Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Xilurm]

Which makes sense as you usually never see the normal login screen anyways these days, only if servers are down. Hence I think the whole QQ about it is overblown, and I feel sorry for the poor artists who had to work on it, now seemingly twice.

Not if you start the game from the WoW.exe.

[Auxis]

Not if you start the game from the WoW.exe.

I see it all the time: I start the game from the BNet launcher.

[Xilurm]

I see it all the time: I start the game from the BNet launcher.

Yeah but since you log in automatically directly to the character screen, you only see it for a few seconds.

[Jaggler]

It’s gonna be something weird like sound & they’re gonna bring Murmur back with it.
But at least they might add bards with it

It's gonna be something like (free) will, because it's one thing all of the forces are in one way or another opposed with.
And we and Azeroth will be the champions of Will, protecting ourselves of the other forces.

[Enrif]

It's gonna be something like (free) will, because it's one thing all of the forces are in one way or another opposed with.
And we and Azeroth will be the champions of Will, protecting ourselves of the other forces.

I think it will be one of two things: Balance or Storms

Balance is simple i think. A force that is balanced can not have different individual forces vying for power.

Storms, is more a reference to blizzard as a whole. A Blizzard is just the name for a Snow Storm, Heros of the Storm, Sons of the Storm (the former page for many artists of Blizz). Heck, even Vyranoth is the Aspect of Storms. What would a cosmic force of storm be? Dunno. Could be a meaning for change. Unstoppable, devastating. Yet it brings things together (sucking it in).

[Shadowferal]

I hope the seventh force isn't something stupid like Hope ...

I'm reminded of the movie, "The Fifth Element."

[Dhomeli]

I think the warband screens are meant to replace the vista login screens.

I could see that, I think they need to make options for the warband camp that are thematic to the expansion. I believe they’ve already stated they’re looking into “unlocking” camp options, so perhaps we’ll see things along these lines added. Would be neat if eventually the camp is more like Baldur’s Gate 3 and you can actually walk around and have your characters interact with each other somehow, professions at least?

[Joshuaj]

I think it will be one of two things: Balance or Storms

Balance is simple i think. A force that is balanced can not have different individual forces vying for power.

Storms, is more a reference to blizzard as a whole. A Blizzard is just the name for a Snow Storm, Heros of the Storm, Sons of the Storm (the former page for many artists of Blizz). Heck, even Vyranoth is the Aspect of Storms. What would a cosmic force of storm be? Dunno. Could be a meaning for change. Unstoppable, devastating. Yet it brings things together (sucking it in).

Storms seem to be elemental based. Also, balance is something the First Ones created for their design. As for what the 7th power is? Honestly, I'm not sure, but I would not be shocked if this 7th power was like "the most powerful Progenitor" or simply wants to be the "only supreme being" for everything (Which could partially explain N'Zoth's "One will consume all others" whisper) as the 7th DOES have some small influence on the design of the 6, and coincidentally, the strongest members in the Pantheons of Order and Death respectively ended up going "bad".

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"If truth, what would this say of mortal souls and their potential?

And if the six (or seven, or... excuse my imprecision) each vie with one another to claim it, could they be driven by the unconscious knowledge that there exists some other force outside our understanding that seeks it as well?"

"It was both six AND seven. The six were one, and the seventh the other.

Did they desire union? The song seemed to say otherwise. Both were, yet only one could be."

"The six forces that pointed toward a seventh, and yet denied it"

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"Six seats at the high table. Six mouths that hunger. One will consume all others."

"The seventh covets what the six hold fast. The fulcrum wavers. All will be undone."

Another N'Zoth line: "I alone can save you from what is to come."

One of the First Ones likely has their own design with their own stuff in mind. I imagine this "unknown First One" is gonna end up being the final boss of Warcraft, assuming Blizzard doesn't pull anymore bullshit out their ass, of course.

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"Zovaal: You preserve that which is doomed. A cosmos divided will not survive what is to come."

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"Futile. No power you possess can stop what is coming."

[Enrif]

Storms seem to be elemental based. Also, balance is something the First Ones created for their design. As for what the 7th power is? Honestly, I'm not sure, but I would not be shocked if this 7th power was like "the most powerful Progenitor" or simply wants to be the "only supreme being" for everything (Which could partially explain N'Zoth's "One will consume all others" whisper) as the 7th DOES have some small influence on the design of the 6, and coincidentally, the strongest members in the Pantheons of Order and Death respectively ended up going "bad".

Elements it intriguing as a "seventh" force i guess, since the elements are their own thing separate from the cosmic forces

"If truth, what would this say of mortal souls and their potential?

And if the six (or seven, or... excuse my imprecision) each vie with one another to claim it, could they be driven by the unconscious knowledge that there exists some other force outside our understanding that seeks it as well?"

"It was both six AND seven. The six were one, and the seventh the other.

Did they desire union? The song seemed to say otherwise. Both were, yet only one could be."

"The six forces that pointed toward a seventh, and yet denied it"

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"Six seats at the high table. Six mouths that hunger. One will consume all others."

"The seventh covets what the six hold fast. The fulcrum wavers. All will be undone."

Another N'Zoth line: "I alone can save you from what is to come."

One of the First Ones likely has their own design with their own stuff in mind. I imagine this "unknown First One" is gonna end up being the final boss of Warcraft, assuming Blizzard doesn't pull anymore bullshit out their ass, of course.

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"Zovaal: You preserve that which is doomed. A cosmos divided will not survive what is to come."

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"Futile. No power you possess can stop what is coming."

Sounds all to point towards balance?

Six point to seventh but deny it -> All the forces have their counters and would need balance, but they don't want balance, as they want to rule
One will consume the others -> In Balance you have everyone of the others.
The seventh covets what the six hold fast -> To achieve balance it needs every single other force, thus taking it from them.

[Joshuaj]

Elements it intriguing as a "seventh" force i guess, since the elements are their own thing separate from the cosmic forces




Sounds all to point towards balance?

Six point to seventh but deny it -> All the forces have their counters and would need balance, but they don't want balance, as they want to rule
One will consume the others -> In Balance you have everyone of the others.
The seventh covets what the six hold fast -> To achieve balance it needs every single other force, thus taking it from them.

Covets means to claim, to yearn for something. Balance is equality, harmony. It doesn't seek to consume, it seeks to merely equalize.

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To hold fast means to either tightly secure, or to adhere for something (Like an ideal or belief). The Six are adhering to the pattern, to the balance of the forces. The Seventh would not be balance in this case.

[Shadowferal]

"Futile. No power you possess can stop what is coming."

The power of friendship?

[milkmustache]

So anyway

Seeing the exact location of Khaz Algar on the in game map, my thoughts are returning to it's proximity to Silithus. How likely is it thatt we interact with the sword in a final patch? Or even the sword being a set piece in a final raid?

[Ersula]

"A cosmos divided will not survive what is to come."

Unemployment is to come, because the guy who wrote that left the company. Writers/Producers very rarely continue storylines from their predecessors so its unlikely any of these things matter to the current storyline.

[Fahrad Wagner]

So anyway

Seeing the exact location of Khaz Algar on the in game map, my thoughts are returning to it's proximity to Silithus. How likely is it thatt we interact with the sword in a final patch? Or even the sword being a set piece in a final raid?

I mean if the last patch is K'aresh, space shenanigans could have us return to Azeroth/the Sword for a fight- it's probably going to be connected to Azeroth and the world soul, we just don't know how exactly

[Alanar]

The power of friendship?

Friendships can be easily broken. You cant stop hope and love. Gotta be one of those.

[Cheezits]

One direction leads towards the Rootlands while another leads to Undermine. What happens after that is the question, it will probably be Silithus but I think it's up in the air. Personally hoping for a Qiraji theme.

[Kilpi]

Biggest issue is that WoW expansions since WoD have never delivered a satisfying, self contained story. You buy the $50 expansion on launch day and play through the content and get a "to be continued". Then you unsub and wait two years for all of the patches to come out and resub hoping to get the conclusion, and instead get another "to be continued in the next expansion!". There is no ending, no catharsis. WoW has become a TV soap opera that drags you around forever until it is cancelled.

Hasn't expansion stories always been like that? I don't get it..

[Shadowferal]

Friendships can be easily broken. You cant stop hope and love. Gotta be one of those.

I think it's going to be a long threesome, err...I mean the 3 in 1 expansion thing..or however it's referred to.

"Keep those hugs coming!

[huth]

I think it's going to be a long threesome, err...I mean the 3 in 1 expansion thing..or however it's referred to.

"Keep those hugs coming!

Trilogy. 2 is a duology, 4 is a quadrology etc..

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The idea (I refuse categorically to call this drivel a "theory") that Turalyon will become a villain has nothing to do with Turalyon, and everything to do with the Siege of Orgrimmar. After SoO, a few Horde players are certain that the next expansion will feature a "Siege of Stormwind".

Never made sense given how the Horde has lost every war against the Alliance, and had to ask the Alliance for help raiding their own capital. How is this Horde supposed to strike at the capital of the Alliance? Especially post Legion when the Alliance has a spaceship with a laser in orbit which could scalpel any incoming fleets, not that the Alliance would need to do so when they also have sturdy airship carriers that can deploy aircraft with machine guns that can shoot down incoming Horde zeppelins.

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Less content for the same price, wheee

Don't forget, we aren't getting a fifth zone at all. No endgame zone like the Maw, not even a new racial starting zone like the Forbidden Reach. Only. Four. Zones.

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I personally don't see the issue, because there have been a lot of "MSQ" in past expansions that felt incredibly filler-y and irrelevant to the main story of the expansion (Thaldraszus entirely, really, Bradensbrook in Valsharah, the Pit Fighting/Makura section in Aszuna, majority of the quests in Zandalar are kind of irrelevant to the main story) so as long as the actual main story is more focused, it's fine.

The last arc of Thaldrazus where you are travelling to different time periods was one of the only memorable parts of the Dragonflight levelling questline.

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It begins. 4 years passed and BfA is good now. Like clockwork.

My opinion on BFA has not changed since I played it. There are parts about it that are underappreciated (Zuldazar, island expeditions, the minigames, etc), and also a lot of other stuff that was wrong with it that people overlook (many of the levelling questlines being boring on a moment to moment basis, war mode killing world PvP).

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Tbf, A lot of people griped on BfA but then SL was even worse in many aspects so people softened on the expansion. It didn't necessarily even take 4 years..

There was a lot I liked about Shadowlands. The aesthetics, the new factions, the Covenants, the huge amount of mounts to collect, etc.

What Shadowlands highlights is the fundamental issue with retail WoW, which is that doing dailies by yourself is not fun. There was not enough content to support/the world quest daily gameplay loop did not support the Covenant/anima grind. Lengthy grinds are a tool. They are not inherently good or bad. The best part about oldschool MMOs such as Final Fantasy XI is the 400 hour long levelgrind. Because the mobs are too difficult to solo, you wind up spending hundreds of hours in a levelling party with other people, so you're chatting while levelling and you bond with them and become friends with and form a guild. The Maw was difficult enough to incentivize grouping up with other people, but the path of least resistance was to just do world quest dailies in the four Covenant zones by yourself, and solo WQ gameplay day after day is simply not fun enough to keep people doing this grind. Even if you did play with other people in the Maw, eventually you got tired of spending months on the same map. In FF11 after a few hours, your levelling party would graduate to the next zone and get to see new scenary and mobs, and you got new abilities to use. You felt like you were progressing. (I did not mind the idea of the long Covenant grinds as they are supposed to be a meaningful choice and you're supposed to focus on the one (or MAYBE two) you really like, just like how in FF11 it is preposterous to expect that you could level every job. Again, the issue is that the actual moment to moment gameplay was boring. Same issue for grinds in Legion/BFA/Dragonflight as well). You don't have to do the grind, but there was nothing else to do (besides... what? PvP on the same old maps again and again? Speedrun the same half dozen dungeons over and over chasing arbitrary number upgrades that will be invalidated come the next patch? No thanks).

The roguelite dungeon only had one aesthetic: generic Icecrown Citadel interior torture dungeon. Not a very appealing place to spend countless hours in. There needed to be a variety in aesthetics. Likewise, the Maw wasn't very visually pleasant to spend a lot of time in.

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I found BFA to be good even while current. Most complaints were fixed early and the other stuff was mostly issues outside of the game/nitpicking. And.... the main storyline was meh.

What I liked about BFA was the Island Expeditions. I remember completing the Drustvar storyline frustrated with how boring it was, switching to my Horde character and doing Vol'dun hoping it would get better, and then abandoning the story half way through because it was so boring and just doing island expeditions, which were quite fun.

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I think SL was worse than WoD. WoD didnt have enough content, but what it had was mostly good.

WoD was the first time I unsubbed from WoW. There was just nothing to do once you had beaten the levelling questlines. At least with Shadowlands, there were the Covenant storylines and the grinds. WoD didn't even have that.

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- Azerite gear, usually had to grind different set for each spec

While I was frustrated that I couldn't just pick the powers I wanted, I never felt like I "had" to grind to get specific items to play the game.

Essences - some of most popular Essences had ridiculous grind requirements (Blood of the Enemy rank 3 - 40k honor farmed), and they were NOT account shared.

Again, never felt like I "had" to get these.

- 8.2 Benthic gear for sockets, a noticeable power increase
- 8.3 Corruption gear - lots of grinding for highest rank, combined with legendary cloak lvl up

Never felt like I had to get these. WoW isn't that hard that you need to minmax.

I also don't get the account wide issue. Maybe it's because I rememeber how MMOs used to be where you were supposed to get invested in playing one class/character and there was no expectation that you were supposed to be able to do everything.

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*looking at Dragon Isles content, 2 big patch zones in single expansion and DFs 9 patches* I wonder how many years it will take for you guys to accept that raids are not only thing to measure expansion size. And Blizzard prefer to make more world content instead of tier 0 raid.

Zones are often forgotten because once you finish the levelling questline, there is little reason to spend time in them. Do what? Boring world quest chores by yourself for a rep? The zones do not have longevity.

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dragonflight was the worst expansion for me right after wod. content was really shallow and the vibe was completely off.

Hrm... I don't know. Might be on par with BFA for me. BFA at least had the correct theme, and had some fun content to do with island expeditions.

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fewer story chapters but much much more side quests

Main story is usually preferable to sidequests as you are more invested in what's going on there, whereas sidequests tend to be boring and you just click away the big paragraph wall of quest text.

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Today I learned people complainted about BfA systems were vocal minority, apparently people were loving it and evil elitists took it from us.

Unironically true. Covenants were great. Esports wannabe minmaxxers bitched and whined about stuff that didn't matter. The game isn't that hard and does not - and should not - revolve around pugging mythic 30s or whatever.

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Sorry, but a system where I do way, way, way less DPS than another player because I got a shitty drop is just terrible game design, not to mention that some Legendaries would make the spec more enjoyable gameplay-wise while other Legendaries barely worked (Old Sephuz).

It's indefendable lmao.

You never needed a specific item to beat the content.

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Chronicles basically confirms that every expansion after Cataclysm was the horde’s fault or was the fallout from the horde’s actions.

Given that the Horde ruined their home planet, that is to be expected.

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I don't think the Pandarians would describe it that way, considering the Alliance were the first to colonize one of their ancient temples.

Under Sha influence, which the Horde didn't need.

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New world map out.

With the Khaz Algar dwarves being so close to Kalimdor, you would have to wonder why they weren't trying to repair the Titan ruins in the Barrens. You would also think that Bronzebeard dwarves would have stopped by Khaz Algar along the way to digsites in Kalimdor. The Alliance would have also been interested in negotiating for the use of Khaz Algar's harbor as a base before the invasion of Kalimdor, like Australia and Iwo Jima before the invasion of Japan.

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Do people actually enjoy adventuring with Jaina and friends anymore?

I do. I like Thrall, MoP Anduin (before he became a moping passive do-nothing in Legion), and Jaina is pleasant. Don't like Alleria.

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And often their involvement means your character is just regulated to being a camera prop that follows them around while they throw out the word "hero" or "champion" a few times to make you feel involved. Its definitely an aspect where less is more imo.

That's a problem with any game that has a silent protagonist such as FF14 where you are a nonactor who just stands around while Alphinaud and the Scions deduce the plot twists and plan on what to do next. The only MMO in which the player character actually drives the narrative forward is GW2, where the PC is voiced and thus can deduce the plot twists on his own and decide what we'll be doing next and tell other characters what to do.

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We need a fresh cast that makes sense to be fighting alongside. Taelia Fordragon

Boring.

Geya'rah

Who?

Thaelin Darkanvil

I remember that guy from WoD. Not a favorite character I'd like to party with for a full length RPG, though.

the people from Exile's Reach

I don't remember them at all.

the class order hall people

Okay yeah adventuring with Chen, Li Li, Dezco, and his son would be fun.

This is why even though some portions of the Dragonscale Expedition weren't great

There were other expedition characters besides the lazy photographer gnome?

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Looks like next Beta build might have a new login screen. Filenames references for it got added in the Beta build they pushed today. No data got shipped/updated yet, so that'll have to wait for the next proper data build.

Hope it looks good.

Which makes sense as you usually never see the normal login screen anyways these days

I see the loginscreen every time I sit down to enter Azeroth.