Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Enrif]

What the fuck does that even means ?

Black-coded means to represent black humans. Especially Afro American blacks. It’s obvious that wrathion is supposed to be middle eastern in design, not black.

[Nymrohd]

What's source? Short story? Beta?

I wonder if we will have Kezan ruined surface if Undermine will be a thing. Especially since Motherlode dungeon in rotation is easy bet.

Beta, the side quests in the Mmarl area in Azj'Kahet.

[Enrif]

That the radiant song isn't Azeroth.

Which isn’t mentioned in the new cinematic, or can you point me to the part where the song is mentioned?

[Xilurm]

Which isn’t mentioned in the new cinematic, or can you point me to the part where the song is mentioned?

I'm not talking about the cinematic.

You said.

My hypothesis was all along that the radiant song is from a light being, which may or may not be Azeroth.

There's no "may not". It's Azeroth.

[Nymrohd]

There's no "may not". It's Azeroth.

Is it just the radiant song though? When you enter Hallowfall, Anduin thinks he hears the song from the Beledar. Maybe there are multiple songs?

[Xilurm]

Is it just the radiant song though? When you enter Hallowfall, Anduin thinks he hears the song from the Beledar. Maybe there are multiple songs?

Maybe. But in the TWW reveal cinematic they are showing the world soul while it talks. There's no reason to believe they aren't one and the same.

[Nymrohd]

Maybe. But in the TWW reveal cinematic they are showing the world soul while it talks. There's no reason to believe they aren't one and the same.

Oh I was just saying maybe others are piggybacking on Azeroth's signal.

[Enrif]

Oh I was just saying maybe others are piggybacking on Azeroth's signal.

This could be plausible too. That the beledar is so far beneath the earth it could be that some people get voices from it, while others get it from Azeroth, and since there seems no way to check between people if they actually hear the same thing, it could be a kind of „double“ signal, that is assumed to be one.

[Cheezits]

So it seems that the Venture Co. dug a tunnel from Undermine to Azj'Kahet.

Where was it mentioned they made a tunnel?

I think if they do this, there will have to be a loading zone inbetween, the distance is way too large in lore.

[Jastall]

The issue is the extremes. You can make a character not attractive without going towards the absolute extreme other end of the spectrum. This is the issue with all this type of stuff. Weave in different stuff without going to the extremes.
I guarantee you: If they tried this "diversity approach" in a more mature way, a lot less people would have issues with it. It is obvious and on the nose, especially this character in specific. It is literally a checklist of all things put into one character.

I don't think it's a particular extreme. She's not a monster, just not very attractive and scarred. Her armor looks sick, so it's not like whomsoever designed her decided to throw aesthetics out the window this time around for that one character. She's just... not hot. and even then her in-game model's face is like every other human female, just with extra scars. The whole missing an arm thing I would have gone without as I think her hook shield looks a bit silly regardless of realism or not, but it's such a minor point that I can't possibly qualify it as an extreme.

Extreme would be if Faerin was the baseline and most characters were even uglier and whatever hot characters there were, were villains. That's an extreme. One character among dozens being plain at best and having scars is not even close to that. Among Warcraft's long history of exaggerated character designs, she's pretty tame.

[Nymrohd]

Where was it mentioned they made a tunnel?

I think if they do this, there will have to be a loading zone inbetween, the distance is way too large in lore.

I've left the area so cannot tell you specific quest name and NPC but in the quest where Gazlowe asks you to talk to the Venture goblins, one of the goblins says they tunneled there.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think it's a particular extreme. She's not a monster, just not very attractive and scarred. Her armor looks sick, so it's not like whomsoever designed her decided to throw aesthetics out the window this time around for that one character. She's just... not hot. and even then her in-game model's face is like every other human female, just with extra scars. The whole missing an arm thing I would have gone without as I think her hook shield looks a bit silly regardless of realism or not, but it's such a minor point that I can't possibly qualify it as an extreme.

Extreme would be if Faerin was the baseline and most characters were even uglier and whatever hot characters there were, were villains. That's an extreme. One character among dozens being plain at best and having scars is not even close to that. Among Warcraft's long history of exaggerated character designs, she's pretty tame.

They are clearly using Faerin as an opportunity to talk about ableism especially with her talk with the smith who made a prosthetic for her; maybe they can do better with their gameplay then, people with disabilities are having serious issues with dragonriding so maybe they need to keep it optional and maybe get some type of consultant to test features (maybe just don't require it for content I guess?).

[Zardas]

Black-coded means to represent black humans. Especially Afro American blacks. It’s obvious that wrathion is supposed to be middle eastern in design, not black.

But if you are black you represent black humans, what more is there to it than your amount of melanin ?

[Eldryth]

Is it just the radiant song though? When you enter Hallowfall, Anduin thinks he hears the song from the Beledar. Maybe there are multiple songs?

My guess is, the Beledar is probably meant to monitor Azeroth's status and broadcast any warnings they get from her. The Radiant Song itself definitely seems to be from Azeroth, at least initially- Magni confirming as much pretty much kills all other theories since he should be able to tell- but the Beledar is repeating it so that the forces of the Light will know to come to intervene. And that will likely lead to the Light coming to fight the Void in Midnight.

[Jastall]

They are clearly using Faerin as an opportunity to talk about ableism especially with her talk with the smith who made a prosthetic for her; maybe they can do better with their gameplay then, people with disabilities are having serious issues with dragonriding so maybe they need to keep it optional and maybe get some type of consultant to test features (maybe just don't require it for content I guess?).

Don't know about that as I didn't spoil myself overmuch, I was just talking from a visual design point of view. But if that's the case maybe they can also get Illidan and his fanclub of blind people down there to continue the discussion.

[Cheezits]

My guess is, the Beledar is probably meant to monitor Azeroth's status and broadcast any warnings they get from her. The Radiant Song itself definitely seems to be from Azeroth, at least initially- Magni confirming as much pretty much kills all other theories since he should be able to tell- but the Beledar is repeating it so that the forces of the Light will know to come to intervene. And that will likely lead to the Light coming to fight the Void in Midnight.

I was thinking that Beledar is a Light "Old God" that was meant to infuse Azeroth but missed and got stuck. The idea that the Light shot it out to safeguard Azeroth is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of. Maybe it's that way because of the "Titan/Light" deal that was struck?

Titans safeguard one timeline (Light's favored timeline) and in return they can... continue to exist?

[Sondrelk]

I still think the Rootlands raid, and the Goblin raid are one and the same. We go to the Rootlands only to learn it's being attacked by the Goblins, meaning we have to go to the Undermine to stop it.
I know people really want Undermine in all its glory, but I somehow doubt we are going to have a full modern zone there. A raid certainly, but I think it's going to be a repeat of Mechagon where the actual meat and potatoes of that aesthetic is limited to an instanced area (and maybe a new hub for Goblins)

[Nymrohd]

By the way is it ever made clear whose Black Blood this is? Are we sitting over the corpse of C'thun?

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Whatever the case with diversity this, diversity that, Faerin's almost a step up in design for modern Blizzard if it weren't for the fact that the rest of this expansion is astronomically better than the baseline Shadowlands and Dragonflight have set. If she just swapped out her abominable League of Legends armor for something with meat (i.e. the same sort of genuinely well-designed armor everyone around her wears) and 202x hairstyle, she'd be fine.

re: the amputee bit, I have no idea why she drops the "worthy of the Light" bit, given we're not talking about some kind of eugenicist shithole but the kind of theocracy where the disabled tend not to get pushed out of sight. It's nevertheless a significant step up from Dragonflight, where she'd probably go on a rambling soliloquy full of modern buzzwords topped off by some faux-inspiring bullshit aimed at Twitter users who aren't physically-disabled but thoroughly enjoy speaking for the physically-disabled. At least the shield arm is the right way to go about this (even if a shield prosthetic would realistically be a terrible idea as far as I understand it) because it has some meat and grit to it, c.f. Kargath. The shield itself could stand to look grittier and cooler, more like a real-world crusader's shield, but it's easily one of the best ways to do what they wanted to do.

[Nymrohd]

Don't know about that as I didn't spoil myself overmuch, I was just talking from a visual design point of view. But if that's the case maybe they can also get Illidan and his fanclub of blind people down there to continue the discussion.

I don't mind them doing it. It is an issue, it makes a sense to talk about people who have disabilities continuing on with a normal life (and it should be much more common in a world with as much war as Warcraft). And I think they communicate it clearly. Just saying that it absolutely was a trait added to Faerin so they could talk about an issue.

[Cheezits]

I still think the Rootlands raid, and the Goblin raid are one and the same. We go to the Rootlands only to learn it's being attacked by the Goblins, meaning we have to go to the Undermine to stop it.
I know people really want Undermine in all its glory, but I somehow doubt we are going to have a full modern zone there. A raid certainly, but I think it's going to be a repeat of Mechagon where the actual meat and potatoes of that aesthetic is limited to an instanced area (and maybe a new hub for Goblins)

If it's just Mechagon City 2.0 then it's a real sad waste that a lore zone teased for a decade is once again made into a raid, so they can prioritize pretty OC aesthetics. Just chasing what sells.

My one argument against this happening is Venture Co is a joke threat and would get demolished by the Harronir. Why wouldn't it be Xal going for the roots of an old world tree?

People are forgetting that there is probably a megadungeon and it is supposedly not Goblins, so what would it be? It can absolutely be Rootlands. There isn't anything else set up at launch for the megadungeon besides maybe the angler fish and they don't really get any plot. If they copy DF where the megadungeon was more important than the first new raid (because more people do dungeons than raids), then it would be Rootlands dungeon, Goblin zone and raid.