Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Fahrad Wagner]

That is another thing i dread for the future. Too much focus on Iridikron. I know he has plenty a fans, but Angry Earth Dragon 2.0 isn't a compelling enough villain to the big chapter end of WarCraft.

Frankly it should be Sargeras or Azshara.
Xal'atath earned her place to be the most promiment antagonist of the World Soul Saga by virtue of scheaming since Legion to get what she wants (earlier actually, but we frst learned of her in Legion). But I have a feeling we will deal with her before the end, or not at all. The end boss needs to be an older threat, that ties this era together.
And come on, Azshara and Sargeras were the big bads of the War of the Ancients.

And well, with the Final Boss and Knaifu there, Iridikron would just be a needless distraction.

I personally expect Azshara for Midnight and Sargeras or Aman'Thul for TLT! And Xal and Iridikrond somewhere down the line of those two expansions ofc

[Wangming]

I personally expect Azshara for Midnight and Sargeras or Aman'Thul for TLT! And Xal and Iridikrond somewhere down the line of those two expansions ofc

Yes, this sounds reasonable.

Addig to it, I expect Iridikron to be killed by either Xal'atath because 'you wanted to take advantage of me for your own ends' or Sargeras in a 'here I am, an actualy Titan, what do you think you can do against me, punk' move. Sure, we might fight him before that, but the fitting end will be to get offed by those he just sees as tools or obstacles.

[Hitei]

I'm not sure people would appreciate that. Hey guys, we will return to Northrend, but it doesn't look like Northrend. We nuked Icecrown, so even the last shred of the last universally liked expansion has been removed. Are you excited for the future of the game?

I mean, they destroyed Dalaran for nothing more that sensationalism, at this point I'm expecting the same could happen to Northrend. But I hope they remember the lessons learned from Cataclysm: players don't like it when you wreck beloved zones.

Quel'thalas can squeak by as an expansion if they're quadrupling the size and so dealing with wholly different terrain and zone feel. "Here's Dragonblight, but like, the snow is higher res" is much less enticing, especially coming immediately after an expansion that was also existing zones.

Are you really (and I ask this genuinely, not facetiously) attached to generic Borean lichen field, generic Dragonblight snowdrift, generic Icecrown rock and ice, and generic Howling Fjord green rolling plateau?

I get not wanting them to nuke specific landmarks (Ulduar, upper tier Zul'Drak, ICC, Wyrmrest, Utgarde, the Icecrown gates, the Titan structures, etc.) But the majority of Northrend is completely nondescript forgettable cold terrain. Personally I'd much rather see half of Dragonblight caved into Azjol-Nerub, or the redirected energies of Coldaara ripping apart western Borean into an arcane storm, crystalsong spreading into Icecrown and lower Zul'Drak, etc. than just get the exact same zones that are already in the game but better looking.

New Arathi Highlands and Darkshore are sort of a joke compared to any non-Nagrand WoD zone.

[Darkarath]

New Arathi Highlands and Darkshore are sort of a joke compared to any non-Nagrand WoD zone.

Didn't you like WoD Nagrand?

[Wangming]

Quel'thalas can squeak by as an expansion if they're quadrupling the size and so dealing with wholly different terrain and zone feel. "Here's Dragonblight, but like, the snow is higher res" is much less enticing, especially coming immediately after an expansion that was also existing zones.

Are you really (and I ask this genuinely, not facetiously) attached to generic Borean lichen field, generic Dragonblight snowdrift, generic Icecrown rock and ice, and generic Howling Fjord green rolling plateau?

I get not wanting them to nuke specific landmarks (Ulduar, upper tier Zul'Drak, ICC, Wyrmrest, Utgarde, the Icecrown gates, the Titan structures, etc.) But the majority of Northrend is completely nondescript forgettable cold terrain. Personally I'd much rather see half of Dragonblight caved into Azjol-Nerub, or the redirected energies of Coldaara ripping apart western Borean into an arcane storm, crystalsong spreading into Icecrown and lower Zul'Drak, etc. than just get the exact same zones that are already in the game but better looking.

New Arathi Highlands and Darkshore are sort of a joke compared to any non-Nagrand WoD zone.

You kinda answered your own question. Specific landmarks.
Of couese most of the biomes look bland and kinda crap. It was made 20 years ago. But the landmarks are both iconic and beloved.
As for specifics, if we want a zone to cave in and lead into Azjol-Nerub, I think that should be Crystalsong Forest. With no Dalaran there it is less interesting than what it was.

[Kiivar86]

I could see a cave entrance in Crystalsong near the border with Storm Peaks that then splits, one way north to Harrowsdeep (Iridikron's home, at least way back when) and the other to whatever in Azjol-nerub.

[Hitei]

Didn't you like WoD Nagrand?

I think that it is "fine". It is a nice zone in context because the entire rest of the continent is essentially completely new zones. Had Draenor instead just been all the original Outlands zones given the Nagrand treatment, it would have been an extremely dull set of zones.

- - - Updated - - -

You kinda answered your own question. Specific landmarks.
Of couese most of the biomes look bland and kinda crap. It was made 20 years ago. But the landmarks are both iconic and beloved.
As for specifics, if we want a zone to cave in and lead into Azjol-Nerub, I think that should be Crystalsong Forest. With no Dalaran there it is less interesting than what it was.

But landmarks are sort of accessory to the entire continent being consistent. If you docked a huge Titanforged warship with Ulduar and the increased energy through the systems made the entire continent thaw, you'd be left with a wildly different set of zones that feel like new zones but none of those major landmarks would be touched. Is that fine?

If the ice and snow were removed from Dragonblight and it became like a necrotic dragon skeleton area, a cross between Maldraxxus and Terokkar's Bone Wastes, with Galakrond's undead army starting to rise again--but Wyrmrest and the shrines and the Scarlet area, etc. are still there, how does that rate for you? Is that equivalent to destroying the zone since it's not at all the Wrath Dragonblight, or is it fine?

[Ersula]

The real tell is how the textures are aligned. Armor in Warcraft works by applying the armor texture on top of the player skins. The way this works is simple and telling: Back is to the top-right with arms below it, chest is top-left, legs are below the chest. Every single player race works like this, except dractyhr's dragon form and their myriad of "Can't wear armor" issues

Two things you're not taking into consideration is that NPC textures are compiled differently than player textures. To save memory, they produce texture that has essentially been flattened with what they're pre-determined to be wearing. You can't mind control an npc & change its transmog; that would be impossible. Otherwise the differences you're describing is just the difference between player texturemaps & npc texturemaps.

For example, We didn't have a player texture for Darkfallen elves until that patch came out, but before that & the achievement that pointed toward it, they datamined npcs that used the new darkfallen textures in their simplified form.

The other is that most player race textures aren't one uniform size. Armor textures are already squashed & stretched to fit on the different races, as any female belf player knows glove textures look crazy because most are designed with human males in mind. So it doesn't seem like a problem that ethereals have unusually long arms.

The files reference an Ethereal Glamor, but its not currently obtainable on the ptr, and we have to know if it reflects player armor. Once its actually testable we'll have our answer, if by the time its testable it actually has player armor or one of the random npc sets. (Another big clue is that the player zone armor sets are mostly recreations of the armor the npcs already wear.)

[Limayria]

what if northrend is physically moved closer to the maelstorm to reconnect with parts ofthe manifold it got seperated from when being moved by kalimdor pangea splintering apart

[Viridiel]

What's the deal with people being adamant that the initial setting and theme of an expansion will stay throughout the entire thing? That's literally never been the case, and we even have Metzen explicitly telling us that Midnight is going to spiral off from the original theme to lead into TLT. There's no reason to believe the patch zones will be in Quel'thalas, and there's no reason to believe the raids will be Void-themed after the very first one.

[Cheezits]

What's the deal with people being adamant that the initial setting and theme of an expansion will stay throughout the entire thing? That's literally never been the case, and we even have Metzen explicitly telling us that Midnight is going to spiral off from the original theme to lead into TLT. There's no reason to believe the patch zones will be in Quel'thalas, and there's no reason to believe the raids will be Void-themed after the very first one.

I doubt even the first raid will be void themed, outside of some of the mobs and final boss using void. It is incredibly likely to be Amani or Scourge.

[Limayria]

I'm all in on the idea that we're gonna beat back the void easier than we thought and our many struggle will be against the light

[Hitei]

What's the deal with people being adamant that the initial setting and theme of an expansion will stay throughout the entire thing? That's literally never been the case, and we even have Metzen explicitly telling us that Midnight is going to spiral off from the original theme to lead into TLT. There's no reason to believe the patch zones will be in Quel'thalas, and there's no reason to believe the raids will be Void-themed after the very first one.

Patch zones don't really cancel out the general vibe of an expansion and (10x more so after the advent of World Quests and Emissaries) even with patch zones, the majority of the expansion is played in the initial launch zones. 12.1 could be the moon and 12.2 could be the Worldsoul core and it wouldn't change that for most of the ~18 months spent in Midnight, you'll be flying around Quel'thalas, and working on Quel'thalas renown, and hanging out in the Quel'thalas main city, and doing Quel'thalas delves, and making gear with Quel'thalas resources and Quel'thalas-inspired armor visuals. Probably 8 of the dungeons are going to be Quel'thalas located and related. Assuming that the very first tier of an expansion they decided to call Midnight, with a Void theme'd logo will have us mopping up the Void invasion ez done with is a very, very bold conclusion (as Cheezits said, it's almost certainly going to be dealing with a smaller terrestrial threat not the conclusive battle against one of the cosmic forces), but even if we take it as being the case, that means most of the base questing experience, many of of the dungeons and the max level campaign.

Undermine and K'aresh have nothing to do with Earthen or Nerbuians, but I'm guessing if they announced 12.1 was an Earthen vs Nerubian zone, you (and everyone else) would immediately groan. Because even though Nerubians were "dealt with" in the first tier and Earthen's storyline was largely confied to launch and its follow-up minor patches, they are still everywhere and a huge portion of the TWW experience.

[Darkarath]

Midnight's revamp has to be one of the most intriguing moments in WoW's history. We all have our opinions, but how Blizzard would do it?

- The Cataclysm-type revamp: Just bringing the graphics and art to date would do wonders for any pre-Cata zone. Plus they could make the revamped zones a little bigger without doubling if not tripling their size, which is what I would expect if Blizzard wants them to meet current zone standards. Biggest gripe would be that Cata revamped ALL old zones. So if we get this kind of revamp but only for a few zones... It would feel like a scam.

- The BfA Arathi Highlands-type revamp: It would also feel like a scam. Not going to happen.

- The WoD Draenor-type revamp: I think that this is what most players expect. Revamped zones made from the scratch. Are we in that same situation, though? Draenor felt like something new but familiar. Zones were bigger but Outland was pretty big too. WoD zones are not like the ones that we are used to nowadays. For starters, we got 6 new zones with WoD release, while the new expansion WoW model gives us only 4.

My point is, the Draenor kind of revamp could be too much when we mix it with current WoW's zone standards, as the zones would have to be so much bigger that they might not have the same vibe and familiarity.

The obvious solution for this is mixing various zones in a new one. For example, Eversong Woods and The Ghostlands into Quel'thalas. It would fit perfectly and IMO is probably what they are going to do to all the northern EK.

- A new revamp-type? As much as I would love a northern EK revamp, it might be a problem for Blizzard.

I believe that most players expect Kalimdor and EK to be fully revamped sooner rather than later, and certainly Blizzard has been dropping hints about this possibility. But how much time would it take to revamp them as new expansion material?

In a best case scenario, if Midnight revamps half the EK, it's fair to think that with another 3 expansions (one for the rest of the EK and two for Kalimdor) it could be done.

But how the hell would that make sense or be good for the game? The continents would feel sooo disconnected between them, and it would take so many years to do !!

Oh, and good luck selling 3 more expansions of revamps after Midnight and TLT, because if you visit new continents between the revamps it would only increase the mess !!

So... Any ideas? Could Blizzard be cooking more than we dare to dream? Could Midnight bring a full revamp (in a new form that makes sense) to both Kalimdor and the EK?

[Edoll]

TWW didn’t have any accurate feature leaks, did it? I can’t remember.

[Bwgmon]

TWW didn’t have any accurate feature leaks, did it? I can’t remember.

IIRC, there was a leak that was basically, word for word, Metzen's description of the Worldsoul Saga and the three expansions, but it only came out like, two hours before the reveal.

Before that, most everything was different shades of Avaloren.

[Cheezits]

IIRC, there was a leak that was basically, word for word, Metzen's description of the Worldsoul Saga and the three expansions, but it only came out like, two hours before the reveal.

It happened like fifteen minutes before and it was because a translator transcript was leaked on the stream.

[Mecheon]

Two things you're not taking into consideration is that NPC textures are compiled differently than player textures. To save memory, they produce texture that has essentially been flattened with what they're pre-determined to be wearing. You can't mind control an npc & change its transmog; that would be impossible. Otherwise the differences you're describing is just the difference between player texturemaps & npc texturemaps.

For example, We didn't have a player texture for Darkfallen elves until that patch came out, but before that & the achievement that pointed toward it, they datamined npcs that used the new darkfallen textures in their simplified form.

The other is that most player race textures aren't one uniform size. Armor textures are already squashed & stretched to fit on the different races, as any female belf player knows glove textures look crazy because most are designed with human males in mind. So it doesn't seem like a problem that ethereals have unusually long arms.

The files reference an Ethereal Glamor, but its not currently obtainable on the ptr, and we have to know if it reflects player armor. Once its actually testable we'll have our answer, if by the time its testable it actually has player armor or one of the random npc sets. (Another big clue is that the player zone armor sets are mostly recreations of the armor the npcs already wear.)

I'm talking about the UV mapping of the textures. The compilation has nothing to do with this, the way UV mapping is done on all races is the same. That's how the armor textures work, and have ever since Vanilla. It isn't about mind controlling an NPC and changing its transmog, its flat out simply you need that specific UV mapping for transmog to work at all.

There are NPCs which you wouldn't need to do much on to get them into playable creatures. Sylvar and Kyrian from Shadowlands, for example, use the UV mapping of players due to their origins from the draenei and vrykul models (though the sylvar's hooves have a few issues). You could, right now, grab those models, shove them into the Player side of things, and they would work fine as players, at least for standard stuff before all the armor with 3d parts. This is not the case for Ethereals.

The Darkfallen means nothing. We had an undead elf skin in game for years, it was just locked to NPCs only, just like the earthen skin for dwarves. That skin, used by various Legion dark rangers, still functions like any other skin, just with less customisation as its NPC only. It has everything where it needs to be for armor to be worn.

Every skin shares the one UV map, except in the faces. Ethereals don't. For ethereals to be playable, the current model is useless. It cannot be made relevant without UV mapping the entire thing, and anyone who's done 3d modelling in the past just had a chill run down their spine at the idea of re-UV mapping an already textured and complete model.

I can tell you, without that item being on the PTR, that it does not respect transmog. If there was an ethereal model that respected transmog, we would know about it and wouldn't be having this discussion because it would be clear as day that there was a player-compatible Ethereal model. Every website would report it, because that's the type of thing we know the specifics on. But instead, there is only the updated Ethereal models who don't respect transmog, can't be adjusted to respect transmog, and can serve as only NPCs or temporary forms.

[Bwgmon]

It happened like fifteen minutes before and it was because a translator transcript was leaked on the stream.

Shit, you're right, the timing was much closer.

[Viridiel]

Patch zones don't really cancel out the general vibe of an expansion and (10x more so after the advent of World Quests and Emissaries) even with patch zones, the majority of the expansion is played in the initial launch zones. 12.1 could be the moon and 12.2 could be the Worldsoul core and it wouldn't change that for most of the ~18 months spent in Midnight, you'll be flying around Quel'thalas, and working on Quel'thalas renown, and hanging out in the Quel'thalas main city, and doing Quel'thalas delves, and making gear with Quel'thalas resources and Quel'thalas-inspired armor visuals. Probably 8 of the dungeons are going to be Quel'thalas located and related. Assuming that the very first tier of an expansion they decided to call Midnight, with a Void theme'd logo will have us mopping up the Void invasion ez done with is a very, very bold conclusion (as Cheezits said, it's almost certainly going to be dealing with a smaller terrestrial threat not the conclusive battle against one of the cosmic forces), but even if we take it as being the case, that means most of the base questing experience, many of of the dungeons and the max level campaign.

Undermine and K'aresh have nothing to do with Earthen or Nerbuians, but I'm guessing if they announced 12.1 was an Earthen vs Nerubian zone, you (and everyone else) would immediately groan. Because even though Nerubians were "dealt with" in the first tier and Earthen's storyline was largely confied to launch and its follow-up minor patches, they are still everywhere and a huge portion of the TWW experience.

None of that tells me that the patch zones will be in Quel'thalas or that the raids will continue to be Void-themed after the first one.

- - - Updated - - -

I doubt even the first raid will be void themed, outside of some of the mobs and final boss using void. It is incredibly likely to be Amani or Scourge.

Perhaps I've jumped the gun, but I'm pretty sure Metzen outright said that the initial story of Midnight is us going there to defend the Sunwell from the Void threat. It would be a little bit odd to step aside to deal with some local trolls first.