Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[shoc]

The difference between the Darkfallen and any other stuff is just its lacking the faces and features. Highmountain Tauren (the original back in Legion) were similar, optional textures and 3d part s for the regular tauren models. They're not NPC models at all, they're player models with unused skins and parts. They can wear armor, they just don't have as many options, much like how the DK skin tones in the game only have 3 faces

Your inferance is wrong. We can just look at the Ethereal textures and, yup, the UV mapping is totally wrong for player compatability. The amount of variations is meaningless: the simple fact of the matter is the UV mapping is completely wrong. The variants mean nothing towards player compatibility, that's just a sign they're going to use it a lot. They could have a million, million variants, but that isn't going to make them close to being player compatible. What matters is the UV mapping actually supports wearing armor, which the new Ethereal model does not

The new ethereal model will never become playable and was not designed to ever become playable. If ethereals become playable in the future? They will require an entirely new model. That's the long and short of it.



Having a model with no armor makes it easy to throw armor on later

But it doesn't help it being playable. That's still constrained by the UV mapping requirements. That's why Dire Maul ogres are closer to being playable than WoD ogres, because Dire Maul ogres are UV mapped the right way, and WoD ones aren't.

Why do people get hung up on current in-game NPC models, Nightborne only had flattened NPC models until the allied race came out. Making a playable race takes a hell of a lot more work than putting out an NPC, so what if the in-game model is limited, it buys them 2+ years to work on the playable version.

Also the way you're talking about UV maps makes no sense, I think you are mistaking them for something else. UVs are just data that tells the model which coordinate on the 2D texture atlas corresponds to which point on the 3D model. You are thinking about Attachments on the M2 file format (https://wowdev.wiki/M2#Attachments).

Most/all new models these days use the M2 format, it's not that NPCs and player models aren't fundamentally incompatible, it's just that NPC models are missing much of the detail that needs to go into a race to make it playable.

[Eldryth]

I'm still hard coping that Shadreen's master is Denathrius and we get a surprise Dreadlords patch with some San'layn. All the various Dreadlord spies coming back could make for a lot of magic variation.

That actually does seem pretty plausible, if you think through the implications of one big reveal in this patch. Xal'atath says that the Void doesn't transform, it just consumes- which implies that they were never trying to corrupt Worldsouls in the first place, just devour them. Which would mean the whole story about them creating a Void Titan appears to have been a lie that, from what we've heard, was started by the Nathrezim. It'd certainly make him relevant to the current story if his minions manufactured that whole story.

[Limayria]

That actually does seem pretty plausible, if you think through the implications of one big reveal in this patch. Xal'atath says that the Void doesn't transform, it just consumes- which implies that they were never trying to corrupt Worldsouls in the first place, just devour them. Which would mean the whole story about them creating a Void Titan appears to have been a lie that, from what we've heard, was started by the Nathrezim. It'd certainly make him relevant to the current story if his minions manufactured that whole story.

that'd actually be pretty slick, would help tie a lot of stuff together and help build up some "human" antagonist instead of trying to one up the power scale forever

[Jolly Roger]

That actually does seem pretty plausible, if you think through the implications of one big reveal in this patch. Xal'atath says that the Void doesn't transform, it just consumes- which implies that they were never trying to corrupt Worldsouls in the first place, just devour them. Which would mean the whole story about them creating a Void Titan appears to have been a lie that, from what we've heard, was started by the Nathrezim. It'd certainly make him relevant to the current story if his minions manufactured that whole story.

wasnt that the thing in shadowlands where it was revealed the jailer wanted sargeras to go nuts

[Marlamin]

Also the way you're talking about UV maps makes no sense, I think you are mistaking them for something else. UVs are just data that tells the model which coordinate on the 2D texture atlas corresponds to which point on the 3D model. You are thinking about Attachments on the M2 file format (https://wowdev.wiki/M2#Attachments).

Most/all new models these days use the M2 format, it's not that NPCs and player models aren't fundamentally incompatible, it's just that NPC models are missing much of the detail that needs to go into a race to make it playable.

They're still correct, having worked on both character model support as well as 'customizable' creature support for wow.export, player models have historically had wildly different UV map setups compared to creature models due to the way customization/armor is setup and how certain textures only override certain parts of the eventual texture the UV map maps out. The difference in UV maps is something you can tell based on how the textures are laid out. But does any of that matter for models actually being 'playable' in the future? See below.

Also, while a bit of a nitpick, in reference to your last point, there is now the M3 format which while not far enough in development to support creature let alone character models, but probably will at some point. The first in-game M3s will be appearing in this raid, but just as simple doodads for now (unless they remove them due to crashes). Something to take into account going forward as well.

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Generally speaking, people should really just drop the whole "is this model player-compatible" or not thing. That line is getting blurred a lot these days with mount models being character-system customizable creature models since 10.x (and having entries in the character race database, albeit flagged as NPC models) and more recently battle pet models as well with the introduction of the chihuahua trading post pet which notably isn't in the character race database, but is still a model using the character customization system.

Speculating is fun, but using model-based, or even character customization database based evidence (e.g. the Haranir have extensive character customization options) to support one's claims might have worked back in Legion when they were messing with allied races, but are now largely moot for the above reasons.

The more useful thing to speculate on is that if Ethereals were playable, would they be able to even wear armor or would they be very limited to certain 3D-armor parts only (e.g. Dracthyr). I don't see them wearing player armor in a way where it doesn't thematically look out of place.

[Mecheon]

Some NPC races have player-appropriate models: That's how wowhead uses them for their npc dressingroom. But most Highmountain Tauren NPCs don't use player models, in-game. They use a flattened version that combines the chosen armor textures derived from the actual player model to make a separate, unique npc texture. They do this because they load faster & use less memorty this way.

If you look at the texture for an NPC of a player race & the texture for a player of that same race, they're completely different, most notably npc faces are typically in the upper left, while player skin textures put the face in the bottom left corner.

But they obviously used the player reference to make the npc textures. Suggests while the NPC Ethereals aren't appropriate for players, its extremely likely they built a player race version first. Normally NPC races aren't nearly as intricate.

Nope, Highmountain tauren use player models. Specifically what's going on with the original Highmountain tauren is they're using a set of inaccessible player skins and an optional set of new horns. This was later changed on the playable ones. There are exactly two Highmountain tauren that don't follow this, and they're Bloodtotemtauren_caster and Bloodtotemtauren_melee. Those are purely NPC only.

Originally faces tended to be towards the bottom left, but that was changed to making it separate with the introduction of Pandaren and WoD's model updates. It means nothing between NPC or playable.

Specifically,, I'm going to show it with these pictures. Let's use that NPC highmountain because its all pieced together for is and makes life easy.


This is the NPC Highmountain texture, only used in Highmountain. Pretty simple, but we can see its layout.


This is me applying a very famillier item set to the Highmountain tauren: The top of Judgement. Everyone knows this texture, and we can see it fits over where the torso used to be. Armor in Warcraft works like a jigsaw puzzle, that little texture is all the Judgement top really is. But, as a consequence, every

So, what happens if we apply the Ethereal texture here? If the new Ethereal model was NPC compatible, it should roughly line up with the tauren. The face textures probably won't, but the rest should be close


And that does not line up in the slightest. The new Ethereal model is completely wrong for how armor works in this game. There is no way you can alter armor to get this to work, the only way for them to be compatible is to match up with the long established 'jigsaw' of how Warcraft's armor has been since Vanilla. The new Ethereal model does not work this way.

Why do people get hung up on current in-game NPC models, Nightborne only had flattened NPC models until the allied race came out. Making a playable race takes a hell of a lot more work than putting out an NPC, so what if the in-game model is limited, it buys them 2+ years to work on the playable version.

Also the way you're talking about UV maps makes no sense, I think you are mistaking them for something else. UVs are just data that tells the model which coordinate on the 2D texture atlas corresponds to which point on the 3D model. You are thinking about Attachments on the M2 file format (https://wowdev.wiki/M2#Attachments).

Most/all new models these days use the M2 format, it's not that NPCs and player models aren't fundamentally incompatible, it's just that NPC models are missing much of the detail that needs to go into a race to make it playable.

I'm thinking the texture atlasing, not the M2 stuff. The raw armor pieces. They don't have a different version of Judgement for every race in the game, they have the Judgement textures. When you equip Judgement it applies the textures plate_raidpaladin_b_01_chest from 'torsouppertexture' and 'torsolowertexture' to your character

The attachments don't even come into it at this stage.

[EuAmoPinguins]

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.

If I had to make a guess, it would be that the Earthen from Kaz'algar will be relevant in TLT. Maybe they'll have some role in the titanic forges of Northrend.
They might even help Azeroth avoid being 'modified' by the titans of order, since the new Earthen are kind of made from Azeroth’s pure energy.

[Marlamin]

Generally speaking, people should really just drop the whole "is this model player-compatible" or not thing. That line is getting blurred a lot these days with mount models being character-system customizable creature models since 10.x (and having entries in the character race database, albeit flagged as NPC models) and more recently battle pet models as well with the introduction of the chihuahua trading post pet which notably isn't in the character race database, but is still a model using the character customization system.

Speculating is fun, but using model-based, or even character customization database based evidence (e.g. the Haranir have extensive character customization options) to support one's claims might have worked back in Legion when they were messing with allied races, but are now largely moot for the above reasons.

The more useful thing to speculate on is that if Ethereals were playable, would they be able to even wear armor or would they be very limited to certain 3D-armor parts only (e.g. Dracthyr). I don't see them wearing player armor in a way where it doesn't thematically look out of place.

Also, on that note, they could make Ethereals playable with their current creature models very easily if they didn't have the capability to wear proper armor. They just wouldn't have a lot of customization options or individuality. The latter is what makes me think they won't be playable anytime soon, it would just look kinda boring. That's why that is the more useful thing to discuss over models and whatever.

[KyleEverett]

I'm taking Blizzard at their words on no plans. It's basically what they said about Shadowlands peoples. I'm someone who actually wanted Maldraxxi, Kyrians, and Fae Fauns as playable.

[Enrif]

The discussion about Quel'thalas and Northrend from the last few pages is quite funny to me.

It seems most people think we get the zones as they were before, just in higher fidelity.

And yet, in the last 15 years a lot has happend that can justify major changes to the zones.

• The Cataclysm: Right after TBC and Wrath we had the biggest event in the story that changed a lot of areas. This event would have also had left its mark on both Quel'thalas and Northrend. Quel'thalas as a landmas could have been split of the rest of the eastern kingdoms continent mass for all we know. Norhrend could have whole areas be destroyed or submerged.
• The Hour of Twilight: Yeah, remember the big gapping old god holes in Dragonblight during the raid? For all we know, Dragonblight could be riddled with holes now that lead directly into Azjol-Nerub.
• The Legion Invasion: We have seen big legion invasions in areas in the Kun-Lai Summit that destroyed settlements, there would be ample reason to believe things also happened in Quel'Thalas and Northrend. Heck, we know from a upcoming tie-in novel for Midnight that there is a legion commander near Quel'thalas doing stuff.
• The 4th War: While the BfA expansion was set in a few zones, the conflict raged across all over azeroth if you read the follower missions. We could see new and destroyed strongholds. More likely in Northrend, but southern Quel'thalas could be more fortified too.
• The rampaging Scourge: During Shadowlands, the scourge got feral and warlords used them to their bidding. The Blood Elves have a race story for that in the old Quel'thalas zone. This too could change a lot of things. Deathholme might be expanded or there are new scourge camps. Northrend especially might have new scourge pockets in zones it hadn't them before.
• Unknown stories of the people of the zones: Both areas, Quel'thalas and Northrend have people who may have changed things up a lot. Quel'thalas got not only the blood elves, but also likely a certain influx of Nightborne, and with both their magical focus they could change the land by magical means. The Amani certainly were not just contained to their area and did nothing for 15 years. Norhtrend has the Taunka, Tuskarr, Vrykull, Wolvar, Oracles, Frostborne, Titanforged, the people of the Argent Crusade and all the people that lived in the alliance and horde cities, and we don't know what they were up to for 15 years.

If i look at that list, i can see big enough changes that makes it possible for both to be: 4 zones, that are yet vastly different to what we have seen 15 years ago.

Edit: And while we got the Exploring Azeroth books, many of them seem to be stuck at the time the zones are currently in. Likely not meant to expand the story in those regions, but explain why they are, how they currently are. So i would think they are not a block for major changes.

[Pheraz]

I think they will revamp blood elf zones plus plaque lands plus hinterlands. But not more. Arathi was the theme of this xpac, they won't do more arathi stuff now I think. Hinterlands because of the Wildhammer gryphons, plague lands because they will remove the scar/plague in blood elf zones, so it would look strange to leave the plague in plague lands.

[Viridiel]

And while we got the Exploring Azeroth books, many of them seem to be stuck at the time the zones are currently in. Likely not meant to expand the story in those regions, but explain why they are, how they currently are. So i would think they are not a block for major changes.

I hope they're completely disregarded. They're full of inaccuracies that would become retcons if made canonical, and I don't really care for the picture they paint for many old zones. The only thing that makes me think they might make them canonical is that I believe they were the first source of the term "thraegar", but to be fair they're also pulling things from the non-canonical RPG to this day. The best outcome might just be that some aspects are taken from them.

[darkoms]

That...wasn't my point. *sweats nervously*

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Something is coming for Azeroth...

It's just not Dimensius. In fact, the new patch hints at it.

- - - Updated - - -

Just listen to what a certain someone says, you'll get it.

??? Tell more, please

[Makorus]

The Exploring Books were a shitty concept that wasn't even executed properly.

The playerbase has been wanting an "update", I guess, on the old world in so long through another world revamp, so instead they decided to release a book that deals with that.

But instead of actually updating anything, everything is still pretty much the way it was in Cata/when it was last relevant, so it's completely pointless.

It's literally just a fancy WoW wiki page on that zone.

- - - Updated - - -

The discussion about Quel'thalas and Northrend from the last few pages is quite funny to me.

It seems most people think we get the zones as they were before, just in higher fidelity.

And yet, in the last 15 years a lot has happend that can justify major changes to the zones.

• The Cataclysm: Right after TBC and Wrath we had the biggest event in the story that changed a lot of areas. This event would have also had left its mark on both Quel'thalas and Northrend. Quel'thalas as a landmas could have been split of the rest of the eastern kingdoms continent mass for all we know. Norhrend could have whole areas be destroyed or submerged.
• The Hour of Twilight: Yeah, remember the big gapping old god holes in Dragonblight during the raid? For all we know, Dragonblight could be riddled with holes now that lead directly into Azjol-Nerub.
• The Legion Invasion: We have seen big legion invasions in areas in the Kun-Lai Summit that destroyed settlements, there would be ample reason to believe things also happened in Quel'Thalas and Northrend. Heck, we know from a upcoming tie-in novel for Midnight that there is a legion commander near Quel'thalas doing stuff.
• The 4th War: While the BfA expansion was set in a few zones, the conflict raged across all over azeroth if you read the follower missions. We could see new and destroyed strongholds. More likely in Northrend, but southern Quel'thalas could be more fortified too.
• The rampaging Scourge: During Shadowlands, the scourge got feral and warlords used them to their bidding. The Blood Elves have a race story for that in the old Quel'thalas zone. This too could change a lot of things. Deathholme might be expanded or there are new scourge camps. Northrend especially might have new scourge pockets in zones it hadn't them before.
• Unknown stories of the people of the zones: Both areas, Quel'thalas and Northrend have people who may have changed things up a lot. Quel'thalas got not only the blood elves, but also likely a certain influx of Nightborne, and with both their magical focus they could change the land by magical means. The Amani certainly were not just contained to their area and did nothing for 15 years. Norhtrend has the Taunka, Tuskarr, Vrykull, Wolvar, Oracles, Frostborne, Titanforged, the people of the Argent Crusade and all the people that lived in the alliance and horde cities, and we don't know what they were up to for 15 years.

If i look at that list, i can see big enough changes that makes it possible for both to be: 4 zones, that are yet vastly different to what we have seen 15 years ago.

Edit: And while we got the Exploring Azeroth books, many of them seem to be stuck at the time the zones are currently in. Likely not meant to expand the story in those regions, but explain why they are, how they currently are. So i would think they are not a block for major changes.

The problem with that argument is that it would feel really, really ass-pulled to go from current Dragonblight to a Dragonblight that has Legion damage, Cataclysm damage, Hour of Twilight damage, Scourge damage, all of these things that happened more than ten years ago at this point, because we as players don't actually see them happening. You go from an relatively OK Dragonblight to a Dragonblight that has endured like 5 global crises, the majority of which aren't even relevant anymore in the slightest.

That's the problem with these global events and then not actually reflecting them in game

[Enrif]

The problem with that argument is that it would feel really, really ass-pulled to go from current Dragonblight to a Dragonblight that has Legion damage, Cataclysm damage, Hour of Twilight damage, Scourge damage, all of these things that happened more than ten years ago at this point, because we as players don't actually see them happening. You go from an relatively OK Dragonblight to a Dragonblight that has endured like 5 global crises, the majority of which aren't even relevant anymore in the slightest.

That's the problem with these global events and then not actually reflecting them in game

We didn't see the light incursion in Revendreth, only the aftermath.
We didn't see the Arathi arrive in Hallowfall, only the aftermath.

Events happend in the past, and should have influence on the world.

I will be sorely disappointed if Dragonblight will be close to how it looked in Wrath. It is one of the zones that should be changed the most.

[Makorus]

We didn't see the light incursion in Revendreth, only the aftermath.
We didn't see the Arathi arrive in Hallowfall, only the aftermath.

Events happend in the past, and should have influence on the world.

I will be sorely disappointed if Dragonblight will be close to how it looked in Wrath. It is one of the zones that should be changed the most.

The difference is we weren't there for those events. They happened in the past.

We literally lived through all of those other events, they were never mentioned, the zones did not change, it might as well not have happened. In fact, the opposite actually happens, because we do go to Dragonblight in Legion, for example, and everything is fine. And then all of a sudden, all these effects catch-up, so we have an amalgamation of story threads from decades ago because Blizzard couldn't be bothered to deal with them back then?

The real issue is that Blizzard loves to write global stuff without caring about the fact that things need to have consequences.

[Nymrohd]

I don't understand why people think that adding Stratholme Bay/Northeron is even under discussion. They HAVE to add it otherwise how are they going to link Lordaeron and Quel'thalas? The only way those are not added is if Quel'thalas somehow stays instanced which would be extremely disappointing.

[Enrif]

The difference is we weren't there for those events. They happened in the past.

We literally lived through all of those other events, they were never mentioned, the zones did not change, it might as well not have happened. In fact, the opposite actually happens, because we do go to Dragonblight in Legion, for example, and everything is fine. And then all of a sudden, all these effects catch-up, so we have an amalgamation of story threads from decades ago because Blizzard couldn't be bothered to deal with them back then?

The real issue is that Blizzard loves to write global stuff without caring about the fact that things need to have consequences.

I don't blame blizzard for not updating everytime we revisit a zone for a small short event.
But in a big expansion level revamp, it is a different story. Here is the one prime opportunity to actually reflect what happend in the story.

And blizzard is not afraid to do it, if it is expansion level relevant, like Darkshore. Or Cataclysm that saw many story threads from classic be resolved or evolved and showing the affects of it, like Naralex awaking from the Wailing Caverns and brining nature back into the barrens, or the Warsong expanding into Ashenvale.

And with Midnight and TLT it is to be expected to also show the changes from the past to the present with things that happend inbetween.

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I don't understand why people think that adding Stratholme Bay/Northeron is even under discussion. They HAVE to add it otherwise how are they going to link Lordaeron and Quel'thalas? The only way those are not added is if Quel'thalas somehow stays instanced which would be extremely disappointing.

Do you assume Quel'thalas will be part of the EK map? This is highly unlikely. At best (and that is really copium) they will use the airlock tech from zaralek to "load" between Quel'thalas and EK. But more likely, they will just be two different maps with a reason why we can't go from QT to the EK. Be it a separation due to the Cataclysm, some void blockade, the several times mentioned deadly frost zone.

[Dvalin]

I don't understand why people think that adding Stratholme Bay/Northeron is even under discussion. They HAVE to add it otherwise how are they going to link Lordaeron and Quel'thalas? The only way those are not added is if Quel'thalas somehow stays instanced which would be extremely disappointing.

It will probably be on its own server, like every new continent/isle we've been given in the past. With probably something like mountains with an invisible wall eventually blocking the player's movement.

[Lahis]

I think it's obvious that the Classic zones had done a far better job at blending their zones together than some recent expansions theme park pacing save for TWW, so these zones all naturally have some cohesion.

Are we playing the same game? Because Classic zones definetly do not blend together.