Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[milkmustache]

Nightwarrior lore is literally Shadowlands era. So Elune's connection to the cosmos is still very much alive. Not to mention the Elune's Chosen talent tree, which is about stars and the celestial, not Life.

Look I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, I'm very open minded on Elune's origins. I just think it's impossible to tell for certain at this point.

As such, all options are on the table.

I'm definitely in this camp as well. I think it'd be very disappointing for Elune to just end up as Life version of Titan.

I think this is such a huge problem with these "pantheon" sort of divisions introduced with the First Ones and Shadowlands; if Chronicles is retconning her connection to the Naaru and the Light and instead making her solely a member of the "pantheon of Life", we're removing so much nuance that has made her an interesting figure in the game.

In my personal opinion, the coolest parts of Elune have always come from the mystery that surrounds her. She doesn't fit in as a being of Light, Life, Death, Order, etc., she operates within and amongst all of these powers, which doesn't make her necessarily more powerful or important than any of them it just allows her to be more than one dimensional.

So to just shut down any of that mystery by being shown Elune is just Life god and that's it... it's a bit disappointing.

[Super Dickmann]

So to just shut down any of that mystery by being shown Elune is just Life god and that's it... it's a bit disappointing.

The correct move is to do with the Elune is a Life God thing the same bit they did with 'Elune is a naaru' or, as in Legion, 'Elune is a prime naaru' and throw it in the bin. The damage of having Elune speak and have her main on-screen act be some bureaucratic fuck-up with her not checking her sister's return address while she was mailing her a bag of night elf souls can't be removed, but it can be mitigated by not mentioning it as much as possible.

[Dvalin]

I'm definitely in this camp as well. I think it'd be very disappointing for Elune to just end up as Life version of Titan.

I think this is such a huge problem with these "pantheon" sort of divisions introduced with the First Ones and Shadowlands; if Chronicles is retconning her connection to the Naaru and the Light and instead making her solely a member of the "pantheon of Life", we're removing so much nuance that has made her an interesting figure in the game.

In my personal opinion, the coolest parts of Elune have always come from the mystery that surrounds her. She doesn't fit in as a being of Light, Life, Death, Order, etc., she operates within and amongst all of these powers, which doesn't make her necessarily more powerful or important than any of them it just allows her to be more than one dimensional.

So to just shut down any of that mystery by being shown Elune is just Life god and that's it... it's a bit disappointing.

How so? She's still a part of a new category (Pantheon of Life) instead of a Naaru or a Titan. And she wields a different array of powers, too. All these Pantheons are not 1:1 copies of each other in how they work.

[milkmustache]

The correct move is to do with the Elune is a Life God thing the same bit they did with 'Elune is a naaru' or, as in Legion, 'Elune is a prime naaru' and throw it in the bin. The damage of having Elune speak and have her main on-screen act be some bureaucratic fuck-up with her not checking her sister's return address while she was mailing her a bag of night elf souls can't be removed, but it can be mitigated by not mentioning it as much as possible.

I agree here. I don't think we should ever see Elune. There should be some answers to the universe we truly never get, and she's one of them.

How so? She's still a part of a new category (Pantheon of Life) instead of a Naaru or a Titan. And she wields a different array of powers, too. All these Pantheons are not 1:1 copies of each other in how they work.

You're right they're not, but aside from Palawltr's Codex we have been shown cosmic "pantheons" (for lack of a better term) to exist only within their powers. I'm saying Elune shouldn't exist within any of that. She had previously been a being worshipped by many different areas of belief with powers that don't align in one catagory. So if the ultimate reveal is "She is Life", then it paints her in a single color and takes away a lot of the mystery she'd had, and with it the worldbuilding.

[Khaza-R]

You're right they're not, but aside from Palawltr's Codex we have been shown cosmic "pantheons" (for lack of a better term) to exist only within their powers. I'm saying Elune shouldn't exist within any of that. She had previously been a being worshipped by many different areas of belief with powers that don't align in one catagory. So if the ultimate reveal is "She is Life", then it paints her in a single color and takes away a lot of the mystery she'd had, and with it the worldbuilding.

In essence this is why many hate the reductionism of the cosmic pie chart. Rather than simply being a lens to interpret the universe its treated as an absolution and there's need to force filter everything through it. There should be things outside of cosmic perspective. Just like how the RL universe doesn't fit into a neat box.

[Cheezits]

They can just have it so Primus was technically correct- she likely started as a wild god type thing, but then evolved through unknown means. Maybe she made deals to have Light powers. That would line up with Xals calling her an upstart and explain why she has so many different powers under her belt.

I think next saga will deal with Elune for various reasons (Kalimdor, Azshara, freedom theme post-Titans) but they may be so scared of SL that we never see another pantheon.

[Joshuaj]

Ah yes, Elune the Life aligned goddess empowering her followers with light, and lately, suspiciously voidy "night warrior" powers

The Pattern literally has it to where different powers can work together. Eonar is a Titan yet uses Life magics. Doesn't mean she is of the Life Pantheon tho.

Elune can use holy and shadow magics and still be a Life Goddess. Just means she embodies the lunar aspects of Life.

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They can just have it so Primus was technically correct- she likely started as a wild god type thing, but then evolved through unknown means. Maybe she made deals to have Light powers. That would line up with Xals calling her an upstart and explain why she has so many different powers under her belt.

I think next saga will deal with Elune for various reasons (Kalimdor, Azshara, freedom theme post-Titans) but they may be so scared of SL that we never see another pantheon.

Y'all are overcomplicating a very simple thing...

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I agree here. I don't think we should ever see Elune. There should be some answers to the universe we truly never get, and she's one of them.



You're right they're not, but aside from Palawltr's Codex we have been shown cosmic "pantheons" (for lack of a better term) to exist only within their powers. I'm saying Elune shouldn't exist within any of that. She had previously been a being worshipped by many different areas of belief with powers that don't align in one catagory. So if the ultimate reveal is "She is Life", then it paints her in a single color and takes away a lot of the mystery she'd had, and with it the worldbuilding.

Why can't we see Elune but we're allowed to see Sargeras and whatnot?

Feels like cope ngl

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The correct move is to do with the Elune is a Life God thing the same bit they did with 'Elune is a naaru' or, as in Legion, 'Elune is a prime naaru' and throw it in the bin. The damage of having Elune speak and have her main on-screen act be some bureaucratic fuck-up with her not checking her sister's return address while she was mailing her a bag of night elf souls can't be removed, but it can be mitigated by not mentioning it as much as possible.

Warcraft is a 30 year old franchise, and we're about to hang with the Titans in TLT. I think showcasing Elune is fine.

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Nightwarrior lore is literally Shadowlands era. So Elune's connection to the cosmos is still very much alive. Not to mention the Elune's Chosen talent tree, which is about stars and the celestial, not Life.

Look I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, I'm very open minded on Elune's origins. I just think it's impossible to tell for certain at this point.

As such, all options are on the table.

All of this just means her reach on Life spans the Dark Beyond, which is fine. Her embodying the stars and celestial bodies furthers the idea she represents the lunar and astral aspects of the force she embodies.

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In essence this is why many hate the reductionism of the cosmic pie chart. Rather than simply being a lens to interpret the universe its treated as an absolution and there's need to force filter everything through it. There should be things outside of cosmic perspective. Just like how the RL universe doesn't fit into a neat box.

*Looks at the First Ones*

[milkmustache]

Why can't we see Elune but we're allowed to see Sargeras and whatnot?

Feels like cope ngl

*Looks at the First Ones*

Because as I said, it's my personal opinion on the matter. I think that Elune plays out better as a mysterious force that is never given a voice or embodiement for the players to see; theres's still mystery in the air, still q uestion on what she is, and we'll never know because not everything deserves answers.

And the First Ones are quite literally the definition of the issue that Khaza-R is referring to (that I heavily agree with). You yourself have even presented that the First Ones are the Cosmic Powers. Everything is black and white. Void is purple so everything purple is void and only void. Etc., etc. It's lazy.

[Joshuaj]

Because as I said, it's my personal opinion on the matter. I think that Elune plays out better as a mysterious force that is never given a voice or embodiement for the players to see; theres's still mystery in the air, still q uestion on what she is, and we'll never know because not everything deserves answers.

And the First Ones are quite literally the definition of the issue that Khaza-R is referring to (that I heavily agree with). You yourself have even presented that the First Ones are the Cosmic Powers. Everything is black and white. Void is purple so everything purple is void and only void. Etc., etc. It's lazy.

I get that, I do. But shouldn't we argue the same for the Titans, the Void Lords, etc at that rate then?

Also, I think you misunderstood my explanation regarding the First Ones.

[Ersula]

Nightwarrior lore is literally Shadowlands era. So Elune's connection to the cosmos is still very much alive. Not to mention the Elune's Chosen talent tree, which is about stars and the celestial, not Life.

Look I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, I'm very open minded on Elune's origins. I just think it's impossible to tell for certain at this point.

As such, all options are on the table.

If they tell us anything other than Elune being a Titan/Eternal one analog, that's a retcon. "It wasn't a lie, it was a twist." No it was a lie. Pantheons aren't elected, they're constructed by the First Ones. This has already been established.

[Limayria]

I'm not disputing the cinematic where the WQ calls Elune her sister. That would be silly.

I'm disputing the fact that some people jump from that to the assertion that therefore Elune must be a Goddess of Life.

Because that's way too early to tell.

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As I'm sure everybody understands, you can be "sisters" in lots of ways. Blood, love, fellowship, etc.

But there's one way you can't be sisters. You can't be biological sister to a robot.

Elune and the winter queen are sisters because Eonar broke both their hearts obviously


Also the first one story line is gonna be absolute dog shit because the only way it could be worthwhile was leaning heavily into gnosticism and having the first ones be the literal game developers and also the antagonist of the entire franchise for creating a world in which violence is needed for the continuation of its existence because with our violent conflict there's no more expansions etc

Anything else is just "we have the titans at home" and then in 10 years we're gonna learn who made the first ones yada yada

Also blizzard is clearly moving away from the world of unified forces shadowlands presented, as with the Arathi book about the instability of unipolar alignments and such

[Cheezits]

If they tell us anything other than Elune being a Titan/Eternal one analog, that's a retcon. "It wasn't a lie, it was a twist." No it was a lie. Pantheons aren't elected, they're constructed by the First Ones. This has already been established.

Considering we've only met one manufactured pantheon, there is enough wiggle room pointing to that being untrue. It's very possible the Shadowlands as we saw it is a scam, created and reORDERED to funnel energy by putting souls into curated zoos.

There was an underlying theme of this in Shadowlands. Something was "off". It was too clinical, intentionally so. The First Ones thing can be easily explained as a scam by the Titans or another group of gods: mythology created to placate the Eternal Ones and keep them docile and unassuming.

I think there's a very easy way to fix a lot of peoples issues with SL and its confirming that the First Ones are just the Titans, somehow, and they remanaged the Shadowlands into what it is today for some reason. Likely infinite energy (hence "Oribos", aka Ouroboros)

Hell: what if they are the ONLY 3D printed gods? And death gods maybe don't actually exist naturally, or are very rare? The only one we even meet is Mueh'zala. Oh, and Marsaminus. The others may have been created similar to Nymue- "stay here and order this stuff for us ".

[Joshuaj]

Considering we've only met one manufactured pantheon, there is enough wiggle room pointing to that being untrue. It's very possible the Shadowlands as we saw it is a scam, created and reORDERED to funnel energy by putting souls into curated zoos.

There was an underlying theme of this in Shadowlands. Something was "off". It was too clinical, intentionally so. The First Ones thing can be easily explained as a scam by the Titans or another group of gods: mythology created to placate the Eternal Ones and keep them docile and unassuming.

I think there's a very easy way to fix a lot of peoples issues with SL and its confirming that the First Ones are just the Titans, somehow, and they remanaged the Shadowlands into what it is today for some reason. Likely infinite energy (hence "Oribos", aka Ouroboros)

Hell: what if they are the ONLY 3D printed gods? And death gods maybe don't actually exist naturally, or are very rare? The only one we even meet is Mueh'zala. Oh, and Marsaminus. The others may have been created similar to Nymue- "stay here and order this stuff for us ".

Y'all are very much oversimplifying the complex nature of the Zereths. By definition, anything created in Zereth Mortis cannot be considered "manufactured" or so, as the magics and creation practices used in Zereth Mortis are above anything on an "artificial" scale.

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That's kinda what happens when you have all powerful creator gods. Anything made by them by definition cannot be artificial due to their transcendent nature.

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Yes, I legit cannot call the Automa artificial because they really aren't. There's nothing technological or non-magical about them.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Even ignoring the whole robot thing DF already showed is that being “sisters” means nothing when the incarnates used it to and then all of them were completely unrelated.

[Marlamin]

Have you seen anything about lighting? I'm still concerned that we're only gonna get the "cozy neutral interior" option which will really drag down any attempts for people to make like, forsaken tomb houses or evil warlock-y towers and whatnot.

Also, I can't remember if I've brought this up to you before (I apologize if I have) and it's very minor, but:

Spoiler: 

The "model control" inlaid window for the model viewer (both main and preview version) of wow tools doesn't seem to properly constrain to the 'viewport' section of the window which means (at least for my regular 1920x1080 monitors) you can't actually scroll far enough down to reach the "save" button to apply entered texture IDs to the model. I have to 90% zoom (66.7% for the preview window version) my browser to scale down the interface so that it'll come into view. Is there any way you could constrain the model control's subwindow to the area of the viewport? I imagine that'd fix the problem by forcing the control's bottom up.

Nope, nothing on lighting yet. As for the model viewer thing, yeah, it sucks that you have to zoom out but that's probably how it's going to stay.

They were used for items dropping from Ky'veza, specifically the Treacherous Transmitter

Worth noting though that they were specifically noted as 11.0 icons, and the Undermine stuff added in 11.1 isn't called goblinraid or anything like that, but instead undermineraid (as distinct from outdoorundermine for world stuff), so while ethereal will probably show up in whatever we get, I remain fairly skeptical as that being

Plus, well, I remain skeptical about the idea Rootlands was a leveling zone that got scrapped on the basis we have no evidence it was intended as a leveling zone or will be scrapped. Don't forget in the DF beta we saw that giant tree that ended up where Amirdrassil was and the island where it'd turn up sat conspicuously absent for the rest of the expansion, it may have been a situation they hid the zone early to hide the work being done

Bolded bit is not entirely accurate, icons for the raid that were added in 11.1 are also called GoblinRaid, the only other Blizzard filenames that we have that use UndermineRaid are the tiles for the world map, that's pretty much it, the rest are community named files.

And yeah, there's definitely some semblances between the tree incident (which wasn't DF Beta, but an older build found on the press preview CDN that hadn't seen or was intended for the public eye, just like the minimap mentioning Rootlands was) and this. I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being the case again.

[Limayria]

Considering we've only met one manufactured pantheon, there is enough wiggle room pointing to that being untrue. It's very possible the Shadowlands as we saw it is a scam, created and reORDERED to funnel energy by putting souls into curated zoos.

There was an underlying theme of this in Shadowlands. Something was "off". It was too clinical, intentionally so. The First Ones thing can be easily explained as a scam by the Titans or another group of gods: mythology created to placate the Eternal Ones and keep them docile and unassuming.

I think there's a very easy way to fix a lot of peoples issues with SL and its confirming that the First Ones are just the Titans, somehow, and they remanaged the Shadowlands into what it is today for some reason. Likely infinite energy (hence "Oribos", aka Ouroboros)

Hell: what if they are the ONLY 3D printed gods? And death gods maybe don't actually exist naturally, or are very rare? The only one we even meet is Mueh'zala. Oh, and Marsaminus. The others may have been created similar to Nymue- "stay here and order this stuff for us ".

I really hope this is how it ends up, this would be an incredible reveal in TLT and tie into why a constular was in sepulchre, and would help explain some of the overwhelming similarities between titan stuff and first one stuff, could also tie into how the Primus knew amonthul, the Primus could have been the "prime designate" of the shadowlands and the shadowlands and the cycle of life and death could be used as a fuel source to keep the ordered universe on track towards the one true timeline

[Joshuaj]

I really hope this is how it ends up, this would be an incredible reveal in TLT and tie into why a constular was in sepulchre, and would help explain some of the overwhelming similarities between titan stuff and first one stuff, could also tie into how the Primus knew amonthul, the Primus could have been the "prime designate" of the shadowlands and the shadowlands and the cycle of life and death could be used as a fuel source to keep the ordered universe on track towards the one true timeline

I would hate this, as it would prove WoW is afraid to move on from the Titans or anything like that.

Also, a Constellar being drawn to the Sepulcher would just mean not every Constellar is bound to the Titans.

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I mean, it is possible this could be a scam, but I would prefer it a ton if it wasn't. From their magics, to Odyn's edicts, etc, I'd rather they just be their own thing.

[Cheezits]

Also: the Shadowlands being a scam would make Zovaal 200% more justified, and also explain why Denathrius would even help him if he truly wanted to end the universe as well (I think they will make it so he manipulated Zovaal, as Nathrezim do).

They are robot slaves. They became self-aware, and want to destroy the universe and make a better one without their masters. Either Denny truly vibed with the idea or he was doing everything he could to escape the Shadowlands at any cost.

Now, how much the Primus knows is up in the air. I have a feeling that with the Aman'thul and "old man" aesthetic connection he absolutely could be an informant for the Titans and perpetuating the lie.

[Limayria]

I would hate this, as it would prove WoW is afraid to move on from the Titans or anything like that.

Also, a Constellar being drawn to the Sepulcher would just mean not every Constellar is bound to the Titans.

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I mean, it is possible this could be a scam, but I would prefer it a ton if it wasn't. From their magics, to Odyn's edicts, etc, I'd rather they just be their own thing.

The first one bullshit isn't moving on from the titans, it's quite literally returning to the original status quo of titans as distant creator gods, just changing what they're called from "titans" to "first ones"

How would you explain things existing before the shadowlands if the first ones really did create the entire universe?

[milkmustache]

I would hate this, as it would prove WoW is afraid to move on from the Titans or anything like that.

Also, a Constellar being drawn to the Sepulcher would just mean not every Constellar is bound to the Titans.

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I mean, it is possible this could be a scam, but I would prefer it a ton if it wasn't. From their magics, to Odyn's edicts, etc, I'd rather they just be their own thing.

I personally subscribe to the idea that the Shadowlands being retconned to being some form of Titan control over the "afterlife" and them being the First Ones would be a great turn for the story--

I know you tend to be a fan of the way it was presented... but how would you feel if doing this allowed space for Blizzard to actually explore what a realm of death could look like outside of any ordering or structuring we saw in Shadowlands?