Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[JDBlou]

I think Xal either turns into or summons some kind of void sphere that creates the storm, and goes for the Sunwell. Maybe it's an 'egg' form she needs to turn into in order to properly metamorphosis into a Void Lord?

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Definitely, Forsaken and Night Elf paladins are very likely IMO. Darkspear as well. I can see them adding more fan requested race/class combos over a new class. Belf druid is another big one, and Void Elf DH is already teased.

I'm hoping we see Forsaken, NE, Darkspear and Gnome Paladins. For Demon Hunters I hope we see Orc, Draenei and for parity to Void Elves; Nightborne. Druids I'd imagine Blood Elves and Dwarves, especially if Northeron gets re-retconned.

And I sincerely hope beyond hope it's playable Ethereals

[Dracullus]

The cinematic sounds like it'll be during Geoff's opening night live so its kind of both. Gameplay reveal afterwards is definitely streamed/being posted but I hope some of the developer panels will be as well.

From post: "Immediately following Opening Night Live, join WoW Executive Producer Holly Longdale, Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas, and Warcraft Universe Creative Director Chris Metzen as they join forces for an exciting deep dive into the zones, mechanics, new features, and story of the upcoming expansion during a special Midnight Expansion Reveal broadcast that will go live on the World of Warcraft official YouTube and Twitch channels."

So something like deep dive on Blizzcon after opening night is done.

[Marlamin]

From post: "Immediately following Opening Night Live, join WoW Executive Producer Holly Longdale, Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas, and Warcraft Universe Creative Director Chris Metzen as they join forces for an exciting deep dive into the zones, mechanics, new features, and story of the upcoming expansion during a special Midnight Expansion Reveal broadcast that will go live on the World of Warcraft official YouTube and Twitch channels."

So something like deep dive on Blizzcon after opening night is done.

Yup. Nothing on the developer panels though, I've reached out to the press peeps for info about that but nothing yet.

[Hitei]

Yup. Nothing on the developer panels though, I've reached out to the press peeps for info about that but nothing yet.

Not sure Gamescom is the place for that. We didn't get any with Legion right? Basically just the cinematics and then what at a Blizzcon would be the "what's next"/expansion deep dive panel.

[Cheezits]

Not sure Gamescom is the place for that. We didn't get any with Legion right? Basically just the cinematics and then what at a Blizzcon would be the "what's next"/expansion deep dive panel.

Meet Us at the Community Stage

The Community Stage will be buzzing for the entirety of gamescom, welcoming heroes of Azeroth for unforgettable moments, including:

Developer Panels – Hear directly from the minds behind World of Warcraft as they share more details about Midnight, including story, worldbuilding, design, upcoming features, and behind-the-scenes stories.


Apparently so.

[13last]

I would assume it refers to Xal'atath's sudden but inevitable betrayal and her setup as the force behind the void invasion of Azeroth. This may seem obvious to anyone a bit more involved, but it might be meant more for the more general audience who may know as little as the name and maybe a one sentence marketing blurb about Midnight.

This makes a lot of sense, I totally overlooked it aha.

Given that new pic we got I can only assume things really don't go well in 11.2, we already know how it ends so I'm gonna assume prepatch is gonna be story heavy to tie in Midnight launch.

[Marlamin]

Not sure Gamescom is the place for that. We didn't get any with Legion right? Basically just the cinematics and then what at a Blizzcon would be the "what's next"/expansion deep dive panel.

They announced it, so...

[Timester]

I wouldn't discard the "Elven reunification" being the Blood Elves getting the hell out of Quel'thalas once and for all. The place is a target for apocalypses.

[Cheezits]

I wonder if 11.2.5 and 11.2.7 really have much to do with Xal'atath, as I doubt she will appear after 11.2 until the cinematic. Maybe it's just focused on Ethereals?

[Marlamin]

Also, notably, housing demo is not connected to Midnight in any of the PR stuff and just a demo of a future feature coming to WoW. With some of the player housing tech, furniture UI previews and kiosk/demo updates appearing in 11.x I'm still wondering if it'll be running on the 11.x branch or the 12.0 one which will be very indicative of us either seeing it in 12.0 prepatch or before.

[Cheezits]

Also, notably, housing demo is not connected to Midnight in any of the PR stuff and just a demo of a future feature coming to WoW. With some of the player housing tech, furniture UI previews and kiosk/demo updates appearing in 11.x I'm still wondering if it'll be running on the 11.x branch or the 12.0 one which will be very indicative of us either seeing it in 12.0 prepatch or before.

Per the roadmap, it should be 11.2.7 right? It comes out before the end of the year at least in some form.

[Relapses]

I wonder if 11.2.5 and 11.2.7 really have much to do with Xal'atath, as I doubt she will appear after 11.2 until the cinematic. Maybe it's just focused on Ethereals?

I think that'll largely depend on how the post-Dimensius cinematic plays out. We're in a bit of a content rut right now where Blizzard doesn't want to spoil us for how we transition into Midnight while also being eager to spoon-feed us details to keep hype at the highest levels.

[Marlamin]

Per the roadmap, it should be 11.2.7 right? It comes out before the end of the year at least in some form.

That's kinda my expectation, yeah. 11.2.5 has been on the encrypted endpoints for a bit now so I'm wondering if they're just going to be running the demo on that since they historically have used the dev endpoints for convention demos. Hmm!

[Cheezits]

That's kinda my expectation, yeah. 11.2.5 has been on the encrypted endpoints for a bit now so I'm wondering if they're just going to be running the demo on that since they historically have used the dev endpoints for convention demos. Hmm!

11.2.5 is Ethereals, 11.2.7 housing. Mark my words. The Ethereal Gleeful Glamour dropping exactly 8 weeks (aka a new patch) from raid launch is super sus.

[Marlamin]

11.2.5 is Ethereals, 11.2.7 housing. Mark my words. The Ethereal Gleeful Glamour dropping exactly 8 weeks (aka a new patch) from raid launch is super sus.

Yeah, just curious about the demo right now though for datamining reasons. Don't expect it to become public or anything, but there might be considerable stuff in 11.2.5 PTR if that is the case, regardless if it comes out later or not.

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

dusts off the old MMO-Champion account

...

spellbreakers or something of the sort please, I yearn for a Eldritch-Knight type of plate spellcaster.

[Timester]

11.2.5 is Ethereals, 11.2.7 housing. Mark my words. The Ethereal Gleeful Glamour dropping exactly 8 weeks (aka a new patch) from raid launch is super sus.

They won't do an allied race on the end of xpac content-lul minor patch.

[Joshuaj]

The silhouette in the eye looks like the top of Sunfury Spire. Silvermoon's about to get fucked up it seems.

Those voidwalkers look genuinely cool and scary, but at the same time they're kinda cute ngl.

RiP Silvermoon being the capital likely...

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If that's the case then, what WOULD be the capital of Midnight?

The new Draenei city? Zul'Aman?

[Local Ardenweald Faerie]

RiP Silvermoon being the capital likely...

Tinfoil hat: Gilneas and Undercity are the capitals.

[Hitei]

I wouldn't discard the "Elven reunification" being the Blood Elves getting the hell out of Quel'thalas once and for all. The place is a target for apocalypses.

I feel pretty good about my observation a couple weeks ago:

In recent years Blizzard has been much more willing to change the narrative status quo (Night Elves relocating their capital out of Kalimdor, the Kirin Tor deciding Dalaran's over and they're going to decentralize, us now having six Aspects, etc.) I wonder if we might see similar narrative occurrences in Midnight.

Like everyone seems to more or less take for granted that we're gonna protect Quel'thalas and the Sunwell from Xal'atath and the invasion--even going as far as thinking we'll deal with that threat in the first tier/raid, but what if very early on the opposite happens? If she just permanently drinks the Arcane/Light energy out of it and it's left as a sort of blackhole, and the reunification of the elves is actually that the Blood Elves are basically forced into becoming (at least in terms of magic source) pseudo Void Elves and learning from the ren'dorei because of the loss of the sunwell.

...

I am sort of 50% expecting, if we are just getting a massively upscaled Eversong/Ghostlands as the basis for the continent, that SMC might be one of the zones all to itself (especially factoring in the Farstrider Square "half"), like an even more in-depth Suramar. And if that's the case then, much like Boralus, Zuldazar, or Dornogal, I think we can expect some fairy conveniently sized subsection of the city (like probably what is currently the Bazaar area) to remain the sanctuary area and the rest to be questing and potentially have hostiles. If the void forces are in control of most of the city I think we can expect Sunfury Spire to be a dungeon (just a really easy neat dungeon to have a bunch of balconies looking out over a really pretty Quel'thalas skybox, and neat staircases and whatnot). (just a really easy neat dungeon to have a bunch of balconies looking out over a really pretty Quel'thalas skybox, and neat staircases and whatnot).

I could see a future in which 12.0 is Quel'thalas, the first raid tier is Sunwell Plateau 2.0 and Xal drinks the Well. And then instead of 12.1 having some random new island or such added to the map, 12.1 has the whole region, or a good chunk of it get void-scarred, end up swapping from the autumn and sunset/rise aesthetic over to something closer to Ardenweald/Draenor SMV/Suramar City but as a glowy void forest. Like a modern day version of the Vale of Eternal Sorrows switch.


But it was mostly just about how it'd be interesting if instead of resetting Thalassians to more or less all be different subgroups of High Elf all living together in uel'thalas again (which is I think what most people are expecting to happen), Void Elves became the default because the Sunwell was lost and the Blood Elves were forced to adapt by starting to draw on Void magic.