Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Plehnard]

That seems more like a stretch. Remember, the interesting part about that char was the dye system, not the chair itself.

This could lead to something like actual dyable armour, though.

I doubt there will ever be an armour dye system.
To make that look good you'd need a mask to determine what areas should be affected how strong and all 4 channels of the current textures are already taken. Or in other words you'd need an extra texture just for that which would almost double texture load just for one feature.

The alternative would be a tint or hue change over the whole texture that could be stored in one float which would be pretty cheap but has ugly results most likely no one would be really happy with.

[Samin]

I doubt there will ever be an armour dye system.
To make that look good you'd need a mask to determine what areas should be affected how strong and all 4 channels of the current textures are already taken. Or in other words you'd need an extra texture just for that which would almost double texture load just for one feature.

The alternative would be a tint or hue change over the whole texture that could be stored in one float which would be pretty cheap but has ugly results most likely no one would be really happy with.

Where I think dyable armor may appear in WoW is crafting, where you determine the color of a piece through an optional crafting material.

It would have the benefit (for Blizzard) of inherently not working retroactively and be limited in scope, but it could still be a big step by introducing the concept to WoW - basically a slippery slope of the good kind (for the players).

But there might really be economic pressure to stay away from a dye system, because recolors are such easy content - or rather "cheap" rewards to hand out that only need comparatively little additional content (texture work is still work)

[Eurhetemec]

I doubt there will ever be an armour dye system.
To make that look good you'd need a mask to determine what areas should be affected how strong and all 4 channels of the current textures are already taken. Or in other words you'd need an extra texture just for that which would almost double texture load just for one feature.

The alternative would be a tint or hue change over the whole texture that could be stored in one float which would be pretty cheap but has ugly results most likely no one would be really happy with.

I don't think saying "ever" is very sensible here.

Your point is valid, but what it proves is more that it would be a huge pain for Blizzard to make current armour dyeable, and so that is very unlikely to happen. What I suspect is more likely is some sort of tech where future armour could be dyeable. However, I think that's not going to happen in TWSS, it'll happen when there's some kind of major tech change. Blizzard's older armour textures are really beginning to look genuinely terrible, finally, after 20 years, and I suspect at the end of TWSS, we may see Blizzard use AI assistance (which I think reasonable for upscaling textures, and still requires human oversight and tweaking) to upscale a lot of the older textures in the game, and if they did want to move to dyes, they might be able to incorporate an automated system for making that possible at the time.

As an aside, you can make the tint/hue change thing actually work well and look good, but you have to design armour with that in mind from the outset. Dark Age of Camelot took that approach, and honestly armour in that looked better than WoW until like, WoD.

[Sondrelk]

I don't think saying "ever" is very sensible here.

Your point is valid, but what it proves is more that it would be a huge pain for Blizzard to make current armour dyeable, and so that is very unlikely to happen. What I suspect is more likely is some sort of tech where future armour could be dyeable. However, I think that's not going to happen in TWSS, it'll happen when there's some kind of major tech change. Blizzard's older armour textures are really beginning to look genuinely terrible, finally, after 20 years, and I suspect at the end of TWSS, we may see Blizzard use AI assistance (which I think reasonable for upscaling textures, and still requires human oversight and tweaking) to upscale a lot of the older textures in the game, and if they did want to move to dyes, they might be able to incorporate an automated system for making that possible at the time.

As an aside, you can make the tint/hue change thing actually work well and look good, but you have to design armour with that in mind from the outset. Dark Age of Camelot took that approach, and honestly armour in that looked better than WoW until like, WoD.

I would say the problem with dyes is also how armour is designed appearance wise.
Either armour has to be designed with dye in mind, meaning less creative freedom to make the armour look good (or having to accept that most dyes are terrible).
Or dyes are set colour palettes unique to each piece of armour, in which case all you are doing is shuffling the chairs around a bit in regards to currently having 5-6 tints of the same armour from different content and difficulty.

[Eurhetemec]

I would say the problem with dyes is also how armour is designed appearance wise.
Either armour has to be designed with dye in mind, meaning less creative freedom to make the armour look good (or having to accept that most dyes are terrible).
Or dyes are set colour palettes unique to each piece of armour, in which case all you are doing is shuffling the chairs around a bit in regards to currently having 5-6 tints of the same armour from different content and difficulty.

I don't think the first is really true re: armour looking good/bad. But it is higher effort to design armour that can be dyed, for sure. And yes most dyes will look questionable on most armour, that's just the way it is. Indeed it's already well-demonstrated by Blizzard's "official" armour colours, many of which provoke more of a "HMMMM" than a "looks cool!".

Are there examples of games which take the second option? I'm trying to imagine it - I think I've seen it but I'm not sure. I don't think Blizzard would take that approach though.

[Nathanyel]

Sargeras feared the Void Lords because of Void Lords. All the Nathrezim did was, at Sargeras' own demand, tell him exactly what the Void was and what it planned to do. [...]

Thanks for putting this so eloquently, I have basically the same interpretation but would phrase it way worse. I should bookmark this for reference.

We will probably be told at some point that it was Denathrius who controlled everything and the Jailer was just a pawn

Judging by Denathrius's words in the flashback, while Zovaal saw himself as the top dog, Denathrius was always influencing him, nudging him first to the open betrayal that got him chained to the Maw, then at the least providing him with the tools (the Nathrezim) to throw out hooks into the greater cosmos to take control. And had Denathrius been around in Sepulcher, he sure would've stood behind Zovaal, ready to backstab him and take control himself.

Shadowlands' plot was largely the story of Zovaal getting fed up with all these minimal involvement schemes not working out and deciding to take a more active role in things. Before that, he had at most moved a few butterflies around in hopes of getting the right storm in the right place.

Indeed, thousands of little hooks, barely any even hit something. Taliesin explained it very well using a RL example in this video (for a tldr of the main point, use this timestamp)

Even among the hooks we know about, more fail than produce any real advantage. Even Argus disabling the Arbiter was definitely not planned that way, it was likely intended for the Titan Soul to be infused with way more Death magic, to directly take over the Arbiter's construct body - because the Dreadlords tried that again later in Zereth Morthis with the newly constructed Arbiter body.
Zovaal's most effective influence was rather direct: the army of Mawsworn, expanded by the Forsworn (a maybe [big maybe] initially noble but naive rebellion turned plain evil) and the Venthyr loyal to Denathrius.

A part of me wonders if they did it primarily because the mounts used by the Horsemen were unavailable (besides the red one) and that they figure players don't want reminders of mounts they can't have.

The better solution would be to make, say, 3 of the "Legion" Warhorses available to players - 1 already is, albeit as a rare drop.

So far she always seems to be at least 5 steps ahead in the story, it just doesn't feel natural or organic in any way. It really feels forced how she's pushing the plot forwards.

It's less that Xal is 5 steps ahead, it's that we are 5 steps behind, retracing the villain's plans. That's rather basic storytelling seen everywhere else, too.

I don't think the first is really true re: armour looking good/bad.

Looking at the chair, it seems the green and yellow just alter the tint (in the original meaning) of the cloth parts, which are rather unichrome other than the 3D-esque shading. Any detail on armor would have to be designed without providing too much contrast, which would easily look off when the whole thing is tinted, or require complex alpha maps to not get tinted - to be fair, Ellie implies dye maps are used here, albeit of course very simple ones, to demarcate the "stripes" of the cloth and to exclude the big patch from getting tinted.
More detailed alpha maps would only make sense if we could pick&choose which part of the armor receives which tint. Unless you're aiming for that, a dye system makes no sense, just make several recolors available.

[Eurhetemec]

Looking at the chair, it seems the green and yellow just alter the tint (in the original meaning) of the cloth parts, which are rather unichrome other than the 3D-esque shading. Any detail on armor would have to be designed without providing too much contrast, which would easily look off when the whole thing is tinted, or require complex alpha maps to not get tinted - the latter would only make sense if we could pick&choose which part of the armor receives which tint. Unless you're aiming for that, a dye system makes no sense, just make several recolors available.

This just isn't true and it's trivially obvious that it isn't by looking at other games with dye systems. I have no idea why anyone would look at once chair and imagine that the peculiar characteristics it has represent how all dye systems work, instead of looking at, oh I dunno, dye systems in other games.

[Nathanyel]

This just isn't true and it's trivially obvious that it isn't by looking at other games with dye systems. I have no idea why anyone would look at once chair and imagine that the peculiar characteristics it has represent how all dye systems work, instead of looking at, oh I dunno, dye systems in other games.

Can't say too much about other games, I'm just being cautious and not assuming this system can easily be scaled up for player armor. It's likely not even intended as a test bed for that, but just as a way to reduce texture storage. One texture file for 12 variants of the doodad, 13 if we include the untinted one, which looks legit if a bit drab.

[huth]

I doubt there will ever be an armour dye system.
To make that look good you'd need a mask to determine what areas should be affected how strong and all 4 channels of the current textures are already taken. Or in other words you'd need an extra texture just for that which would almost double texture load just for one feature.

The alternative would be a tint or hue change over the whole texture that could be stored in one float which would be pretty cheap but has ugly results most likely no one would be really happy with.

Don't get me wrong, i just think that's a more likely conclusion than housing. The chair is probably a test case. What eventually comes of it, we'll see.

[Houle]

Frist, every Lich King failed to even do what the Jailer intended their purpose to be, so none of them had their agency stolen by him. Second, neither of these characters had their own agency to begin with. Arthas was corrupted into his DK actions by Frostmourne and the Lich King entity, Ner'zhul was forcibly made into the Lich King.

That doesnt mean they didnt have their own agency. Actually, half of the entire WC3 story is that Ner'zhul DID have his own secret agency - and that he managed to see it through.

And again, all three Lich Kings failed to actually properly follow this directive and instead went about their own petty self-importance and minor schemes.

You pretty much just spelled out the problem yourself: the story now portrays Ner'zhul and Arthas as goons who "went about their own petty self-important and minor schemes" instead of the Jailers "really important super master plan". It portrays them as being irrevelant in the long run.

That was originally very much not the case. Their "schemes" werent minor or irrelevant in the long run - they were fundamentally important for the story, even on a cosmic level. Ner'zhul spent the entirety of WC3 outplaying and manipulating the Legion (including the Nathrezim) and all the factions on Azeroth to come out on top at the end. What he did mattered - he permanently crippled the Legions agency with his own, and got the win over them at the end.

Now with the Jailer however, its more or less shown that nothing Ner'zhul did mattered at all in the end for the "true" player behind it all. Nothing he did really impacted the Jailers agency much. He was a slight inconvenience for him at best.

Granted, the idea couldve maybe worked by portraying it more along the lines of "The LKs didnt just outplay one cosmic big shot (the Legion), they actually told TWO cosmic big shots (Legion and Jailer) to go pound sand at the same time. They were even more important than previously thought."

But thats not how SL portrayed them at all. Instead, it portrayed them as absolute failures, who didnt impact the Jailer besides minorly delaying his plans a little, and who were both easily off-screen punished by him for being "uselesss failures" (in his words). And then he just proceeded with his plan regardless. The narrative paints them as being irrelevant in the long run.

Or, more simply put:
With the Legion, the LK defied his creator and master, usurped their plan with his own and got away with it. What he did mattered very much.
With the Jailer, the LK defied his creator and master, didnt really impact his plan at all, and then got punished for trying. What he did didnt really matter at all.

[Ersula]

Frist, every Lich King failed to even do what the Jailer intended their purpose to be, so none of them had their agency stolen by him.

I don't think you understand what the Jailer needed from the Lich King: All he needed from the Lich King was to create the Forge of Souls. Nerzhul would have done that if Illidan hadn't gotten in his way. Then Tirion stopped Arthas from opening the veil. Arthas didn't do that because Argus needed to die before that. Then when Bolvar has the crown it's clear it's only a matter of time before he was dominated completely, as the Horsemen were planning on killing him the day the veil was opened.

[Lady Atia]

Thanks for putting this so eloquently, I have basically the same interpretation but would phrase it way worse. I should bookmark this for reference.



Judging by Denathrius's words in the flashback, while Zovaal saw himself as the top dog, Denathrius was always influencing him, nudging him first to the open betrayal that got him chained to the Maw, then at the least providing him with the tools (the Nathrezim) to throw out hooks into the greater cosmos to take control. And had Denathrius been around in Sepulcher, he sure would've stood behind Zovaal, ready to backstab him and take control himself.



Indeed, thousands of little hooks, barely any even hit something. Taliesin explained it very well using a RL example in this video (for a tldr of the main point, use this timestamp)

Even among the hooks we know about, more fail than produce any real advantage. Even Argus disabling the Arbiter was definitely not planned that way, it was likely intended for the Titan Soul to be infused with way more Death magic, to directly take over the Arbiter's construct body - because the Dreadlords tried that again later in Zereth Morthis with the newly constructed Arbiter body.
Zovaal's most effective influence was rather direct: the army of Mawsworn, expanded by the Forsworn (a maybe [big maybe] initially noble but naive rebellion turned plain evil) and the Venthyr loyal to Denathrius.



The better solution would be to make, say, 3 of the "Legion" Warhorses available to players - 1 already is, albeit as a rare drop.



It's less that Xal is 5 steps ahead, it's that we are 5 steps behind, retracing the villain's plans. That's rather basic storytelling seen everywhere else, too.



Looking at the chair, it seems the green and yellow just alter the tint (in the original meaning) of the cloth parts, which are rather unichrome other than the 3D-esque shading. Any detail on armor would have to be designed without providing too much contrast, which would easily look off when the whole thing is tinted, or require complex alpha maps to not get tinted - to be fair, Ellie implies dye maps are used here, albeit of course very simple ones, to demarcate the "stripes" of the cloth and to exclude the big patch from getting tinted.
More detailed alpha maps would only make sense if we could pick&choose which part of the armor receives which tint. Unless you're aiming for that, a dye system makes no sense, just make several recolors available.

None of the legion dk horses are available to players, Midnight in Karazhan has a different shade of red aswell as different hoofes and different armour.

Well let's hope they make them available with Remix Legion lol.

[Alanar]

This thread being full of Kingdom Hearts fans explains why everyone keeps hoping for plot twists in this game which very rarely ever has them. May as well have Homestuck people here too.

Wow always felt like they tried to make things deep and meaningfull, while sticking to the 12+ game, makes for a very understandable logical conclusion, every. Single. Time. It simply doesnt work. You cant do plottwists, because they already made the way to the obvious conclusion to difficult.

12+game + what the actual fans want ( who are atleast 30 at this point) is not a good formula. Most people want less cuddely stuff anyway. Just make yhis game 16/18+ already and they can do a little deeper into things.

[Eurhetemec]

Can't say too much about other games, I'm just being cautious and not assuming this system can easily be scaled up for player armor. It's likely not even intended as a test bed for that, but just as a way to reduce texture storage. One texture file for 12 variants of the doodad, 13 if we include the untinted one, which looks legit if a bit drab.

Fair enough - I don't really expect them to use a system like this for armour any time soon. More likely this is just to make it easier to build varied scenery or part that and part a test for housing.

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Most people want less cuddely stuff anyway. Just make yhis game 16/18+ already and they can do a little deeper into things.

No.

This is nonsense. The assumption that because most WoW players are 30+ (probably true, but you have no proof) doesn't mean that those people want WoW to suddenly change to being "mature and edgy". That's a teenager's logic (or someone thinking like a teenager). Adults generally want stuff to stay the same, or improve in quality, but not to change in tone/style.

Further, a lot of WoW players are younger, whether they're the kids of adults who play, or just younger people playing, and WoW isn't Grand Theft Auto. We don't need to know about Thrall's erectile dysfunction, or whatever it is you want to hear about. There's no upside to that. It's just wanting things to be edgy for the sake of edgy-ness.

- - - Updated - - -

You pretty much just spelled out the problem yourself: the story now portrays Ner'zhul and Arthas as goons who "went about their own petty self-important and minor schemes" instead of the Jailers "really important super master plan". It portrays them as being irrevelant in the long run.

You say this about "The story" but let's be real for like 30 seconds here.

Nobody actually believes that. Not you. Not me. Not Blizzard's current designers. Certainly not Chris Metzen.

Furthermore, 90% of WoW players either didn't understand Shadowlands' story that way, or don't even know Shadowlands' story, because they skipped all but maybe the beginning of the expansion.

This is just something for lore nerds to wring their hands about. It doesn't have real long-term impact because it's VERY clear Blizzard are busily sweeping SL under the rug of history.

[Skildar]

Wow always felt like they tried to make things deep and meaningfull, while sticking to the 12+ game, makes for a very understandable logical conclusion, every. Single. Time. It simply doesnt work. You cant do plottwists, because they already made the way to the obvious conclusion to difficult.

12+game + what the actual fans want ( who are atleast 30 at this point) is not a good formula. Most people want less cuddely stuff anyway. Just make yhis game 16/18+ already and they can do a little deeper into things.

While it isn't a plot twist per se, the moment Illidan kills Xe'ra and breaks the storyline of him being the chosen one was a very welcomed surprise

[Valysar]

What's the point of the "LFG London" event ?

[Khaza-R]

You say this about "The story" but let's be real for like 30 seconds here.

Nobody actually believes that. Not you. Not me. Not Blizzard's current designers. Certainly not Chris Metzen.

Furthermore, 90% of WoW players either didn't understand Shadowlands' story that way, or don't even know Shadowlands' story, because they skipped all but maybe the beginning of the expansion.

This is just something for lore nerds to wring their hands about. It doesn't have real long-term impact because it's VERY clear Blizzard are busily sweeping SL under the rug of history.

This is rather dismissive and pointlessly contrarian for the sake of it.

Blizzard evidently thinks Shadowlands did enough damage to put it as a bullet point in their leaked investor presentation. So clearly its not irrelevant to them.

[Dracullus]

What's the point of the "LFG London" event ?

Who knows, currently always something happens in WoW, it's not like events like these are only for big reveals. I would say it makes no sense to announce Beta so early, but it also didn't make sense to launch MoP Remix 3 weeks after Season 4 and 2 before Cata Classic.

[Eurhetemec]

This is rather dismissive and pointlessly contrarian for the sake of it.

Blizzard evidently thinks Shadowlands did enough damage to put it as a bullet point in their leaked investor presentation. So clearly its not irrelevant to them.

I fail to see how it is in any way contrarian, and what you're saying supports what I'm saying. Did you actually read all the words in my post or only some?

[Vakir]

12+game + what the actual fans want ( who are atleast 30 at this point) is not a good formula. Most people want less cuddely stuff anyway. Just make yhis game 16/18+ already and they can do a little deeper into things.

PEGI/ESRB ratings have absolutely nothing to do with it. Mists was marketed as the most cuddly of all and ended up being arguably the darkest expansion, among one of the more coherent stories, and generally is a fan favorite.

A higher rating would just allow for more graphic violence or sexuality. That's it. Story beats or thematic elements aren't hindered by this. It's 100% the writers who choose to make this WoW's tone, not restrictions.