Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Makorus]

And if you look at the examples you listed you'd see it backs my argument: undermine is unlikely to be the entire zone, since even Zaralek Caverns are not uniform in its layout.

It needs open areas for enemies to be in, so undermine is likely to be just the size of Gadgetzan, like how Loamm is in Zaralek Cavern. At best, it'll be roughly as big as Suramar city is in the Suramar zone. It's not going to be just one entire zone with nothing but a giant city where we fight nothing but goblins.

I mean, they could do the "Hearthstone Gadgetzan" concept for Undermine, which would honestly be a cool idea.

You can easily have non-Goblin mobs in it. I just don't see how a whole patch focused around Undermine in this saga that's already too jam-packed themes-wise as is.

[Teriz]

And if you look at the examples you listed you'd see it backs my argument: undermine is unlikely to be the entire zone, since even Zaralek Caverns are not uniform in its layout.

It needs open areas for enemies to be in, so undermine is likely to be just the size of Gadgetzan, like how Loamm is in Zaralek Cavern. At best, it'll be roughly as big as Suramar city is in the Suramar zone. It's not going to be just one entire zone with nothing but a giant city where we fight nothing but goblins.

And even then we're likely to be stationed OUTSIDE undermine while sieging it, not in it. Again, like Suramar.

Again I have serious doubts that they’re going to turn undermine into a glorified Gnomeregan or Stratholme. A more likely scenario is it ends up being more like Borealus, Dalaran, or Suramar; City hubs with raids and instances within them. I could also see them utilizing Zalarek tech to allow you to move between Undermine and Kezan on the surface.

[Ielenia]

I mean, they could do the "Hearthstone Gadgetzan" concept for Undermine, which would honestly be a cool idea.

You can easily have non-Goblin mobs in it. I just don't see how a whole patch focused around Undermine in this saga that's already too jam-packed themes-wise as is.

If even Suramar. Dazar'Alor and Boralus were not made into entire zones of their own, I sincerely doubt Blizzard is going to do that for undermine.

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Again I have serious doubts that they’re going to turn undermine into a glorified Gnomeregan or Stratholme.

Why not? Lore-wise those cities are much bigger than their in-game representation. And that is true for everything. Even Goldshire is much, much bigger than just four buildings in the lore.

A more likely scenario is it ends up being more like Borealus, Dalaran, or Suramar; City hubs with raids and instances within them.

So you agree with me that, if implemented, undermine is not going to be a zone of its own?

[Teriz]

Why not?

Because throwing players into a city-wide raid with no context or connection to the city they’re raiding in makes zero narrative sense.

So you agree with me that, if implemented, undermine is not going to be a zone of its own?

It would get its own zone because it’s the focus of the patch.

[Ersula]

I mean, when Teriz said the next expansion would be Undermine, a lot of us including me said the next expansion would be underground-themed but it wouldn't be Undermine and apparently he's the one who gets all the clout for that.

[Cheezits]

I find it odd that they are portraying "Gallywix as the leader of Venture Co" as some kind of big reveal. Why is that a reveal? Why would no goblin be talking about it?

I can chalk it up to "they didn't know what they wanted to do with him" for SL and DF but if his path is set now, there's no reason it should be a secret thing.

[Nightshade711]

The way people insisted it wasn't gonna happen when there was piles and piles and piles of evidence was a bit ridiculous.

To be fair Teriz does the same exact same thing.
Throwback to when he argued for pages that the Algarian Stormrider mount was going to be an elemental from the storm peaks because TWW was an elemental expansion.

Or how now he’s doing that for the rootlands/Elun’ahir zone just because he wants undermine.

Or the infamous “Dracthyr are dragons even though the official lore says otherwise”

[Nibelheimy]

I still remember 20 pages of yrel is definately next and here's why.

[Makabreska]

Holy crap! The presence of Void and Void-adjacent enemies so far in TWW is staggering. They usually put much more variety in the enemy factions of expansion. With this big concentration of dark blue, I wonder what will we have in Midnight.

[Reive]

How is that a bad thing tho? this is what most people want when asking for a NEW race. Races such as Ogres or Vrykul have their own model, people like them for that.
Imagine, the new moonkin model into an updated Ogre model. These things are plausible and frankly way more exciting then say a reskin of a dwarf we already have two off. Sure, theme and all that, but imo they took the most boring option, which is on the same level of diaper gnomes.

i didn't say it was a bad thing. i just explained imo why blizzard doesn't really add popular races

[Makorus]

Holy crap! The presence of Void and Void-adjacent enemies so far in TWW is staggering. They usually put much more variety in the enemy factions of expansion. With this big concentration of dark blue, I wonder what will we have in Midnight.

Honestly, I am really, really looking forward to what angles they are going for going into Midnight and TLT. There's so many different directions and it's honestly really exciting. I think announcing all three expansions was the right call.

[Teriz]

To be fair Teriz does the same exact same thing.
Throwback to when he argued for pages that the Algarian Stormrider mount was going to be an elemental from the storm peaks because TWW was an elemental expansion.

Mere speculation in a speculative thread.

Or how now he’s doing that for the rootlands/Elun’ahir zone just because he wants undermine.

Because patch raids tend to match the theme of their accompanying zone post Dragonflight.

Or the infamous “Dracthyr are dragons even though the official lore says otherwise”

I didn’t call them Dragons, Blizzard did.

[Makorus]

Mere speculation in a speculative thread.



Because patch raids tend to match the theme of their accompanying zone post Dragonflight.



I didn’t call them Dragons, Blizzard did.

Who said we are getting an Undermine raid?

You can have a raid set in the Rootlands and yet primarily deal with Goblin enemies which is what the common speculation is atm.

Generally, we don't really fight the inhabitants of a place we fight to protect. That's like saying the zone in 10.2 should have been Firelands because we mostly fight fire-elemental aligned bosses.

[milkmustache]

That's an interesting development.

At this point it's building past "where there's smoke, there's fire". They have been using portions of SoD to tie some additional lore threads into the mix for TWW, specifically with Xal'atath.

Goblin patch incoming, and methinks it's Undermine.

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Who said we are getting an Undermine raid?

You can have a raid set in the Rootlands and yet primarily deal with Goblin enemies which is what the common speculation is atm.

Generally, we don't really fight the inhabitants of a place we fight to protect. That's like saying the zone in 10.2 should have been Firelands because we mostly fight fire-elemental aligned bosses.

To be fair though, a lot of Teriz's speculation on a hypothetical Undermine patch revolves around squabbling cartels. If they impliment Undermine as a large city zone, we may see many subfaction areas that are more open to us, and others that aren't.

Nighthold is a good example. We're fighting Legion aligned Suramarians to liberate Suramar in totality. Something very similar would be the case in this situation I think is Teriz's belief.

[Makorus]

At this point it's building past "where there's smoke, there's fire". They have been using portions of SoD to tie some additional lore threads into the mix for TWW, specifically with Xal'atath.

Goblin patch incoming, and methinks it's Undermine.

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To be fair though, a lot of Teriz's speculation on a hypothetical Undermine patch revolves around squabbling cartels. If they impliment Undermine as a large city zone, we may see many subfaction areas that are more open to us, and others that aren't.

Nighthold is a good example. We're fighting Legion aligned Suramarians to liberate Suramar in totality. Something very similar would be the case in this situation I think is Teriz's belief.

Is there space for a patch solely dedicated to Goblins though? There's too many open plotpoints in TWW that I don't think they are going to dedicate a whole patch to goblins.

Don't get me wrong, I would love some actual serious Goblin content, I just don't think it's gonna happen. I think it's gonna be a "Nature vs. Machinery" Rootlands patch.

[Nightshade711]

Is there space for a patch solely dedicated to Goblins though? There's too many open plotpoints in TWW that I don't think they are going to dedicate a whole patch to goblins.

Don't get me wrong, I would love some actual serious Goblin content, I just don't think it's gonna happen. I think it's gonna be a "Nature vs. Machinery" Rootlands patch.

It’s definitely possible goblins could get a .5 or .7 patch, given how they’ve done side stories like Gilneas for minor patch content.

I could see them having us return to Kezan as either a lead-up to the rootlands “nature vs machinery” patch or as a follow-up after the patch. That way they also wouldn’t have to waste time making an entirely new zone like how they reused the Forbidden Reach.

[milkmustache]

Is there space for a patch solely dedicated to Goblins though? There's too many open plotpoints in TWW that I don't think they are going to dedicate a whole patch to goblins.

Don't get me wrong, I would love some actual serious Goblin content, I just don't think it's gonna happen. I think it's gonna be a "Nature vs. Machinery" Rootlands patch.

I personally think there are routes they can take. I've been propping up the idea that there will be some alignment with Gallywix or our antagonistic goblins and Ethereals on a tech scale. The exact plot for them, I'm really up in the air with. Maybe something to do with Azerite or the void creature under Kezan.

I don't think it will be a solely goblin patch, but I think it'll be a majority goblin patch.

I know Orwenya and the Harronir are set to take larger roles in this story than we perceive, but I'm reluctant to place them in the 11.1 slot because I think their role will supersede that. I think that the general idea of what a Rootlands patch could be in the 11.1 slot sort of loses focus of how big a deal the Elun'ahir situation is. To me, it seems to be a portion of seeds planeted (harhar) to later be used in TLT as part of the Titan conspiracy, something I think the Light and Elune are directly involved in.

I guess we could see the Rootlands in some form, maybe more portions of it in other zones, i.e whatever 11.2 ends up being (center of azeroth maybeeee?), but I'm just not convinced that this check is being cashed this early. I really think there's a lot more to it than we think.

I very may well be entirely wrong. I'd just be a little surprised if the payoff for Elun'ahir is just another situation of protecting a world tree from those who wish to destroy it for nefarious means. I truly think there is a lot more to Elune than we are lead to believe, and that is slowly being gestated in the story.

[Cheezits]

Holy crap! The presence of Void and Void-adjacent enemies so far in TWW is staggering. They usually put much more variety in the enemy factions of expansion. With this big concentration of dark blue, I wonder what will we have in Midnight.

It's the same thing as the Legion's presence in WOD before Legion. But Midnight has Scourge to balance things out.

[FossilFree]

The Undermine was destroyed when Mount Kajaro erupted during Cataclysm. Crapopolis (Motherlode) was the one town on the southern shore that escaped destruction. A part could have survived, but it is currently unknown. I think a raid where the Venture Co. is trying to harvest the world tree roots and we fight them off makes more sense than finding some magma-flooded, post-apocalyptic Fallout goblins eating each other in the ruins underground.

[Darkarath]

It's the same thing as the Legion's presence in WOD before Legion. But Midnight has Scourge to balance things out.

I wonder if they will revive the Scourge in some way. It could not be tied to the Shadowlands anymore, as we all hate that shit. Maybe while we are underground Iridikron is forming a new army of undead? With the essence of Galakrond, infused with Decay, we might see a more aggressive Decay-Scourge. We might get some hints in Midnight and the full thing in TLT.

Another option is that Arthas' soul got inside Anduin and that is why he cannot wield the Light anymore. Arthas' will eventually escape into a fitting corpse (maybe his own), and start his own Scourge again. Wouldn't that be funny? :P