Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Joshuaj]

I am just curious who is going to end up being the final boss of TWW.

Is it Azir? Xal? Dimensius?

Why would the final boss be a Void Lord? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to face Dimensius in Midnight?

[Khaza-R]

Why would the final boss be a Void Lord? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to face Dimensius in Midnight?

Depends.

The trilogy seems to be about the evil axis of Xal'atath, Azshara and Iridikron. And quite honestly Azshara is a way more fitting villain for an elf expansion then some Void Lord who has gotten zero screen time since TBC.

[milkmustache]

I think Ve'nari and Locuswalker will introduce us to the plot-thread about the Dark Heart being stolen by a rogue faction of Ethereals, and starting a race against time with Xal'atath.

I know myself and others have been a bit sceptical about us, the players, going to K'aresh. As it always seemed to be a bit like Legion's Argus. But that may not be the case. This may again be a husk of a planet, which empty core we'll venture in, to stop those Ethereals from doing whatever they're concocting (restoring their Worldsoul by doing something to Azeroth's? Something like that?) But, K'aresh may not host legions upon legions from the Void, it may not be a stronghold of Dimensius, unlike what Argus was for the Legion. And us venturing into its core would still be thematical with the expansion (War WITHIN).

Really curious how this will develop. 11.1.7 is pretty barebones when it comes to hints towards the future big patch.

I've been saying that it feels like K'aresh isn't the Argus of Midnight, but rather a precautionary tale. We go to a doomed world, see a splintered people who are magical husks of their former selves, fighting amongst one another in an attempt to bring back their home, and all we can consider is that it is the same doom that awaits us if we allow Xal'atath to succeed. K'aresh has the potential to be a fight between multiple factions. We could join up with a group of Ethereals (either alongside Locus-Walker, or non-void Ethereals like the Protectorate), fight against the Shadowguard and Xal'atath, and also against Azir and his gang (possibly the Ethereum), all in hopes to take hold of the Dark Heart. And with the two Ethereal factions we're witnessing a war... within.

So I think you're right too, we're not going to a stronghold of the Void. We're going to a decaying corpse of a world it's left in it's wake, wondering if that's what is in store for us.

[Eldryth]

I've been saying that it feels like K'aresh isn't the Argus of Midnight, but rather a precautionary tale. We go to a doomed world, see a splintered people who are magical husks of their former selves, fighting amongst one another in an attempt to bring back their home, and all we can consider is that it is the same doom that awaits us if we allow Xal'atath to succeed. K'aresh has the potential to be a fight between multiple factions. We could join up with a group of Ethereals (either alongside Locus-Walker, or non-void Ethereals like the Protectorate), fight against the Shadowguard and Xal'atath, and also against Azir and his gang (possibly the Ethereum), all in hopes to take hold of the Dark Heart. And with the two Ethereal factions we're witnessing a war... within.

So I think you're right too, we're not going to a stronghold of the Void. We're going to a decaying corpse of a world it's left in it's wake, wondering if that's what is in store for us.

Yeah, I think that's what makes the most sense if we go there in TWW instead of Midnight.

I don't think we'd just be working with one faction though- the way that Ethereal society is broken up, I could see them getting various subfactions just like the Goblin Cartels in Undermine. We could get one general Ethereals of K'aresh Renown, then several reputations like the Consortium, Protectorate, maybe even Brokers... all of which just give different cosmetics.

[Thomir]

Are we expecting 11.2 to be revealed soon?

[milkmustache]

Are we expecting 11.2 to be revealed soon?

Consensus is... shrug.

Historically, we'd be learning about 11.2 a few days following the release of 11.1.7.

However, there's possibility Blizzard deviates from this. The prior .7 patches have all heavily hinted at the story of the following major patch, except for this one... unless you count lorewalking.

My personal belief is that they'll annouce 11.2 very soon because it'll essentially be the prologue to Midnight. The buildup to 11.2 will essentially start the long press cycle for Midnight over the coming months. If it comes out in August, it'll coincide with a Midnight reveal at Gamescon, and with housing, Legion Remix and more, there's a whooole lot of content int he pipeline to hype up what I assume they are hoping will be their biggest expac since Legion.

So it does sorta kinda feel like this or next week we could hear a little something.

[Hitei]

Didn't the PAX stuff mention we'd be getting more housing information soon-soon? I wouldn't be surprised if we got that and then not much on 11.2 until June.

[milkmustache]

Didn't the PAX stuff mention we'd be getting more housing information soon-soon? I wouldn't be surprised if we got that and then not much on 11.2 until June.

Yea I took it as more of an overall update rather than housing only, so I wouldnt' be surprised to see it expand to 11.2!

[Hitei]

Yea I took it as more of an overall update rather than housing only, so I wouldnt' be surprised to see it expand to 11.2!

I just assumed it'd be more of the blog-style posts, which aren't really conducive to also talking about other patch content, since housing is like 11.2.9 or 12.0 prepatch content. I'd imagine 11.2 announcement will be 1:1 like the 10.2 and 9.2 ones, where they just drop a whole video to explain general stuff before PTR goes up.

[Limayria]

I just assumed it'd be more of the blog-style posts, which aren't really conducive to also talking about other patch content, since housing is like 11.2.9 or 12.0 prepatch content. I'd imagine 11.2 announcement will be 1:1 like the 10.2 and 9.2 ones, where they just drop a whole video to explain general stuff before PTR goes up.

housing is gonna be out with legion remix imo, at least the initial ability to start collecting stuff, we already saw a screen shot of them adding drops to a legion dungeon in one of the blog post

[Hitei]

housing is gonna be out with legion remix imo, at least the initial ability to start collecting stuff, we already saw a screen shot of them adding drops to a legion dungeon in one of the blog post

I think that Remix is likely to come with 11.2.7, Housing will probably be like a month or two before 12.0 release. Just from a content distribution point of view. Releasing both of them at the same time just isn't all that practical, because both of them are basically extra content for people to have stuff to do between the last tier of TWW and the release of Midnight.

They'll want to stagger them. When people are starting to get bored of 11.2.5 and done farming the 11.2 tier, they can then go do Remix, and when they start getting bored of Remix, then they can go do Housing, and then when a couple months of messing with housing is starting to lose novelty, we'll be at Midnight. Which is probably also why the timeline puts Housing separate from and after 11.2.7 in "Winter", but the bar changes into fel green starting in Autumn with 11.2.5 and 11.2.7.

[Reive]

the dev at the pax event said that we'd get some news "in the next few weeks". i expect another housing article in the last week of the month and 11.2 reveal in june

[Limayria]

I think that Remix is likely to come with 11.2.7, Housing will probably be like a month or two before 12.0 release. Just from a content distribution point of view. Releasing both of them at the same time just isn't all that practical, because both of them are basically extra content for people to have stuff to do between the last tier of TWW and the release of Midnight.

They'll want to stagger them. When people are starting to get bored of 11.2.5 and done farming the 11.2 tier, they can then go do Remix, and when they start getting bored of Remix, then they can go do Housing, and then when a couple months of messing with housing is starting to lose novelty, we'll be at Midnight. Which is probably also why the timeline puts Housing separate from and after 11.2.7 in "Winter", but the bar changes into fel green starting in Autumn with 11.2.5 and 11.2.7.

why are they gonna add a collecting event with a brand new pillar of collecting game play not added to it? im not saying you'll be able to build your house, but a small quest line about "building the neighborhood" and leading to use being able to collect furnishings would make a lot of sense to launch along side remix

[Hitei]

why are they gonna add a collecting event with a brand new pillar of collecting game play not added to it? im not saying you'll be able to build your house, but a small quest line about "building the neighborhood" and leading to use being able to collect furnishings would make a lot of sense to launch along side remix

Because the two aren't really connected, and as explained above, they are both incentives to sub to the game. Like I said, Housing is an event all to itself. Even if it's just the unlocking collections part with none of the building, that's a larger scale event than Remix, because it means there's now a huge incentive to level professions from 10 different expansions, and go around the world buying stuff from vendors (and sourcing gold for that depending on costs) and reasons to run all sorts of dungeons and do all sorts of achievements.

I know you're thinking about the Seat of the Triumvirate thing in specific, but it's just an example. Onyxia was also in the same blog post.

Housing is like achievements. When they first launched with Wrath, there were all sorts of backlog achievements, doing VC and raid achievements and legendaries and PvP, weapon skills, professions, etc. The things connected to Legion are just <10% of the "collecting" pillar, and Remix in specific is already inopportune to allow players to pursue those collections--because presumably, like MoP, there won't be access to general gold/AH/professions, which means any and all furnishings from Legion professions aren't going to be available in Remix and it's unlikely that they'd bother with putting any vendor-sourced furnishings on Legion remix vendors (because it offers a wholly separate economy and is readily abusable--there's no other use for gold in Remix and you can nab like a bunch real quick through chain making alts or have a character so powerful that AFK turbo farming is completely broken, which means everyone would be able to just buy thousands of copies of those furniture pieces).

Achievement-sourced furnishings will be unlocked regardless, because you'll have those achievements from Remix, assuming you don't have them already in the current game.

Which means that the only thing that Remix really even could give you to "collect" for that new pillar is the maybe half a dozen pieces of furniture specifically tied to dungeon or raid loot tables. Hardly worth bothering, especially when instead they can just add housing afterwards, and now people, even though they just did Legion Remix (or people who had most Legion stuff and so didn't bother with farming Remix), have a reason to maybe go run Nighthold or a Legion dungeon again because they want some specific piece of furniture along with their collecting from BC and vanilla and WoD, etc.


You wouldn't want to layer collection things. You want to spread them out. Why get people to sub in November for both when you can have people subbed from November until Midnight launch by staggering?

[Samin]

why are they gonna add a collecting event with a brand new pillar of collecting game play not added to it? im not saying you'll be able to build your house, but a small quest line about "building the neighborhood" and leading to use being able to collect furnishings would make a lot of sense to launch along side remix

Because the housing system isn't ready to be pushed to live servers when they want to/need to do Remix. It's not inherently impossible to detach the furniture collection from the rest of housing, but it's likely that it's not intended to be and as such wouldn't be feasible (i.e. with no to minimal effort). I'm not saying "definitely not", just "it would be a huge surprise to me if".

And that's just the objective technical point of view. One could argue about the whole furniture collection being a mjaor feature of Midnight (and presumably it's prepatch) and adding "freebies" from a Remix before the system is even really available might spoil a part of that. And yes Housing is everygreen, but it'll be a Midnight feature just like the profession rework was a DF feature.

[Thomir]

Locus Walker could easily bring us to K'aresh. If Azir can portal to K'aresh, then Locus Walker certainly could too.

[Dracullus]

Locus Walker could easily bring us to K'aresh. If Azir can portal to K'aresh, then Locus Walker certainly could too.

They can invent 20 ways how to teleport there. Problem is how out of blue it will be, especially if 11.1.7 have just Arathi stuff without Karesh prologue (I really hope prologue is hidden though). All evidence we have - and they are strong evidences - are from datamining and single shot in final Undermine cinematic.

Compare this to Legion, Argus was build up through every patch: Sargerai Keystone, defending Exodar, Turalyon, Illidan already invading Legion during TBC, Medivh in Karazhan saying that "shutting the door isn't enough, we have to pass through it", first look during Guldan fight, 7.2 prologue cinematic, finally opening the gate after KJ fight.

Sorry, but 6.2 is more cohesive than Karesh now, cause at least Guldan and Legion were present from the start. It would mean that Metzen didn't really fit TWW into Saga, just kept 11.0 almost unchanged, threw disconnected Undermine as breather and start something completely new in 11.2.

[Enrif]

What we are missing in fantasy underground settings is grand underground vaults like Moria.

That is basically the northern part of the ringing deeps, including the vault with the new earthen

[Hitei]

They can invent 20 ways how to teleport there. Problem is how out of blue it will be, especially if 11.1.7 have just Arathi stuff without Karesh prologue (I really hope prologue is hidden though). All evidence we have - and they are strong evidences - are from datamining and single shot in final Undermine cinematic.

Compare this to Legion, Argus was build up through every patch: Sargerai Keystone, defending Exodar, Turalyon, Illidan already invading Legion during TBC, Medivh in Karazhan saying that "shutting the door isn't enough, we have to pass through it", first look during Guldan fight, 7.2 prologue cinematic, finally opening the gate after KJ fight.

Sorry, but 6.2 is more cohesive than Karesh now, cause at least Guldan and Legion were present from the start. It would mean that Metzen didn't really fit TWW into Saga, just kept 11.0 almost unchanged, threw disconnected Undermine as breather and start something completely new in 11.2.

This is what I've been saying since the start.

The issue is not can K'aresh potentially be 11.2, or can we get there. It's that even in 11.1.7 we have zero actual setup for going there. By 10.1.7 we had full-on Dreamsurges happening and a whole quest chain about Fyrakk mustering forces to invade the Emerald Dream. By 9.1 we had a whole campaign about figuring out what the Jailer was attempting to do and then re-creating the sigils so that we could follow him to Zereth Mortis.

Where the hell is all the K'aresh stuff? We have a small lore 11.1.7 thing about BC Ethereals, Locus-walker and Brokers. Who are we fighting? Xal still? Her and what allies since apparently the Ethereals rug-pulled her? Dimensius who has not even really been brought up in the storyline so far? The Ethereum that haven't really shown up? The Shadowguard who made a very brief appearance? When are our characters even going to properly find out that we need to go get ready and go there? Is 11.2 just gonna drop and then in the span of five quests we're gonna learn Xal went to another planet and hop on through a portal to get there? Are all the Khaz Algar friendly factions just going to instantly prepare and warp in with us?

[Hitei]

We do have the Lorewalking quests, and the Horrific Visions will be starting up soon. So I think the Voidy theme will at the very least become more apparent again soon. Beyond that, it's not like the other potential 11.2 themes have been built up much, either.

The Lorewalking quests don't set anything up though. It's about the Ethereals in BC and Locus-Walker's involvement in Legion. In fact, Cho even doubles down on K'aresh having been "destroyed" and that the Ethereals fled it. You can't even ask him about K'aresh in the additional dialogue options, just Dimensius, Nexus-King and Netherstorm.

Horrific Visions are about the unseeming/black blood.

-

But this is kinda to my point. Like why, rather than Lorewalking, is there not a questline about learning about K'aresh, or a questline about trying to attune to the Heart or Xal's energy to figure out where it is, where you then figure out it's on K'aresh ending with forces preparing? Hell, why not at least put into the Lorewalking that K'aresh was left a desolate fractured wasteland, etc. other stuff to suggest it's an actual place that we're gonna be at in three months rather than talk about it like it's gone?

The last time there was such a non sequitur kind of location and theme was like 2.4.