest of the universe & the Titans allowed that to happen, why would that make them good? It's definitely not good that they lied about the origins of the universe, but ultimately it was to stop the burning legion, which I think is an objective good. The Void, I'm not as convinced is plainly evil, but the Legion definitely is pure evil.

[Jastall]

You're right. It does make them liars, but like I said before, I don't think they actually want the Titans to be bad, just establish why some characters might see them as bad. You know, create rounded villains, etc.

I hope it's why they're doing at least. The Titans secretly being mustache-twirling villains going "We planned for all the bad things all this time mwahaha" would be terrible storytelling. They should be morally ambiguous and more preoccupied with their greater design than by the individual lives of mortals without becoming evil maniacs just so we can beat them for purples.

[Nymrohd]

Titans have always been bad. How many times do people need to be reminded of Algalon?

He came to glass our world and stated he had done so countless times before to countless other worlds. All because the Titans’ mechanisms told him to.
That’s not the act of benevolent sky daddies. That’s the act of people looking out for their interests first and foremost. Been there since Wrath. Accept it and move on or at least stop feigning outrage that this is someone a new direction.

Benevolence has to do with ethics. Let's assume that the titans are consequentialists (they believe in maximizing aggragate utility, that is to promote happiness and peace on a cosmic scale). Let us also assume that the number of habitable planets is finite; I think that is a fair assumption since we know the physical reality is created (by the First Ones) and that First Ones creations are not Infinite (otherwise Zereth Mortis would not be required; the Afterlife would have been infinite from the start).

This means that planets are important resources. Maximizing utility for the cosmos requires maximizing the use of those resources and their potential to create civilization and density of intelligent life. If the Titans deem that a planet has been corrupted and with no intervention would at some point exhaust local resources and experience complete collapse, the ETHICAL thing is to intervene and reset. They evidently have the ability to repopulate after all (we literally see this in Uldum; it was reoriginated but when we activated the relevant Titan machinery, life sprung up almost immediately; the Tol'vir had likely lost the knowledge of how to do it themselves).

That absolutely sucks for the locals but on the cosmic timescale the Titans perceive things, what is important is preserving the ability of the planet to sustain civilizations for millennia to come.

That also doesn't mean they are right. The Titans are clearly not omniscient and though extremely intelligent they are also not infallible (cause you know, Sargeras). Algalon is surprised because the parameters set by the Titans clearly underestimated the abilities of the mortals of Azeroth to correct course. But this means their judgment was wrong, not that their logic was wrong.

Meanwhile we have ample evidence that none of the other forces except MAYBE Light are interested in maximizing utility. Disorder is actively opposed to it, Void simply consumes planets, Death does not intervene in the physical except when it does and tries to wipe all reality and as for Life; we've seen what it does unopposed in Draenor. I am unsure how to judge the Light at this point in time but its nature does seem benevolent; its just that anyone can use it.

[Makorus]

You don't play as humanity. I mean, I don't.

Why is that your criteria for good & evil? Algalon exists to protect the rest of the universe from the things living on Azeroth. If the people on Azeroth decided to conquer the rest of the universe & the Titans allowed that to happen, why would that make them good? It's definitely not good that they lied about the origins of the universe, but ultimately it was to stop the burning legion, which I think is an objective good. The Void, I'm not as convinced is plainly evil, but the Legion definitely is pure evil.

Humanity, as in, living beings on the planet.

Sorry, but if I was a hero of Azeroth and god was like "Yeah, well, sorry, we kinda have to destroy your planet, or give you a bit of mindcontrol juice, but trust me, it's for your greater good!", I'd not just take it lying down. To the people of Azeroth, the Titans cosmological war matters little, and we have shown that we can take the Void forces on to a certain extent.


Not to be that guy, but that was a huge point that was established in the Dalaran speech.

Cold logic deemed our world not worth saving. Cold logic, however, does not account for the power of free will. It's up to each of us to prove this is a world worth saving. That our lives... our lives are worth living.

[Ersula]

Humanity, as in, living beings on the planet.

Sorry, but if I was a hero of Azeroth and god was like "Yeah, well, sorry, we kinda have to destroy your planet, or give you a bit of mindcontrol juice, but trust me, it's for your greater good!", I'd not just take it lying down. To the people of Azeroth, the Titans cosmological war matters little, and we have shown that we can take the Void forces on to a certain extent.


Not to be that guy, but that was a huge point that was established in the Dalaran speech.

"Fighting the legion at all costs" is exactly what the Titans were doing, just like Khadgar in legion. In which, exterminating all life on azeroth if they start sympathizing or collaborating with the Legion would have been a good thing.

Then your definition of good is "doing what is best for your personal race," in which case, evil does not exist, because that's what everyone in this setting does.

[Nymrohd]

Humanity, as in, living beings on the planet.

Sorry, but if I was a hero of Azeroth and god was like "Yeah, well, sorry, we kinda have to destroy your planet, or give you a bit of mindcontrol juice, but trust me, it's for your greater good!", I'd not just take it lying down. To the people of Azeroth, the Titans cosmological war matters little, and we have shown that we can take the Void forces on to a certain extent.


Not to be that guy, but that was a huge point that was established in the Dalaran speech.

There is a difference between "your greater good" and "the greater good for the multiverse.

[Makorus]

"Fighting the legion at all costs" is exactly what the Titans were doing, just like Khadgar in legion. In which, exterminating all life on azeroth if they start sympathizing or collaborating with the Legion would have been a good thing.

Then your definition of good is "doing what is best for your personal race," in which case, evil does not exist, because that's what everyone in this setting does.

Khadgar was fighting the Legion because they threatened Azeroth. The Titans were fighting the Legion because they threatened their cosmological bargaining chip.

- - - Updated - - -

There is a difference between "your greater good" and "the greater good for the multiverse.

And as we have shown time and time again, there are more options than "eh, nuke this planet! fuck those guys!"

Azeroths future being decided by free will (Of the world soul, as well as it's people) is a much better base for storybuilding than "Titans good, everyone else bad"

[Nightshade711]

And as we have shown time and time again, there are more options than "eh, nuke this planet! fuck those guys!"

Azeroths future being decided by free will (Of the world soul, as well as it's people) is a much better base for storybuilding than "Titans good, everyone else bad"

At least back in the Ulduar days the lore had stated that we couldn’t really kill the old gods without harming the planet, which was the whole point of imprisoning them.

Back then never actually killed the old gods. Just forced them back into dormancy (or something along those lines) with one of the comics even having Cho’gal going to get some power from C’thun.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

At least back in the Ulduar days the lore had stated that we couldn’t really kill the old gods without harming the planet, which was the whole point of imprisoning them.

Back then never actually killed the old gods. Just forced them back into dormancy (or something along those lines) with one of the comics even having Cho’gal going to get some power from C’thun.

I don’t know if there was an actual change between Ulduar and Cata but with Cata they said that the old gods were dead dead abs that’s why the shattering actually happened there deaths harmed the planet and deathwing was just the tipping point.

The wow comic also made it rather clear that C’thun was dead dead but even while dead he could still effect things and Cho’gall originally went to revive him but couldn’t so just got a power up instead.