Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Swarzsinne]

I think the Undermine no flying mounts situation kind of applies to them being unafraid in their apporhac as well, but in a different light. They're not afraid to try something in small doses to test the waters. Instead of giving us an entire Midnight expansion with no flying mounts and dynamic ground mounts, we're testing it out in a zone that utilizes it intelligently as a feature. Worldbuilding wise, it is a massive win. The potential for a new style of ground mounts and some flight restricted areas? Also a win in my opinion.

I'm a little more skeptical. When I hear no flying in a new zone it makes me think the zone will be somewhat underdeveloped. Granted the cars are supposed to go insanely fast, so that helps pull back the skepticism for me a bit, but I'm still curious what the actual in-game reasoning will be. Mainly Argus comes to mind, it seemed cool for a bit but after a while the lack of flying started getting really annoying.

I don't mind it for a bit, I just hate the idea of it being permanent. Once you've gotten the initial experience and are just on the daily grind the travel becomes tedious.

[JDBlou]

Ngl, also makes sense considering the Undermine is an underground city, so you kinda don't want to ram a plane or a dragon through there lol

A second dragon has hit the gallagio?

[Swarzsinne]

You talking about lottery systems such as FFXIVs yeah? How does that work again? Like do you have to wait to buy a plot of land or?

You have to have the funds on you that would let you buy a plot, sign up for the lottery, if you get drawn you have so long to actually complete the sale. Then you have so long to pay to have your house constructed. Then you've got to stay subbed forever because if you go 45 consecutive days without going into your house it gets demolished and the plot put up for sale.

So hopefully WoW's system doesn't turn out to be a massive gold sink.

[Cheezits]

You have to have the funds on you that would let you buy a plot, sign up for the lottery, if you get drawn you have so long to actually complete the sale. Then you have so long to pay to have your house constructed. Then you've got to stay subbed forever because if you go 45 consecutive days without going into your house it gets demolished and the plot put up for sale.

So hopefully WoW's system doesn't turn out to be a massive gold sink.

The reason it's like this is because they elected to have "living streets" of multiple houses owned by different players, so the system is in place as the servers can't handle that many combined instances.

[Kathranis]

I'm a little more skeptical. When I hear no flying in a new zone it makes me think the zone will be somewhat underdeveloped.

The fact that they're building a new ground mount movement system makes me think that this choice is more rooted in doing something thematic and experimental. The Kezan starting zone was inspired by GTA and included a section where you get a car and drive around on the highways picking up your crew, but it still just felt like normal WoW movement for the most part. To me this seems like they're trying to take what they learned from Dragonriding and Dynamic Flight to take another shot at that idea with a large outdoor open world city zone.

Edit: Actually, just read a recap of the interview Ion did with T&E. He said that "Undermine is a dense urban environment unsuited for flying" which also makes sense. Skyriding is meant to traverse larger, open areas quickly, but when you're trying to navigate through alleyways and around large buildings with highways, street lights, and billboards potentially getting in the way, it would probably feel annoying. And, frankly, if you want to sell the size and experience of being in a huge city, you want to keep players on the streets. Also mentions revisiting the system in the future as it matures, suggesting they do have future plans to keep building on it.

[Black Rider]

Interesting why Megadungeons idea was scrapped for this xpac

[huth]

Ngl, also makes sense considering the Undermine is an underground city, so you kinda don't want to ram a plane or a dragon through there lol

I'd agree... if it wasn't a Goblin city. A better explanation would be that it is to dangerous for us to try flying there due to the high likelyhood of all kinds of unmarked airborne dangers.

[Kathranis]

Interesting why Megadungeons idea was scrapped for this xpac

"Mega-dungeons aren't off the table for the future of The War Within.

Blizzard decided to make a regular dungeon for 11.1 because it was starting to feel too formulaic, with patch x.1 always adding a mega-dungeon."

[Black Rider]

"Mega-dungeons aren't off the table for the future of The War Within.

Blizzard decided to make a regular dungeon for 11.1 because it was starting to feel too formulaic, with patch x.1 always adding a mega-dungeon."

Hmm, it seems I missed it from interview.
Sounds great

[Joshuaj]

You have to have the funds on you that would let you buy a plot, sign up for the lottery, if you get drawn you have so long to actually complete the sale. Then you have so long to pay to have your house constructed. Then you've got to stay subbed forever because if you go 45 consecutive days without going into your house it gets demolished and the plot put up for sale.

So hopefully WoW's system doesn't turn out to be a massive gold sink.

Btw, when your house gets demolished, do you get refunded for that at all or?

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I'd agree... if it wasn't a Goblin city. A better explanation would be that it is to dangerous for us to try flying there due to the high likelyhood of all kinds of unmarked airborne dangers.

This also works ngl.

[Swarzsinne]

Btw, when your house gets demolished, do you get refunded for that at all or?

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This also works ngl.

The gil (FF's gold) is gone, but all the furnishings get sent to an NPC where you can reclaim them.

[Kathranis]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/taliesi...-goblin-350719

Includes an embedded video for the interview and recap.

Key takeaways for me:

Housing:

• They're still gathering feedback and seem to be very aware that players already have a ton of competing opinions about what they want out of housing.
• They want it to be a social feature with no player power attached to it.
• There will be other options for house styles besides what they teased.
• Evergreen feature that will continue to be updated in future patches and expansions.

Undermine:

• They're trying to expand the lore of the goblins to give them more depth without changing what players already like about them.
• Cartels will work like the Pacts in Azj-Kahet, with a major Severed Strands-style zone Renown to progress, and existing rep with the factions from Classic won't affect your standing with them in Undermine.

DRIVE:

• Flying didn't work well for the dense urban environment.
• DRIVE is 3-5 times faster than your ground mount and can go even faster when using abilities.
• Plans to keep working on the system in the future and do more with it as it matures.
• Can opt out and instead use your regular ground mount if you don't like it.

Delves:

• They scrapped having different seasonal companions because they don't want players to feel like they're starting over from scratch with a new companion each patch, and are instead working on new ways to keep improving Brann, such as giving him a Tank spec. Midnight will introduce a new companion.
• New goblin-themed stories for the current Delves in addition to the new Delves in Undermine, plus a third "challenge Delve" for the new Delve antagonist.

Dungeons & Raids:

• Still might do a Mega-Dungeon later in the expansion, just didn't want to feel tied to the formula of always doing one in the X.1 patch.
• Aiming for 8-10 boss raids which feels like the right length for the way guilds are currently playing and progressing. Considering doing smaller Onyxia's Lair style raids in the future, but no immediate plans.

[Joshuaj]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/taliesi...-goblin-350719

Includes an embedded video for the interview and recap.

Key takeaways for me:

Housing:

• They're still gathering feedback and seem to be very aware that players already have a ton of competing opinions about what they want out of housing.
• They want it to be a social feature with no player power attached to it.
• There will be other options for house styles besides what they teased.
• Evergreen feature that will continue to be updated in future patches and expansions.

Undermine:

• They're trying to expand the lore of the goblins to give them more depth without changing what players already like about them.
• Cartels will work like the Pacts in Azj-Kahet, with a major Severed Strands-style zone Renown to progress, and existing rep with the factions from Classic won't affect your standing with them in Undermine.

DRIVE:

• Flying didn't work well for the dense urban environment.
• DRIVE is 3-5 times faster than your ground mount and can go even faster when using abilities.
• Plans to keep working on the system in the future and do more with it as it matures.
• Can opt out and instead use your regular ground mount if you don't like it.

Delves:

• They scrapped having different seasonal companions because they don't want players to feel like they're starting over from scratch with a new companion each patch, and are instead working on new ways to keep improving Brann, such as giving him a Tank spec. Midnight will introduce a new companion.
• New goblin-themed stories for the current Delves in addition to the new Delves in Undermine, plus a third "challenge Delve" for the new Delve antagonist.

Dungeons & Raids:

• Still might do a Mega-Dungeon later in the expansion, just didn't want to feel tied to the formula of always doing one in the X.1 patch.
• Aiming for 8-10 boss raids which feels like the right length for the way guilds are currently playing and progressing. Considering doing smaller Onyxia's Lair style raids in the future, but no immediate plans.

Roads across all of Azeroth would be a W! Also, you forgot to mention it, but Ion mentioned races as well. Maybe we'll see Racetracks? That, or the races will be on the regular roads (Which would be fine, but racetracks would be a W). We need Highways though! Thought the sewage pipes were highway roads initially, but nah sadly.

But yeah, it does seem like we won't JUST be getting timed quests, which is nice! Like a mix between Simpsons Hit and Run, and Need For Speed!

[Sondrelk]

I think the Undermine no flying mounts situation kind of applies to them being unafraid in their apporhac as well, but in a different light. They're not afraid to try something in small doses to test the waters. Instead of giving us an entire Midnight expansion with no flying mounts and dynamic ground mounts, we're testing it out in a zone that utilizes it intelligently as a feature. Worldbuilding wise, it is a massive win. The potential for a new style of ground mounts and some flight restricted areas? Also a win in my opinion.

Don't forget Siren Isle also experimenting with ground based movement features.

Flying always severely limits design space, and makes it difficult to create organic outdoor challenges without resorting to caves or ever bigger elites.
You can't really have zones like Suramar again if you always have the option to simply fly straight to your destination without engaging with the main challenge of hostile guards.

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I'm a little more skeptical. When I hear no flying in a new zone it makes me think the zone will be somewhat underdeveloped. Granted the cars are supposed to go insanely fast, so that helps pull back the skepticism for me a bit, but I'm still curious what the actual in-game reasoning will be. Mainly Argus comes to mind, it seemed cool for a bit but after a while the lack of flying started getting really annoying.

I don't mind it for a bit, I just hate the idea of it being permanent. Once you've gotten the initial experience and are just on the daily grind the travel becomes tedious.

Depends on how you look at it I suppose. Flying is above all else a feature for the convenience of the player. And convenience is the death of gameplay.

Not that all opportunities for gameplay should be celebrated of course. We don't really need survival elements or permadeath in WoW for instance. But given this is called the World of Warcraft, it's definitely worth trying to make ground based movement the default.

[Joshuaj]

How racing in 11.1's gonna play out:

[milkmustache]

Roads across all of Azeroth would be a W! Also, you forgot to mention it, but Ion mentioned races as well. Maybe we'll see Racetracks? That, or the races will be on the regular roads (Which would be fine, but racetracks would be a W). We need Highways though! Thought the sewage pipes were highway roads initially, but nah sadly.

But yeah, it does seem like we won't JUST be getting timed quests, which is nice! Like a mix between Simpsons Hit and Run, and Need For Speed!

I don't think this means roads across Azeroth, I think this is just a test for the system to see how players react which would then translate it to other mounts.

Dragonriding became Skyriding when expanded because not every mount is a dragon.

D.R.I.V.E. will become something else when expanded because not every mount is a car.

Don't expect roads over Azeroth, because it just won't happen both design wise and logisitically. That said, I think the races will certainly be a direct parallel to dragonriding races, taking preexisting roads and creating courses from that. I'm not reading "races" as "races against people", just as dragonriding courses are still called "races". I wouldn't expect instanced content with it.

[Joshuaj]

I don't think this means roads across Azeroth, I think this is just a test for the system to see how players react which would then translate it to other mounts.

Dragonriding became Skyriding when expanded because not every mount is a dragon.

D.R.I.V.E. will become something else when expanded because not every mount is a car.

Don't expect roads over Azeroth, because it just won't happen both design wise and logisitically. That said, I think the races will certainly be a direct parallel to dragonriding races, taking preexisting roads and creating courses from that. I'm not reading "races" as "races against people", just as dragonriding courses are still called "races". I wouldn't expect instanced content with it.

That's fair, and ik this will 100% lead to Dynamic Ground Mounts in the future (Ffs, it was literally datamined a while back).

However, I also don't want us to leave our cars in the Undermine. A road system with our houses having a garage and a driveway would be really cool lol.

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But yeah, I can see that not happening as well

[milkmustache]

On reddit, someone noted that the symbol at the end of the roadmap resembles a symbol seen in WoD:



It is, though, somewhat different. It rotates in the opposite direction, and this one doesn't have that loop at the core like the roadmap symbol does.

Still, interesting.

Guild mate just shared this with me. I'm definitely feeling WoD Remix. Man, it'd be incredible to see Blizzard expand on either Ogre content that was left out of WoD, or just adding more into the game. I think that giving them a lot more focus is a great idea as they've always been a pretty integral race.

[Hitei]

However, I also don't want us to leave our cars in the Undermine. A road system with our houses having a garage and a driveway would be really cool lol.

That sounds absolutely terrible.

[milkmustache]

That's fair, and ik this will 100% lead to Dynamic Ground Mounts in the future (Ffs, it was literally datamined a while back).

However, I also don't want us to leave our cars in the Undermine. A road system with our houses having a garage and a driveway would be really cool lol.

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But yeah, I can see that not happening as well

The point about it being datamined is a pretty good point to bring up to be able to project future patches and expansions. IIRC, a trash item referencing Nerubians was datamined in Zaralek and found by Terez, which led to speculation on Nerubians being a part of the next expansion. Dynamic Riding was datamined I believe in 10.2, so a solid 3 patches behind. I wonder what's hiding in the files now that will reflect on future patches.

That Vampire Survival mode was never utilized. Maybe this is a reapproach to Horrific Visions?