Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Sondrelk]

I always liked the idea of Blizzard doing some type of slow but assured revamp. Like, make remake Quel'thalas from scratch, but for the rest of the old zones, maybe just update how they look and give them 2025 graphics and whatnot.

Idk, I always felt like Blizzard should start out by updating all the starting/capital racial zones first. Just feels right.

Issue with that line of thought is that ther are zones with lots of stuff going on, and zones with very little. And unless you are upfront about what size we can expect zones to be you will end up with a horrible patchwork of zones with varying sizes depending on whether the expansion was a Lordaeron deep dive, or a Northern EK expansion.

Wanting all the old zones to be the same size as modern zones is a pipe dream. While perfectly feasible assuming no time restrictions and endless time to iterate, the truth is that players will expect two things from a world revamp. For it to not require constant loading zones, and for the zones to arrive within their lifetimes.
I don't doubt that WoW could easily go on for another 20 years. It's still a pretty bad business decision to state that lovers of the Dark Iron storyline will have to wait until 2040, when we have done the Lordaeron expansion, Hyjal expansion, Avaloren expansion, Avaloren 2.0 expansion, South Seas expansion, and are moving into the Sargeras' Return saga when we get the Elementals expansion and a return to Black Iron Mountain.

If Blizzard wanted a patchwork revamp of that size, then it would probably have to be a years long project where they specifically announce that they will be making a new EK and Kalimdor starting from Quel'thalas and working downwards. Which, while a coll idea. Doesnt really mesh with the current 1.5-2 year expansion rollout. Especially when those expansion are also not all revamps.

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No. I actually believe that it is impossible that 14.0 is your standard expansion with 4 more zones and so on. But I also believe that it is impossible that Blizzard announces a new saga about revamping the old continents for the next 5 years.

First, we are getting two expansions of revamps with Midnight and TLT, so I think that it is very very unlikely that 14.0 is another revamp (unless we get a full revamp of both continents). Second, I'm sorry but Quel'thalas and Northrend do not have the same meaning for the majority of players than Un'Goro, Durotar, Redridge Mountains and so on. Lordaeron is the only one that I believe could carry an expansion by itself. Finally, if they revamp the old continents in different expansions, it would be very hard to keep a cohesive story. Although this will already be a problem with Midnight, which will be about a Void invasion, and whenever they revamp the rest of northern Eastern Kingdoms, it would probably be about other unrelated stuff, and that certainly feels very wrong.

This is also precisely why I think we are getting more than just Quel'thalas as well.
Lordaeron is the only thing that could concievably carry an entire expansion. And even then, mostly because it has such a strong thematic link to the Arathi Empire. And if that is all, then it's much easier to make it the strong B-plot of Midnight that serves as the proper introdution to the Arathi Empire.
The remaining zones in Northern EK meanwhile are incredibly weak in story. So unless you have expansion 16.0 "All the remaining zones we have not revamped", some of them will have to be filler for other expansions. Hinterlands for instance doesnt really make sense for anything but a filler zone with extra Amani trolls. Arathi Highlands is at this point only important because Strom is where the Arathi Empire originated.

Northern EK for midnight makes so much sense in my mind.
Quel'thalas for the strong Elf and Void primary theme. Lordaeron for Forsaken v. Scarlet Crusade/Arathi Empire + Scourge remnants. And then Hinterlands and Arathi as the extra zones for whatever extra storylines needs to be told. In addition to being able to use Earthen assets to spruce up the Wildhammer clan, and Jintha'alor for an Amani dungeon.

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I still think if Blizzard does a world revamp, they have to do it one fell swoop rather than piece-meal over four expansions.

Nothing would kill the "World of Warcraft" vibe more than only having a fourth of the world available.

I dunno. 4 expansions seems like the magic number to me. 2 would be ideal, one for each continent. But each continent is the size of two modern expansion areas, so might be a tad much. For Kalimdor maybe, given how sparse the zones are in terms of concrete storylines. But for EK you would probably need 2 expansions just to be able to give a proper amount of time to each story hook.

[Makorus]

I mean, people are assuming much by thinking that all of Launch Midnight will take place in Quel'thalas.

[Darkarath]

Northern EK for midnight makes so much sense in my mind.
Quel'thalas for the strong Elf and Void primary theme. Lordaeron for Forsaken v. Scarlet Crusade/Arathi Empire + Scourge remnants. And then Hinterlands and Arathi as the extra zones for whatever extra storylines needs to be told. In addition to being able to use Earthen assets to spruce up the Wildhammer clan, and Jintha'alor for an Amani dungeon.

I agree.

Especially if K'aresh is 11.2, Midnight + patch zones could easily revamp the north part of the Eastern Kingdoms. Plus Blood Elves, Forsaken, Trolls, Arathi, the remaining Plague... It just such a good and classic mix that It almost seems imposible that they would not take the chance to do it.

[Limayria]

No. I actually believe that it is impossible that 14.0 is your standard expansion with 4 more zones and so on. But I also believe that it is impossible that Blizzard announces a new saga about revamping the old continents for the next 5 years.

First, we are getting two expansions of revamps with Midnight and TLT, so I think that it is very very unlikely that 14.0 is another revamp (unless we get a full revamp of both continents). Second, I'm sorry but Quel'thalas and Northrend do not have the same meaning for the majority of players than Un'Goro, Durotar, Redridge Mountains and so on. Lordaeron is the only one that I believe could carry an expansion by itself. Finally, if they revamp the old continents in different expansions, it would be very hard to keep a cohesive story. Although this will already be a problem with Midnight, which will be about a Void invasion, and whenever they revamp the rest of northern Eastern Kingdoms, it would probably be about other unrelated stuff, and that certainly feels very wrong.



Exactly.

You're majorly overestimating how many current retail players have special meaning for vanilla zones I've literally never once seen someone mention redridge or ungoro unprompted but people bring up northrend zones, grizzly hills especially a lot

Not to mention with how there's currently 3 versions of vanilla wow to play so if those zones were truly the important ones to people they'd play vanilla where those are relevant zones

[Polybius]

You're majorly overestimating how many current retail players have special meaning for vanilla zones I've literally never once seen someone mention redridge or ungoro unprompted but people bring up northrend zones, grizzly hills especially a lot

Not to mention with how there's currently 3 versions of vanilla wow to play so if those zones were truly the important ones to people they'd play vanilla where those are relevant zones

Redridge and Elwynn Forest are mentioned a lot on Alliance. Lordaeron for both factions. We’re going to Northrend for its Titan landmarks.

It’ll be interesting to see if they expand Ulduar as an outdoor zone.

[Khaza-R]

You're majorly overestimating how many current retail players have special meaning for vanilla zones I've literally never once seen someone mention redridge or ungoro unprompted but people bring up northrend zones, grizzly hills especially a lot

Not to mention with how there's currently 3 versions of vanilla wow to play so if those zones were truly the important ones to people they'd play vanilla where those are relevant zones

Eversong and Grizzly Hills are popular for sure. But a lot of people are equally or more attached to the OG starting zones where their journey began. And plenty of other zones that were memorable.

And people generally want progression of those old stories. New ones as well. Not just to replay the past.

[Hitei]

Why do worgen deserve content but not blood elves?

Because despite Blood Elf fans' endless whining and put upon attitude, as seen here:

Well you see blood elves existed in one patch in mop, and a handful of zones in TBC!! That's more than enough content

Never mind the fact pandarian have a similar level of content and worgen aren't far behind (starter zone + major roll in legion alliance stormhelm + retaking gilneas quest)

And blood (and void) elves also make up almost 30% of the player base so it's a little fair they get some spot light from time to time I think

The reality is that they get a fairly significant and regular amount of attention from the devs. They didn't just """exist in one patch in mop""" (nevermind that it wasn't actually "in one patch" because they were also involved in the Theramore storyline, the Dalaran storyline).

I think it's rather funny someone would claim that Genn being in one cutscene is Worgen having "a major roll in Legion Alliance Stormheim" but then somehow completely forget that Liadrin and the Blood Elves were an actually major force in Legion during the Suramar campaign, or forget that the Reliquary (read: Blood Elves) had quest lines in Cataclysm, Legion and BfA, and minor appearances in WoD and DF.

And of course, it's real easy to pretend that somehow, all the attention Void Elves, the exiled group of Blood Elves, got in BfA totally doesn't count.

And then we also have to ignore that unlike the majority of races in the game, Blood Elves very consistently get new stuff. New golden eyes to reflect their ongoing story changes, new skin tones, new ear options. An entire subrace on Alliance because people kept whining that they wanted to play Blood Elves but as Alliance, new blue eye options and hair colors because Void Elves weren't enough of a concession to being able to play Thalassians on Alliance. And then new hairstyles and customizable jewelry just because.

People continually spout this sort of crap:

And blood (and void) elves also make up almost 30% of the player base so it's a little fair they get some spot light from time to time I think

While somehow pretending that they do not, and have not since their implementation, ALREADY gotten frequent racial spotlighting and dev attention every couple expansions.

Panadren still have one single face shape option, no heritage armor, have never gotten their model update despite worgen and goblins getting one their's 3 expansions ago. The Pandaren have not had a questline since MoP(?) unless you count the Monk Order hall as being one (in which case we also have to talk about Felo'melorn). Worgen forces retook Gilneas in Silverpine's questline in Cataclysm when the Forsaken were forced out of the region and back to their side of the wall, nothing in the storyline ever even suggested there was anything actually stopping the Gilneans from just getting onto a ship and going back home at any point between the end of Cata and BfA. Blizzard just finally decided to bother with it nearly 15 years later.

So if we're going to use parity as the basis for who gets content because, in your own words, "sometimes races other than (the ones who get frequent content) should get content", Blood Elves aint it, and subsequently them being (fictionally) starved for content isn't a great counter-argument against the attitudes of those who aren't thrilled with the idea of a whole expansion focused around them. (I'm not even one of those people, btw, I just recognize that it's a reasonable take and that the reality is that Blood Elf players get a shit ton of dev attention.)

[The-Shan]

Because despite Blood Elf fans' endless whining and put upon attitude, as seen here:



The reality is that they get a fairly significant and regular amount of attention from the devs. They didn't just """exist in one patch in mop""" (nevermind that it wasn't actually "in one patch" because they were also involved in the Theramore storyline, the Dalaran storyline).

I think it's rather funny someone would claim that Genn being in one cutscene is Worgen having "a major roll in Legion Alliance Stormheim" but then somehow completely forget that Liadrin and the Blood Elves were an actually major force in Legion during the Suramar campaign, or forget that the Reliquary (read: Blood Elves) had quest lines in Cataclysm, Legion and BfA, and minor appearances in WoD and DF.

And of course, it's real easy to pretend that somehow, all the attention Void Elves, the exiled group of Blood Elves, got in BfA totally doesn't count.

And then we also have to ignore that unlike the majority of races in the game, Blood Elves very consistently get new stuff. New golden eyes to reflect their ongoing story changes, new skin tones, new ear options. An entire subrace on Alliance because people kept whining that they wanted to play Blood Elves but as Alliance, new blue eye options and hair colors because Void Elves weren't enough of a concession to being able to play Thalassians on Alliance. And then new hairstyles and customizable jewelry just because.

People continually spout this sort of crap:



While somehow pretending that they do not, and have not since their implementation, ALREADY gotten frequent racial spotlighting and dev attention every couple expansions.

Panadren still have one single face shape option, no heritage armor, have never gotten their model update despite worgen and goblins getting one their's 3 expansions ago. The Pandaren have not had a questline since MoP(?) unless you count the Monk Order hall as being one (in which case we also have to talk about Felo'melorn). Worgen forces retook Gilneas in Silverpine's questline in Cataclysm when the Forsaken were forced out of the region and back to their side of the wall, nothing in the storyline ever even suggested there was anything actually stopping the Gilneans from just getting onto a ship and going back home at any point between the end of Cata and BfA. Blizzard just finally decided to bother with it nearly 15 years later.

So if we're going to use parity as the basis for who gets content because, in your own words, "sometimes races other than (the ones who get frequent content) should get content", Blood Elves aint it, and subsequently them being (fictionally) starved for content isn't a great counter-argument against the attitudes of those who aren't thrilled with the idea of a whole expansion focused around them. (I'm not even one of those people, btw, I just recognize that it's a reasonable take and that the reality is that Blood Elf players get a shit ton of dev attention.)

I don't see the point of this discussion, the next expansion is almost certainly blood, void and high elf centric, so we're going to get plenty of elf content.

[Cheezits]

The concept art is very good, if not exactly Warcraft's style. That seems to be the point though.

I do like the idea of using crystals as balloons, as well as the giant hands and weapons. The tree probably would be used for Elun'ahir and the crystal prison does point to it NOT being a Naaru inside Beledar, no. I also like the pagoda-style of some of the bulidings which would be nice to use for Karesh.

I'd still prefer it to be the AU Army of Light inside there but it would be a nice twist if the Ancient One is calcified inside there, or Xal's real body. Or, they are one and the same.

[Cheezits]

It also begs the question, why did Archaedas lie or not tell the whole truth about it?

It COUD be that he legit didn't know there was something inside it. Or it's something similar to Odyn wanting to scrub records of Black Empire activity.

[Hitei]

I don't see the point of this discussion, the next expansion is almost certainly blood, void and high elf centric, so we're going to get plenty of elf content.

Someone else expressed not liking the idea of 2 years of Blood Elf content. Wyrt took issue with that, I simply pointed out how being out of date doesn't make content more appealing if you don't like that content, and then when he brought up "everything is human and night elf", pointed out that Blood Elves are not anywhere close to content deprived, and there's other races that should be getting content if that is how we are gauging what gets content, so "suck it up, Blood Elves deserve something!" is a pretty silly response to people who don't like Blood Elves.

Have you guys seen this stuff?

This studio was hired by Blizzard a few years ago to draw inspirational art for the War Within, and it's all available on this website.

Basically it's not even concept art, more like pre-concept art. That said, obviously somebody at Blizzard gave them keywords to work with so the inspiration falls within the right theme.

It was brought up way back at the very start of the expansion. They're blue-sky pieces, i.e. specifically not following clear prompts, entirely new brainstorming.

[The-Shan]

Someone else expressed not liking the idea of 2 years of Blood Elf content. Wyrt took issue with that, I simply pointed out how being out of date doesn't make content more appealing if you don't like that content, and then when he brought up "everything is human and night elf", pointed out that Blood Elves are not anywhere close to content deprived, and there's other races that should be getting content if that is how we are gauging what gets content, so "suck it up, Blood Elves deserve something!" is a pretty silly response to people who don't like Blood Elves.


It was brought up way back at the very start of the expansion. They're blue-sky pieces, i.e. specifically not following clear prompts, entirely new brainstorming.

Personally I don't think 'who deserves what' is that relevant, it's "What is relevant and interesting to the story", and perhaps returning to Quel'thalas and the Sunwell will serve the story well. I'm hoping we get some really cool Forest Troll content too.

I just think making the game a rotating wheel of representing every race is a failing strategy, and I think Blizzard feels the same way. I'm just excited to get back to the old world, and I think Quel'thalas is as good a place as any to do that in an exciting and fun way.

[Khaza-R]

The art is rather cool and its nice to see how they start their creative process. But looks way more like Deepholm than it does Khaz Algar.

They obviously only very loosely used that for inspriation cause the end product is far deviated from that.

[Hitei]

Okay, didn't know that!

They definitely show signs of the artists being given some instructions, though. Maybe it's just keywords or general descriptions, but it's very apparent. You can clearly see things like the strange rift of Sector AR-938, Arathi settlements, the Beledar next to the Undersea, Elun'ahir, Old Gods, and so on.

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And that's enough for us to know that these images aren't solely abstract. They actually do reveal something about the setting and the story. The artists followed Blizzard's vision, not the other way around. Blizzard just needed ideas on how to bring it to life.

You have it backwards. The whole point is that they didn't follow Blizzard's vision. Blizzard hired them to make up random unfiltered underground environments (that is what blue-sky is, it's unshackled thinking, idea experiments that ignore reality and just do whatever insane stuff in order to come up with creative jumping off points, "outside the box") so that Blizzard could then have an bunch of interesting and unique pictures from fresh eyes to look at together when they first started deciding how they wanted zones to look.

That is why, for example, this image set has civilizations among mushrooms, and civilizations with Diablo style hell demons sealed below, and civilizations with dinosaur skeletons, and civilizations with floating sky rivers, and civilizations with giant demon faces, and elven civilizations surrounded by lava, and civilizations built on jellyfish ice lakes, and civilizations built out of giant snake skeletons, but you are ignoring ALL of those, seeing an image you can interpret as "Civilization among the remnants of eldritch creatures" and deciding Blizzard must have told them what the story was and to draw that, when the reality is that the only thing Blizzard probably gave them was "underground environment" and then let them run wherever they wanted with that, because that is why blue-sky is.

Hence why you see the exact same sort of underground stuff you'd find everywhere else in underground concept art. Crystals, mushrooms, giant eldritch monsters, skeletons, ancient ruins, mysterious orbs and artifacts, cursed swords surrounded by bones, etc.

[Marlamin]

Some of that has a LOT of DF vibes too. Given the timeframe being 2021 which likely puts it during DF's zone building as well, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these were used for inspiration for some DF content as well.

[Wyrt]

The reality is that they get a fairly significant and regular amount of attention from the devs. They didn't just """exist in one patch in mop""" (nevermind that it wasn't actually "in one patch" because they were also involved in the Theramore storyline, the Dalaran storyline).

lol

If 1 random elf being involved in Theramore is enough to constitute racial content then worgen have had a ton too.

Did goblins not deserve Undermine content then? There's been random goblins in basically every expansion which apparently counts as racial content. People must really be feeling goblin fatigue.

[Hitei]

lol

If 1 random elf being involved in Theramore is enough to constitute racial content then worgen have had a ton too.

That you had to ignore the entire rest of the post to try and deflect about a single point should maybe tell you that you don't have much of a counter-argument.

Did goblins not deserve Undermine content then? There's been random goblins in basically every expansion which apparently counts as racial content. People must really be feeling goblin fatigue.

No, unlike Blood Elves, goblins were similar to Pandaren and Worgen in that they rarely exist and get very little content as a race.

[Wyrt]

That you had to ignore the entire rest of the post to try and deflect about a single point should maybe tell you that you don't have much of a counter-argument.


No, unlike Blood Elves, goblins were similar to Pandaren and Worgen in that they rarely exist and get very little content as a race.

But there's random goblins and worgen in most expansions. Why does a random blood elf count as getting content as a race, but not random goblins or worgen?

[Hitei]

But there's random goblins and worgen in most expansions. Why does a random blood elf count as getting content as a race, but not random goblins or worgen?

Because pandaren, worgen and formerly goblins aren't getting frequent customization upgrades, entire second races to appease their playerbase, and significant quest and patch presence with major storylines. Please stop. This is just disingenuous. You and I both know you don't actually think Genn appearing briefly in one zone's quests and a cutscene makes worgen on par with Blood Elves showing up as an army in the same expansion to assist in the main plot and leading the archaeology questline and having two separate artifact quests that then give custom scripted reactions for important elf NPCs, and appearing as a faction in the hunter class hall, and the paladin class hall, and also having a number of important NPCs in the mage and demon hunter class halls

That is why. Because it's not "a random blood elf counts, but not random goblins or worgen!?!". It's that there's fucking 20 Blood Elves and a bunch of extra story content and neat nods to Blood Elf history, and player customization, and their NPCs have ongoing storylines related to the larger plot and maybe, if you're lucky one or two goblins or worgen and maybe, if you're very, very lucky, they'll remember to put a pandaren NPC standing around somewhere this expansion.

[Wyrt]

Because pandaren, worgen and formerly goblins aren't getting frequent customization upgrades, entire second races to appease their playerbase, and significant quest and patch presence with major storylines. Please stop. This is just disingenuous. You and I both know you don't actually think Genn appearing briefly in one zone's quests and a cutscene makes worgen on par with Blood Elves showing up as an army in the same expansion to assist in the main plot and leading the archaeology questline and having two separate artifact quests that then give custom scripted reactions for important elf NPCs, and appearing as a faction in the hunter class hall, and the paladin class hall, and also having a number of important NPCs in the mage and demon hunter class halls

That is why. Because it's not "a random blood elf counts, but not random goblins or worgen!?!". It's that there's fucking 20 Blood Elves and a bunch of extra story content and neat nods to Blood Elf history, and player customization, and their NPCs have ongoing storylines related to the larger plot and maybe, if you're lucky one or two goblins or worgen and maybe, if you're very, very lucky, they'll remember to put a pandaren NPC standing around somewhere this expansion.

Thalen Songweaver showing up for like 15 seconds in the Horde only version of the Theramore scenario=content for blood elves as a race.

Genn, the worgen leader, instigating a fight between the Horde and Alliance in a zone=not content for worgen as a race.

You're surely not serious.