Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Hitei]

You don't actually believe that, right?

Are you seriously suggesting Blizzard writes their story based on what some third party studio spitballed in an art session?

No, I am saying that four years ago, before DF was released, they decided they were going to do an underground expansion after DF with very few of the details determined, decided they wanted fresh eyes on the initial concepting because they have been outsourcing lots of stuff with WSS to increase their output, went to West Studio, said "hey, make a bunch of underground environmental art, do whatever (read: blue-sky)" And then stuck those pictures in a folder somewhere to scroll through for these meetings:

1. Blizzard brainstorming sessions behind closed doors, collaboratively throwing out ideas on what sort of place they want to go.

Your issue is that you try to bend every last thing you come across to supporting your very specific headcanon.

Blizzard didn't go "woah, we better change our story based on this spitballed art session, there's a generic eldritch monster here we better add void monsters sealed in a giant crystal". YOU are seeing crystals, the most generic underground thing in existence, a feature you can find in thousands of random underground concept art pieces that have nothing to do with wow or Blizzard, and responding to that with "OMG CRYSTALS!? THIS MUST BE THE ARATHI EARLY CONCEPT!!! Blizzard must have told this studio three years in advance about how there was going to be a light-crystal worshiping group of humans living next to an ocean where the crystal has a giant eldritch being secretly inside it! There is no possible way a third party and Blizzard would think of having crystals underground, that's way too much of a coincidence!" And you are seeing generic asiatic, elven and mesoamerican inspired civilizations underground and going "Woah, these are clearly titan-constructed civilization concepts! Hmm, and next to a crevace or cliff of any kind? They must have been told about Sector AR-938, there's no way people could have randomly thought about putting buildings near drops!"

When instead Blizzard looked at these random pictures and went, "Hey, underground balloons are pretty neat, we should give those to one of the factions.", "hey these architectural pits straight down are pretty neat as an entrance to the underground sections, what if we build the expansion's capital city around a shaft that players can fly into to get into the lower zones?", "this kinda fungal stuff is cool, but it's a bit too similar to the Underrot look and we already have zangar as the big mushroom zone, so we should probably steer away from that."

[milkmustache]

You don't actually believe that, right?

Are you seriously suggesting Blizzard writes their story based on what some third party studio spitballed in an art session?

I can't tell if troll or if you're seriously misunderstanding what they're saying.

The only "prompt" Blizzard gave them was "fantasy underground". The rest is done by the studio, unattached to anything WoW related other than the fact they were hired by Blizzard. Blizzard is delivered the concept art, looks at it in creative discovery for concept stages of TWW (or DF as others have pointed out) and extrapolates ideas they think are cool, opposed to referencing pieces of art, media, or games that have already been made in the setting.

They're not given story. They're not affecting story. They're not even affecting themes. They're simply giving potential cool vibes to build off of for the ideas Blizzard already has internally.

[Hitei]

See my other post for a longer response. But the point is that as long as there are deep similarities between the crystals we have in TWW and the crystals we see in these images, then it is logical to infer that other things we see in these images are also pretty likely to be true at some point during the expansion.

Crystals underground. [Check]

Crystals used as light sources and to power transportation and more. [Check]

Crystals next to an underground ocean. [Check]

Crystals that hold a eldritch creatures inside? Maybe! The Beledar's properties and other clues sure seemed to suggest as much.

I am glad you made this post, because it allows me to perhaps illustrate to you exactly how little this predictive theory (much like the trying to guess what random thing in an expansion is the next Suramar Cloak or Zandalari fighting Kul Tiran marines) works--and also allows me to highlight to you the problem you have with tunnel visioning towards your specific headcanon. Because your post, if we're holding to this theory, should not look that that, it should look like this:

But the point is that as long as there are deep similarities between the crystals we have in TWW and the crystals we see in these images, then it is logical to infer that other things we see in these images are also pretty likely to be true at some point during the expansion.

Crystals underground. [Check]

Crystals used as light sources. [Check]

Crystals next to an underground ocean. [Check]

Caves full of webby fungal stuff. [Check]



Anti-gravity Crystals that are used to float things. [Maybe]

Floating rivers in the air surrounding ruins or towers. [Maybe]

Giant geode globes leaking floating, charged, crystal streams. [Maybe]

Ruined cities overgrown with mushrooms. [Maybe]

Geometric rings of surging lava. [Maybe]

Collapsed ruins and towers being held aloft by magic gloopy energy. [Maybe]

Canyons full of weird alien plants. [Maybe]

Underground plains full of mushrooms with big flowers. [Maybe]

An ancient huge helmet and sword lost underground from some long-gone giant. [Maybe]

A magical sword floating ominously above a lake surrounded by innumerable skeletons and bones. [Maybe]

A civilization of winged people who build almost futuristic crystal-lined square and ringed architecture. [Maybe]

Circular pits with lots of vines to climb down. [Maybe]

A giant demonic humanoid creature with or wielding flames sealed under the floor of an ancient civilization. [Maybe]

An eldritch tear/portal in reality with tentacles coming out of it. [Maybe]

Crystals that hold a eldritch creatures inside? [Maybe]

Caverns of living fungal mat and weird tentacle plant-mushroom things. [Maybe]

Watchtowers surrounded by cloud highways leading to a giant cave entrance guarded by the skeleton of a long dead dinosaur-like creature. [Maybe]

Giant Doctor Seussian winding plant-trees stretching towards the light above. [Maybe]

Weird slug-tentacle-barnacle plant things filling a cavern. [Maybe]

Caverns full of giant fern forests. [Maybe]

Caverns full of spiky, jutting, blade's edge style rock pillars. [Maybe]

Empty remains of cavate buildings cut into the sides of canyons. [Maybe]

Castles in dark caverns using mushrooms as a light source. [Maybe]

A pseudo-venetian civilization capable of making magically suspended bridges living surrounded by waterfalls at the bottom of a pit. [Maybe]

A bunch of giant, natural circular holes to the surface with stairs leading down into the underground. [Maybe]

Khazad-dum style bridges and staircases surrounded by jagged crystal spikes. [Maybe]

Caves under (glacial frozen?) oceans full of whales and dolphins. [Maybe]

Caves full of weird cairn structures of balanced stones. [Maybe]

Caves full of giant odd pitcher plants that leak liquid out onto the floor in big pools. [Maybe]

A giant, massive wall made of basalt pillar structures with mushroom stairs leading to its entrance. [Maybe]

Ancient ambiguous bridge structures so old that stalactites have been forming on them. [Maybe]

MC Escher style nonsense stair caverns that don't follow logical structure. [Maybe]

Buildings with vast geometric fountains and pools. [Maybe]

Winding staircases and walkways carved into natural arches formed by erosion. [Maybe]

Bizarre, borderline eldritch staircases surrounding circular towers in dark caverns. [Maybe]

Ominous ring devices of unknown origin surrounded by jagged crystal shards. [Maybe]

Massive gates carved with demonic looking horned faces. [Maybe]

Uzumakian spiraling cave entrances made of stone. [Maybe]

Glowing geode pillars carved with arches and staircases. [Maybe]

Vast ancient tower cities carved into the sides of cavernous chambers. [Maybe]

Ruined, lone towers built into icy pools of water that glow from below filled with jellyfish. [Maybe]

A civilization built amongst humongous lava waterfalls and lakes. [Maybe]

Giant snake skeletons. [Maybe]

Tentacled, eldritch creature skeletons. [Maybe]

Bone-architecture cities built on top of the skeletal remains of eldritch creatures. [Maybe]

Cave highways and bridges built out of innumerable giant bones. [Maybe]

Cities built into ridiculously huge snake skeletons. [Maybe]

The long petrified remains of two eldritch creatures locked in combat. [Maybe]

Giant eldritch octopus-spiders whose bodies have turned to stone and gem. [Maybe]

Zones inside the body of those petrified eldritch creatures, walking around on their organs and tissues. [Maybe]

Incomprehensible fleshy, lovecraftian remains of teeth and sinew and bone wedged into rock. [Maybe]

Weird eldritch mouths and eyes fused into the rock of caverns. [Maybe]

Giant weird skeletal structures on the side of canyons. [Maybe]

Big eldritch creatures of slime of jelly with translucent skin that live in lakes of lava. [Maybe]

Tunnels that look like spiraling tentacles. [Maybe]

Strange, inexplicable black spheres that magically divert or deflect lava and water. [Maybe]

Vast, manufactured shafts downwards with central towers and winding staircases. [Maybe]

Towering hallways and chambers lit by stone pillars inset with crystalline lights. [Maybe]

Vast, narrow, winding canyons with rivers of water or lava and the bottom. [Maybe]

Odd cave tunnels with small glowing crystal outcrops dotting them. [Maybe]

A tower built into and under an underground lake using magical cubes to somehow force the water back. [Maybe]

Giant floating globs of lava. [Maybe]

Huge geode orbs with floating crystal riverways that a civilization gondolas across. [Maybe]

Rocks embedded with crystals that make them float. [Maybe]

Rivers of floating rocks winding through caverns that can be boated. [Maybe]

Giant humanoid hands, eyes and faces, looming into caverns. [Maybe]

Rock-studded malestroms dropping down into caves. [Maybe]

Large canyons opening in the middle of the sea. [Maybe]

Magical, black portals into mountains. [Maybe]

Magical openings in waterfalls. [Maybe]

Giant slimy trees that can produce magical portals in their trunks. [Maybe]

Caverns lit by innumerable small glowing mushrooms. [Maybe]

Ominous keeps built into volcanic structures above lava lakes. [Maybe]

Zones of pillars and canyons full of holes designed to torment anyone with trypophobia. [Maybe]

Caverns with strange stone wave structures and shining crystal pillars. [Maybe]

Caverns with cities built around giant glowing crystal pillars. [Maybe]

Caverns with cities built around pillars covered in giant glowing plant-mushroom structures that produce glowing liquid. [Maybe]

Aztec style architecture doorways into caves. [Maybe]

Glowing fungal mushroom portal doors. [Maybe]

Complex, towering, mechanical doorways that open in strange ways. [Maybe]

But you're not really interested in actually looking at what is there, you just want reinforcement for your already decided upon weird prediction shtick. So you decide that a picture of a person-sized floating crystal in a room with a magically held back water wall has to be the Beledar, because how could there possibly be a crystal and water in the same place that isn't. And then decide that that means that the art is likely to happen at some point, but of course, only very specifically the ones that support your predictions, ignoring the ~80 other pictures that have nothing to do with your headcanon or even outright contradict it by showing the crystals just being crystals, and also ignoring that, even if we pretend your incorrect theory is true, the fact that 90% of the shit in these pictures isn't present means that those couple pictures you really want to be predictive are also just as likely to not happen.

[Cheezits]

Waiter! New patch announcement please!!

[Dvalin]

Waiter! New patch announcement please!!

Yeah, we could definitely do with some new bits of information. When will we see news about 11.1.7, earliest? In terms of datamining, etc. 'Cause it will have some quests that might be important in the lead-up to 11.2.

[Jaggler]

Yeah, we could definitely do with some new bits of information. When will we see news about 11.1.7, earliest? In terms of datamining, etc. 'Cause it will have some quests that might be important in the lead-up to 11.2.

Usually the PTR for the next patch drops a week or two after the current patch is deployed.

[Darkarath]

Waiter! New patch announcement please!!

Yes, please.

Those images do not add anything new, really.

The theory about the Beledar having an imprisoned fifth Old God has been already discussed, among many others.

We just need new information. Although I think that we can safely say that 11.2 is K'aresh, the Rootlands or the Undersea. Most likely K'aresh at this point, but between those three my favourite option would be the Undersea.

[Sondrelk]

Assuming the concept art is definite proof of something happening in the future of TWW is definitely foolish. Far more reasonable to assume that the developers took the best parts and made something with them. As indeed would make sense given they are specifically called concept art for the purpose of inspiration, rather than concepts for set ideas.

The big flower for instance will probably happen. But I very much doubt the developers had a clear vision of a big flower that they forwarded to the artists. More likely that some of the artists had the idea of vegation underground, and came up with the idea of a giant flower, which in turn gave the developers ideas.

This whole reading into pictures that are specifically called "inspiration" seems desperate,honestly.

[Fiercelord]

Undersea seems so interesting. But I feel like we won't see any of it again.

[Hitei]

Undersea seems so interesting. But I feel like we won't see any of it again.

It does feel like a missed opportunity, but who knows, maybe WSS will end with large scale changes to the terrain of Azeroth that will facilitate future exploration-themed expansions.

[graysontum]

Something to keep in mind about the zones of 11.2, in 11.1 we got like 1 and a half zone, with that extra part of Ringing Deeps. (Plus the adjusted Zandalar area)
Wouldn't surprise me if we had something like that again.

[Sondrelk]

Not sure why it's such a hard concept to understand.

Let me try this another way, less wordy this time.

Imagine there are 3 images, all depicting something similar. Let's say it's a banana just to not get caught up on the details, because the logic is the point here, not the actual themes.

Image A depicts a banana. We recognise the banana, because we've seen it in game.

Image B depicts a banana. It's not in the exact same shade of yellow, but we recognise the area around the banana. So the developers likely did something, there.

Image C depicts a banana, but it's a bit unfamiliar to us. We don't recognise the colour, it's location, or anything specific. Just the general shape of the banana.

In this scenario, it is reasonable to assume that because Image A and B definitely found their way into the game one way or another, it's a strong possibility that Image C will as well before the story is over. Not a guarantee, but a possibility.

That's all I'm saying. Arguing against this plain logic is very strange indeed.

The issue is more so that your theories are massive reaches based on very little.
We can assume the giant flower is relevant because we have specifically been told in-game that there is somewhere underground with a massive flower. We don't immediately assume that the Titan facility at the bottom of the Coreway is Asian themed just because one of the pictures shows that. It certainly could be. But assuming so based on the picture is a massive reach when nothing implies that the images are taken as gospel.

- - - Updated - - -

Undersea seems so interesting. But I feel like we won't see any of it again.

Yeah. I was hoping that we would cross it at some point and end up underneath Silithus. Seemed like that would be the perfect thematic end to how the expansion started. Ending up underneath Silithus. Learning more about the Titan facilities there. And getting some interplay between the Nerubians and the Silithids, and leaning how they differ.
Even seemed like they were building up to it with the whole Arathi airships attempting to cross it, and the Dawnbreaker being a ship presumably large enough to get us across.

- - - Updated - - -

Something to keep in mind about the zones of 11.2, in 11.1 we got like 1 and a half zone, with that extra part of Ringing Deeps. (Plus the adjusted Zandalar area)
Wouldn't surprise me if we had something like that again.

That would seem to be the obvious route forwards for zones.
Not every zone concept is large enough to really warrant a full zone. And when you have several disparate elements of a patch it's probably easier to just divide them across multiple zones.
Rootlands does seem like it could be the same. Maybe sharing space with the Beledar, which would probably be a small area.

[Khaza-R]

Not sure why it's such a hard concept to understand.

That's all I'm saying. Arguing against this plain logic is very strange indeed.

Issue is, there's no actual "logic" to your argument. In fact, its inherently the opposite of logic. You simply have preconceived notion in your head and only accept things which align with this, while ignoring everything else.

The very nature of using "blue-sky thinking" is to embrace a completely and wildly new creative ideas. Ones outside your normal box. You literally cannot do that if you already designed something ahead of time. It's not compatible.

While you erroneously think that they prompted some deeply thoughtout story to this third party art firm, its actually the completely opposite. They were so unmarried and uncommitted to the idea that they used this vendor to help give them inspiration of how to make this broad concept of an underground expansion interesting to begin with.

[Sondrelk]

Just to be clear, I've never said this. I was quite specific that it would have been very basic ideas, or keywords.

Again, quite a reach. All of this is very reasonable to expect with a very basic prompt of "underground civilization".

[Khaza-R]

Just to be clear, I've never said this. I was quite specific that it would have been very basic ideas, or keywords.

Well then at best is just meaningless your original point that it bears any weight on the current story.

You cannot have hard concepts formulated with it comes to blue sky. So even if they gave them more specific prompts (unlikely btw) like "crystals" or "eldritch creatures", the way they came about in this concept pieces would of just been random and no indicative of anything.

[Mecheon]

I say "there are crystals in there that share a lot in common with the Beledar, so it's not implausible that the other images reveal things about the Beledar that we've yet to see in game," to which people reply: "no there are just generic underground fantasy images meant to inspire ideas, you're just seeing patterns where there are none".

I mean, its not implausible, but just because it isn't implausible doesn't mean its not likely

I'd argue those specific shots have nothing to do with it and the proto-Beledar ones are instead the ones showing the massive geode or the ships sailing along crystals. Those 'things trapped in crystal' shots could just as easily be "Hey, the Titans liked to trap stuff in stasis, here's a stasis area", not anything to do with Beledar.

Even if it was a thing, it was completely scrapped by the time this artwork came along. We have an explanation for what Beledar is regardless and have even encountered a second Beledar crystal on the Siren Isles.

[arandomuser]

how are they gonna drop the news the undermine bullions are cancelled, not in 11.1.5

[Holdodlig]

how are they gonna drop the news the undermine bullions are cancelled, not in 11.1.5

Source ? It's not because something isn't in the PTR that it's been cancelled.

[Lady Atia]

Source ? It's not because something isn't in the PTR that it's been cancelled.

Why shouldn't they put it on the PTR and in the patch notes though? They prolly moved them back to the next patch so bullions will literally be useless for anyone who progresses through mythic rn. Well, I guess alteast my alts can get something out of it ...

[Sondrelk]

how are they gonna drop the news the undermine bullions are cancelled, not in 11.1.5

It isn't cancelled until it's cancelled. The Bullions were not going to be available until week 16 or so of the raid anyways. And given they only said they didn't like making the bullion available from the raid renown, and NOT that it came too late. I think it's fair to say that we can't really say it's definitely cancelled until, realistically, the 11.1.7 patch doesn't have it.