Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Enrif]

man, you go to sleep and come to such big news. So, i spent some time reading some posts and making my own thought

- The people upset about "only orc/human", i mean, DUH, that is their starting baseline. Always was. New things will be added later, but the core design needs to be done first. And you can still use the housing system to already get all the cosmetics for any future themes, instead of missing out of it just because your specific thing isn't there yet.

- The people upset about "no free housing in all zones", again DUH, this would be a LOT more work AND would impede future revamps to zones. So, containing housing to specific areas gives them the ability to still revamp/reuse other zones without people complaining that their home is the place of the next Fyrakk assault.



- I think the neighborhood zones are the best compromise for a lot of things. In games like ESO (or Wildstar) your homes had no real presence as they were hard instanced. Sure, you see them in the world (ESO), but they are often solitary with nothing going on around them. FF14 housing areas are beautiful, but have a very strict technical limitation. WoW can handle that much better. And roleplayers (the main demographic for housing) will love living neighborhoods more than solitary homes at the edge of the world.

- The location make me think these neighborhoods might be directly adjacent to OG/SW. The horde one can be just east of Orgrimmar (which would call back one of the new earthen NPCs that talked about opening the canyon) connection Durotar to Azshara. The alliance one is a bit more difficult to place as it wants inspiration of three areas which only works on the place Hogger hangs out, but it is more likely to be directly between Stormwind and Westbrook Garrison of Elwynn Forest.

- How these neighborhood zones are integrated into the game remains to bee seen. From how i interpreted the text at first, i seemed like a loading screen instance, to allow the loading of your specific neighborhood or when you want to visit another players neighborhood. A seamless open world zone has more problems, like, when you go the the area, which neighborhood is loaded? yours? what if you want to visit a friend? will the zone just "change" phasing everything around you? Remains to be seen how it is implemented.

- Will your house be open to other players or can you lock people out?

- Decorations seem to be freely placeable. Perhaps not 100% like in ESO, but more SIMS or FF14 like?

- Thankfully i can use the same house/neighborhood with alliance and horde characters. But if they are OG/SW adjacent, this can cause issues. I hope they add a neutral housing zone next after the first two. Pandaria is quite popular for that for many people, but thinking from a roleplayers perspective i think a great "neutral" housing area would be in Tanaris (think hearthstone Gadgetzan mixed with some tropical flair, beach resort area) or Stranglehtorn next to booty bay (about the same "distance" from the other two zones, again a more jungle and tropucal flair with some pirate vibe)

Edit: heck. Tel'abim might be the neutral housing area. All beach resort, jungle, small island vacation vibe. If used by a guild, it could be your "guild island"

[Pyrophax]

Floating Blood Elf hood area could be sick. Imagine (for example) rewamped Duskwither grounds, where some of houses are at the ground and some flying over the place. It should not be as large as Durotar one, maybe 20-30 seats max.
Something like this



Night Elven I imagine Near the roots of Teldrassil, inside tree trunk. Reborned Teldrassil ofc, not chored husk.

[Xilurm]

It would suck if you need a group of people to get any private plot, which is why they should add apartments/solo plots. Having your own giant neighborhood to yourself is silly.

Hoods should be public or private with a group signup, and there should be an entirely SEPARATE option to have a house or room to yourself somewhere else.

People will just create guilds to make that then kick everyone in them to have the place for themselves.

[Lady Atia]

People will just create guilds to make that then kick everyone in them to have the place for themselves.

It's kinda sad to see people crying for "solo neighborhoods" already, like why would you play a MMO if you dislike other players that much that you can't even be in your guild's neighborhood (or find a RP community and settle there?). Actually, I'm excited for neighborhoods but fear a bit that with my own guild, there may not be enough hype to propperly fill all 50 slots (well, I guess I can have my dream plot than atleast haha).

[Xilurm]

It's kinda sad to see people crying for "solo neighborhoods" already, like why would you play a MMO if you dislike other players that much that you can't even be in your guild's neighborhood (or find a RP community and settle there?). Actually, I'm excited for neighborhoods but fear a bit that with my own guild, there may not be enough hype to propperly fill all 50 slots (well, I guess I can have my dream plot than atleast haha).

For the same reason people enjoy solo playing this game. And it's not like Blizzard doesn't know this either since they've been pushing it quite a lot lately.

PS: And it's not like I dislike other players. I hang around in Goldshire all the time and it's usually full of people on my server, and I like doing mp content.

But if I want to have a house in a Night Elf zone in the future I'd prefer it if I could be by myself, especially if I don't get to see all the random houses that use a design that is human or gnomish or whatever.

[Wyrt]

It's kinda sad to see people crying for "solo neighborhoods" already, like why would you play a MMO if you dislike other players that much that you can't even be in your guild's neighborhood (or find a RP community and settle there?). Actually, I'm excited for neighborhoods but fear a bit that with my own guild, there may not be enough hype to propperly fill all 50 slots (well, I guess I can have my dream plot than atleast haha).

Some people don't like living in cities. They just want a cabin in the woods or a mountain retreat. Having various options is the entire point of a player housing system.

[Joshuaj]

Some people don't like living in cities. They just want a cabin in the woods or a mountain retreat. Having various options is the entire point of a player housing system.

I do think it'll come soon enough.

[Hitei]

Some people don't like living in cities. They just want a cabin in the woods or a mountain retreat. Having various options is the entire point of a player housing system.

"Cities" is a bit much. They're like simple villages.

[SunspotAnims]

"Cities" is a bit much. They're like simple villages.

It's still 50 plots to a neighborhood. They're unlikely to be extremely spread out and if you like the idea of living in isolation then the only acceptable number of neighbors is zero.

[Lady Atia]

It's still 50 plots to a neighborhood. They're unlikely to be extremely spread out and if you like the idea of living in isolation then the only acceptable number of neighbors is zero.

Ok, maybe I'm just too extrovert to understand that haha. For me, the more the merrier, can't wait to create my own bar for my guild. May have to bribe some goblins, brokers or venthyr for some spices ...

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

After having seen in-game where the concept art areas are supposed to be located, I don't see how they won't be loading screens. According to the shots, there simply isn't enough space to add these areas where it's supposed to be in the old world without conflicting with everything else around them.

[Sondrelk]

After having seen in-game where the concept art areas are supposed to be located, I don't see how they won't be loading screens. According to the shots, there simply isn't enough space to add these areas where it's supposed to be in the old world without conflicting with everything else around them.

There is plenty of space when you realize it's concept art, not in-game screenshots.

The houses on Orgrimmar can be placed east of the city, where there is currently nothing but a giant mountain.
Remove most of it, and pretend it was always there.

Same for Stormwind. There are impassable mountains both south and east of Stormwind. Plenty of space to add areas for housing.
You can even add several ways in from both SW itself, as well as Elwynn.

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

They could create a new version of these zones, but that would disconnect them from the rest of the world if phased.

There is plenty of space when you realize it's concept art, not in-game screenshots.

The houses on Orgrimmar can be placed east of the city, where there is currently nothing but a giant mountain.
Remove most of it, and pretend it was always there.

Same for Stormwind. There are impassable mountains both south and east of Stormwind. Plenty of space to add areas for housing.
You can even add several ways in from both SW itself, as well as Elwynn.

Of course, there's a difference between concept art and what's actually in the game, but if you're a bit faithful and take into account the 50 houses and the diversity of the biomes, that doesn't leave much space. It really doesn't. Go and see for yourself in-game, we underestimate how small the old world is. Or maybe I'm overestimating it.

But then, I don't know how they're going to do it. I've got more questions than anything else...

[huth]

I appreciate that they're condensing multiple zones' biomes into each neighborhood for more variety. I wonder how the situation with picking a plot will work. For a private neighborhood it's probably fine but for public neighborhoods I imagine some plots will be in more demand than others. Will you get to choose at all in a public neighborhood?

I do hope they at some point consider adding phased solo plots in different zones out in the world. I know it goes against the social aspect that they want but even they themselves admitted neighborhood zones take a lot of time to make and so even with the multi-biome neighborhoods they're pretty heavily limiting the options of where houses can go. Plus my introverted ass just likes the idea of an isolated home out in the wilderness.

They could potentially just make it so you can freely pick your spot and get a public neighbourhood where it's available.

[Khaza-R]

They could potentially just make it so you can freely pick your spot and get a public neighbourhood where it's available.

This is how I think it will work in the public neighborhoods anyway. I am guessing there's some type of individual phasing for each plot. You'll pick the one you want and be matched with others who have different plots.

So if you choose something thats going to be popular like a house on the beach or in the Azshara biome you might potentially have smaller neighborhoods due to less people choosing the other plots.

[FossilFree]

I bet housing will be like the Alterac Valley entrance, where the zone inside isn't really on the world map and you have to imagine that it exists in the world proper.

[Enrif]

They could create a new version of these zones, but that would disconnect them from the rest of the world if phased.



Of course, there's a difference between concept art and what's actually in the game, but if you're a bit faithful and take into account the 50 houses and the diversity of the biomes, that doesn't leave much space. It really doesn't. Go and see for yourself in-game, we underestimate how small the old world is. Or maybe I'm overestimating it.

But then, I don't know how they're going to do it. I've got more questions than anything else...

The old world is really small, compared to new zones (that's why i'm against norther EK as a "zone" for midnight, instead of having big zones).

but you can do the following for better comparion: go to stormwind and count the number of houses there. This gives you an estimate of how much space is needed for neighborhoods.

[BaumanKing]

It's a bit disappointing that my blood elves will start out living in barbaric mud huts in the middle of the desert. It seems Blizzard hasn't learned their lesson from WoD. Don't they know that blood elves are THE most popular race?

And since the very next expansion takes place in Quel'Thalas, I thought it would be no-brainer to start from there. But enjoy your desert, I guess.

[Limayria]

It's a bit disappointing that my blood elves will start out living in barbaric mud huts in the middle of the desert. It seems Blizzard hasn't learned their lesson from WoD. Don't they know that blood elves are THE most popular race?

And since the very next expansion takes place in Quel'Thalas, I thought it would be no-brainer to start from there. But enjoy your desert, I guess.

this time at least we can use the alliance house ig and the whole horde "tents/ huts with no walls" vibe fits way better on a coastal setting than in the freezing tundra the garrison was in

[Khaza-R]

It's a bit disappointing that my blood elves will start out living in barbaric mud huts in the middle of the desert. It seems Blizzard hasn't learned their lesson from WoD. Don't they know that blood elves are THE most popular race?

And since the very next expansion takes place in Quel'Thalas, I thought it would be no-brainer to start from there. But enjoy your desert, I guess.

Except its clearly not just a desert. There's a whole coastal beach and part of Azshara too.