Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Nymrohd]

Sure, but in Zaralek Fyrakk pisses off halfway through to do his thing. The raid itself has nothing to do with him or with the overarching Incarnate plot. You could easily do something similar with the goblin raid.

To that I'd say that a story can have B-plots. One of those for DF was the Dracthyr. Aberrus is an important part of their story. It is also a resolution to the Black Dragonflight story just like the Blue Flight quests and Azure Vault or the DotI megadungeon do for Blue and Bronze (I still have no idea why the reds get completely shafted).
If we go to Undermine, I expect it will be tied to a story that is developed in the leveling campaign of TWW.

But here is the thing. There are two obvious zones linked to Khaz Algar. One is obvious due to the map; Elun'ahir. We have a zone-sized area effectively missing from the map structure with roots in the adjoining zones. But the second is the core. The entire point of the Earthen seems to be to maintain the Coreway. So I'd assume the Core would be a zone as well. If we have two zones already, why do we need a third? Unless of course the roots are in the core? In which case Elun'ahir is pretty much a Life-based Old God that actually succeeded where the Old Gods failed. And that would honestly be a cool take.

So Kezan and Undermine may not happen as zones. A goblin raid could be a massive ship.

Also, maybe they'd do a season with multiple raids! maybe the goblin raid will be in season 1 at 11.0.5 as some 3 boss yacht.

[allegrian]

There are a lot of points to make against the DF story, chief of all that it's profoundly boring, but its basic gist is so by the book and basic that I struggle to get where these takes come from. The obvious arc of the story is that the dragons head to the isle to get their powers by fulfilling their Titan instructions while facing the baddies, who oppose them based on following those same instructions. The instructions don't work though and they instead go on their individual arcs (except Alex lol) and ultimately get their powers back from the planet instead of from an outside force, countering both the Incarnates' position that they're lackeys and showing a synthesis between getting your powers from the world like said Incarnates, but not being a dick. The Tyr plotline is an accompaniment to that, it's quixotic on purpose because neither he nor the Titans can magic their powers back, they've got to earn them and they do so by doing what they've summarily failed at throughout their entire screentime up to this point and actually beating the baddie.

Now you can argue this story is trite or that the Aspects and the Flights are dull, and you'd be correct, but it's structurally pretty transparent and the beats it hits are so telegraphed and clear that the NPCs literally finish each other's sentences communicating them - "The real powers were the friends we made along the way".

I understand the gist of the story, but the plot points felt barely connected and random. They end up saying the power of friendship/family stuff when the aspects don't interact with each other during the expansion at all, and the final "the cavalry is here moment" vs fyrak features characters from all over the world but not the aspects themselves helping alexstrasza lol.

I think the story pivoted from whatever it was going to be initially when they planned the world soul saga. It also looked like they were going to make the ysera-malfurion switch permanent at the start and cancelled it after the negative feedback.

[Ramz]

Earthen = weird dwarves for everyone
Harronir = weird trolls for everyone

Correction - weird furry night elves. Nothing about them is troll.

Also I don't think they will be playable. And everything points out that Talanji was indeed a placeholder.

[Reive]

the icyveins article is circling around and people are already complaining about the lack of screentime the horde is getting

i hope blizzard doesn't rewrite the plot again

[Cherry123]

I hope this is not the whole plot that was leaked. There's literally only 1 cinematic, all others are on the game engine.

[Sondrelk]

the icyveins article is circling around and people are already complaining about the lack of screentime the horde is getting

i hope blizzard doesn't rewrite the plot again

Even more so when Midnight is looking to be extremely Horde centric. At best we might see some token Nelf representation for the alleged reunification plotline, and probably some scarlet crusade and human/forsaken stuff if my prediction is right on the expansion being more than just Quel'thalas.
Having to squeeze in more Alliance stuff in that expansion would feel far more egregious than forcing in more Horde representation in this expansion.

[Nymrohd]

the icyveins article is circling around and people are already complaining about the lack of screentime the horde is getting

i hope blizzard doesn't rewrite the plot again

I hope they do. They really need to think about parity and not just about their favourites.

- - - Updated - - -

Even more so when Midnight is looking to be extremely Horde centric. At best we might see some token Nelf representation for the alleged reunification plotline, and probably some scarlet crusade and human/forsaken stuff if my prediction is right on the expansion being more than just Quel'thalas.
Having to squeeze in more Alliance stuff in that expansion would feel far more egregious than forcing in more Horde representation in this expansion.

See, I cannot see Midnight as Horde centric. Yes, the blood elves are in the Horde. But thematically they are far closer to the Alliance. Alliance High Elves and Void Elves will be just as much at home as blood elves will be and a human will feel far more at home in Silvermoon than an orc will. And Alliance-centric characters will likely share the space, if not dominate it, with the blood elf cast; Alleria, Anduin, probably Arator and Turalyon.

[Varodoc]

I've just read the leak summary on Icyveins. I am pleased and satisfied.

It would be good if certain partisans would stop making this about factions.

Anduin is not Alliance, he is Anduin. Alleria is not Alliance, she is Alleria. King Bronzebeard is not Alliance, he is King Bronzebeard. This is not a faction plotline, it's a Neutral plotline.

There's nothing interesting that can be done with "Horde" characters anyway.

[Cherry123]

In my opinion, Blizzard is definitely regressing in cinematic. They never learned how to add shadows to their cinematic and their footage looks like it was from the early 2010s. And instead of progress, they refuse to improve their cinematic engine in favor of the game engine, making the movements even stupider at the level of games of the 2000s.

[Varodoc]

the icyveins article is circling around and people are already complaining about the lack of screentime the horde is getting

i hope blizzard doesn't rewrite the plot again

Uhm, No, that will never happen.

Writing and voice acting are the earlest parts of game development, there is absolutely no way that Blizzard will change them in a significant way and it's never happened before.

[Cherry123]

I've just read the leak summary on Icyveins. I am pleased and satisfied.

It would be good if certain partisans would stop making this about factions.

Anduin is not Alliance, he is Anduin. Alleria is not Alliance, she is Alleria. King Bronzebeard is not Alliance, he is King Bronzebeard. This is not a faction plotline, it's a Neutral plotline.

There's nothing interesting that can be done with "Horde" characters anyway.

Anduin is definitely not the Alliance, Varian Wrynn, yes, he is a true patriot, he died with the words For the Alliance, Anduin is just a neutral whiner!

[Reive]

Even more so when Midnight is looking to be extremely Horde centric. At best we might see some token Nelf representation for the alleged reunification plotline, and probably some scarlet crusade and human/forsaken stuff if my prediction is right on the expansion being more than just Quel'thalas.
Having to squeeze in more Alliance stuff in that expansion would feel far more egregious than forcing in more Horde representation in this expansion.

also because rewriting the plot so close to the release is a bad idea.

I hope they do. They really need to think about parity and not just about their favourites.

nah they need to do their thing.

[Varodoc]

Anduin is definitely not the Alliance, Varian Wrynn, yes, he is a true patriot, he died with the words For the Alliance, Anduin is just a neutral whiner!

Yes, Anduin is a Neutral character.

Anduin in the spotlight is not Alliance spotlight, it's Anduin spotlight, because Anduin is Neutral.

Writers aren't thinking in terms of factions, but partisans are going to partisans and always bring up factions. They just can't help themselves from making this about factions.

I wonder, where were all these partisans during Legion/BfA/SL aka the Sylvanas Saga? Must have felt good back then, huh?

[Reive]

In my opinion, Blizzard is definitely regressing in cinematic. They never learned how to add shadows to their cinematic and their footage looks like it was from the early 2010s. And instead of progress, they refuse to improve their cinematic engine in favor of the game engine, making the movements even stupider at the level of games of the 2000s.

they can do really good cinematics with the game engine. they just don't do many of them

[Cherry123]

they can do really good cinematics with the game engine. they just don't do many of them

Sorry but I don't think so. It's just that animations with toad mouths are too much for 2024. Pre-rendered cinematics also suffer from a lack of shadows and it looks stupid when the color of the character does not match the world around him.

[Raetary]

I hope they do. They really need to think about parity and not just about their favourites.

I don't think parity is a good thing.
It usually stunts their narrative capabilities.
Just look at literally any faction conflict plotline.

What they need to do is learn to utlize their vast array of characters, and include adjacent cultures/characters in their grander narratives.

[Nymrohd]

I don't think parity is a good thing.
It usually stunts their narrative capabilities.
Just look at literally any faction conflict plotline.

What they need to do is learn to utlize their vast array of characters, and include adjacent cultures/characters in their grander narratives.

This is a difference of opinions I guess. For me the story of an RPG should engage the audience first and foremost. If I try to steer the story in my tabletop games in a direction that only half the table is interested it over an entire campaign, the other half will just not be entertained as much and that will be my failure as a GM. For me they should always plan the story around engaging as much of their player base as possible.

[Hitei]

Throne of Thunder? Highmaul? Emerald Nightmare? Trial of Valor? All of these were side plots.

Not really? Throne of Thunder was where the entireMogu plotline from pandaria was pointing, and the direct continuation of the plotline from MSV and Kun-Lai. Emerald Nightmare was a massive ongoing threat in the region and the storyline of one of the four initial campaign parts for Broken Isles. I literally addressed Trial of Valor in that post.

I don't know how you can possibly rationalize Dazar'alor a "side plot", when it was the culmination of both sets of war campaigns, and the Zandalar campaign and the climactic moment of the whole naval faction war that was the entire reason for going to Zandalar and KT in the first place.

[Lady Atia]

Not really? Throne of Thunder was where the entireMogu plotline from pandaria was pointing, and the direct continuation of the plotline from MSV and Kun-Lai. Emerald Nightmare was a massive ongoing threat in the region and the storyline of one of the four initial campaign parts for Broken Isles. I literally addressed Trial of Valor in that post.

I don't know how you can possibly rationalize Dazar'alor a "side plot", when it was the culmination of both sets of war campaigns, and the Zandalar campaign and the climactic moment of the whole naval faction war that was the entire reason for going to Zandalar and KT in the first place.

Throne of Thunder had nothing to do with MoP's main plot, which was the faction war and the sha. Emerald Nightmare was a side plot from one level zone that didn't really had anything to do with the Burning Legion other than that Xavius did ally with them to do a two front war, but it didn't feature any demons at all. And again, you can call Daza a side plot if you figure out that the real main plot was supposed to be the N'Zoth stuff but shitty Afrasiabi wanted his "faction war in order to make Sylvanas a dead raidboss" in the initial concept of the expansion. The whole faction war shit was the bad b plot of BfA, so literally THE SIDE STORY ...

And no, we wouldn't have needed it to visit Zandalar/Kul Tiras, both already had void problems going on, and they could have made Aszhara attack Horde and Alliance at the start which would have made us searching new allies for fleets in order to go to Nazjatar. There, 100000x better plot than BFA ...

Edit: Again, the problem is that you think a side plot can't be important lol, it just means it's not literally the main plot of an expansion. Every one has side plots, and some get resolved in a side raid. I mean you could call Aberrus the literal side plot raid of Dragonflight simply because none of the Incarnates were there lol. You could have skipped it without any issues.

[Hitei]

Throne of Thunder had nothing to do with MoP's main plot, which was the faction war and the sha. Emerald Nightmare was a side plot from one level zone that didn't really had anything to do with the Burning Legion other than that Xavius did ally with them to do a two front war, but it didn't feature any demons at all. And again, you can call Daza a side plot if you figure out that the real main plot was supposed to be the N'Zoth stuff but shitty Afrasiabi wanted his "faction war in order to make Sylvanas a dead raidboss" in the initial concept of the expansion. The whole faction war shit was the bad b plot of BfA, so literally THE SIDE STORY ...

It had everything to do with the Mogu, who were one of the major antagonists of the expansion, major enemies in three of the zones AND the primary enemy of the end game zone, a dungeon and the entire first raid tier.

What are you even not considering a side plot here? Apparently everything that happened in MoP before 5.4 was a side plot since that expansion wasn't actually about pandaria, which wasn't about the Sha showing up on rare occasion, but about Garrosh's war. Are Black Temple and SSC side raids because the actual enemy of BC is the Legion and that was the plot of the final raid? Only one leveling zone is about the naga, so it must be.

What is this logic even? And how is Afrasiabi so rent free in your head that you base the straightforward plot relevance of a raid tier on who fucking decided on the background writing decisions.

And no, we wouldn't have needed it to visit Zandalar/Kul Tiras, both already had void problems going on, and they could have made Aszhara attack Horde and Alliance at the start which would have made us searching new allies for fleets in order to go to Nazjatar. There, 100000x better plot than BFA ...

"Bro, the entire BC expansion is side plot because they could have just made Kael attack Azeroth and we could have just gone straight to Sunwell"


Okay, I'm glad we've established that your definitions of side and main plots are utterly meaningless.