Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Ramz]

Disregarding this whole Horde Vs Alliance parity discussion, I do think it's a big bait and switch to have Thrall featured so heavily in the marketing material only to be sidelined 20 minutes into the first zone.

So exactly how Shadowlands played out. Thrall and Baine sitting on their bums doing nothing through entire expansion. And it is a bait and switch. This game is based on 2 factions, and therefore it should at least attempt to give similar amount of story for both of them. And I don't see "do anything Alliance tells you to do" as a compelling story.
And Blizzard was able to provide separate questing experience in the past. So it's not like they cannot do it, it's that they don't bother to do it anymore. And story suffers becuase of that.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Why does everyone always forget about the Army of the Light? Am I genuinely the only one who paid attention to what Metzen was saying, didn't tunnel-vision on Elves, and noticed that Metzen mentioned the "forces of the Light" too?

I know, right? I've brought up old Anduin leading the Army of the Light in the final battle against the Shadow several times, and people keep crying "it's an old Legion comic! It's going to be retconned!"



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I feel like people are putting way too much emphasis on twitter.

People bitching on twitter got the Alexstraza time travel questline removed in this very expansion. It happened once, it could happen again.

[Raetary]

People bitching on twitter got the Alexstraza time travel questline removed in this very expansion. It happened once, it could happen again.

"Questline"
It was a single daily quest that was being freshly tested on the PTR.

And people were complaining about it across every platform.
Including in this very thread.

That said, changing the quest text on a random daily that they just shipped onto the PTR, is not even remotely the same as drastically changing major plotlines.
So idk why you are even bringing this up.

[Civciv]

Imo a race looking ugly is secondary. What is more important is how mogs look. Broken are hunched over so they will distort mogs badly.

male orcs? male trolls? male undeads?

[Ersula]

yeah but it wasnt until she was named warchief that she thought "hes right about everything" then served him doing things like going full Arthas before saying "yeah i served you all this time but i will never serve"

She was named Warchief at the beginning of Legion. She didn't start working for the Jailer until Antorus, at the end of Legion.

Another thing - They're badass, not ugly.

Designing Draenei in Warcraft 3: Look at this little backwards swamp gremlin I made

Designing Draenei in World of Warcraft: Tieflings

[allegrian]

I know, right? I've brought up old Anduin leading the Army of the Light in the final battle against the Shadow several times, and people keep crying "it's an old Legion comic! It's going to be retconned!"



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People bitching on twitter got the Alexstraza time travel questline removed in this very expansion. It happened once, it could happen again.

nah this is getting retconned/ignored for sure. They didn't plan the story 1 expansion in advance, they are not going to do it like 10 expansions prior. Blizzard is afraid of setting hard lore (like chronicles) as it doesn't give them the flexibility to do whatever they want so they just say it's from the titan's pov. They will probably say this comic was from an alternative reality like time rifts in DF.

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Broken are one of the most iconic races since W3 and Velen already established connection with the Cheftain Hatuun and broken on Argus.

Another thing - They're badass, not ugly.

I know many just like playing with their shiny, pretty barbie dolls, but to me personally it's the most basic b thing and having only "pretty cleaky clean" races is boring, especially another variatons of offshot elves/something.

We should get tuskarr too.

Broken were improved with draenei and LF, if they ever become playable they shouldn't be much more than a draenei skin like eredar.

[Khaza-R]

She was named Warchief at the beginning of Legion. She didn't start working for the Jailer until Antorus, at the end of Legion.

She joins him after Vol'jin dies. It was part of his prophecy to her. After she sees it fulfilled she decides to make a pact with him.

[Nightshade711]

I know, right? I've brought up old Anduin leading the Army of the Light in the final battle against the Shadow several times, and people keep crying "it's an old Legion comic! It's going to be retconned!"

I could see it.
Metzen was still around when that comic was made. I could see him picking up old threads that he set up that were likely planned to be abandoned.

[Woggmer]

WarCraft III was pretty clear that Ashenvale was their primary home. Part of it was corrupted by the Legion and became Felwood. But otherwise it never really made sense they abandoned it for Teldrassil. Unfortunatley just something they did to shoehorn the Horde vs Alliance narrative.

I don't think it was to shoehorn the Horde v Alliance stuff, but rather more of a design choice. Ashenvale is a BIG zone and a contested territory because of the Horde lumber mill from Warcraft 3. There wasn't much of a Horde vs Alliance narrative as much as it was Arch Druid Fandral Staghelm being one of the worst leaders to the Alliance, that he basically took Malfurion's role and had the Night Elves stay in Darnassus because it was all HIS idea.

If you really think about it, everything that people didn't like about the Night Elves going from Warcraft 3 to WoW could all be pointed towards Fandral Staghelm.

[Jolly Roger]

She was named Warchief at the beginning of Legion. She didn't start working for the Jailer until Antorus, at the end of Legion.Designing Draenei in Warcraft 3: Look at this little backwards swamp gremlin I made

Designing Draenei in World of Warcraft: Tieflings

debatable but thats because blizz cant keep their character motivations straight or write them clearly

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I could see it.
Metzen was still around when that comic was made. I could see him picking up old threads that he set up that were likely planned to be abandoned.

next thing you know that is Anduin's son
Varian ll

[Ersula]

debatable but thats because blizz cant keep their character motivations straight or write them clearly

They wrote a book about it.

[Cheezits]

I have a feeling that comic will end up being from the Bad Light/AU Draenor timeline.

[Khaza-R]

I don't think it was to shoehorn the Horde v Alliance stuff, but rather more of a design choice. Ashenvale is a BIG zone and a contested territory because of the Horde lumber mill from Warcraft 3. There wasn't much of a Horde vs Alliance narrative as much as it was Arch Druid Fandral Staghelm being one of the worst leaders to the Alliance, that he basically took Malfurion's role and had the Night Elves stay in Darnassus because it was all HIS idea.

If you really think about it, everything that people didn't like about the Night Elves going from Warcraft 3 to WoW could all be pointed towards Fandral Staghelm.

It was a very active choice by them to try and fit a race that was an entire army into a side note of the Alliance. They managed to do the same with the undead but that at least was explained by fragmenting the Forsaken from the Scourge.

Even Ashenvale being contested is kind of murky in lore. Grom is losing his fight in Ashvenvale and needs to drink Mannoroth's blood to win. He later kills Mannoroth and fel orcs disappear. Tyrande and Malfurion return to Ashenvale between the events of the battle for Hyjal and TFT. Clearly it was well within their ability and power to remove any orc from Ashenvale at that point.

[loras]

An archaic way of looking at patch content IMO but it's definitely one that's hammered into people's heads in WoW for some weird reason. Raiding is fun, raiding is cool and if you have the time & / or patience, even better for harder difficulties. But I've never bought that raids should be the only end-all or the sole focus of a patch. Dungeons, open world content, raids, smaller form factor events, world bosses, world events, etc. etc.

There are so many things that Blizzard are (most likely) going to be pushing into for the foreseeable future within WoW's end-game ecosystem.

Same honestly, frankly i've always advocated making gear available through different equivalent tracks without capping it off for arbitrary reasons.

[Eldryth]

I know, right? I've brought up old Anduin leading the Army of the Light in the final battle against the Shadow several times, and people keep crying "it's an old Legion comic! It's going to be retconned!"

I think they said at one point that that comic was just one possible future. I'm sure we'll get something like it, but I don't know about an exact match. I can definitely see Anduin being younger since it'd probably take some accelerated aging like Khadgar, a massive time skip, or time travel stuff to make him that old by Midnight.

[Woggmer]

So exactly how Shadowlands played out. Thrall and Baine sitting on their bums doing nothing through entire expansion. And it is a bait and switch. This game is based on 2 factions, and therefore it should at least attempt to give similar amount of story for both of them. And I don't see "do anything Alliance tells you to do" as a compelling story.
And Blizzard was able to provide separate questing experience in the past. So it's not like they cannot do it, it's that they don't bother to do it anymore. And story suffers becuase of that.

I hate to say it, but I'm afraid we might be too far gone to go back to that unless they decide to go that route in Midnight, but I honestly doubt it... With Tyrande, Malfurion, Greymane, Sylvanas, Thrall, and so on not leaders anymore, and Gallywix left the Horde entirely. Lilian Voss, Shandris, Calia Menethil, Tess Greymane, Baine, and many others as leaders there won't be any Alliance vs Horde stories to come. Especially since Shandris and Voss are friends and now Calia and Tess might work peace together between Gilneas and the Forsaken.

The only slight saving grace would be Turalyon, but we haven't seen him in ages to know what he's doing.

People wanted no faction tension like in BFA, so this is what we get as a result. We're not fighting each other anymore, but the bigger threat as always.

[Hitei]

I think they said at one point that that comic was just one possible future. I'm sure we'll get something like it, but I don't know about an exact match. I can definitely see Anduin being younger since it'd probably take some accelerated aging like Khadgar, a massive time skip, or time travel stuff to make him that old by Midnight.

The entire idea of this comic's scene is a farce, as is Metzen's hype-manning Midnight.

The void can't be banished forever, it's a fundamental part of the universe intended to be equal in the six part mix. It also innate arises from the presence of the Light. This idea that somehow the Light is going to win has been suggested a bunch of times to just be a zealous delusion that the Light specifically holds. It single-mindedly rejects the truth that the Void is the other side of the coin, and thinks that it's going to somehow permanently "win" and destroy it.

Midnight isn't gonna somehow end the Void's existence, or stop it from ever being a threat again, so its wholly possible that the comic future might still come to pass a long time from now, another misguided attempt where the Light thinks it's gonna win some final battle.

[Ersula]

The entire idea of this comic's scene is a farce, as is Metzen's hype-manning Midnight.

The void can't be banished forever, it's a fundamental part of the universe intended to be equal in the six part mix. It also innate arises from the presence of the Light. This idea that somehow the Light is going to win has been suggested a bunch of times to just be a zealous delusion that the Light specifically holds. It single-mindedly rejects the truth that the Void is the other side of the coin, and thinks that it's going to somehow permanently "win" and destroy it.

Midnight isn't gonna somehow end the Void's existence, or stop it from ever being a threat again, so its wholly possible that the comic future might still come to pass a long time from now, another misguided attempt where the Light thinks it's gonna win some final battle.

The Jailer seemed to disagree with any of the six cosmic forces being necessary. Also in retrospect you're right in this being the vaguest cop-out tease they never had any intention of bringing to fruition. There's no sign of what force they're even taking a stand against, since we had every reason to think they were facing the Burning Legion, what with the Draenei commonly referring to demonkind as "the shadow" even though they're part of a completely different sphere.

I'd like metzen to reestablish that Sargeras dipped into multiple cosmic forces. Rather than them recontectualizing everything using Sire Denathrius & the Jailer. So Sargeras drew his powers from the Discord sphere, he wasn't limited to it, exclusively. Sargeras had Void Walkers & Blood Magic & Dreadlords & the Scourge was originally a Burning Legion plot, but apparently it was all the Jailer actually.

The Naaru used shards of light to seed life on planets across the universe so obviously the cosmic forces were never purely homogenous.

[Hitei]

The Jailer seemed to disagree with any of the six cosmic forces being necessary. Also in retrospect you're right in this being the vaguest cop-out tease they never had any intention of bringing to fruition. There's no sign of what force they're even taking a stand against, since we had every reason to think they were facing the Burning Legion, what with the Draenei commonly referring to demonkind as "the shadow" even though they're part of a completely different sphere.

The Jailer's failure is itself direct evidence of the superiority of the balanced six forces. But also Anduin and Velen and a handful of Draenei in a dimensional ship aren't going to unwrite the Void from existence, including its own plane, and even if they did, the pattern is designed such that the Light itself naturally fades and leaves behind Void, so it'd just come back unless they are also wiping out the Light in its entirety.

They'd need something on par with a Zereth to attempt those sort of top level reality warping strategies, and if a Zereth was getting involved, the First Ones would have already engineered failsafes to prevent such an incursion from destabilizing the Pattern.

I agree that people assume too much of the comic's context. Varian is brought up, and Varian didn't die fighting the Void.

Regardless of what was originally intended to be happening, it could very easily be nudged any number of directions and re-contextualized. Maybe in Midnight we're left with a permanent Void Rift in Quel'thalas that Anduin and Velen are, in the future, finally going to force closed. Maybe in the far future they are helping the Ethereals retake K'aresh from the Void. Maybe in the far future, Anduin and Velen have been world-hopping, liberating fallen worlds from the remnants of the Legions' control, and they're finally approaching the end of that campaign.

[Ersula]

The Jailer's failure is itself direct evidence of the superiority of the balanced six forces.

Does it tho? The rest of the Death Pantheon just kinda ganged up on him.